The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0646 Thursday, 13 November 2008
From: Brian Willis <
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Date: Monday, 10 Nov 2008 14:30:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: 19.0631 Stratford Festival Stage
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0631 Stratford Festival Stage
Why do so many supporters of the theatre react so vehemently against change? The
same outcry was part of the response to the RSC's changes in Stratford, UK (and
I specifically mean the physical changes to the auditorium, not the
restructuring of the company that was so mishandled by Adrian Noble's
administration). Any theatre historian will acknowledge that such criticisms and
resistance to innovation has accompanied any practitioner who has dared to
experiment and alter theatre (both the art form and the structure).
Such reactions continue to support the assertion that 'the theatre' (audience,
critics, and most practitioners) is an essentially conservative creature,
despite the many innovations that react against the accepted forms of its
manifestations. Nowhere is this more apparent than in most productions of
Shakespeare, where tradition and established patterns of playing the text are
reinforced by each subsequent production's reiteration of assumed tropes of
interpretation.
Sometimes, theatre is not the space where it is played, but the ways in which we
use that space to communicate or charge the air with the electrical
currents-signifiers (aural, visual, and physical) -- that make us think and
feel. Spatial proximity can aid those signifiers, but ultimately each company
must make evaluate those decisions for themselves.
Brian Willis
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