Swordplay and wordplay mingle at Shakespeare Festival

A rapier blow to each arm rendered Siophan McGovern unable to defend herself and ended the bout with Don Seamus Mac Dubhghaill.

The conversation between their thin swords was for honor, chivalry and the Barony of Oldenfeld in the Kingdom of Trimaris – Northwest Florida – as part of the Society of Creative Anachronism which recreates pre-1600s history.

It also kicked off the second day of literature and theater at the Southern Shakespeare Festival at Cascades Park.

When Dubhghaill, one of a half-dozen fencers entertaining the crowd, got involved with SCA in 1995, he instantly fell in love with it.

Having played the medieval role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, there was a large draw to the group, which is focused on recreating aspects of life from that time period.

"This is like real life D&D. I get to fight and I've been doing it ever since," Dubhghaill said. "It's awesome."

From full-armor combat, jousting, sewing, cooking, dancing and music the SCA, an international living history group, studies and learns about the good aspects of the middle ages and tries to recreate them.

"You're around like-minded people," Dubhghaill said. "They love history and they're here for it and the fact that we get to play and do this kind of stuff. There's nothing like it."

The Bardolatry of the Southern Shakespeare festival returned after a 19-year break from the gathering in Tallahassee.

Throughout the rest of Saturday the Renaissance mixed with the groovyness of the 1960s as performers paraded across the stage before the Capital City Amphitheater filled with people to see a production of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" set in 1967 San Francisco.

That merging of culture, literature and the arts also appealed to people who want to be literacy mentors.

Rhonda Cooper, the executive director of the Literacy Volunteers of Leon County, which had a booth at the event, noted the allure that comes with the spirit of language as works of Shakespeare are performed on stage.

"Shakespeare makes something that's all about words, but it comes to life for you," Cooper said. "It's a visual representation of what's going on and ideally that inspires people to go and look at what else he's written."

Shakespeare wrote 37 known plays and 154 sonnets and is arguably one of the most recognizable literary figures in the world.

"He's not famous for nothing," Cooper added.

LVLC links volunteers with those in need of adult literacy, English language improvement, family literacy or help with GED training.

The weekend's gathering shows a vital link between how language was used in the past, how it has changed and how it is being used now, she said.

"Language and literacy, it's a dynamic thing. It's not a static thing throughout history," Cooper said. "The Shakespeare Festival is promoting that idea that there's something for everybody and you don't have to be a reader."