Tuesday, July 10, 2012
No sets, please, for Shakespeare – or anything else
guardian.co.uk: At its best, Shakespearean theatre is a happy marriage between actors and audience. But what if you feel there's a third person around, preventing the course of true love from running smooth?
I don't want to knock stage designers; when they get it right, their work can be genuinely transformative and brilliant. But I don't like it when they jump up and down behind the arras like Polonius in Hamlet, trying to distract my attention from the poor old actors.
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7 comments:
Morrison's call for "no sets, please" is admittedly a very strong one. He has a point -- the scenery of a show should never overpower the show itself -- but that is hardly reason to abolish the system. Certainly some shows would function considerably better with no set at all, but others definitely require something there. The author even admits as much, but to be honest, the argument is only that simple. Sets should not be unnecessarily gaudy or distracting from the show, but neither should they be banished altogether: they should complement the story. If that's not the case, then we should just chalk it up to bad design and move on to the next show.
I don't think anybody will disagree that an overpowering set distracts from the show and hinders the performance as a whole. However, I think that the opinion of this author swings a little too much to one extreme. I don't think there is ever a singular correct approach or design for a show, which is partially why I enjoy theatre so much. To say that all Shakespearean theatre should not have a set, or an extremely minimal one, is a little too bold and defined a statement for my taste. Why isn't too little just as bad as too much?
Although I agree that bad stage design can detract from a play, I very strongly disagree with everything else that this article is saying. I feel like if the design is good, it is always reinforcing the director’s concept and helping to tell the story of the play. I think the author of this article is making extreme overgeneralizations. I also don’t like the fact that the author is making it seem like the actors are all being personally victimized by designers, when this is not the case. I view design for the stage as a critical element in the storytelling and overall entertainment process. I especially feel this way about Shakespeare. For an audience who has never seen a Shakespeare play before, the design can be just as important as the dialogue to help convey the story, especially since the language is more difficult than modern English. Some of the best plays I’ve ever seen are Shakespeare, such as CMU’s Midsummer, however if not designed well, Shakespeare can be insufferable and the audience can get completely lost in the dialogue without actually being able to discern what is going on. Also, I know that many theatre people don’t like to think about the business of theatre, but very simply, tech sells. The highest grossing shows on Broadway from this past week are Wicked, The Lion King, and Spiderman. These are three shows that utilize tech to the extreme, and it pays off when they are trying to sell seats. Even Spiderman, which is a terrible show, is the 3rd highest grossing because people are coming for the tech. To summarize, I think when looking at Shakespeare, or really any play for that matter, in an English class, actors are sufficient, but as soon as you are performing the show or trying to entertain an audience, you need to have tech and design, or its just not going to be very good.
Morrison has a great argument in this article, but I think what he says applies to a much broader perspective. Shakespeare provides some of the most open directions, set design wise (followed by the Greek classics), so the tendency is to attach a concept that may not be what the average reader visualizes and design accordingly. This can, as he writes, get a little crazy. What Morrison doesn't include in this piece is how too much design can ruin any piece. That being said, the author's grand statement of "less is more" is even counteracted by his own article. He denounces every kind of big set for Shakespeare, and praises all of the small ones, oh except for the larger, out there ones he compliments later in the article. There is no one right answer in design, less CAN be more, and more can look bad, but sometimes the opposite is true, and he needs to account for that.
Though I do believe that all plays should be able to be produced with no sets or reinforcement of any kind, there is a major flaw in Morrison's call for no sets. That flaw is that most people don't want to see just actors. People who are just not competent enough to grasp the imagery portrayed in Shakespeare's words, sad though it may be, are very common, which means the efforts of the director and actors are wasted. This is why we have sets and other reinforcements, to appeal to the masses, where as Morrison is calling for a specific crowd. Shows like Spiderman have taken the technical aspect to the max, and let the story drift away. That is why I think there should be balance, a good story with a good set is a great combination, that works for most people, including myself.
I completely disagree with this article. In my experience with Shakespeare plays, the set is one of the best components that helps to convey the plot of the story. One of my favorite performances that I have ever seen was one of Hamlet. It was a modernized version, and the set was absolutely stunning. When Laertes retold of how Ophelia drowned herself, the actress reenacted it to the side. Because the floor was painted a glowing aqua color, the trap door in which she stood made it appear as if she were sinking into the river. How the characters interacted with the scenery made it all the more interesting to watch. Therefore, I disagree greatly with the content of this article because it plays so much into the telling of the story.
It is interesting to see that my high school theater was not the only house to put on a Shakespeare without a set. Personally, this would never be my choice. Less, in some cases,may be more, but nothing is NOTHING. This author is very extreme and takes large leaps over the grey area in the middle of an empty space and a glittery and lit piece of extravagant and fabulous art like the scenery of Priscilla Queen of the Desert.
I also think that the author contradicts himself quite a lot. The option of having no physical set is in fact a set design and is one that is memorable. If all or even just many shows are perform with no set, they will eventually become people sitting in an empty room listening to some people talk about stuff, and that would be a sad downturn of the wonderful theatrical world of the 21st century.
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