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Well-performed and acted, with additional directorial instructions and desires, the thing can be quite alive, despite the gaggle of St. Trinians-like schoolgirls in the row in front of you. Patrick Stewart as Prospero was quite something and added humour where I'd seen none on a reading. Further, Ariel appeared as a perfectly Dracula-like spirit, complete with echoing voice. If anyone remembers Vivian in The Young Ones, his voice was that yet classic.
There were the usual hilarious moments with Shakespeare. What made me laugh is I'm just about to toddle off to go to a wedding at the Ice Church in Sweden and cope with temps of -9 and there I was watching a play I've seen before (but previously set on a desert island), set in the Arctic with the Aurora Borealis in the skies above.
I might not bother with the Ice Hotel now.
But it gave me tons to think about on the "problem" parts in my 2nd draft. I owe a lot to Shakespeare. How about the rest of you?
Which reminds me, I must check out the Globe programme for this year - we forfeited our tickets last year because it was just too hot to spend 4 hours in the jam-packed standing room.
when i was in school i went to stratford to see the RSC do "the tempest", which i enjoyed immensely. i think i was the only one in my english class who did enjoy it (i didn't even laugh at the man playing ariel, who wore a skin-tight flesh-coloured leotard...)
I adore Shakespeare, I think he wrote more tightly (though still being able to write beautiful long descriptions, how many of us can do that?) than anyone before or since. We all have a lot to learn from him. Damn, even the film 'Shakespeare In Love' makes you want to go and see all the plays.
Genius. That's what he was.
But then I also love the Baz Luhrmann 'Romeo + Juliet' (presumably that's the one you loathe).
My very favourite play is the 'Midsummer Night's Dream', which I've seen in at least five or six different versions, including a wonderful ballet featuring the Mendelsohn music.
I don't decry ANYone's fiction. That's what they want to do.
And I happen to like the way I've experienced Shakespeare interpreted on-stage in the 21st century. Give me another of his plays, at a different theatre with a different cast and director and I might say differently.
But ours are not the only views.
Me, I go nuts over him, despite his historical inaccuracy, which I'm all too aware of, but he was only drawing on sources available to him at the time, plus using what we all have to use sometimes, artistic licence. Historical texts were, I believe, quite vague at the time he was writing (apologies if I'm wrong about this), so he had his own limitations that he couldn't really do much about. And it wasn't meant to be the truth - his plays were written as entertainment, to give the Queen a good night out, as well as the peasants.
Sorry, Dorothy, I know exactly where you're coming from, but as a writer I believe he used the best words possible a hundred per cent of the time, and I will always defend him.
I love Dickens, too. Also helpful read within the historical context but then I live in his area/s.
I agree with somebody above who likes 'Midsummer Night's Dream'the best. Me too. It's also the shortest I think - correct me, Howard. I saw a production of it at Stratford two years ago (midsummer's day, oddly enough). It was so magical. At some point whilst there, I did the backstage tour, which I'd never done before. It was incredible to see how some of the most entrancing effects on stage were actually made from things like newspaper and wire clothes hangers. That's theatre. Which is why I agree with somebody else above who's not too keen on Shakespeare on film. I don't think his plays film at all well. They are stage plays and sublimely blissful ones.
Shakespeare wasn't meant to be read flat off a page, but to be performed, and I agree you miss the jokes. It's such ashame kids are being put off Shakespeare, Austin et al because teachers don't understand them and just don't know how to teach literature.
I was badly let down by teachers at school, but part of me would love to teach English at High School when I finish University. Afterall, it's highly unlikely that I will make enough to live on from writing. The only problem is I would get too involved and do everything I could to help those that struggle as well as setting up a drama group, creative writing group, school newspaper/magazine, reading group, getting A-level students to mentor those that were struggling at GCSE . . .
BUT in a stylistic sense, was WS perhaps the first author of 'faction' as we know it these days - the blending of real and imagined people and real and imagined incidents? In a contemporary context, this is a most magnificent device - The Line of Beauty for instance - but many others besides.
I can fully see your point concerning Shaker's take on history. But it still happens today. Didn't America, according to several film directors, win the war - even win several wars?
Directors, in fact, are part (not all) of the problem between your response to Shakespeare and that of his theatrical fans today.
Too much 'modern dress' and PC correctness when directing him can be counter productive.
In the early 1990s I worked for the British Council in their school in Madrid. I was peeved because the BC had sponsored an RSC tour to Spain, but had not given us tickets which were like gold dust. The day before the first performance the theatres in Madrid went on strike. The BC were in a panic. Ian McKellen, Brian Cox and the rest of them kicking their heels. I invited them to the school to work with our students. Amazingly, they agreed, and we had two incredible days; we cancelled the timetable for two year groups and devoted the time exclusively to workshops with the RSC. It was the experience of a lifetime. You can imagine how much the children (and staff)gained from it. The only negative point was that afterwards they sent us signed posters to say thank you. Someone hijacked them and years later I saw them on the walls of someone else's office.
Dorothy - Hope you feel better tomorrow.
When I left school my present from my parents was the Complete Works of Shakespeare- at my request- and I enjoyed many of the plays.
I did Henry IV Part 1 in college, and Othello.
I would go up to Stratford-Upon-Avon annually, and spend a week seeing the plays.
Saw Alan Howard do Richard III. The Tempest, MacBeth, Much Ado, Midsummers Night Dream, Romeo and Juliet.
And Derek Jacobi's Hamlet at the Aldwych- I'm a great admirer of him.
Neil: A Midsummer-Night's Dream is not a long play, but not necessarily the quickest to perform. Other early plays, such as The Tempest and The Comedy of Errors, are also quite short
I'm glad at least that my thread has brought up some lively comment and memories from you all.
This morning I read an email from TP about her proof-reading. It reminded me that I'd seen the film and play of Macbeth at school. We all trooped off to see Roman Polanski's 1971 version. You can imagine what an audience of 14 year-olds was like: mayhem and completely spellbound silence in turns. I think it was the first time I'd seen teachers beginning to doubt their own choice! Blood oozed from the very screen, it seemed.
Yes, I agree, though, that the plays were intended for theatre and for audience response. Otherwise, why the soliloquoys spoken to the audience? And the audiences are expected, too, to feel a part of the world that Shakespeare, yes, creates.
Just like we do. These days, of course, it is the norm to write a disclaimer at the start of each fiction work, just in case our characters and situations are taken as based on factual people or events.
Shakespeare told stories: yes, maybe the start of faction, but about things that the audiences of the time would relate to and understand. Hence the comedy scenes and plays for the hoi polloi - er, that'll be, uhm, me, then...
There's no doubt that Shakespeare did untold damage to King Richard's reputation. But he was writing to please a usurping Tudor establishment, so it's inevitable that some of his work is heavy with propaganda. On the plus side, there are at least a couple of hundred years of great writers who have been determined to redress the balance. Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Black Arrow" must have been one of the first, and is a real masterclass in how to take the accepted propaganda of the day, and turn it completely on its head. For me it was one of the greatest pieces of 19th century literature. And Richard, in it, is strong, handsome, morally upright, and one of the most charismatic supporting characters ever to grace a Victorian novel.
Back to Shakespeare for a minute, I have to admit that his poetry leaves me cold. As a poet I can admire the craftsmanship of the sonnets - but few of them carry any kind of emotional resonance for me.
We at least know that Shakespeare was writing with a political bias; the general audience of the time would have accepted that as fact, and it becomes 'fact' to those who follow on, however innacurate.
(Not a great deal has changed in that area of culture then!!!!)
There's enough mayhem, murder and destruction in the "real" news. Hmmmpphh. Give me some escapism, someone. Even Meerkat Manor's become a soap-opera but at least it's done well.
As mentioned before, my favourite is Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo + Juliet'. Imaginative, passionate, intense and completely true to the spirit of the play.
Then you get the 'inspired by' works, like the teenage movie '10 Things I Hate About You', an intelligent and entertaining re-working of 'Taming of the Shrew'.
Sorry, folks! Even my children, now aged 17 and 20, realise that there's far more to be had and far greater things to be said. Like their own words/works. Honestly, Shakespeare isn't the be-all and end-all but was a good story guide for those who need it.
I can understand how frustrating it must be for you Dorothy, but taken in context there are some people who thing Coronation Street and Eastenders is real and I am sure that someone probably thinks Midsomer Murders is true (No way am I ever going to live in Midsomer :) ). I think Shakespeare gives us a little insight into little bits of his time in the same way that Coro etc do today.
Considering the view that William Shakespeare wove Royalty and politicians into his productions for "a good story" thus distorting factual events, might Peter Morgan be considered guilty of similar offence?
I am thinking of "The Queen"; a film set, specifically, around "that week" concerning death of Diana the Princess of Wales. The film's makers openly admit that private detail is unknown concerning the royal family or political participation as portrayed in the film script. This would have been much the same situation at time of writing Shakespeare's acclaimed work.
Even if Shakespeare knew the truth, he had to write his plays in a way that would ensure his own survival!