The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.0010  Tuesday, 2 January 2001

From:           Peter Schnierer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Saturday, 30 Dec 2000 22:44:45 +0100 (MET)
Subject: 11.2383 Re: The Revenger's Tragedy
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.2383 Re: The Revenger's Tragedy

I remember a production by drama students at Goldsmiths' College,
London, ca. 1984, and it was one of the funniest shows I have ever seen.
They took their cue from the critical cliche about the farcical nature
of *The Revenger's Tragedy* and played this to the hilt.  For example,
all of the second-rank courtiers who are lugged off to execution in the
course of the play were played by the same distinctive-looking actor. By
the time he was to be beheaded for the third time in as many acts, the
theatre was in uproar.

The other mode the production used was similarly extreme stylization,
with the double mask performed as the mating dance of some alien life
form (that's my metaphorical reading of it). Together with the
slapstick, this worked extremely well, but then they had a special
audience, most of them either theatre professionals, drama students and
literary critics. A few stray spectators left in disgust halfway
through.

A doubleplusgood 2001 to all SHAKSPEReans,

Peter

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