So I went to have my eyes checked this afternoon (verdict? I still can't see worth a crap without my glasses, and I may need BI-focals in the next few years!!! Hoo-ray!) and lucky me, not only did I have to endure that god-awful blinding light test, BUT I got an eye DR TRAINEE to give it a go as well (she wasn't very good). I've spent most of the day in a weird, dialated haze...yeah, it sucks to get old! But, it's better than the alternative.
Anyhoo, some intersting confab on Bo's YAHOO board about Shakespeare for the past few weeks, including a mention of a new Patrick Stewart / Sir Ian McEllen version of Merchant set in Vegas, baby!!!! (The geek inside is wetting himself as we speak- Professor X and Magneto go NUTS on the strip!!!! "Verily I sayeth, what happenth in yon Vegas, dost stayeth therein!!!") Got me to thinking- people LOVE to monkey with Willie when it comes to setting/time/era...what's the best example of this? What's the worst? You can go with Theatre or Film...GO NUTS!
5 big points for the song reference...a chance for someone to catch up or run away with it!
I'll post scores next time- too lazy to do it tonight!
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22 comments:
springsteen, either blinded by the light, or, spirits in the night, or possibly rosalita. anyhoo, titus was an interesting experiment on billy shake's play. taymor's version I mean. mckellon's dick three, pretty solid. (no pun intended!) the worst? kline's midsummer or branagh's as you like it. If I think about it, i could probably come up with older, worse interpretations. ooh ooh, riggs as hamlet!!! whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take a gun and blow their f*&^%n' heads off. now thats art!!
definitly blinded, from greetings.
While I'm not against "concept" Shakespeare, I've seen several instances where the concept was shoehorned onto the play and the play was made to serve the concept rather than the concept serving and illuminating the play.
Personally I don't think it's necessary to monkey with Shakespeare to "make it relevant for today's audience." It is already relevant.
However, I also think most Shakespeare can be cut. While there was much I admired in Branagh's uncut HAMLET, it is a good argument as to why Billy can always use some judicious whittling.
I think the most effective and successful altering of Shakespeare I've seen on stage has been Trevor Nunn's swan song at the National a couple of years ago: a World War I era LOVE'S LABOUR LOST which starred Joseph Fienne as a fine Berowne. It was a simply transcendant production.
McKellen's Fascist RICHARD III which I saw at UCLA was also compelling (I haven't seen the film). I saw a lovely production of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING set in the 20's; 30's with a charismatic Douglas Sills as Benedick.
On film (or in this case "electronovision"), I found Richard Burton's rehearsal clothes HAMLET perhaps one of the clearest versions for verse-speaking. Probably has something to do with John Gielgud's direction.
A few years ago, there was a televised version of MERCHANT OF VENICE set somewhere in first half of the nineteenth century, I believe. It was a National Theatre production, directed by Trevor Nunn again. And Henry Goodman played the best Shylock I've ever seen and the play found the proper balance and just seemed to work on all levels for me.
In the late sixties/early seventies there was a televised production of a National MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING with Maggie Smith & Robert Stephens and directed by Zefferelli. It was an 1800's Italianate version and I recall it as stunning. I've been looking for a copy of it ever since I saw it.
Back when Bravo and A&E actually lived up to their mission of giving us Arts programming (before Bravo became the Gay Channel and A&E the retread channel), I perserved on video tape a very engaging comedia-inspired COMEDY OF ERRORS with the Flying Karamazov Brothers with lots of juggling and acrobatics that worked quite well.
And the San Francisco ACT's comedia dell'arte TAMING OF THE SHREW with Mark Singer may be one of the most brilliant Shakespeare productions I've ever seen.
The worst "concept" I've seen on stage was a modern, very Oedipal HAMLET I saw when still in high school at Xavier University.
I saw a rather dreadful Middle Eastern concept TEMPEST at the GLOBE in London...the clowns were rather good, but everything else, not so good. But I think that it may have had more to do with Vanessa Redgrave playing Prospero than the concept itself. Ms. Redgrave is an actress I blow hot and cold on (She was brilliant in a production of THE CHERRY ORCHARD I saw) and she was not good as Prospero and I have a general aversion to trans-gender performances anyway.
There is an all-woman Shakespeare company out here and I once had to reluctantly see their production of Romeo & Juliet because a friend was in it. It lived down to my dubious expectations.
Film-wise, Branagh's LOVE LABOUR'S LOST meets Porter, Gershwin, and Berlin was not a good idea. It is a musical play to begin with and does not need help.
All the wonderful histrionics of Taymor's TITUS ANDRONICUS, while making the film immensely entertaining, cannot disguise the many flaws of this problematic play.
I was once in an exorcist MACBETH out at the Globe of the Great Southwest in Odessa, Texas. Sort of fantasy-style tartans and we levitated Lady MacBeth. It seemed to work okay.
We have a stripped-down Shakespeare company out here that does the plays with minimal and eclectic costumes, props, and scenery, concentrating on the language. The players can be uneven...from terrific to wretched sometimes...but their cut-down versions have often brought out bits of the texts in a way I've never encountered them before and they are always entertaining.
Charles,
Whats the name of that Shakespeare Company? I think we have a friend in that Company, if it's the one I'm thinking of. And thanks for the pot- very insightful.
Incidentally, I totally agree about the ACT/Mark SInger SHREW- it was brilliant! I saw a film version in grad school, and to this day I think it';s the best Shakespeare I've ever seen.
Fletch, you are the man! BLINDED it is...5 big points, and a big lead! btw- I kinda LIKED Mel's HAMLET...mainly cause, as Charles suggested, it was cut much better the Ken's . All that Fortenbras crap ( "OK , everyone's dead? I'M taking over!!!!") to me, is just not necessary to tell the story...I also heard that MLT did a pretty good TEMPEST! :)
Tim, I agree that Fortinbras seems to be an unnecessary appendage to a play that to all intents and purposes is over before he appears, but I think he IS important to the feeling of completeness at the end. HAMLET is, among other things, the story of three sons of murdered fathers. How, and how effectively they respond to their condition is, for me, a major part of the HAMLET experience. Not having Fortinbras at the end leaves me looking at dead failures strewn about the stage. It makes for tough ride home. Cheers, Roger.
Good point...plus we wouldn't have that great Lee Bleesing play without him!
Oh come on...the Fortinbras storyline is interesting, but in the end the play IS called HAMLET....anyhoo, Fortinbras has now officially taken up too much space on my blog...
I saw part of a really interesting twist Jonathon Price did on Hamlet where he was his Dad;s ghost as well- sorta like an EXORCIST bit whenever Dad had dialogue...kinda cool. Not sure who directed that one.
I think one of the main purposes to taking Billy and putting him in a Mod/different setting is to appeal to a younger set- when I showed Baz's ROMEO + JULIET to a group of 8th graders, they were RIVETED! In a more modern context, they could feel that the piece was speaking TO them, as opposed to some old guys in tights and cross gartering. Like it or not, it works...I have a theory that the reason so many civilians think theatre is "boring" is that they were drug to some stodgy, museum piece Shakespeare production when they were 10 and it stayed with them (or something equally as bad- a really looongggg production of LITTLE FOXES almost drove me out of the theatre when I was 13) Sorry, but you can't expect a kid to get behind something like that, it just ain't gonna happen!Which is why we need Theatre specifically aimed AT kids! (btw- LCT here in lex-vegas does a bang up job of this...) but oh well...thats another topiv...
Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival's female Hamlet in 1998 was quite entertaining. Of course, I was on mushrooms when I saw it--a lot of them. But I still liked it after I came down.
The facist Richard III is one of my favorites.
I even liked Ethan Hawke's modern Hamlet. (Well, most of it.)
Still, when they go too far (read Romeo and Juliet directed by that Moulin Rouge freak)it SUCKS. Royally.
Branagh's Love's Labors Lost was one of the worst pieces of shit ever produced. I did like his Henry V, but SHIT, man. What the $#&% were you thinking?
And of course, Olivier's Richard III is the best of all time. I loved how he cut and pasted from Henry VI (part 2, I think?) to flesh out the story for us. Man, that was a good one.
And I thought LSF's King Lear wasn't horrid either. The guy playing Edmund was a prick though.
I couldn't disagree more! Hamlet is about anger, loss and how revenge leads to madness and tragedy...not saying the other stuff isn't there, but these are the things that I believe most audiences latch onto. The other more textbooky/grad school type stuff doesn't play in Peoria, from my POV...
I also liked Baz's R & J...warts and all- and I absolutely LOVE Branagh's HENRY V and MUCH ADO (with the exception of Keanu stinking up the joint everytime he;s on screen)
(and Rick, just so you know- the Textbooky" remark is totally meant to rile you up!!!!heh, heh, heh...)
Benjamin Sisko could kick ALL thier asses!
Kennedy Center- twice in six years- we may not be able to SPELL but we sho' can play!!!!
tim, The stripped-down Shakespeare company is called INDEPENDENT SHAKESPEARE CO. My wife, Julieanne, and I have sort of adopted them as they play in a park quite near our home...very small, intimate venue unlike Lexington Shakespeare. A young husband/wife team run it -- David Melville and Melissa Chalsma. They "focus on language as opposed to a reliance on contemporary theatrical trappings." We unfortunately have missed their gala opening of Hamlet because we were in Lexington at the time, but hopefully, it will be coming to the park soon.
As I say, the productions can be soaring and inventive one moment and then brought down by an unfortunuate actor the next. But sometimes they do something better than I've ever seen it played before...one such moment was Richard III wooing for Elizabeth Woodville's daughter. They got it exactly right, for my money.
It's been a long time since I've seen the Mel Gibson HAMLET, so I have no real opinion one way or the other. I recall liking his Hamlet feigning madness scenes.
Oddly enough, I was asked at one time by Dyson Lovell, Zeferelli's producer, to come on and adapt the screenplay for this film. Though the idea frightened the Hell out of me, I was desperate to do it...just to work with these people and throw myself into that creative fire.
Unfortunately, I was bogged down in doing an adaptation of JAGGED EDGE II at the time and Glenn Close, although she was playing Gertrude, and Tri-star would not give me the time off to go do it. So a missed opportunity. And Jagged Edge II, of course, never saw the light of day.
The best Hamlet I ever saw was actually Daniel Davis, the guy who played the butler in THE NANNY TV show with Fran Drescher. Roger Leasor and I saw him do it at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park when we were in college. The production had its faults, but he was quite dynamic.
I met him a few years back through a mutual friend at our local bistro and had a chance to tell him so. He regaled me with a few tales about the production, but was quite flattered that I remembered his Hamlet. Word Baker (of Fantastiks fame) directed the production.
Though I've not seen it in years, I quite remember liking Polanski's MACBETH. If memory serves, Ross sort of plays both sides against the middle.
I disagree that kids necessarily need a Baz Luhrman re-conceptualization of Shakespeare to get it. And that tights and garters will put them off. Not if the production is good. I remember sitting behind a bunch of 10-12 year olds at a matinee at the Barbican in London of a production of MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. A play I never much cared for and one, you've got to admit, might be a hard slog for school kids. But these kids were rapt, attentive, and quiet. It changed my mind about the play as well. A lovely production.
My problem with Baz's R & J was that I felt absolutely no heat between DeCaprio & Danes. Like Rick, I was fascinated and infuriated by the production. It's interesting to note that when I was in high school, we were all agog over Zefferelli's version of R & J. Done in tights and garters...and us guys all thought Olivia Hussy was one hot mama!
Strangely enough, Branagh's Shakespeare blows hot and cold for me. I love his HENRY V, I quite liked his MUCH ADO for the most part. His HAMLET was interesting and much of it fascinating. LOVE'S LABOUR is an unmitigated disaster.
I also saw a stage production his company, Rennaisance, did at the Taper of LEAR. It was directed by him. Emma played the fool. He miscast himself as Edgar instead of Edmund, and, frankly, it was awful...kind of like watching a bad college production. I was very disappointed. But he definitely commits himself to whatever his approach is...even if it sometimes disastrously wrong.
Rick, I think I could see Two Gentlemen skewing toward a John Hughes' teen comedy. Is there anyone more immature than Proteus? It is Proteus, isn't it? Or is it Valentine? And then, of course, there's the doofus, Launce.
Jan Kott! My old mentor Charles Dickens at UK, used to drill Kott into us! I'm sure I must have a copy of Shakespeare, Our Contemporary around here somewhere.
Lastly, a quote from British director Terry Hands, formerly of the RSC and the National and other such places, about the dangers of re-conceptualizing Shakespeare:
"When I directed "Merry Wives of Windsor", I was convinced it was about hunting...Then I analyzed it, and found that hunting was the third most important imagery. Domesticity was the most important...But at the age of 27, Domesticity was a good deal less attractive to me than hunting. It was a good example of the unconsicous imposition of my state of mind on someone's else's work, which I think is wrong...Basically I don't think of a director as being creative; he's coordinative. I think...directors can be inventive. I don't think actors are creative either; at best they're interpretive. The only really creative person is the playwright...God protect the theatre from "creative directors."
Rick, Oh, go ahead and diss Terry Hands, if you like. He also directed the infamous flop musical, CARRIE, and, despite its phenomenal success, I've never been much of a fan of Les Miserables. But he also directed the original Les Laision Dangerous. Co-directed Nicholas Nickleby. Directed the Jacobi MUCH ADO and CYRANO. The last three I have seen (Cyrano, alas,only on video) and I was mesmerized. I think he also won either an Olivier Award or an Evening Standard Award for directing a production of Tambourlaine with the great Anthony Sher. I give any director props who wants to go head to head with Tambourlaine.
But maybe his star, as all our stars eventually must, has eclipsed or he's on to other things these days. Seems he's been in Wales lately as head of the Clywd Theatr Cymru and is extolling the idea of a National Welsh Theatre... Does that mean theatre in the Welsh language?
tim, the ACT/Singer Shrew is available on tape or DVD through the Broadway Theare Archive website or Kultur video: www.kultur.com
THANK YOU!!! I've been looking for a copy of that forever! (and btw- I LOVE Anthony Sher...His TARTUFFE is another one of my all time favorites, and if you ever get to read THE YEAR OF THE KING by him , do it! It's a great read!
Some good discussion today...lets keep it up;
One thing- in regards to kids needing a Baz Luhrman re-conceptualization of Shakespeare to get it...I agree that they don't NEED it, but I do believe in some cases it helps. I know there are most certainly kids out there MORE than capable of getting Shakespeare (hell some of em probably get it better than I do- after all, I DID only go to grad school in Mississippi)but I do believe that your average kid is a little harder to get too these days than they used to be. It's a different world. I see it in education time and again- this is a "disposable" generation- what I mean by that, is that if something is more than 6 months old its already played out in their minds!But I think if you can find a way to make it MORE relavant to them (of course we know it IS relavant...) then you might be able to hook a few that you otherwise might miss. And to me, that's what it's all about. I had a conversation with a Fight choreographer friend (this was neither Hank nor Armit, for those of you who know them) regarding how to get new faces into the Theatre and his opinion, ultimately, was "If they don't want to be here, F*&K em- I don;t want 'em!" Now you see, to ME, that's a great way to help your Art form die...I say we NEED those people who THINK they don't wanna be there. I've seen it time and time again, with students over the years who go into a show thinking "God help me- I HATE theatre! This is SOOOO boring!" and come out loving it! SO I simply wanna find a way to get those people into the theatre (or into Shakespeare, as the case may be) ...if that means I have to set Romeo And Juliet on the set of 16 CANDLES, then By God, that's what I'm gonna do! I think it's a win/win proposition in the long run..
btw- I, too, was WAY HOT for Olivia Hussy...something about that name...
Tim, I just don't think you have to "betray" or "undermine" the play or dumb it down to lure kids into the theatre (not that any re-conceputalization necessarily does this...though many do). I think the goal of "concept" Shakespeare should be to illuminate the play. You just can't go putting Hamlet on a Pirate ship because kids think Pirates of the Carribean a cool movie! There has to be a reason that serves the play.
Interestingly enough, when Julieanne and I were back teaching at the Shakespeare Institute this summer, Julieanne used a lot of clips from various Shakespeare DVDs in her class...Burton's Hamlet; ACT's Taming, Baz's R & J; Zefferelli's R & J; others...Some that do it traditionally; others that play fast and loose with time and place. I don't know that the kids were anymore intrigued by one than the other.
Oddly enough, in my dramatic writing class, I was doing the same with old movie clips...the favourite that they kept asking to see the rest of was a 1939 B & W movie starring Gary Cooper, BEAU GESTE. So there was a glimmer of hope that everything doesn't have to be couched in the limited range of their generation.
I've seen Sher twice on stage. Once as CYRANO with which I was surprisingly disappointed in...because I find CYRANO such a transcendant play that it is almost impossible to destroy its magic. But his Cyrano I found rather coarse and unpoetic.
However, I saw him in THE ROMAN ACTOR and he was brilliant and dangerous.
I have vague memories of his TARTUFFE and liking it.
-Chuck-
So an occasional vanity search can reveal some interesting things....alas, here I am shamelessly admitting to it, but I found you all!!!! I don't quite get the navigation of this blogging thing...BUT I am new to it all. Ummmmm, I have been in several shaken and stirred versions of Willie's works. A TWELFTH NIGHT set in modern day New Orleans...(even with a bit thrown in where Blanche DuBois made an appearence and then said "sorry wrong play") That was at UK and of course Big Bob Johnson's funky and wacky version of Two Gents at Lex Shakespeare. The prop wall with infaltible prop crayons and rubber snakes...very odd. SO, I think funking it up CAN serve it when done well...Branagh definately proves this. Or like some more local things...it can serve the actors with fun and silliness, but I don't know if it always serves the audience. I'm not going to point things out....I have too many friends I enjoy watching onstage in ANYTHING they do! By the way, I miss you all....not much in the way of theatre here yet...I am working on it. Laurie G. will find a new creative outlet or die trying (perhaps by being eaten by mosquitoes or while in a hurricane or by melting in FL heat!!!!)
Hee hee.....ohh to see all your smiling faces. I miss Lex-vegas and all of u.
Hey Laurie!
Glad to hear from you and hope all is well...come back to the site early and often!
and btw- hope you "enjoy your macaroni, Mother F*&%4r!!!!"
I know I'm taking the low road on this one, but isn't theatre about making something that sticks to the ribs? Is unforgettable to someone out there? Here goes...
John Jory directed a nice Hamlet at ATL a few years ago. It was in a litle arena (the Bingham?) and very anachronistic (non-chronistic) in costume and set. Very minimal in set. Modern clothing mixed with WWII chemical suits, etc. My favorite part? Sitting so close I could see down Ophelia's gown and take a gander at some very nice breasts while she gyrated suggestively.
Sorry. It gets my vote.
On the "travesty" side... a 2001 version of "Mid-Summer's" in which your's truly played Puck. We were mostly drunk and I huffed WD-40 onstage.
Stuck to the ribs.
But Billy Cranks performance was a DEFINITE highlight!!!
Crank's moments of magic were pure serendipitous ignorance. Of course, he could have the wool pulled over on all of us. He might know good and well that his cute little illiteracy act is effective and have been milking it for all it was worth.
Bullshit. Crank was STONED! Stoned I tell you!! I know this. I was in the rotation backstage. ("Puff, puff, give Master Crank. We gotta go onstage, man." ... "Oh, my bad. Heh. Nice makeup job.")
Now, Mike Pafunda... there's a piece of magic from that night. Ne'er a better Bottom played at Boone... except Joy Parks-Carrera's at the end of the Quotebook. But, that's another story altogether.
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