Loading dock Shakespeare

The Oakland Shakespreare Co. does it quick and dirty — “King Lear,” that is. “King Lear”

Directed by Jordan Matthew Walsh

June 26 and 27

8 p.m.

Performed at the loading dock outside the Cathedral of Learning

Tickets: Contact jmatthewwalsh@gmail.com

Suggested donation of $5 goes toward the Undergraduate Performance Collaborative

The Oakland Shakespreare Co. does it quick and dirty — “King Lear,” that is.

With an intense four-week rehearsal process behind them, the theatre undergraduate and graduate students will perform their play on June 26 and 27 with the Cathedral of Learning’s loading dock as their stage.

The play is set in a dark and undefined period in England. It tells the tale of the fall of a king and his people through multiple complicated plot twists. The elderly King Lear wishes to retire from his throne and divide his wealth among his three daughters. The majority of the play’s action stems from this central dynamic.

In April, director Jordan Matthew Walsh got the idea for the Pitt-based group to take on the dark father/daughter tragedy, despite the company’s time- and location-related limitations. Whereas the Pitt Repertory Theatre put on “As You Like It” this spring with six weeks of rehearsal time, “King Lear” had to be developed in just four.

“[The making of this particular show] was interesting because the staff really worked with everyone’s availability,” Julie Anne Evans, a member of the show’s ensemble, said.

Aside from time constraints, the company’s other difficulty was finding space. By electing to stage the production at the loading dock of the Cathedral (on the Forbes Avenue side of the building) rather than on a conventional stage, the cast and crew have developed a rugged alternative to the theater experience, Walsh said.

“Personally, I think it’s a great place for the play to happen,” Walsh said in an email. “It has distinct character, and it fits nihilistic themes in the play. The play hurts more when the war, violence and bloodshed aren’t for control of the glorious fields and castles of England but over two Dumpsters on a dirty slab of concrete. The dock has also added a lot to the actors’ performances. They’ve really been able to draw on the darkness and violence of the space itself.”

Walsh and the actors have found that the industrial aspects of the area — two mechanical doors, two raised platforms, a cement floor and two Dumpsters — enhance the performance.

“We have the metal doors rise and lower dramatically for important entrances, bang on the dumpsters for noise and throw water around that seeps into the drains,” Walsh said.

The Oakland Shakespeare Co. is a developing component of the Undergraduate Performance Collaborative, a student-run organization that presents shows without the assistance of theater department faculty members. Because the company just got approved as a University club, it doesn’t have a budget. Still, the Department of Theatre Arts helps with finances. Assistant professor of theatre arts Lisa Jackson-Schebetta said in an email that the Oakland Shakespeare Co. stands outbecause it is wholly driven by its undergraduate members.

“Their vision, their ambition, their talent makes the production happen,” Jackson-Schebetta said. “From some really top-notch staging to provocative character and interpretive choices to the nuts and bolts of producing a show — including forming good relationships with the uUiversity, from the folks who look out for the loading dock area to the theater companies that share our spaces in the summer.”

Like many of Shakespeare’s plays, “King Lear” has opportunities for intense character exploration. Jackson-Schebetta said she feels the roles the students take on will push them as actors and that the site will present boundary-pushing challenges.

“It’s very cool — very garage-band jam session, very energetic — but also serious, disciplined work, as well,” she said.