NPR: This season, New York audiences have seen wildly different interpretations of Shakespeare plays. They've seen the Romeo of Orlando Bloom make his first entrance on a motorcycle; they've seen a production of Julius Caesar set in a women's prison.
Now the London-based company from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre has landed on Broadway with what seems like the most radical concept of them all: plays staged in a style Shakespeare would've recognized, with all-male casts, period costumes and live music.
12 comments:
It's funny that people think it's radical to do Shakespeare the way it was written but would cause an uproar if You Can't Take It With You was staged any way other than how it was written. Yes Shakespeare allows for new and inventive interpretations but what is wrong with doing it how it was written? Do you really gain anything by setting Shakespeare on the Moon? Yes the gender confusion was a law back when Shakespeare was writing but it was a convention that he embraced fully and exploited, so why are we not embracing and exploiting this tool? I'd like to see more shows to be structured this way.
This is great, for several reasons.
First of all, I think that history is neat, and historically accurate things are awesome. Going to this show would seem like a half-way point between conventional theater and a medieval recreation at a museum or something, and I would absolutely love to experience it, purely for its historical value.
The second reason, of course, is that I'm tired of Shakespeare being re-invented in modern times and places(as most of us are). The argument often seems to be that audiences can't relate to events set in the middle ages. Uh, wrong. Sure, I can't quite understand what it's like to be a knight, but that's not what Shakespeare's plays are about. They're about people living life, and that's something that I can definitely relate to on a pretty basic level. If a play is good, it doesn't need its setting to be completely changed for the sake of relevance. The only thing that I think can be confusing to certain audiences in those plays is the language, and throwing a leather jacket on the actor delivering the lines really won't enhance comprehension of a way of speaking that most of us are unfamiliar with. And on a more personal note, I don't relate to Romeo and Juliette when it's set in the inner city between two rival gangs in modern times any more than I do when it's set in Verona, several hundred years ago.
So, the point is, yay Globe Theater. I have nothing against re-inventing old classics, but it's now way overdone and it's nice to see some change. You can always count on the British to bring some good old tradition back into our world of moon Othello's and other heresies.
I would love to see this company perform these two shows for several reasons:
1. London always seems to bring over some pretty awesome productions.
2. I have never seen Shakespeare presented as a full production in a historically accurate way. I am very interested in seeing an all male cast performing as they would have in the time these were written.
3. I think it is interesting that this show hasn't been presented in this style on Broadway in a long time. Yes, providing the roles for woman actresses is great, but seeing an all male cast do this would be something that I think would be truly outstanding.
This is funny because I just recently read an article in "The Onion" titled "Unconventional Director Sets Shakespeare Play In Time, Place Shakespeare Intended." (http://www.theonion.com/articles/unconventional-director-sets-shakespeare-play-in-t,2214/ ) The article poked fun at the entire concept that it has become so normal to change the setting of Shakespearean plays that placing them in the time they were originally set has become radical. It's really interesting that this way of producing a show actually seems to use a lot of techniques that are being explored in modern experimental theatre- for example, being able to see the audience, live music, unconventional gender casting, and minimalist sets. This whole concept is so interesting- I love that it really adds to the plays Shakespeare wrote where the girl dresses up as a guy (but now the actor is a male to begin with!)
I would be thrilled to go see this production I have always wanted to go see a historical production of shakespeare but have never gotten a chance. The idea of this shouldn't seem like a radical idea however, as they explained shakespeare has turned into an idea playwright, compared to a story playwright. We often seen shakespeare's plays being done cause it has this or that theme, which can be turned into this or that way set this or that, time and place. Many contemporary shows don't have that it is hard to go see a Shaw play without it being set when the play asks it to be. So by bring this play back to the way it was written although it doesn't seem that radical our understanding of Shakespeare makes it radical.
Like Sarah, I also read the article in the Onion about setting Shakespeare in its proper time and place being unheard of. It's funny to think that seeing a period appropriate, all male cast of the twelfth night is more foreign to us than a post apocalyptic, graphic novel staging of Romeo and Julie (and yes that really was one directors concept for the show). But because Shakespeare has become such a classic, staging his plays in the time and place noted in the script compared to staging them in the style of shakespeare's time or in some other world a director comes up with makes no big difference. Yes there are some ways of telling the story that work better than others, however, I don't think we should pigeonhole in to one way of telling a story just because that is how it was originally done. That said, I would love to see this production, their focus on the aural aspects of the play rather than the visual ones is quite interesting.
After reading this article, I have to agree. There was a reason that Shakespeare was so popular even in his own time. It's a shame that nowadays we don't pay homage to the entire theatrical production of a 1600's Shakespeare play. As people stretch the classics to new bounds, maybe we should think about taking a step back and setting the play back to when it was first written. There's a lot to be said about that. I've also read the article that Sarah is referring to, and enjoyed that as well. I think that taking the "usual" way here (doing Shakespeare as intended) is actually the unusual way... That's interesting to think about.
This sounds absolutely wonderful! Though, inmost situations, I would say that a cast should not be solely male if the characters are not only male. However, as a way of examining Shakespearian text, I think it is a really fascinating idea. The musicians sound like the best thing ever. I love music played on lutes and other instruments of the time. Though I prefer for the characters to stay separate from the audience, I do think, because it is so rarely done, that it would at least be an experience worth having.
I think its interesting what this company is trying to do by bringing back the historical performance type for shakespeare. That being said, i think its just that- historical. I can see a high school going on a class trip there or a scholar going to see it, but in the current world of american theatre, I dont think this will be very successful. For a modern audience i think you need to make it new and exciting, and more than anything, approachable. Its so easy for a mainstream audience to get bogged down in the word of shakespeare, that they lose the meaning. I think stunning exciting visual productions are a way to counter this.
Doing something the way it was intended to be done. Such a shocking thing to do. I don't really see why this is such a big deal. People doing things traditionally really isn't in my opinion super compelling anymore. Yes tradition and the classics, the British cannon, whatever it all means something and is rooted in being valuable to the development of art and theatre. However adaptions aren't something to be bored of. And if you really think about it, it's all a bunch of interpretation anyways. This company is performing Shakespeare the way we think and researched it to historically be. I still going to lack the original authenticity to it. So while I can appreciate the attention and appraisal to tradition and the classics, we should all still be I equally interested in the fresh and new.
I enjoy seeing all kinds of Shakespeare, traditional, reinvented, I'd even see it in space, it's just my cup of tea. I don't understand why it's become this war of traditionalists vs. iconoclasts. I'd argue that Shakespeare staged it the way he did because those were the conventions and resources he had available to him at the time. He sometimes wrote about things that took place hundreds of years before him but staged it in Elizabethan garb because that was what was available. It's disingenuous to say that someone wants to see his plays set within its own time without realizing that Shakespeare himself did not accurately portray history as it occurred. I'm excited to hear more about the production as a an examination of Shakespeare as he would have staged it, but I disagree that a production staged "non-traditionally" can't have the same impact.
This is so amazing. I think that it would be really great to view a play in the way the playwright intended it, especially in an era where everyone is obsessed with new and inventive ways of reviving shows. The idea is also interesting specifically in Shakespeare's case because his plays were done with all men. Of course that was the law when he was writing, but since we always imagine his female characters as being played by women, it would definitely be an interesting experience for an audience member.
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