The thing about putting on a Shakespeare play is that you have to set it somewhere.\n
So, in my positivist way, shall I do a breakdown? Yes, I shall.\n
Shakespeare in tights<\/strong>: This is in some ways the first thing that people think about, when they think about Shakespeare on stage. The cast dress in something approximating Elizabethan style, or what Shakespeare’s colleagues would have worn on stage. The setting approximates an Elizabethan theater setting, adapted to the physical layout of the theater. Drawbacks<\/i>: comes with a sign marked Warning: Shakespeare is Dull<\/i>. Relegates the actions to long ago, when things were different. Advantages<\/i>: Audiences are expecting it, usually, and aren’t confused or distracted by it. Also, it’s what Shakespeare had in mind, so there is rarely any need to modify the text or otherwise put effort into making the setting work. Personal Taste<\/i>: We hates it.\n Historical Accuracy<\/strong>: That is, setting the production when the story itself is set, whether that is Ancient Greece or Medieval Italy or Imperial Woam or Scotland’s Dark Ages or Fairly Recent England. The idea is that the modern, clever, analytical dramaturg can bring out things in the setting that Shakespeare could not in his day, not having Wikipedia. Drawbacks<\/i>: Togas. Also, Shakespeare is the total king of anachronisms, so you have to do some fancy footwork. And in the case of R3, it would be difficult for a Production Team to make it clear that this was not, in fact, Elizabethan, but a few generations earlier. Advantages<\/i>: Well, it does have a sort of literal consistency. And some of the settings are pretty cool. Personal Taste<\/i>: I’ve never seen it work really well. But then, I don’t particularly like Julius Caesar<\/i>, which is the one that gets that treatment.\n Modern Dress<\/strong>: Actors wearing the same clothes as the audience, pretty much. Advantages<\/i>: It’s cheap and easy. And you can indicate quite subtle differences in class, regional background, ethnicity, climate, affluence, rank and occupation in ways the audience can pick up on. Disadvantages<\/i>: No sensawonda. Difficult to explain references to horses, heralds and hogsheads. Throws the non-naturalism of Shakespearean language into sharp relief, as well as the archaisms. Personal Taste<\/i> Fine. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages for me.\n Brilliant Idea<\/strong>: There is a time and place (possibly imaginary) that totally works on a bunch of levels. It casts new light on the play as well as on its setting, and also on our own situation. Not only does the main setting work, but all the other places fit as well, and the class\/race\/wealth\/culture\/religious differences between the characters translate beautifully. Advantages<\/i>: Wonderful, wonderful show, talked about forever. Disadvantages<\/i>: Largely mythical. No, but extremely rare. The Fascist Julius Caesar<\/i>, maybe the Voodoo Macbeth<\/i>, the Fascist Richard III<\/i>, perhaps the white box Midsummer<\/I>. Alas, most ideas are not brilliant. Personal Taste<\/i>: A wonderful, wonderful thing. When it happens.\n Something to do<\/strong>: Something that looks good, at least part of the time. Coriolanus<\/i> in Imperial Japan. Titus<\/i> with tanks. The Comedy of Errors<\/i> in Postwar Italy. Twelfth Night<\/i> in the Wild West. Advantages<\/i>: A couple of cool effects, some awesome costumes. Perhaps some cool music in between scenes. Doesn’t actually have to be consistent throughout the show; if you want to have the Capulets in kimonos and the Montagues in muumuus, heck, go for it. Disadvantages<\/i>: Not making consistent sense. Can be distracting, when the audience is wondering why these dogfaces don’t have a radio, or why this importer doesn’t go to a different insurance house, or why that guy is wearing that thing on his head. Personal Preference<\/i>: Actually, I like this sort of thing a lot. Oh, sure, I spend the intermission and half-an-hour afterward complaining about it (OK, half-an-hour a day for a week), but that’s part of the fun.\n If I were to rank my preferences, I would say top would be the Brilliant Idea, of course, but second would be Something to Do, ahead of the other three. So as much as I am complaining and will complain about the whole Punk R3 business, and as much as I still don’t really get the point of it, the truth is that I’m just glad we’re doing the play, and I’m happy for the bits where the punk thing will work, and will live just fine with the bits where it won’t.\n Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>, In Which Your Humble Blogger should probably have said explicitly that the show itself can be either good or bad almost entirely independent of the design concept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theeyater"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19010,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12800\/revisions\/19010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
-Vardibidian.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"