Shakespeare's men

All-male British theater company Propeller impregnates men, turns kings into rock'n'roll stars and has even joined the ranks of the British army, all for the sake of Shakespeare in its purest form. The actors quote the Bard's words and play female roles in tribute to the traditions of Elizabethan times, but they also burst out singing and dancing to tell tragic tales that are centuries old.

Passing over Shakespeare favorites like Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth, Propeller will instead treat Chinese audiences to honest renditions of Henry V and The Winter's Tale, albeit with a few pop twists, at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) between June 7 and 10.

War and winter

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. Or close the wall up with our English dead!" claims king Henry V, encouraging his troops to attack the French city of Harfleur, held under siege by the English army. "Henry V is a story about war and nationalism," said leading actor Dugald Bruce Lockhart in Beijing.

Shakespeare wrote this historic play around 1599 at the end of a decade when the country was swept by a wave of patriotism and xenophobia. The story is based on the life of King Henry V of England, and focuses on events before and after the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years' War.

With a single sentence from King Leontes, the plot of The Winter's Tale unfolds: "my heart's dancing a bit, I just saw the way he took my wife's hand and I'm jealous."

"From then on it's all disaster, it's a play about pure jealousy," said leading actor Robert Hands. "The unmotivated distrust of a powerful man sets off a tragic chain of events that destroy his family, his kingdom and himself," said the actor, about the tragic-comedy, which is believed to have debuted in 1611.

Beyond gender

In order to discover what being a soldier was really like, members of the troupe even trained with the British army.

"It's a rollercoaster ride," members of Propeller's cast said, to describe the company's approach to story telling. Led by director Edward Hall, Propeller is notorious for combining "a rigorous approach to the text with a physical aesthetic."

"The all-male cast allows us to push the boundaries of comedy and violence to very physical extremes," noted Lockhart. After their first production with an all-male cast was a hit, Propeller went on to perform without women. Unlike the old times of Peking Opera and Elizabethan theater when women were forbidden to go on stage, allegedly to "protect" them from the influences of a profession of ill-repute, "there's no gender statement or politics; this is merely a valid way of doing Shakespeare," explained Hands.

"Gender is of much less importance in the expression of Shakespeare's plays, than good actors finding the emotional honesty of his characters," said Joseph Graves, Artistic Director of Peking University's Institute of World Theatre and Film, who has twice directed all-female casts in Shakespeare plays. Graves has no hesitation in endorsing Propeller, having watched the company's productions of Richard III and The Comedy of Errors in London. "[The performances are] exceptional to my way of thinking, an exciting mix of great respect for the language of the plays with a vigorous and most engaging physicality."

When: Henry V, May 7 to 8

The Winter's Tale, May 9 to 10

Where: 2 West Chang'an Avenue, Xicheng district

Tickets: 120 to 580 yuan

Contact: 6655-0000