Stage | The Guardian: The news that artistic director Emma Rice will be leaving Shakespeare’s Globe in 2018 after just two seasons – including a critically acclaimed first season that delivered exceptionally strong box-office returns – reveals an organisation that is deeply divided about its purpose, and now has egg on its face.
3 comments:
It's disappointing that the Globe's unwillingness to implement new technical elements has inspired the departure of their artistic director Emma Rice. I understand the Globe's desire to remain more traditional or conservative, even if that makes them a historical reenactment site rather than a theatre, but I think they have a big responsibility to put on Shakespeare's works in the best to their ability. And today, the best way to relay the plots, lessons, and emotions of those pieces to a modern audience is completely different than what would be done in even the recent past. The audience today often needs new and exciting tech elements to remain in the story and new adaptions to come to the theater at all. As the article illustrated, Rice's departure shows a lack of innovation and risk on the part of the Globe, a trend which now will be harder to remedy.
I feel as though this debate is very even-sided. Both sides have a very found argument. The Globe, in its mission, says that it wants to maintain the integrity of Shakespeare's work. I can understand The Globe, as an institution, standing behind this ardently. On the other hand, there is Emma Rice's argument, which is that the theatre should be more adventurous with its work. As a young theatre maker, I lean more towards Emma Rice's side of the argument. Why would we want to see Shakespeare as Shakespeare had done it until the end of time? Isn't one fo the reasons we produce older plays so that we can put our modern societal perspective on top? I am sad to see Emma Rice go, but I am glad she is making this choice for her artistic career. I am interesting to see where her work takes her next.
I can see why perhaps some of the staff at The Globe is upset with Emma Rice. Their mission is to recreate Shakespeare in its most pure and unaltered form, so of course an artistic director who wants to shake things up is going to be problematic. But on the other hand, Emma Rice is not really starting a revolution, she's just bringing The Globe up to speed. You have to sort of imagine, what would Shakespeare do? Given the way that he himself revolutionized theatre and innovated to great extents, I actually believe that Shakespeare would have wanted to see his plays advanced to a modern level of technology. It is not as though Rice is attempting to stage Shakespeare's plays in 1950s America, or outer space. She's simply using basic theatre technology (sound and lights) that have been around for ages. I love the idea of performing Shakespeare's plays only as he'd have produced them, but The Globe is a theatre, not a historical reenactment, and in order to keep modern audiences coming, you really do have to modernize a bit.
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