Playing Robin Hood

Salamander has commissioned Playing Robin Hood from Dora-award winning playwright, Lib Spry.

Playing Robin Hood premiered in May 2008 and is now touring.

Artistic Director’s Statement
By Christopher McLeod

It has always been our practice at Salamander Theatre to use time-tested stories as a basis for our productions. We have used folk tales from Canada and from East and West African, Caribbean, Greek, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic traditions. Stories like these are universal because they contain themes and archetypes that are fundamental to the human experience. By creating dramatic works in these fundamental, archetypal themes, with a story line that is familiar and entertaining, we can create a work that gives children a frame of reference for their own experiences.

The Robin Hood legend developed in the context of very old village festivals and was first recorded in the form of plays. These stories were adapted into the ballads that remained popular for centuries, and in turn, inspired the prose fictions that were eventually responsible for the productions in cinema and television. This centuries-long continuum of popularity in various media shows that the elements of the legend can recombine to be appealing in any era.

The main struggle in the legend is inequity. The most obvious form of inequity is economic. Robin “steals from the rich to give to the poor,” acknowledging that the cause of the disparity between wealth and poverty is ultimately political. In fact, the Merry Men come to believe that rebellion is legitimate when the status quo promotes spiralling inequality.

Perhaps the most surprising theme for such an old story is the long tradition of interfaith inclusion in Sherwood Forest. The most contemporary film renditions of Robin Hood sometimes include an Islamic member but, in fact this character existed in the Medieval versions of the story and was lost through time. It is a hopeful message that a mixed group, including a Muslim youth, would band together to resist a regime that uses fear to justify repressive and self-serving policies. Audience members can draw their own conclusions as to which powers today are the oppressors and which are the oppressed as the ultimate message of Robin Hood is to think critically and act with honesty.

Another benefit of using ancient versions of the story is the artistic doors it opens. It naturally accepts song, dance, poetry, playful costuming and dynamic design. Since its first days, Salamander has adopted a metatheatrical style. This style resurfaced in experimental theatre of the 1970s but has its origins on ancient Greek and Roman stages, and is also common in Shakespeare’s plays.

The purpose that metatheatre serves for Salamander’s young audiences is that it shows the creative process within the creation so that kids learn about the construction of theatre even as they watch the finished product. By having a few actors play many parts, and putting costume changes onstage, the audience perceives clearly the choices the actor has made to differentiate one character from another. Likewise, miming props or using non-representational props, such as a translucent cloth for a snowstorm, encourages the audience to engage their imaginations in the unfolding of the story. This makes them active participants in the creation of the story and encourages them to tell their own stories with whatever comes to hand, rather than to leave their ideas unexpressed because they lack the resources for expensive special effects. The result is that theatre becomes more accessible and interactive, and provides inspiration as well as a blueprint for action and creation.