Saturday, November 22, 2008
How much is too much?
I'm struck by the commonality of how much specificificity is called for by the playwright in alot of the last few scripts. Noh, of course, take this to such an amazing extreme the set is no longer up to the author. Beckett goes so far as to allowing only certain conditions in order to be permitted to stage one of those plays. There's a little more room for individual interpretation in Mother Courage as well as Raisin and even Ibsen detail the set to a very specific degree. Do the sets become another character- as with Krapp's tape player? If so, is the play's impact and "message" diminished by reducing the set's detail? I know I said in an earlier response that we can find great liberty in limitations, but I wonder how much is too much from a playwright in this matter...
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2 comments:
As the self-avowed modernist of the class, I don't see these extreme limitations as a problem. I wonder if we as director's and actors focus too much on presenting something new as opposed to rubbing shoulders with greatness by placing our artistic visions under the direct control of the writer
I don't have a problem with the specific requests that some of the playwrights have. They know exactly what they want and know how to achieve what they want the audience to see. The tape player in Krapp should be large and awkward because it makes it that much more fun to watch. And I don't view them as limitations, but more as a challenge to the actors to do with what is given to you.
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