SLITERARY - Inside a virtual replica of the world-famous Globe Theatre, a professional theatre troupe called the SL Shakespeare Company is getting ready to bring the work of the bard to life – Second Life.

Beginning with Hamlet, the SLSC will perform Shakespeare’s plays live on the virtual stage with the help of state-of-the-art technologies: the real life actors will control photorealistic recreations of themselves using real-time motion capture technology.

The company’s virtual centre of operations is a historically accurate, full-size replica of the Globe Theatre. “When people first saw the old SL Globe Theatre, they were awe-inspired enough to ask if things as great as the Bard's plays would be performed there,” explained Visual Director and SLSC founder Ina Centaur.

“Out of the blue, I said, ‘Yes, of course, and a full-length version of Hamlet would be performed LIVE on SL in 2008 - and you'll see something as early as February!’ I say a lot of crazy spur-of-the-moment things, and most of the time I'm just playing along to live up to them!”

However, the prophetic words of Centaur are well on their way to becoming reality. The ambitious plans for the production include dressing actors on the virtual stage in custom-made, historically accurate costumes and skins created by some of Second Life’s most talented designers.

Extras, special effects and staging will meanwhile be controlled by a mixture of artificial intelligence and human interaction, while work is taking place to achieve real-time lip synch.

“On one level, the SLSC is a content test-bed for an array of technologies that would help live performances on SL,” Prospero Lane said. Shakespeare revolutionised theatre in his time and the SLSC hopes to do the same, creating a style of theatre that cannot be achieved in reality.

“Gravity isn’t mandatory on SL,” Centaur said. “Thus, other than for aesthetic reasons, there’s no need for complex systems of pulleys and such for Elizabethan special effects like flying across the stage.”

The weather and atmosphere can be tweaked to perfection and doesn’t rely on chance, while wardrobe and props are unlimited by cost and a virtual audience is able to zoom in and see the actors in close-up.

The most important advantage, of course, is that the audience is potentially unlimited.