July
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0395 Thursday, 23 July 2009 From: Julie Sutherland <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 22 Jul 2009 11:01:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 20.0391 Updating Shakespeare's Plays Comment: Re: SHK 20.0391 Updating Shakespeare's Plays >I applaud Eric Johnson deBaufre's bold stand for traditional staging. >And like him, I deplore the radical postmodern tendencies of Sir >William Davenant and of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. I absolutely agree that there have been some abominable 'updatings' of Shakespeare, and equally abominable performances by women in Shakespeare. The worst productions I have seen, however, have been 'true' to the text and context (acknowledging our limited understanding of that context, unless we want to challenge the inerrancy of Hamlet in *Hamlet*, but we all know where believing in the inerrancy of anything gets us). There have been, in my opinion, some notable Canadian productions of Shakespeare in which women have played men's roles. Most notably -- and I leave it at two because, to be true and contextual to Shakespeare, I understand that brevity is the soul of wit (am I permitted to write that? It is, after all, uttered by Polonius. Perhaps I should relegate myself to women's lines.) -- I would like to flag up *la tempete* (now of course this is a translation - perhaps those are abominations, too?) by Theatre Experimental des Femmes (1988, dir. Alice Ronfard) which was met with critical acclaim and which featured all women. I would also like to highlight Necessary Angel's *King Lear* (1995, dir. Richard Rose) with Janet Wright in the role of King Lear. Of course responses to both plays were mixed (there will always be purists in the audience), but overall these were critically acclaimed and have been noted in the annals of Canadian theatre as worthy productions. Very briefly, in defense of updating, I only suggest that it falls into the philosophy of art that considers such things as the colourisation of film. Some like it; some hate it - but the truth as far as I know it remains that more people see classics as a result (I add here that I don't prefer seeing colourised versions of black and white films). The biggest defense, in my mind, against the colourisation of film is that it destroys the artist's original intention. If anyone can tell me what Shakespeare's original intention was -- beyond a shadow of a doubt, and beyond ensuring people saw his shows -- I will never again applaud an updated production of the Bard. Respectfully submitted (though I know there is some tone, and for that I apologise), Julie Sutherland _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0394 Thursday, 23 July 2009 From: John Chapot <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 22 Jul 2009 13:50:59 -0700 Subject: WS View of Vienna for M4M My wife has just completed costuming a new production of _Measure for Measure_ for the reinvigorated Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival. While reading the play, I found myself wondering what moved the playwright to locate the action in Vienna. The play doesn't appear to have any location-specific details. To me, it amounts to Elizabethan London. I wonder what was the Elizabethan concept of this distant Catholic city at the edge of the Ottoman Empire? Or did W.S. use it because it was terra incognita? John Chapot San Francisco _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0393 Wednesday, 22 July 2009 From: Jack Heller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 21 Jul 2009 16:25:18 -0400 Subject: 20.0384 When Researching in London Comment: Re: SHK 20.0384 When Researching in London Colleagues: Replies to my previous inquiries have been helpful. I hope that I ask further questions about doing research in London and England, answer in a public forum such as this might prove helpful to others as well. I have two further questions for now: At $120 per day at Endsleigh, I may want to reduce the cost by sharing a flat. Is there some sort of way that researchers use to find each other and therefore make arrangements to share flats? And would the major university, Oxford and Cambridge, have rooms available for visiting scholars? Thanks again for the help so far, and for indulging these questions. Jack Heller _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0392 Wednesday, 22 July 2009 From: David Basch <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 20 Jul 2009 22:37:24 -0400 Subject: 20.0371 SBReview_4: Margreta de Grazia's _Hamlet Comment: Re: SHK 20.0371 SBReview_4: Margreta de Grazia's _Hamlet without Hamlet_ Reading the review on Margreta de Grazia's book, HAMLET WITHOUT HAMLET, off the top of head, I agree with her assertions as reported by reviewer David Richman about the unwise, obsessive psychologizing of Hamlet that goes on in terms of modern psychological concepts -- Oedipus complexes, phallic deprivation and other such psycho-babble. The idea that persons can be disturbed is ancient and there are ancient treatises about such disturbances that probe what it is that makes men mad or that saddles them with self-destructive traits like arrogance and blindness to reality. When plays are over written with such fashionable concepts that are more about the critic than about the play, we fail to honor these early dramatists and writers that had deep insight on human behavior. What is confusing in the play, HAMLET, is that Hamlet comes off as dynamic, clever, brilliant, moral, and idealistic, so much so that audiences can scarcely notice that he lacks a healthy balance that brings these traits into harmony. Although Horatio in the play serves as a model to contrast what Hamlet lacks, Horatio's outsider role and penurious condition in Denmark lead audiences to underrate him, despite the fact that Hamlet presents a glowing praise of the virtues of his friend. I was instructed by Ms. de Grazia's focus on the battle for national turf within the play that reaches down even to the microcosm of Hamlet's struggle with Laertes for the very "dirt" within Ophelia's grave. Hamlet reveals how strong is his desire for his throne in his remark to his two college friends: "While the grass grows, [the horse starves]." The grass growing under a Hamlet, starved to posses his throne, he is not satisfied with waiting for Claudius to die and pass it on to him but cannot see an honorable way out of how things have developed. The coming of the ghost changes all that and puts Hamlet into fierce contention for justice and his throne in the events of the play. The irony is that, even as Hamlet achieves his throne, he must moments later pass it on to another, the "unimproved" Fortinbras, and, in the words of Ecclesiastes, "who knows whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun." It had been a vain pursuit. The struggle for the throne having been bloody and in the end futile and undertaken, sadly, at the personal sacrifice of loving relations and loved ones, the very things that make life worth living. David Richman's splendid review suggest the kind of pithy insights that Ms. de Grazia offers in her book. David Basch _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0391 Wednesday, 22 July 2009 From: Jim Marino <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 17 Jul 2009 11:28:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 20.0387 Updating Shakespeare's Plays Comment: Re: SHK 20.0387 Updating Shakespeare's Plays I applaud Eric Johnson deBaufre's bold stand for traditional staging. And like him, I deplore the radical postmodern tendencies of Sir William Davenant and of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Cheers, Jim Marino _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.