Category: Occupy Movement

Tags: Shakespeare, BP, tar, sands, Deepwater, Horizon, sponsorship, greenwash, Arctic, activism, RSC, theatre, protest, climate, Reclaim, Shakespeare, Company

BP for worst Olympic sponsor? They might have some competition from Dow Chemical. www.greenwashgold.org On April 23rd 2012 - Shakespeare's birthday and the launch of the World Shakespeare Festival - a group of merry players known as the "Reclaim Shakespeare Company" took unexpectedly to the stage in Stratford-upon-Avon, just before a Royal Shakespeare Company performance of The Tempest. This piece of guerilla Shakespeare aimed to challenge the RSC over its decision to accept sponsorship from BP in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster and the oil company's decision to start extracting highly polluting and destructive tar sands in Canada. Find out more here: http://bp-or-not-bp.org/news/protesters-take-to-the-stage-at-rsc-over-bp-spon... Filmed by Zoe Broughton ========================================= Here's the script in full: What country, friends, is this? Where the words of our most prized poet Can be bought to beautify a patron So unnatural as British Petroleum? Strange association! They, who have incensed the seas and shores From a dark deepwater horizon Who have unleashed most foul destruction Upon far Canada's aged forests, Clawing out the lungs of our sickening earth Who even now would bespoil the high, white Arctic In desperate search of more black gold To make them ever richer. These savage villains! And yet -- They wear a painted face of bright green leaves, Mask themselves with sunshine. And with fine deceitful words They steal into our theatres, and our minds. They would have us sleep. But this great globe of ours is such stuff as dreams are made on. Most delicate, wondrous, to be nurtured For our children and theirs beyond. Let not BP turn these dreams to nightmares. Fuelling the Future? Thou liest malignant thing! Do we sleep? I find not myself disposed to sleep. Let us break their staff that would bewitch us! Out damned logo! http://bp-or-not-bp.org @ReclaimOurBard Facebook: BP or not BP?

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