Mawa Theatre Company: An All Black All Women Shakespeare Theater Company?

Primarily established to increase the inclusiveness of the theatrical works of William Shakespeare, can the Mawa Theatre Company manage to shed a new light on the works of the great bard?

By: Ringo Bones

The Mawa Theatre Company was said to be the Shakespeare Company with a difference as the UK’s first to be comprised of Black and Black mixed race women – a sizable number of which are displaced citizens from the African continent’s conflict zones. Founded by actors Maisey Bowden, Gabrielle Brooks, Danielle Kassaraté and Jade Samuels, the newfangled Shakespearean company aims to examine how women of the African Diaspora are represented in classical literature and reframe them for contemporary audiences that find “conventional classical literature” alienating by drawing out themes that still resonate with universality. According to Maisey Bowden, the newfangled Shakespearean theater company’s namesake Mawa means tomorrow in Chichewa, which is a Malawian dialect and an apt label of the company’s forward, future looking perspective.

Primarily, the newfangled company’s long-term goal is to change the current live theater industry from within by creating more space for marginalized voices in the field that, at present, is currently dominated by privileged men of white European descent that is currently devoid of inclusiveness and diversity. When the company started back in June 2021, their first project was a video series entitled: “What’s Past is Prologue”.

Can the Mawa Theatre Company successfully cast a new light and perspective of the theatrical works of Shakespeare and at the same time attract a new generation of fans? Well, Shakespeare’s works has told stories of life that managed to remain timeless and relevant for over four centuries. There’s a story of the heart and a story that exposes the soul that all of which await a skillful acting company to entertain and inspire a new generation of audiences regardless of race, religion, creed, gender and of age.

Midsummer Night’s Dream Using 21st Century Motion Capture Suits?

Even though the great bard’s plays are praised for their “timelessness”, but can Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream performed using 21^st Century motion capture suits?

By: Ringo Bones

After seeing the performance back in March 21, 2021, what immediately captured my attention was that how most of the computer generated avatars that represent the various characters in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream reminds me of Norman Wilkinson’s “dazzle paint job” used on World War I era naval ships. Even though the great bard’s plays has been praised for their “timelessness” since they were first performed back near the end of the 16^th Century, does the latest “pandemic evading” performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream a 21^st Century “digital visual extravaganza too far”?

Titled Dream, it is an online show by the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed using the latest motion capture suits as the performance occurs in a virtual space that can be accessed via internet connection anywhere in the world. For those who had experienced performing one of Shakespeare’s plays live onstage, one cannot overlook the importance of maintaining eye contact between the performers, not just in maintaining timing, but also to project the pathos and emotion of the play. Even though this newfangled method of performing a live Shakespeare play is due to the ongoing global pandemic as a way to preserve the health of the actors, those with a “traditional” view of Shakespeare commented on how this newfangled digitized Shakespeare resembles a massive multiplayer online gaming event.

Even though the timelessness and the spirit of a live Shakespeare play is more or less preserved this time around, those with a more conservative sensibility that dates back to before World War II may have a harder time getting this “newfangled Shakespeare”. Hopefully, everyone will get vaccinated and as the world get’s back to normal, we will once again enjoy a more “traditional” form of a live Shakespeare play circa 1599.