International arts collective Artist’s Workshop are set to bring two very different shows to this year’s Fringe festival. Bottom’s Dream retells Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream from Bottom’s view, while The Meeples: XXX is a puppet cabaret about a group of famous puppets who have had their funding cut, and are now being hunted by ICE.
Despite these obvious differences, the shows share similar themes. Artist’s Workshop delves further into these similarities, as well as discussing the inspiration behind the shows.
Can you start by telling me a bit about your shows?
Bottom’s Dream and The Meeples: XXX are very different shows stylistically, however they both share a focus on risk, exploration, and identity.
Bottom’s Dream is a joyful bluegrass infused reimagining of Bottom and Titania’s storylines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It uses Shakespeare, bluegrass, and comedy to explore transformation, and the roles we perform for each other and ourselves.
If Bottom’s Dream is Shakespeare at a bluegrass festival, then The Meeples: XXX is The Muppets at a late night rock show in an abandoned warehouse in hell. It is an anarchic puppet cabaret about the world’s most famous puppets, The Meeples, who have lost their funding and are now being hunted by ICE. It’s messy, funny, dangerous, and deeply, deeply ridiculous in the best possible way.
Even though the tones are vastly different, both shows are wildly fun fever dreams centred on the tension between how the world sees us and how we long to be seen.
How do you think audiences will react to your shows?
With openness and enthusiasm. Fringe audiences are some of the most adventurous and invested audiences you’ll find. They bought the ticket because they want to take the ride.
With these shows, we’re not performing for the audience, we’re performing with them. Whether it’s laughter, discomfort, joy, or chaos, the musicians, performers, and audience are all building that world together, and I think Fringe audiences are exactly the kind of audiences willing to dive headfirst into that kind of fun.
How are you feeling about bringing two shows to the Fringe? Has it been challenging to rehearse them both at once?
It certainly comes with its challenges, but it’s also been creatively thrilling. While the two shows are tonally very different, we view them as intrinsically linked. One is about joy and living in the light, and the other is about rebellion and surviving in the night. They feel like the first and second acts of a musical created by Shakespeare, Jim Henson, and Hunter S. Thompson.
In terms of rehearsal, our company is spread across multiple countries, so the process is always a bit complicated logistically. Fortunately, we have an incredible ensemble of performers who are wildly imaginative, deeply collaborative, and remarkably adept at adapting to whatever chaos we throw at them.
Talk me through your decision to retell A Midsummer Night’s Dream through Bottom’s perspective. Why did you choose him?
To me, Bottom is arguably the anchor of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The lovers provide the framework of the story, but it’s Bottom and the fairies who give the play its heart. That heart felt worthy of exploring on its own, and Shakespeare structured the tale in a way that almost functions as an independent story already.
Our company uses that story as the launching point for the strange dreamscape we build
around Bottom in our show. As a character, Bottom has always fascinated me. There is a combination of curiosity, sincerity, and self-doubt in Bottom that seems innately human to me, and worth examining.
There’s lots going on in The Meeples: XXX; from electric music, puppetry, aerial arts and different plot elements. How do you strike a balance between them?
Controlled chaos. Two of my favourite words in theatre. The Meeples: XXX absolutely thrives on that atmosphere, and all of those different elements help feed it. It’s very much a spaghetti against the wall show, and we’re going to have a blast discovering what sticks.
That said, even in a world as anarchic as The Meeples, there’s a story to be told, and a reason we’re telling it. The music, puppetry, aerial work, comedy, and spectacle all have to serve a tangible purpose in the story, and as long as we adhere to that, then the balance tends to work itself out naturally.
Do you have any projects lined up after the Fringe that you would like to share?
We will be publishing and licensing our first script next month, Self-Injurious Behavior by Jessica Cavanagh, a raw, often comedic, and heartbreaking play about a mother facing the realities of caring for an autistic child prone to self-injurious behaviours. After successful runs in both LA and New York, Artist’s Workshop is proud to be bringing this phenomenal play to new audiences.
If you could choose one song as the soundtrack for your shows, what would it be and why?
The theme song to Fraggle Rock as played by a punk band in the throes of a nervous breakdown. “Dance your cares away, worries for another dayyy.”
Bottom’s Dream will be performed at Jade Studio at Greenside and The Meeples: XXX will be performed at Lime Studio at Greenside from 7-29 August (excluding Sundays and Mondays).
Words by Ellen Leslie