NYTimes.com: There were 4-year-olds and 90-year-olds in the rehearsal room, teachers and taxi drivers and nannies and ushers, laughing and shouting during a sheepshearing scene in “The Winter’s Tale,” a 90-minute musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s late play that will open on Sept. 5 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.
3 comments:
This is a prime example of crafting the execution - not just performance - of a production to the plot. A Winter's Tale is a very chaotic, exuberant, and full tale. The way deBessonet has constructed her cast, and works with them fosters a feeling that is very apt to the telling of the story. In addition, deBessonet's focus on making the production not only appeal to a wide audience, but be accessible to a broad demographic is unique and not often found. The hands-on feel of her work returns to the fundamental ideals of Shakespeare being for the people, not necessarily the critics.
I do like how the only thing people remember about The Winter’s Tale is the sudden “exit, pursued by bear” that appears from nowhere and is never heard from again. I could see The Winter’s Tale taking advantage of the relative strangeness of the play, by making it a musical with two different styles of music for each act, to represent the different genres each act is in. I agree that the best way to get more people into theatre is to make it more accessible to them, to give them characters or situations they can sympathize with.
For a Hawk vs Handsaw project, we were each assigned a Shakespeare play and asked to tell the story of the play in 5 minutes. My group was assigned The Winter's Tale, so I have spent a fair amount of time considering how to best portray this story. That being said, it was extra interesting to read about Lear deBessonet's interpretation. Although her focus seemed to be more on the experience the actors were given, I think Her strange interpretation, including clowns and bright colors, could serve the play well. The main element of "The Winter's Tale" in regards to plot is the fact that it suddenly moves from portraying a tragedy to a comedy. Clowns, being experts at exaggerating the human emotions, seem to be a perfect outlet for this sudden change in mood that the play undertakes.
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