Culture Shift with Angus | Shakespeare, Punk Rock, Theater, and Creative Culture

New episode of Culture Shift is live.

In Episode 2, Duda Penteado sits down with Angus for a wide-ranging conversation on Shakespeare, punk rock, theater, music, and creative culture.

From growing up in New Zealand to discovering Shakespeare in England, working in the music business, and building the vision behind the Container Globe, Angus brings a perspective shaped by art, rebellion, performance, and real cultural experience.

This episode dives into how punk rock changed his life, why Shakespeare should be felt before it is studied, how the music industry evolved, and why experimental spaces matter for artists, performers, and communities.

Watch now on YouTube.

#CultureShift #Shakespeare #PunkRock #TheaterPodcast #CreativeCulture #ContainerGlobe #ArtPodcast #PerformanceArt

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to Culture Shift with Duda Pentado, the Archivist. And I have here a good friend, um Angus, who has this incredible theater company uh that really kind of specializes or there's a lot of Shakespeare and music and other things. So we're gonna talk about all this stuff today, and I want to say as an introduction to you, you've been in this neighborhood for many, many years. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that. Okay, how it's been you being here in the Bergen Life by Ed, our district neighborhood. So, Angus, let's begin with your beginning.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Uh, well, I'm from New Zealand, um, small town in uh on the coast of New Zealand. Um, so grew up getting sunburnt going to the beach. Um, you know, very quiet uh town in New Zealand. Uh so um yeah, so it's very different from being in the New York area, you know. Sure, sure. A lot of sharks in New Zealand?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

No, no, no, no, no. Australia, a lot of sharks.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Australia's got all the Australia, really. Australia's got all the nasty stuff. They got spiders and fun of web spiders and New Zealand all cool. No, we got nothing. Even our birds are flightless, you know. The kiwi, the kiwi doesn't even fly. It's so relaxed, they're like, oh, we didn't have to fly. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

You just walk around. Well, yeah, so um you also mentioned in one conversation we had, like your connection with New Zealand and England.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Well, they they used to call New Zealand um England with palm trees because it's it's it was it was very English, um, you know, English immigrants, um, you know, it was colonized by the English. Um, and all our sort of cultural sort of things came, you know, we only had two channels, and it was always the BBC. So it was all English TV, um, all our radio stations were sort of mirrored off, not mirrored, but you know, influenced by um English, you know, uh traditions. All the you know, the schools were taught English curriculum. So yeah, it was um, so yeah. So what was interesting was when bands um would come to, you know, we had a lot of English bands that would come and play in New Zealand. Um we had English cars, you know, we didn't have Japanese cars or anything. So uh English people when they came to New Zealand, they'd be like, this is strange because it's even our skin heads were brown were tanned. It was funny because when one of the bands came to New Zealand, when the Clash came to New Zealand, Clash came to New Zealand and Mick Jones was talking to, he was funny because he was like, you know, your skin heads look it look way too healthy, they're all sort of brown, and you know, he said it just looks wrong.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Well so yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. Um, so growing up, how did you develop the connection to your bouncing New Zealand, England, all the influence, and then it came up theater and came up this guy called Shakespeare. How how is that relationship came about?

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Oh, it's a long story. I mean, really, the thing was that that changed my life. One of the first things that changed my life was hearing the clash and hearing the sex pistols in New Zealand, and um, you know, in 1976, when we were all kids, and that just blew everybody's minds. Um, and you know, it was one of those things that when you're you know 15 years old and you just hear this and you know, it's really confrontational music um that it sort of blows your mind. And there were so many good bands um that uh when those bands would come to New Zealand, we'd go and see them, and it was just like a a uh a direct connection to that music scene in England, and it was so it was you know, obviously it came from that English scene, which was you know, very depressed economy, very sort of you know, tough life. We didn't really have that so but it it sort of resonated, um, and we just loved it, you know. Um, and then we found out about American punk rock and um yeah, it was really blew everybody's mind.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

So, you know, yeah, you you're right. England always had a such a big um importance in music, you know, they always had some big Beatles, yeah, stones, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

The British invasion.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

I mean, yeah, conquered America, yeah, you know, and it's like always like creating crowd. But I always think about that the famous song of Pink Floyd. We don't need no education, and they showing like the system in England. Remember, the kids need to sit down and be well behaved. Punk rock destroyed Pink Floyd. We were just like not interested in Pink Floyd at all. We were like, Yeah, no, no, no, but but that then pink rock has a such a powerful, is it's very interesting when I think about culture, uh say culture crash, right? Because England has this very the queen, the king, you know, all of the things that we're gonna do. Pank rock was the relationship. And pink rock comes to just like stop with that. We're gonna show you what the reality is, and this is really the counter uh reformation by using art, right? Against the season.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Well, it was the it was the music, it was the clothes, it was the attitude, it was, you know, um, I mean, yeah, it was in your face, and it was sort of naughty. So when you're a kid, when you're you know, you're little just loved that, right? Yeah, yeah. It was like and it and your parents hated it. So of course, you know, we all loved it. And um, it was funny. I just saw my old uh schoolmaster about a month ago, and he said, um, he used to come and uh knock on my uh because I went to a I went to a private school, you know, boarding school, and he used to knock on my door. Then back then. Then, yeah, yeah. And he would ask me, uh, can I borrow some of your punk rock records? And I was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he would sort of go off and listen to them because he wanted to know what this cultural wave was, a tsunami. And he would come back and go, Well, that was rather energetic. He was going, Can't say I loved it, but he was going, I totally understand, you know. And uh yeah. So yeah, I just really punk rock changed my life. So I when I went to university, um, I went to law school, and I, after two years of law school, I was like, no, I'm actually gonna stop. And I went to England and um and I brought a rail pass and I just looked at the paper, and wherever a band was playing, I'd just go and see it. So I saw the jam in in the south, I saw um Stiff Little Fingers in Belfast. You know, we'd just go and see, take a train and go and see these bands because I, you know, I just wanted to be part of that whole thing. I was obsessed.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

So so Angus, there's two stories about you then became part of one, right? Your passion to music, then and then correct me if I'm wrong, later on, you you also work with music and bands, right? Representing and producing, right? Uh no, um, I actually started with music.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Well, um I started, I was a banker first in England. Um, because when I got finally got my law degree, I went to England. So you went back to school? I went to back to school. Went back to No, after the year away, okay. I got I just went and saw all these bands, got lost half my hearing, came back to finish my law degree and my business degree. Um in New Zealand. In New Zealand, then um went back to London and got a job in London in in a bank, and then um to you know, to try try that out. And that was sort of the crazy 80s, um, and got pretty bored by doing that actually, but it was still in London, it was still great because it was still great music, and uh then that's when I sort of got this Shakespeare virus by um I saw Anthony Hopkins, you know, Cannibal Lecter. Sure, sure. I saw him in uh 1988 or 87 doing King Lear and it blew me away. Oh wow, and then I would just uh He's an amazing actor. Yeah, he was I mean, then he was young and he was just like this coiled bear who was just like running around the stage, just like and it was really disturbing. He was it was really I hadn't seen anything like that, like to see it live. And this guy, and then at the end of it, he came out and was just he'd sort of taken the the the the clothes off and he just became a regular guy again. It sort of blew me away. Um how old are you back then? Uh I don't know, 23 or something. But um, yeah. And I I saw it as a not as a Shakespeare fan or an English literature fan or anything that that Shakespeare meant nothing to me at school. I wasn't interested. I was just interested in punk rock, really. Um but yeah, just seeing that, and then I would there's a there's a a big theatre in uh a theatre complex or arts complex called the Barbican in London, and I would actually scoot through it to go home as a shortcut because it was cold, you know, and they would have the Royal Shakespeare Company and they'd be and the Brits are really good because they have very they have cheap tickets on the night. So I would walk past and go, Oh, you know, what's on tonight? And they'd go, Well, it's um Jonathan Price and Macbeth. And Jonathan Price is a really fantastic actor, and I would go, Oh, I will go and see that. Go and have a few Guinnesses before, go and see it. Right, some good beer. Yeah. You have to have a few beers for Shakespeare. I mean, you've got to be half drunk. They were all half drunk when they saw Shakespeare in his day. Um, so yeah, I would see that and then go, well, okay, that was great. And then later on in the week I'd walk past, oh, what's on tonight? Oh, it's Romy and Juliet. Well, I'll go and see that. And so that's how I I didn't I didn't attack it, didn't approach Shakespeare in any intellectual way at all. It was all about just going, Oh my god, that's so good. Or, you know, some of the more obscure plays I would go, I didn't really understand 20% of that or 30% of that, but it was still really good, but it made me want to go back and made me curious, and you know, um, and they're just like that's the cream. The Royal Shakespeare Company is the cream of um, you know, English actors, of course. Half of the Wolf all got jobs in Game of Thrones, you know, it's sort of tricky, but um, yeah, so that was it was that exposure um to that.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

And then Grim Game of Thrones is shot a lot in New Zealand, too, or no? Oh, I don't know, actually. Or is I I heard New Zealand was some other place.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

I mean Zena was, um uh Lord of the Rings was because it's because they yeah, okay, Lord of the Rings.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

No, I think uh because the landscape, right, or New Zealand, like yeah, Lord of the Rings, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Um but I think Game of Thrones is Ireland, I think, actually.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Oh no, I think there were also a shot in Spain. Oh, maybe I don't know. Yeah, I I uh if I'm not mistaken, actually I was in a way to go into the Dali Museum, the original one when he you know he died there, he turned his home into this castle museum. So we stopped in a place and I'm more sure um was like two hours from uh Barcelona. Okay, and then we stopped in this place and did a lot of shooting in the south, right? South of England. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, no, no. Game of Thrones, they're like, this is the town, and this is what they filmed, right? So I I think that was that, but um so let me see if I put those pieces together. You just grew up in the atmosphere, England, New Zealand, and always like pet rock music was your thing, and suddenly everything, everything, and suddenly boom, finally Shakespeare come into the picture and leave an impression on you when you're about 23, 24, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Yeah, just to seeing it as an idiot. I mean, I just seeing it completely as an idiot. Yeah, uh, really, because I just went, that was really good. Like seeing Anthony Hopkins and then seeing Jonathan Price, they're just top of their game, and you go, Whoa, because you're seeing it, you're not seeing something on a screen, you're seeing it live, sure, and it's just you're going, holy and that's the thing about theater, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Oh, yeah, like it's right there with you. Like film is amazing, but it's in a big screen, whatever. Yeah, yeah. But but theater is like it that that's the exchange. I would say there's when you're playing live music and theater, there's an exchange with the public there.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

That's it's all about incredible. Yeah. And the other thing is that um, because it was, you know, I'd I I'd sometimes see the same productions a couple of times because I was like, yeah, I'm walking past. So I would see the and you know, the sec oh, this when I'd see it again, I'd get something more out of it. And then I sort of realized that those plays are so rich and complex that it's you know, there's that they survive. I mean, I'd go and see the same play two days later and go, wow, that was I didn't get that before. But so it was all it's and that's what I really want. I really encourage people to go and see Shakespeare as an idiot, not as an idiot, but just you know, to experience it without any um supposition or preconception that oh, this is like you know, taking your medicine or it's intellectual, it's not, you know, in Shakespeare in Shakespeare's day it wasn't intellectual, he was like Lynn Manuel Miranda of his day, you know. So people didn't go to Shakespeare because they're like, oh, I'm gonna go and see Hamlet because I'm a intellectual, they'd go because it was a really good play, and it would blew everybody's minds because all of a sudden this actor's talking about an internal monologue, uh dialogue, like about and then people are just like, what's this guy doing?

SPEAKER_01 14:17

So yeah, yeah, and and the th the thing about a thing about um um Shakespeare is um he just really connects with the stories then you know makes sense, right? The struggles of politics and everything, how how people plot and and how the the one of the things I love is how women always been part of that. She's the wife of the king, or she's the one, and then what she's saying, how she's not allowed in people to do this is very important in the game, right? And the game or human. I I'm not saying just I'm not talking about party politics, but I talk about human politics. It's like it's intertwined both, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:00

And and you see the evolution there, those things still play today, absolutely, you know, and he would play with that because he would have a man playing a woman playing a man, so there's all these different layers, you know, and um yeah, and Shakespeare had a lot of powerful women and um in his plays. So, I mean, you you can't say was he a feminist, but he definitely, you know, there's a lot of strong, strong women who uh definitely not relegated to be characters, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

True, yeah. So another thing, okay. So let's go. Um, so what happens next? Like you know in England, like you're watching Shakespeare. How did you come to America? And then how Container Globe let's talk about how you come to America, but then Container Globe project came about.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Well, um, I uh I ended up going, uh, you know, there's a reproduction of Shakespeare's original globe. Okay, there was Shakespeare built his original theatre in 1599. So him and a bunch of actors um and uh some businessmen got together and and they they built this theatre and they built it outside of the city of London because the city of London was controlled, their council was controlled by a bunch of Puritans, and the Puritans in those days actually thought that theatre was a manifestation of the devil, that the devil was was using it as a way to corrupt people by putting ideas in their in their mind. No, seriously, the Puritans hated theatre, they really thought it was an evil, evil thing. So Shakespeare and his guys built there was a city of London which on the north bank of the Thames, they put their theatre on the south bank, which was outside the jurisdiction of the city of London, and um and so they basically could do almost what they wanted. Um and uh so uh that's what people would go and see, you know. Like you go and see Hamlet was a new play in 16, what is it, 03? I can't remember when it came out, but people would talk about oh my god, you know, this guy Shakespeare is putting out this new play, Hamlet. Okay, what's that all about? You know, what's uh Richard III all about? What's Much Ado About Nothing? You know, they were like, oh, it was like they were big. That place, that theatre was built for 1,500 people. 3,000 people used to squash themselves in there, and they'd be jammed up together, and there was no intermissions in those days. So you'd be sitting there watching Hamlet for four hours, they would give you a thing of beer, a big thing of beer, like literally this big, and you would and they'd give you a roll of paper because you were jammed in there with a beer down, you put the bear down beside you, start watching the play. There's no intermission. So you'd pee down the you'd roll the paper up and pee down it. Where you were standing.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Oh my god!

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Where you were standing, yeah, yeah. So it's and you know the only reason why they when you go and see a Shakespeare play now, they've got act one, act two, act three, intermission, is when he built an indoor theatre and he had the candles, right? To illuminate the indoor theatre, they would burn down because they were old beeswax candles, they'd burn down. Right, right. You have to change the damn candles. So they're like, oh, we have to put in an act to change the candles.

unknown 18:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

That's the intermission. That's intermission.

unknown 18:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Yeah, or or the act, you know, because they um had to divide the play up somehow. But um, so they they built um actually American guy, a guy called Sam Wanamaker, crazy guy, um, director, really interesting guy. He ended up um leaving America because of the McCarthy, you know, as that he was a communist. Well, they said that he was communist. So we went to England. He went, well, he was a big Shakespeare fan. He also directed Star Trek episodes, really interesting guy. Went to England, went, Well, where's where's the globe? Where's uh and uh they said, Well, we don't have one, and he said, Well, I'll build one. So he did, took him 25 years to do it, and that's with the globe in London. So, long story short, as I went after you know, loving seeing Shakespeare in a normal theatre um and thinking that's what Shakespeare was, you know, when you're sitting in a dark theatre, right? You're sitting in your seat, you're watching this whole play go on over there in front of you. At the globe, you're standing in a pit with uh with the actors right there in the daylight, and it was totally different because the actors engage with the audience, the audience responds. Sometimes the actors that will go, okay, you're the army of France, you're the army of England, have had it, you know, and it's a much different experience. And it was so punk rock because what's what's punk rock? You're standing in a pit by the stage, the band is you know, blasting away. You're going when you go to the globe in London, you see the players up right up there, and they're looking at you and talking to you, and it's not happening on a stage away from you in the dark where Hamlet's going, to be or not to be, you know, or alas poor Yorikai, you know, he's actually talking to the audience. He's going, My dad was killed by my uncle. Um, he's sleeping with my mum, he's taken my kingdom. To be or not to be, whether I should stick around or should I check out? And he he's talking to the audience, and there'll people people say stuff back. So you get this very dynamic, you know, interactive, it really is different. So I was like, wow, this is so different and so exciting because it's so uh so different, you know. Instead of take the Shakespeare that I'd seen before on a normal stage, I was like, that's great. But then I was like, all of a sudden it's right there. So punk rock, you know, the parallel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

But you're standing there going. I I'm I understand what you mean, right? The energy, right? Totally different, contaminated, and it's suddenly everybody's part of the play. Totally. And you become part of a scene and it grows, it becomes it becomes what I call a full performance, right? It's incorporating everybody, all the elements.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Well, actually, it was interesting because the the actors that had been that had normally performed on a normal stage, they had to come out and learn how to use that space. So, um, so you know, and built into the plays actually is a clues that the way that they would talk to the people on the ground, because the people on the ground are normally young, right? Because they can have the energy to stand there for four hours or three hours or whatever. The people that are sitting in the in the seats around are Older, they get they get different jokes, they get they get different things out of the plays. So they get the poetry, they get the drama, the politics, the if you like, the sort of different levels. Whereas the people down there, they laugh at the fart jokes, they laugh at you know the sex jokes, they laugh at all the silly stuff. Right. And so there's a real sort of dynamic change in the uh the way the play ebbs and flows and changes, and you know, and the the actors all get into the audience, they run around the audience, and it's so different. And that I found it really, really exciting. Um I still like I'm seeing normal Shakespeare, if you like. I mean, it's still uh I went went last night, um, but that thing of standing there and being right amongst it is so different.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

So yeah, makes totally sense. So so after those experiences when you're like, I gotta build my own container globe, right? And what project and how did that came about? The U. What when did you come to the US? Let let's and then when you created your container globe project in the US, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Well, I came uh here first in uh 91, no 92, yeah. Um, because I'd I've been working for a band called NXS in Australia um as their business manager uh for five years, and then um I got offered a job in New York to work for a music business company in New York. Um, so I moved here.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

So that's when the music started. No, I I'd started I knew I knew you worked in the music industry.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

No, I started with NXS in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Oh, you started in Australia, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

No, so I worked with them for five years in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

So you moved from banking to the music business? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So finally the law and the banking came uh service to you.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Uh in a way, yeah. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Yeah, so you're now back into music, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

But with the business side of music, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

But you you connect with music, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

So that was good. Um, and then so moved to New York, which was really, you know, New York in 1991 or 92 is quite different. You know, gnarly, a lot more gnarly. And Brooklyn wasn't the sort of oh no, Brooklyn was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

I remember I remember driving up Fourth Avenue going. I remember all brook Brooklyn, Brooklyn is probably the fastest city in the country to transform completely. I saw the whole unbelievable happen in Brooklyn. Yes. Um, I I wanted to ask you this. So, how was the uh working with uh tell me a little bit about how was your work with the music industry?

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Well, I mean, I was super lucky because the first band I ever worked with was NXS, and they they put out an album called Kick in 1987, and it sold, I think, 13 million copies straight off the out of the gate. So, you know, they were they they were touring in America, and everybody was going, you've got to do add another show, you've got to move from, you know, you're you're past clubs, you're past, you're doing arenas now. Right. So, you know, for us, we were all like we were all like 20 or 20-something idiots, you know. We were just like, well, I wouldn't say idiots, but we were just it was it happened so fast, and in the 80s it was so much money, you know, because there was the songs being played on the radio, they had six singles from that album being played all over American radio, so we were just getting checks. It was, you know, um, and party was on. Well, it was yeah, I mean, it was great because it was in those days, man, there was like a lot of money coming in, yeah. So you almost couldn't screw things up.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

And the music industry was very different, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:46

And then no, it was actually no, that was an interesting time too, because people were CDs were also the CDs, so CDs they were sold a lot of CDs tool. They sold a lot of CDs, and what was actually great is that a lot of bands that had back catalogues, so in Access already had like five albums out uh behind, you know, that they'd already done. So they already had a track record in America, but people were going, oh CDs are the music, so the music quality is so great. So they were buying, they'd already bought the vinyl, so they were buying the CD as well.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Yeah, true, true.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

So record companies just made out like pirates, you know, they were just because people were had already bought the damn record, you know, and they went and replaced all their their vinyl collections, which is kind of funny now because people going back to vinyl.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yeah, guys, a super collectible thing, yeah, yeah, it's amazing. But the music industry changed so much, and and the way they were making, and then they couldn't sell no more, it came Spotify, they started messing up. Yeah, no, we were in the in the you're in the good times. In the good times, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Well, good times in terms of if you're an established band, it was a really good time because in access was a big band.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Sure. Um that's what I mean. Like if it was a band movie, but it became harder, right? The music business. What what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Different, it's different. It's in those days, the record company, the publishing companies were all powerful, so you couldn't get your album, your record into a music, into a record store, into Tower Records, without going through a record company. So there was, you know, the Warners, the Sony, all those, you know, evil record companies. Yeah, yeah. You gotta go run by you don't go nowhere. Yeah, you went nowhere. And then, you know, they would sign bands. Um, there were so many bands that I knew that would get signed and then not even not even dropped. If you're dropped, then you can sign with another uh uh another record label. They would put them into I called it the Twilight Zone or the Phantom Zone, you know, where they wouldn't release you, but they wouldn't release any albums. So a lot of bands ended up dying because they couldn't form a new band, they couldn't the record company wasn't going to release anything, so they so a lot of bands disappeared. It was really awful. Oh wow, yeah, yeah. So um, and now the thing is that you know, there's no record stores anymore. There are, of course, but you know, but they don't dominate way. They dominate the record companies and the publishing companies don't dominate, they're not the gatekeepers anymore. Everybody's the gatekeeper. The good thing about the good thing about the music business now is that everybody can make music and get the music out there. The bad thing about a music business is that everybody can make music and put their music out there. So now there's just this tsunami of just content, right? Is it good or bad? I mean, in those days, and the other thing too is that if you had wanted to put out a professional record, you had to go through the really expensive studio, right? Now uh so many of those tools are on and come installed on your on your laptop.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

You know, I I love having this conversation because it made me think you you you you're right. Um, and then this thing about I guess democratization through through technology, you know, and and you're right. One of the good things is like it move on those dinosaurs that dominated the market, and you have to bow down to then or you didn't exist. That it happened through all the art industry, right? The visual arts, the big galleries, and and today there's a lot of different ways to do business in visual arts, but also there's all this horrible artists or wannabe artists who don't know nothing about history with painting putting this stuff out there, not doing the work.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

I mean, there's a lot of you know not doing the work, not doing the work.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

I mean, there's so many bands that I not and bands became also GJ, you know, it became the problem now. GJs is there's a whole this general GJs now, and I'm like, just DJs that play all the people's music, I don't know, and you know, feeling stadiums, you know. I'm like, I don't know what happened, yes, right? Yeah, so there's then we sound old. Then we sound old, but um there's all this strange noise, right? Yeah, but also a lot of more democratic opportunity in a way, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

I mean that's a good thing about it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Yeah, I agree. Um talking about this, I think theater is the thing that remains in a way most difficult. Yes, because you've got to find place to put it in. But remains with, I guess, more integrity in a way of being deluded, right? Because to put a play is not that easy.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

Well, it's not that easy, but also you have to find a space to put it on.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Right, right, sure. You can put it on. It hasn't changed. I think theater out of all the art forms has changed less. That's absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

I think so. Right, which is part of it is that um I wanted to build a theatre based on that shape on Shakespeare's Globe, because that environment and that and that exciting, you know, interactivity or immersive quality of it. Um, but also because I want it to be, you know, very cost effective, it's it's way cheaper than building a normal theatre or outfitting a you know a warehouse space to be a theatre. I mean, sure, you can put on theatre in a in a warehouse or in a in a car wash if you want, you know what I mean? But to do proper theatre, do proper shit, not proper, but to do any kind of theatre that's complicated, you know what I mean? Like a bigger thing, you have to find a space for that. And that's a gate, that's a that's one of the problems or a thing that needs to be solved. So part of the reason for doing the container globe is because it's way uh cheaper than building a normal theatre or outfitting, you know, converting as in a warehouse space or whatever, which means that we can offer it as a space for more experimental theatre for doing standard theatre if you want. If you want to do it, put on a vanilla, I call it vanilla Shakespeare. If we're gonna put on like a normal Hamlet, you can. But if you want to put on a crazy, you know, post-apocalyptic Richard III, then do it. And we can fail, you know what I mean? And I look at it as there's this there's also a um inspiration. I don't know if you've heard of a place called Gilman Street. Um it's a it's a it's a warehouse, it's a sort of music venue in Oakland in California. Oh no, I never been there. Okay, so they started years and years ago, and basically Green Day started there, Rancid started there. It's when they were tenant when Green Day was 14, they started playing Green Day, and it was this it's it's basically a crappy warehouse, but everybody can play there. So it's like this great incubator, you know. So Green Day could play there when they were 13 or 14 or whatever. Rancid, all these punk rock bands, there's no judgment, it's just you know, um, and Miranda July, I don't know if you know her, she's a playwright and an author. She put on her first play there. They were like, Yeah, do it. So it's that whole thing about yes, you can, you know, you can yeah, just having the box for you to have the box, it's a nasty, yeah, it's not it's not fancy pants, it's not Broadway, but it's somewhere to put on and try stuff out, and people to fail, you gotta fail, you know. And that's that's the other inspiration for me is that so many of these great bands came out from sure and from Gilman Street, helped them along.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

It was like uh their first step. I heard it. Yeah, you're right, you're right. Now you're talking about the California hub, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

With that East East Bay Punk, yeah. There's a great documentary about it, and yeah, I I find that really inspiring.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Um it's interesting because a lot of great things come from this sort of organic underground initiatives, right? Yes. Which is like, don't be afraid to fail.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Don't be afraid to fail. And fail in front of other people.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Just do it, just do it in the first 20 times you've got to do it. If it's gonna work, it's gonna work, you know.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

And sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it does.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

But then you try a different thing, yeah. But it that that thing of so so that that's all your framework for this container, and and you you can organize the containers because the container globe, by the way, it is containers, the real containers, it's not just a poetic name, right? So the audience here understands. We're gonna show some photos and some things later. It's basically a big Lego set of a bunch of containers arranged in different ways. So that let's talk about how you organize. I know you the container globe, you also organized it in different ways, and then you did like sort of park activity, a festival, right? And and brought children, education. Yeah. Well, then how did you expand that?

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Well, the thing is that I that um it's it's a theater, but it's also a uh performance venue. So we can do, you know, we did uh a tech two techno festivals there, and um, you know, you can just put a DJ where the st you know the stages and have a DJ there, and it's got um galleries and you know, it works as a music venue as well. And you know, part of the plan is that you know, we wanted people to come to techno or to go and see rock, you know, rock and roll there. And some of them are gonna go, what is this crazy place? It looks like you know, a Thunderdome, it looks like a post-industrial weird thing built from shipping containers. Uh it doesn't look very Shakespearean. They're not, they're not nobody, you know, a lot of people are not gonna know that. I don't necessarily want them to know that, but if they come along and experience the space and go, Yeah, I can stand next to this stage, you know, it's gnarly, make a big noise. Some of them are gonna come back and go, Oh, what else are you doing? Well, we're doing some Shakespeare. Well, we'll come along and so some of the people that went to this techno festival said, Oh, we'll come and see some Shakespeare, and they did. And that makes me happy because some people and not all of them loved it, but there there'd be if you get 50 people that come along because they went to a techno festival, and then they go, Yeah, we'll go to how much is the Shakespeare? Well, it's free. All right, we'll go and see.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

So so the Shakespeare is interesting, was Coudin Ash back then and is now today again to the container globe. Tell me that story about the kids, right? I love you, told me story. Then you you start kids start wanting to interpret uh uh Shakespeare because the contain globe uh it creates such a playing field that they felt that yes, we can do.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Well, uh, we were working with the Kids Shakespeare company in Detroit, and um we sort of figured out uh you know, um that we had uh we put on uh Macbeth two years ago. Uh it was an adult Macbeth, and um the people in the the Shakespeare, the kids Shakespeare said, Well, we've got a Macbeth that we'd like to do, but it's only 40 minutes and it's kid one. So uh that year we put on uh the Macbeth, the the the adult one. So people went to see that, that was great, but then straight after it would be put on the kids' Macbeth, which was hilarious because it's these kids, you know, Macbeth's all about witches, and you know, there's a lot of blood, and it's like uh, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the kids all loved it. There's a lot of killing, man. They just you know, kids love that stuff, right? Yeah, so it's like ah, and they can, you know, they can be the witches and they can be like walking around with swords, yeah, more killing, you know, and it's cool. So the kids got to see the real McBe, the real Macbeth, then they did their own one. But what was cool was that a lot of people start yeah, the actors saw the kids doing it and sort of talked to the kids about it because the kids were blown away to see real actors doing it, and the adults got to talk to the the actors got to talk to the kids and go, it's really inspiring because the kids have no barriers or no and for them, what I love about it is that um the kids don't regard that weird Shakespearean language as a barrier or as something they love it because it's a weird secret language that when they go to school, they can go, uh, dost thou dost thou buy you know, thy thumb at me, sir. And they can talk in this sort of weird language, and it's for them it's like a weird superpower. So so they end up growing up going, Shakespeare's cool because it's well part of the thing is because they have this weird language, so they aren't scared by it, and you know, that's what I like, that's what I really like about it is that the kids will grow up, get to know more and more Shakespeare. You know what I mean? So yeah, it's uh I I liked it. And we did that again last year with Hamlet. This time we tried it with the Hamlet, the kids doing the Hamlet first, and then we did the the Adult Hamlet. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

One of one of the things that I love, we're gonna close with this controversial. Uh, let's talk about this one thing. We're talking me a U a while ago, and I ran, you know, I start actually Shakespeare is pop, right? Because Shakespeare is is all over the world. I start watching, I start going to my first place in Shakespeare in Portuguese in Brazil, in my city, Sao Paulo, yeah, and I was probably 1920. Yeah. Then I and then I love this. This guy's really, you know, talking about this uh very profound drama of life, you know, existential struggle of mankind. So I I kept going to the next, to the next, and then I came back to the US, and then I I I finally watched some Shakespeare in English, right? So uh uh, but I I developed my love for him in Brazil. So when we're talking about they're like, dude, the Shakespeare's pop is everywhere. Like, it's true. I heard in Portuguese the first time I saw the play in Portuguese. But um I recently I saw this documentary, very controversial, about but uh who was really Shakespeare, Shakespeare really existed, you and I talking. But the interesting thing, like, man, they have hundreds of books and things talking about who was really people who made a lot of money, made drama out of the Shakespeare thing. Everybody loves a conspiracy theory, you know. True, true. What's your take in there? Why so much controversial thing behind Shakespeare? It's just trying to make easy money, it's just talking about fame and and trying to write on fame.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

There's a bit of that. There's a bit of that. I think, you know, um people love a conspiracy. Um, so there is there's a certain um bunch of people that, and some of them are very respected Shakespeare actors, who can't believe that a guy who came from a small town in in England, in Stratford, um, who didn't go to a university, uh, ended up writing the most profound plays that we all have become like, you know, this this pillar of uh of culture, right? Because they were like, well, he didn't travel, he wasn't wealthy, he ended up being wealthy because he sold so many damn tickets.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Yeah, but she wasn't like royal, royal blood.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

And but but my take is that the you know the guy had it was a uh went to a really good school, the grammar school that he went to. They he read everybody he could imagine, and he gets stuff wrong in his plays, like you know, geographically wrong. And people were like, Well, that shows that he didn't write them.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Like, no, that shows you know, he's talking about Verona, or he's talking about did he leave did he really go to Italy a little bit, or no? But you don't have to, and you could but but he didn't, right? That's all baloney in the documentary.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

No, no, no, not that we know.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

He never went, not that he knows he's he's just really a genius writer that had the fantastic imagination, yes, and and and looked things in a very um interesting and deep way.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

That's what I think, right?

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Um, it's like the guy is a genius writer, what can I say?

SPEAKER_02 42:02

I mean, he's it's like Mozart or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Yeah, that's what I think. Like how do you explain Mozart? Yeah, how do you explain a genius artist? You really don't. The guy just just do what he just goes and does what they do. There's singular talents that come out of nowhere, you know. And the thing about art is, you know, I always have this conversation. You can explain Picasso. You know, how do you? You know, you know, you know, I love having this conversation because uh um, you know, artists, I always tell people what a thing about art. Is the art become a great artist because you go and go to university or get a master's degree? No. That maybe some artists did that, maybe some artists never did that. Yeah, there's amazing artists who actually never went anywhere. You just connect with the land and create unique language, and people discover then. So, so so this thing about becoming authentic and incredible artist, you really don't need to go to school. You just gotta find yourself.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

Sometimes I actually think that actually going to an art school is going to narrow your can mess you up, can mess you up, can narrow your horizon. So did if Shakespeare had gone to a university and sort of done, I I you know, I don't know. We could always, what if, what if, what if. But sometimes I think that, you know, they talk about people that um when they go to law school, their IQs go down. This is serious. Their IQs go down because they get taught to think in this very specific legal way. Right. Their IQs go down because they're the way that they so you know, Shakespeare by not having a class and not going to university and just, you know, observing he was a sponge for everything, like, you know, everything he saw, everything he read. You know, he's a very w wide reader, I think, because there's so many references in the plays to other things. Right, right. He was the aver reader. Yeah, and so it's one of those like you don't have to know any of this when you go and see bloody Hamlet. You know, it's an amazing play. And it's endless the different ways you can do it. But you don't have to know anything about Shakespeare. You don't have to know anything about the history of the time, Queen Elizabeth, or the political situation of England at the time. It makes it great once you do know that and you get all that. You have more insight. Then you get the obscure references in the play and what he's talking about. But you don't have to do that the first time he said. I didn't know that. I didn't know any of that the first time I said. It's like you don't know if you don't have to know how to play the bass when you go and see the Sex Pistols.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

Right, right, right. You just enjoyed them. You don't know what to do. I agree. I agree. Great art presents itself. Yes. Right. You know, you just get it. You just observe. I agree. You don't you don't need to be a musician to go to a music concert, right? I I agree with you. Whatever is great is great and touch people, right?

SPEAKER_02 44:47

That's what I think.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

And I think all art, that's why I I it kills me when people go, Oh, you know, I read Shakespeare in school and I hated. And you're like, oh, I mean, Shakespeare, that if nobody read Shakespeare at the time. I mean, there's a few people, you know, they'll be writing down at the plays going, because he was people loved it, and they were like writing it down, and they were trying to make some money on the side by publishing it. But Shakespeare never intended it to people to sit at home and go, hmm, you know, intellectually, oh, look at the amazing poetry in this. He's like, Yeah, it's amazing, but you're supposed to see it.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

You're supposed to walk out and go, do you think, do you think you made me think about something? Um, you know, I always thought about me when I'm telling us, I think great teaching is the capability to take something complex and digest it and and present it in a very simple way. Absolutely. You know, some people say, Well, I went to this class with this teacher, and the guy, the guy talks so much, I can't understand what the guy's saying. So, you know, I tell people this guy might be a genius, it's a terrible teacher. It's a terrible teacher because a teacher is supposed to take something complex and digest it and make simple. I think Shakespeare is that he takes this complex social things that happen in society and makes it in a way then people can, oh my god, I understand now. This is really about the plotting, the stabbing, the politics. You get really like uh uh um a real real uh sense of what will be in a day-to-day or that situation.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

Well, I think because yeah, I mean, that's the thing about it, all those plays are so rich that when you first time you see it, when you're 20 years old, you go, Well, I like the fart jokes and I love this, I love the murders and I love the bl the action and the you know, and then the next time you see it, you go, Oh, I like the you start to hear the poetry in it, or which that sounds wanky, but you know, you start to go, oh, that's brilliant, the way that he does that, or and you see it in different ways, just like a good teacher will realize that you know, you if you're teaching physics or something, half the people in the audience in your classroom are not going to understand it who teach it one way, you have to teach it in different ways because people are so different. So people in that audience uh people are going to respond to it differently, so that some of them will have seen it before, some of them won't. So they will take different things away from it. Some people hate punk rock Shakespeare. Some people love they love their vanilla Shakespeare, they want it served just like this. Some people love crazy Shakespeare, sometimes they like a little bit of a bit of both, you know. So that's the great thing about great teachers because they can teach the same thing, but in different ways that other people in the classroom will understand. Exactly the same in Shakespeare. You know, it's just like um you might start in punk rock, but then you realize classical, then you get a bit hip-hop, and you get the and you know, British uh the Beatles, or you know, you get all these different influences, and that all starts to fit together, and you become as you get older, you realize more connections. Same with theatre, you know. Then you make connections between all the different Shakespeare plays, then you you with modern theatre, then you see crazy different versions of Shakespeare that people just turn it on its head and you go, Wow, that's cool. So that's the thing with art, it's like you have to experience it, right? And you're not gonna love all of it, but I definitely think it's not an intellectual thing. It is an actual intellectual thing because then you can go and study it, you know, you can study art history and understand what impressionism was, you can understand what a fugue is, and you can understand what a quartet, you know, or like a symphony is. What's the difference between a fugue and a quartet? I mean a fugue and a symphony. What's the difference between modern theatre, mammoth, versus Shakespeare? But that doesn't mean it has to connect with your guts, it has to connect with your guts and your heart first. You know what I mean? That's what all art is. I agree. You've got to stand in front of the band going, uh, you know. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 49:03

Yeah, and then you can go, oh, yeah, it has to transcend in a way.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

It's totally unless if it if it doesn't transcend, if it doesn't make you bang your bollocks together, if it doesn't make your stomach, you know, and your heart race faster, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

What's the point? True, true. So here here it is. Is it shake Shakespeare the greatest writer ever in history for theater? Uh yeah what do you say? Yeah, yeah, yes, okay. That's a rap here. Shakespeare is the guy. He's the guy. He's not a man. He's the guy's watch, he's the box. Shakespeare is the above us, he's the above us, he's the man is still the guy. He's the guy. That's awesome. Sorry. Hey, thank you so much, man. And to be continuous, man. Cool. Always to have you, man. Thanks, man. All right, another great episode about culture shift, a lot more to come, and to be continued, baby, hasta la vista.