DC Theatre Scene: Remember Eisenstaedt’s iconic victory photo, “The Kiss”? Taken in 1945, a sailor in white cap kisses a girl in white, a nurse, as she bends over backwards like a hairpin. You see the image in a flash as staged by two actors in the midst of Synetic’s frenetic opening scene. It’s a brilliant bit because it places us in a celebratory era– post WWII.
4 comments:
It is more and more rare that I hear about a modern interpretation of a Shakespeare that I actually think is worth seeing, but this is one. I am not sure from the review if there is dialogue in the play or not, but even if there is no spoken word, and it is all done with movement and expression, I think it would still be very interesting to see. The problem with Shakespeare is that there are two ways you can do it, you can do it Shakespearian or you can adapt it to some modernized, or otherwise non-Shakespearian concept, and both of these have been done before, and the later is done so much. Shakespeare is universal in a sense, it is meant to be performed, not read, and when performed well, it really is universally understood the themes are not culture bound, sure the details are rooted in western culture and politics, but that doesn’t stop them from being performed in Urdu in Kazakhstan. This production sounds interesting to watch, and entertaining at the very least.
I think we've officially come to the age of reinterpretations. And although theatre has been doing them for a long time, the reason I say this is because it feels like now more than ever that reinterpretations are produced to make money or just to produce the script, not for a reason, or to tell a different story. I think, at least from my experience, people update works from Shakespeare, because they think that classical, traditional Shakespeare is boring, and I can understand that, but that doesn’t necessarily justify updating the show with bikers. And while this show may have drawn in audiences and been successful, part of me just has no desire to see a show like this. Certain reimaginations of shows work, like “West Side Story” because it had a reason to be produced, but this current production I struggle with.
I agree with Ben—Shakespeare is at a point where reinterpretations are a new, interesting way to put on an old and done-many-times-over show. However, I disagree that this show is simply a spectacle, or a method to make money off of an old show. From the video at the end of the article, it appears that the creators of this show are really just having a good time with an old story. Because it is a popular Shakespeare play and the plot is so well known, they don’t need words—they can have fun with the choreography and design elements instead—to put the play into a new world. Especially as a comedy, this play can go so many different directions, and I think they have chosen a very fun and interesting one. I saw a version of Taming of the Shrew by the Seattle Shakespeare company where the sidekick characters rode in on tricycles through the audience in orange fishnets: it was hilarious and wacky and added a modern twist to the production by playing off the audience’s preconceived notions of our culture.
I’ve heard a few mixed things about the direction that our Much Ado is heading, but that’s nothing compared to this. Over the summer I worked on a production of it, and it’s probably my favorite Shakespeare play. The production was set in the late 19th century, so there were light bulbs on the set, but besides that it still felt old. I don’t think that it’s until you start to bring it into the 20th century that Shakespeare suddenly begins to feel like it’s being modernized. So even though the production I worked on was set about 2 centuries after the original production was set, it didn’t feel like it was that far off from the original. Looking at this production though, which is only about 2.5 centuries after the original, and it seems completely different. It’s interesting how just those 50 years makes a difference. I’ve never actually seen a modernized Shakespeare (besides the movie with Leo), and I’m looking forward to seeing what we do next year. The production that this article about looks like they did a really cool job modernizing it, and what’s great is that the design seems very cohesive.
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