Scotch College

Tales of greed, conceit, pity and love

After a long and rigorous rehearsal process, Year 9 and 10 students of Scotch and Ruyton Girls’ School brought Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to life in the Geoffrey McComas Theatre.

Everyone involved put in a great effort to stage this adaptation of such a huge literary work, which combined a mixture of performance styles and concepts, such as commedia dell’arte, the circus, the travelling troupes of Elizabethan times, mask and movement and, particularly, comedy. The end result was three nights of humour and fun.

After entertaining the audience in the main foyer before the show with circus tricks, mind-reading, fortune-telling and energetic conversation, the cast then took the audience into the theatre to begin the play.

They were then treated to five tales of greed, conceit, pity and love, wound together by a skilled group of actors who proved able to create a diverse range of characters, as was seen in the fifth tale where the whole cast turned into a bunch of farmyard animals! There was no doubt that every person in the audience gained something from this performance, if not a new understanding of one aspect of life, then just a good laugh.

Such a memorable production does not come without much hard work, not only by the actors involved. Of equal significance was the contribution of the technical and production crews. Special thanks must go to all the staff members who helped to make each night a success, but none more so than Miss Garrett, the one responsible for the directorial vision of this play. From the beginning to the very end, this experience was indeed a very enjoyable one, and it is hoped that we actors learned a little more about acting along the way, too!

Blake Connell
Year 9