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Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Books now, play later
Guardian Unlimited: "Intellectually demanding drama is one thing, but plays you can't appreciate without boning up on the background reading are rather missing the point."
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I think the background knowledge required for this show is a bit excessive. Most of the other plays mentioned in the article relied on information that was fairly well-known, moreso than 19th century Russian intellectuals at least. It's not completely absurd to assume that your audience would know something of the subject at hand, but I doubt more than a few theatergoers are significantly educated in this subject.
The point of seeing a play is to get a certain idea across. If people do not have any idea about the background of the idea, then how can they appreciate the play. I find it helpful when a play's program lists some information about the background of the play, that should be basically all of the reading that you need beforehand.
For the Stoppard Trilogy, Coast of Utopia I certainly did not enter the theatre knowing much of anything about Russian intellectuals. But that certainly did not stop me from appreciating it. It definitely sparked my interest and has made it more likely to read a book perhaps by Herzen or any of the other writers. I saw the first two parts on a Saturday over break and definitely enjoyed them both, and I will be seeing the third part over spring break. So while I'm sure if I had prior knowledge of Russian thinkers and ideas I could have appreciated it much more, my lack of knowledge certainly didn't stop me from appreciating it.
(As a side note, The Coast of Utopia did have an insert explaining the background of the play, so that helped as well.)
Now for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead I couldn't imagine reading or seeing the play without having read or at least knowing a decent amount about Hamlet, but then again, most people are more likely to have read that than something by a Russian philosopher.
this reminds me of when Spamalot first came out, one of the main complaints i heard was that a show shouldn't rely on a movie in order to tell a story.
I haven't seen Spamalot, but I feel like Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail is something of a staple in any movie repertoire, so the argument fell a little flat...
4 comments:
I think the background knowledge required for this show is a bit excessive. Most of the other plays mentioned in the article relied on information that was fairly well-known, moreso than 19th century Russian intellectuals at least. It's not completely absurd to assume that your audience would know something of the subject at hand, but I doubt more than a few theatergoers are significantly educated in this subject.
The point of seeing a play is to get a certain idea across. If people do not have any idea about the background of the idea, then how can they appreciate the play. I find it helpful when a play's program lists some information about the background of the play, that should be basically all of the reading that you need beforehand.
For the Stoppard Trilogy, Coast of Utopia I certainly did not enter the theatre knowing much of anything about Russian intellectuals. But that certainly did not stop me from appreciating it. It definitely sparked my interest and has made it more likely to read a book perhaps by Herzen or any of the other writers. I saw the first two parts on a Saturday over break and definitely enjoyed them both, and I will be seeing the third part over spring break. So while I'm sure if I had prior knowledge of Russian thinkers and ideas I could have appreciated it much more, my lack of knowledge certainly didn't stop me from appreciating it.
(As a side note, The Coast of Utopia did have an insert explaining the background of the play, so that helped as well.)
Now for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead I couldn't imagine reading or seeing the play without having read or at least knowing a decent amount about Hamlet, but then again, most people are more likely to have read that than something by a Russian philosopher.
this reminds me of when Spamalot first came out, one of the main complaints i heard was that a show shouldn't rely on a movie in order to tell a story.
I haven't seen Spamalot, but I feel like Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail is something of a staple in any movie repertoire, so the argument fell a little flat...
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