British ensemble Forced Entertainment’s experimental Table Top Shakespeare season at the Sydney Opera House gives us a look at classic Shakespeare as you have never seen, or heard it performed before.
This is like speed dating the Bard. Each night two actors present the entire arc of two Shakespearean plays, simply by sitting at a table, speaking in their own voices, and while using household objects for the characters and action.
From a menu of twenty plays, performed across the Sydney season, we concern ourselves with two, The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The Studio has been transformed into its simplest form, a stage draped in heavy curtains, a trestle table and a single chair middle stage, which is bookended by shelves stocked with household items such as cleaning products, deodorant, and pepper and salt.
Pointing at the table is a large floor microphone, while the set is lit by flat white lighting. Into the mix steps the narrator, which in the case of The Merchant of Venice is a woman (Claire Marshall), with her hair pulled back, and dressed in functional dark office wear.
She introduces the play, and pulls out a fine bottle of oil, representing Antonio, the merchant, and proceeds to establish his relationships with various characters, including Portia (a bottle of red liquid), her maid, Nerissa (a bottle of clear liquid), plus Bassanio (silver candlestick), Antonio’s good friend.
Soon, we are aware that Antonio needs money to support Bassanio so that he can pursue Portia. These circumstances bring the main characters to meeting Shylock (small silver frame), and the tragicomedy is set to play out on the table top.
In the case of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the narration is handled by Robin Arthur, who presents as your favourite tousled and crumpled English master, complete with a mellifluous voice.
Arthur skilfully navigates the complexity of the Midsummer plot, providing it with humour as he unravels the play’s various subplots and characters, including the mechanicals in the woods.
Watching Puck transform Nick Bottom into a character with the head of a donkey who weaves spells is a truly magical moment, and all done on the table top with only the barest of props.
Table Top Shakespeare is told unscripted in an intimate setting as a yarn that draws us into its spell, without using the Bard’s own incredible, but often complex and dense language.
It has the effect of immediately opening the plays up to their most simple form of storytelling, and in this form, we discover another layer of Shakespeare, laying behind the density of his unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Table Top Shakespeare comes down to a great story well told. The actors’ skill here lies largely in their ability to draw us into the heart of the story, told in a simpler and truncated form, while holding our attention for the hour or so for each play, leaving us with a new appreciation and simpler interpretation of each story.
Table Top Shakespeare is a highly experimental and audacious reimagining of the works, which delights in its simplicity.
For those interested, Puck was represented by a Drambuie miniature.
Table Top Shakespeare: Selected Works
Studio – Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point, Sydney
Performance: Thursday 24 September 2026
Season continues to 27 September 2026
Information and Bookings: www.sydneyoperahouse.com
Images: Forced Entertainment presents Table Top Shakespeare – photos by Cassandra Hannagan
Review: John Moyle