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LA Times: From the merest suggestion in Shakespeare's "Othello" that Desdemona may have had an African maid as a girl, Toni Morrison imagines hidden dimensions in the mind and heart of the Senator's daughter who shocked Venice by marrying a Moor.
Shakespeare altered is Shakespeare celebrated, in my opinion. Shows, as described in this article, are incredibly exciting to me when they experiment with Shakespeare, and own the issues with his work from a modern context. Too often we defend brilliant work with aggression, while failing to acknowledge that there are many aspects with it that do not support the changes that we are hoping to see in our world. Therefore, I sincerely wish that we could see and hear about more productions doing revisionist-based work with classical texts. Not only does this help to rethink and push the boundaries of the theatre that we are taught, but it also works to place our work in a historical context and conversation with preconceived notions in a way that other types of work cannot.
The one aspect of this review that saddened me was that the language itself was the thing that fell flat in the production. I, as a director, intend to approach some of Shakespeare's work in this way with my own work, but I acknowledge that part of the reason that Shakespeare is the subject of the work, is that we must maintain his language and its functions in theatre. Therefore, in the future as I seek to work with Shakespeare in this manner, I will take the emphasis on language into account.
I’m in love with this show. The simplicity of the tale, made deep by the way that it is told. It does can be hard to make dream like shows related closely enough to reality to hold on to the audience’s attention. The gentle way the writer has brought in an outside vocalist to progress the show through music and bridge the gap between disjointed and disorder scenes. Theater is the art of storytelling, but this is more than just creative story telling. As with most plays that fill in the blanks of a not necessarily lead character, the writer has more freedom to create and it can be hard to not go overboard with elaborate details of a life that the character simply did not live. Toni Morrison has instead kept to the barest details of Desponda’s life and allowed the actor to bring her own perspective to the piece. The success of this show relies heavily on the relationships of the characters and as such I’m sure the women of this piece rely on each other to move the play forward each performance.
This is a cool idea, I like to see how people spin off of Shakespeare’s work because there has been SO MANY interpretations and spin offs that when people come up with original ideas that are actually produced it is impressive. I wonder how the musical elements work (well or not) with this journey of life and death of this woman. It is weird that the show is presented as more of a spiritual ritual. To me that sounds gimmicky. A sort of ‘mock séance’ sounds stupid and seriously overdone. I also do not know how I feel about all the women wearing white. That is such a statement about the show, it is almost…obvious, as in too obvious which is disappointing. Also the script for this show sounds corny, not poetic as Shakespeare’ words are. As I said, this seems like a cool show, but there seem to be already a few things that bother me.
I think it is always interesting to see the different interpretations that come with Shakespeare. How different groups can do the same show like Othello but each interpretation is drastically different and unique. That is what I love about Shakespeare and how mold-able it is. There are bad interpretations, weird ones and breathtaking ones and they all still use the same text but just in their own way. Especially with Othello and really focusing on Desdemona and her story is a unique look at that show. Everyone thinks that Othello is the focus of the show because it is named after him but yet there is this beautiful, possibly innocent in certain interpretations, woman who loves this man wholeheartedly and dies by his hands. The whole deception and manipulation by Iago is centered around Desdemona. That is the driving force, a woman’s love. So I applaud this group for making a different choice with the whole show.
4 comments:
Shakespeare altered is Shakespeare celebrated, in my opinion. Shows, as described in this article, are incredibly exciting to me when they experiment with Shakespeare, and own the issues with his work from a modern context. Too often we defend brilliant work with aggression, while failing to acknowledge that there are many aspects with it that do not support the changes that we are hoping to see in our world. Therefore, I sincerely wish that we could see and hear about more productions doing revisionist-based work with classical texts. Not only does this help to rethink and push the boundaries of the theatre that we are taught, but it also works to place our work in a historical context and conversation with preconceived notions in a way that other types of work cannot.
The one aspect of this review that saddened me was that the language itself was the thing that fell flat in the production. I, as a director, intend to approach some of Shakespeare's work in this way with my own work, but I acknowledge that part of the reason that Shakespeare is the subject of the work, is that we must maintain his language and its functions in theatre. Therefore, in the future as I seek to work with Shakespeare in this manner, I will take the emphasis on language into account.
I’m in love with this show. The simplicity of the tale, made deep by the way that it is told. It does can be hard to make dream like shows related closely enough to reality to hold on to the audience’s attention. The gentle way the writer has brought in an outside vocalist to progress the show through music and bridge the gap between disjointed and disorder scenes. Theater is the art of storytelling, but this is more than just creative story telling. As with most plays that fill in the blanks of a not necessarily lead character, the writer has more freedom to create and it can be hard to not go overboard with elaborate details of a life that the character simply did not live. Toni Morrison has instead kept to the barest details of Desponda’s life and allowed the actor to bring her own perspective to the piece. The success of this show relies heavily on the relationships of the characters and as such I’m sure the women of this piece rely on each other to move the play forward each performance.
This is a cool idea, I like to see how people spin off of Shakespeare’s work because there has been SO MANY interpretations and spin offs that when people come up with original ideas that are actually produced it is impressive. I wonder how the musical elements work (well or not) with this journey of life and death of this woman. It is weird that the show is presented as more of a spiritual ritual. To me that sounds gimmicky. A sort of ‘mock séance’ sounds stupid and seriously overdone. I also do not know how I feel about all the women wearing white. That is such a statement about the show, it is almost…obvious, as in too obvious which is disappointing. Also the script for this show sounds corny, not poetic as Shakespeare’ words are. As I said, this seems like a cool show, but there seem to be already a few things that bother me.
I think it is always interesting to see the different interpretations that come with Shakespeare. How different groups can do the same show like Othello but each interpretation is drastically different and unique. That is what I love about Shakespeare and how mold-able it is. There are bad interpretations, weird ones and breathtaking ones and they all still use the same text but just in their own way. Especially with Othello and really focusing on Desdemona and her story is a unique look at that show. Everyone thinks that Othello is the focus of the show because it is named after him but yet there is this beautiful, possibly innocent in certain interpretations, woman who loves this man wholeheartedly and dies by his hands. The whole deception and manipulation by Iago is centered around Desdemona. That is the driving force, a woman’s love. So I applaud this group for making a different choice with the whole show.
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