Vaulted Ambition: 15 years of Bard in the Botanics

Every year as the sun starts peeking out its face, then retreating back behind a cloud, maybe throwing down some torrential rain before hopefully coming back again, the Glasgow Botanic Gardens bloom – not just with flora, but with theatre too. 

Now in its 15th year, Bard in the Botanics has been pulling in audiences time and again despite the fickle Scottish summers; The Skinny remembers last year’s promenade performance of Love’s Labours Lost still causing hilarity and heartbreak through a torrential downpour, and a few years previous the brief cancellation of The Tempest due to ‘inclement weather.’ 

It’s not just the audiences who return to the festival, but much of the cast. Having first appeared in the festival in 2002 as Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi, actor Kirk Bage is now performing in his tenth festival. Though they may not be consecutive years, Bage can’t stop extolling the virtues of the festival, his co-workers and the botanical environment as he chats to The Skinny over the phone, a week before the 2016 rehearsals begin. 

“It’s a wonderful place to work, you’re working in an environment that’s so beautiful in the Botanic Gardens every day. It’s like no other theatre experience because you’re rehearsing in public so the people that are going to end up being your audience can see the whole process if they want to, walking past, walking their dog or having a picnic. They can see the whole play develop from start to finish.” 

Working outdoors: open air Shakespeare

It’s certainly a different way to work, and a different way to consume and enjoy theatre when a quiet evening stroll can give you an insight into the play and maybe pique interest enough to purchase a ticket. While a loose dog running through the workplace might be a dream for many, it sure could get in the way of a rehearsal, though this doesn’t seem to be a worry for Bage, who loves the variety working outside brings, though he does not personally mention the possibility for stray dogs. 

“People really appreciate when the language is spoken well outside and wearing these beautiful costumes as well,” he says of the seemingly universal success of high-quality, outdoor Shakespeare festivals. There is something about the flowing language that lifts a warm summer evening to a new level of perfection. “It’s a really nice experience, and it changes with the weather as well. If it’s a really sunny evening you’re probably going to get a happier audience and if it’s a bit overcast and darker you can get a really intense experience. So actually you can come to the gardens and see the same play three times and it will be different every time. Shakespeare’s writing allows for that, you can perform it a hundred times and it will always be different.” 

Bage knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the Bard, having performed now in 20 productions, and about half of Shakespeare’s oeuvre. “I never set out to be a Shakespearian actor, it just turns out that that’s what’s happened,” he laughs, obviously pleased with how it has ‘just happened.’ When asked if he ever thinks he’ll make it to the full 38, he’s hopeful. “I guess if Bard in the Botanics keep producing them there’s every chance. That would really be something, I’d like to aim for doing that.” 

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With so many roles under his belt, is it possible that there’s a clear favourite? “I think some of the more challenging roles don’t end up being your favourite because you feel like with a two week run you haven’t got to the bottom of them and you’d have liked more time to try and develop it a little more,” he says. But there are still two stand-out roles for him. Quite fittingly for his career, one is tragic and one is comic. “I loved playing Marc Antony in Julius Caesar, and I loved playing  Jacques de Boys in As You Like It. Those are my favourites.” 

This year, he takes on more contrasting roles as the titular character in Macbeth and Sir Toby Belch in what is otherwise an almost exclusively a gender-bent Twelfth Night. 

“I played Sir Toby before in 2010 and this time it’s a different director and it’s a different idea of the production. We’re aiming for it to be like a Dennis Potter musical, and we’ll be miming to 1950s music,” Bage informs us of the show’s direction. Difference and new ideas seem to be a theme of the festival as Macbeth, too, will undergo some alteration. “There’s only five of us in the play, it’s a very, very different draft – it’s not the traditional script from start to finish. It’s been edited and different scenes and speeches have been taken and mixed up a little bit so we’ll be trying to do something that people haven’t seen before,” says Bage. “[for Macbeth] I’m working with Nicole Cooper who I’ve worked with for several years and she’s playing Lady Macbeth. It’s the first chance that we’ve had to play leads together. We usually play leads but in different plays or crossover and don’t meet so that’s exciting.” 

'An English actor playing a Scottish role in Glasgow'

However, he has his slight reservations about some of the differences. Namely, and perhaps confusingly, his own role as leading man. “I’m not Scottish, I’m English and playing such a traditionally Scottish character in Scotland is a really big challenge. It might be something that puts people off or that they would question, 'Why are we having an English actor playing a Scottish role in Glasgow?' I would just encourage people to come along and keep an open mind about it,” he says, although it seems that anyone who has seen Bage’s performances in previous festivals is going to have little doubt about his ability to pull this role off. 

Each of Bage’s productions will be taking place on the main stage, open to the elements. The season also boasts a female-fronted Coriolanus and a three-handed Doctor Faustus, which will be seen in the Kibble Place glass house. This is part of a new strand of alternate Renaissance theatre the festival is embarking on this year, with the devilish Mephistopheles played by Stephanie McGregor. 

“Shakespeare didn't write that many female roles as he was restricted by the fact they were played by young boys, but there's no excuse nowadays not to explore what female actors can bring to these iconic roles and start to shift the blueprint of what these characters can be,” says artistic director Gordon Barr. It is certainly true that theatre needs more strong female roles, and exciting to see where Bard in the Botanics takes its Vaulted Ambition season. May there be another 15 years of festivals ahead and a chance for Bage to lay claim to all 38 of the Bard’s productions.