The annual Shakespeare Festival has returned to Bakersfield College. This year, the Kern Shakespeare Festival – featuring “Henry IV” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” – began last week and continues through Oct. 15.
According to Randy Messick, a performing arts instructor at BC, the play, which is the biggest theater production on campus of the year, has
always has been very popular with the community and students alike.
The production will cost approximately $6,000 to produce, but much of that Messick estimates will be regained through ticket sales. “Well, it is very popular, and people do like it. Some people have had a bad experiences reading it in school,” said Messick “but most people who come to see it done live really do like it.”
Messick, who started the BC festival in 1983 and directs “Henry IV,” says the festival is a very unique attribute of BC, mostly because of its long run.
The historic play encompasses the lineage of English kings, Scot and Welsh rebellion, and the friendship between prince Henry and the character Falstaff. “Not a lot of places have their own Shakespeare Festival,” said Jenna Bell, who plays Titania in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Bell, a history major at BC, that has been acting since she was 8, believes that the community always has a warm reception to the BC Shakespeare Festival.
“Opening night generally isn’t the biggest crowd and you don’t want it to be because you’re still kind of working out some of the bugs,” Bell said.
Messick said that one aspect of the festival that is extensively developed are Shakespeare’s characters.
“The characters are key, and you have to make them believable,” Messick said.
Messick also said that most actors experience difficulty with Shakespeare because of the language, and that most actors don’t focus on creating the reality of the characters.
The actors involved in the festival are a combination of student actors and experienced actors from the community.
Doug Cheesmen, who plays Percy in Henry IV, is a former BC student and has been participating in the festival for the past three years. Cheesmen has been focusing on acting for several years and plans on moving to Los Angles in the near future to pursue a professional acting career.
Cheesmen, like many of the actors, belongs to Empty Space, a non-profit theater located downtown.
“It is very hard to find people. There are a lot of actors from Empty Space,” said Cheesmen.
This is a great learning experience for new actors involved in the production, according to Bob Kempf, a BC performing arts instructor who plays Falstaff and directs “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which is about a fairy realm that is traditionally set in the Elizabethan era, but is set in the 1920s for the festival.
Kempf has been with the BC festival from the very beginning and has directed other Shakespearean plays, such as “Twelfth Night” and “The Comedy of Errors.”
Kempf says that it is a very consuming project but the audience has always been pleased with the end result. Kempf believes that the comic element in Shakespeare’s plays is what audiences usually find surprising as well as satisfying.
“A lot of people aren’t aware that Shakespeare has a lot of comedy behind it, even more serious plays have a comic element,” Kempf said. “There’s always a lot of good comedy and drama to be had in Shakespeare.”