What Bard Through Yonder Railroad Speaks?

Nick Salyer per­forms in Shake­speare on the Rail.

When William Shake­speare wrote, “All the world’s a stage,” he couldn’t have had a mov­ing train in mind, but that’s exactly where scenes from his plays will appear this summer.

Stu­dents from UNM’s Col­lege of Fine Arts teamed up with the New Mex­ico Rail Run­ner to increase week­end rid­er­ship while bring­ing Shake­speare to new audi­ences. The group per­forms every Sat­ur­day, June-August, on north­bound trains depart­ing down­town Albu­querque at 2:38 p.m. and south­bound trains depart­ing the Santa Fe depot at 4:32 p.m.

Shake­speare on the Rail is site-specific the­atre, which “takes place in non­tra­di­tional the­atre spaces like the Rail Run­ner,” said Lau­ren Albon­ico, direc­tor and grad­u­ate stu­dent in the­atre edu­ca­tion and out­reach at UNM.

“The scenes fit within the con­text of a train, so we’ve taken the scenes out of the con­text of their orig­i­nal plays and the char­ac­ters are like the char­ac­ters you would encounter on the Rail Run­ner,” she said. “We use the poles, and you use every lit­tle nook and cranny that is spe­cific to what­ever site it is. You take full advan­tage of all that.”

The first cast, per­form­ing love scenes from “As You Like It,” “Much Ado About Noth­ing” and “Romeo and Juliet,” are the­atre majors Nick Salyer, Andrew Leith and Julia Har­ris and art stu­dio major Christina Slyter. Sarah White, the­atre edu­ca­tion and out­reach, is assis­tant direc­tor and Nicee Brown, the­atre, is stage manager.

“To be the first team to bring it to Albu­querque is really spec­tac­u­lar,” White said.

Cast and crew say the con­tem­po­rary set­ting makes Shakespeare’s verse more acces­si­ble. “It’s still in this Shake­spearean world, but it’s set on the train, so it’s mod­ern and fun,” Har­ris said.

The close quar­ters on the Rail Run­ner also affect player-audience inter­ac­tion. “You feel like you’re one with the char­ac­ter because you’re so close to them,” White said. “You can under­stand the lan­guage because you’re in it with them.”

“Instead of hav­ing that fourth wall between you and the audi­ence of a tra­di­tional the­atre, the fourth wall becomes mal­leable,” Leith said. “It’s going to be inter­est­ing, the inter­ac­tion with peo­ple who may or may not know that we’re act­ing out Shake­speare on the train.”

In July per­for­mances fea­ture comedic scenes and in August scenes of treach­ery and deceit. Per­for­mances are free with train fare on the first floor of the Rail Runner’s “Bard Car,” behind the loco­mo­tive. The project is funded by UNM’s Depart­ment of The­atre and Dance.