The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.0339 Thursday, 16 August 2012
From: David Richman <
Date: August 14, 2012 10:26:30 AM EDT
Subject: Aesthetic and Anesthetic
It is always good to read or listen to what Steve Urkowitz has to say on any subject. I too have devoted myself to emotionally evocative productions of Shakespeare. I wonder about directorial intention: (and yes, I do know about the intentional fallacy). Perhaps the director was deliberately aiming at a Brechtian Macbeth—asking the audience to experience, in a roundabout way, what lack of fellow feeling can do to us all. Or perhaps the director was merely being clever in less efficacious ways.
Perennial problem: How do you shock the audience into experiencing anew a play the audience knows well? We all cudgel our brains on that hard stone.
David Richman