Improbable Fictions, a University of Alabama Shakespeare production group of theatre students, English department teachers and graduate students, is bringing some of Shakespeare’s most famous work to Tuscaloosa. The group will present a revised, script-in-hand version of “Henry IV,” parts one and two, Friday at 8 p.m. at the Tuscaloosa Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center.
The play is being directed by Natalie Hopper, an English graduate teaching assistant who revised and cut the script. She said the focus for this particular play is Prince Hal’s tense political and heartfelt familial relationship with his father, King Henry IV. It will feature the reconciliation scene of the father and son. This play, like the rest performed by Improbable Fictions, will be rehearsed for only a week before it’s performed by its 13 cast members.
For each of its plays, Improbable Fictions holds loose auditions for anyone interested in the current Greek or Shakespearean production, and then members meet for a few hours over the course of the next few days to prepare for the adaptation. Cast members grab costumes and props from their closets or wherever they can find them before that Friday. During the 1 1/2 hour production, the scripts are held in hand by cast members.
“Very few of us are actually actors, just students and scholars, ” Nick Helms, artistic director and founder of Improbable Fictions, said.
Helms started Improbable Fictions in March 2010, and since then, it has put on about three shows per semester, each its own comedic performance that brings modern jokes to centuries-old stories. Its audience has continued to grow, and Improbable Fictions is now endorsed and funded by the Hudson Strode Program, a renaissance literature program for UA master’s and doctoral students.
“Not only is he an object of study in his time period, Shakespeare is also an object of study right now,” Sharon O’Dair, director of Hudson Strode and a professor of English, said.
Originally, Helms began putting these relaxed and humorous performances on to help his English students better visualize and understand the jokes and plot lines sometimes lost in the dense language of the plays. When the relatable human interactions were performed with snippets of modern language, he said he found students were better able to appreciate the humor.
“When the actors know what they’re saying, then they can deliver it in a way that makes the audience understand what’s happening,” Hopper said. “It makes them laugh.”
Helms said he encourages more people to get involved or come to the performances. Because cast members only practice for one week, actors are able to amplify their roles and bring a more human element to the performance. The shows use audience participation to connect with students, and revised scripts focus on the most important parts of the plays.
“There’s moments where it’s really obvious we’re people with scripts, and there’s moments where you get swept away,” Helms said.
Improbable Fictions is free and open to the public. For more information, visit improbablefictions.wordpress.com.
