Show: 21
Category: Comedy / Drama / Solo Show / Shakespearian elements
By: Deanne McDonald / The Traveling Players
Created by: Deanne McDonald
Location: Mixed Blood Theatre
Summary: A solo show exploring the sibling relationships in Shakespeare's plays.
Highlights: Deanne McDonald was inspired to create this show after seeing Patrick Paige's solo show All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain on tour at the Guthrie a couple years ago, shortly after playing middle daughter Regan in King Lear at Theatre in the Round. While Regan could be seen as a villain, she's definitely a sister, and as a middle child herself, Deanne has brought those sibling relationships into her many Shakespearean roles over the last couple decades. The show is part memoir, part Shakespearean study, part treatise on family dynamics. With direction by Sara Pillatzki-Warzeha, Deanne performs scenes from a half dozen or so plays, many of which she's performed in the past, each one preceded by a story about her family or life at the time (e.g., "I played this role in a pub in Chicago"). She plays weird sisters (Macbeth), scheming sisters (King Lear), really bad siblings (Richard III, who allegedly killed his brother's sons), friends close as sisters (Midsummer), tortured siblings (Hamlet), and loving siblings (Twelfth Night). With a great soundtrack of the last few decades, and an array of props and costumes specific to each character and also her story, Deanne embodies all of these characters, sometimes multiple in one scene, and makes them feel real and grounded. She makes these ancient and much-performed plays feel alive and modern and relatable, especially for anyone with a sibling.