The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0048 Monday, 22 January 2007
[1] From: Anne Cuneo <
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Date: Friday, 19 Jan 2007 21:55:34 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0044 Globe-ness
[2] From: Charles Weinstein <
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Date: Saturday, 20 Jan 2007 08:00:49 -0500
Subj: Globe-ness
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anne Cuneo <
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Date: Friday, 19 Jan 2007 21:55:34 +0100
Subject: 18.0044 Globe-ness
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0044 Globe-ness
I find this thread interesting. I have discussed several times with
Peter McCurdy (one of the architects of the Globe, a specialist of wood
constructions), and I know that they really worked themselves silly
trying to recreate the original conditions. Of course nobody can tell,
but there is one element that hasn't been taken into account up to now
and which I think proves that we cannot be that far from what was:
acoustics.
I must say I had many of the reservations Carol Barton expressed. What
utterly blew me away was going onstage and reciting a few lines. I
spoke in a whisper, and my companion heard every word up under the
thatched roof. And it gave me a feeling - it electrified me. That's when
I understood that whatever the accuracy of the reconstruction was enough
to recreate the feeling. I have supposed ever since that the Globe has
been reconstructed as well as it could. It concentrates energy on the
players in a way that somehow makes them give all.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Charles Weinstein <
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Date: Saturday, 20 Jan 2007 08:00:49 -0500
Subject: Globe-ness
Some of the best Shakespearean productions I have seen were performed in
theaters that did not resemble Shakespeare's Globe in the slightest,
e.g., Trevor Nunn's Macbeth at The Other Place. Conversely, I have seen
Globe-like productions that were dreadful. From which I conclude that
acting, directing, interpretation and other values are much more
important than theatrical configuration, a conclusion supported by the
fact that good productions can tour to many different theaters and be
good in all of them.
Of course some venues are simply inappropriate as theaters. I have seen
Shakespeare performed in a claustral, airless sweatbox whose enormous
pillars blocked sightlines from every vantage; a drafty 18th-century
Meeting House that swallowed the play while the audience squirmed on
rigid, right-angle pews; etc. It is also true that some of the plays
seem better adapted to certain kinds of theaters. From personal
experience I believe that Julius Caesar works better on a proscenium
than a thrust stage; and directors maintain that some of the plays do
not lend themselves readily to the open air. Beyond those concerns,
however, theatrical configuration does not interest me much, and
antiquarian reconstructions like the Bankside Globe do not interest me
at all. I would wish to see a good production in any reasonably
comfortable theater that did not positively hinder the play, and that is
all.
--Charles Weinstein
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