Is it fair to still do Shakespeare?
For the longest time I struggled with Shakespeare. I had a difficult time comprehending the language and I would get stuck in the rhythm of it. I can remember reading Romeo and Juliet my freshman year of high school. I remember understanding only the major events of the play and missing important details.
My second experience with Shakespeare was my senior year of high school. I was cast as Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew. I remember feeling overwhelm in rehearsals because I knew so little about Shakespeare. I was able to fly under the radar of my director because Gremio has a clear objective that was easy for me to pursuit. It was only after I had been through two months of rehearsals that I could fully understand the details of the play.
In my undergrad, Shakespeare did not become my friend, however we came to an understanding. I learned his rules in an acting experiment called Unrehearsed Shakespeare. The goal of the experiment was to to exactly what it is called; perform one of his plays completely unrehearsed. We still met like a regular cast for a regular show. However, when we met we met to learn about the rules of the text. Moreover, we learned how let it tell us where to move, who to talk to, how to talk to them and how to keep the story moving. The rules we learned were similar to a lot of the same ones we have been discussing in class.
Elizabethan actors did not have directors like we have today. They also did not have a lot of time to rehearse. These were the exact conditions we were trying to recreate with our experiment.
Now I Pose a question…Is the integrity of the playwright honored when we do Shakespeare now days? The only reason I ask is because I feel like when Shakespeare is done people treat it like it is a blank canvas and the director, producer, or artistic director is the painter. So much so, that the intentions of the playwright are blurred, the language is lost, and there is too much reliance on the spectacle of the theme and not the beauty of the words.
So much of the beauty of Shakespeare is the beauty of the writing. The problem is that the writing doesn’t mean the same thing it used to. More specifically, the language doesn’t have the impact that it was written to have. So when we take and modernize Shakespeare, are we honoring the integrity of the playwright and is it even fair to still do it if we don’t?
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2 comments:
Gary notes a very interesting question that can never be answered. The only person who can answer this complex thought is no longer with us. Most students in this generation look at Shakespeare's language for the first time in complete horror and bewilderment. Even as Gary recoils the events of his encounters, he illustrates the journey in becoming comfortable with the various text. My theory is that directors and educators attempt to put shakespeare's productions in modern settings, times and conventions so that the material is tangible to younger crowds or any crowds in general that dont have the background knowledge of the verse. The playwright in a sense is honored because his material is standing the test of time. I dont know the solution to making the text appealing for students or making it comprehendable. If executed in the right way, these productions can be astounding to watch. Other instances are a complete disaster. As I stated before, the one who could answer cant. We can only speculate whether he is resting peacefully or turning around in the grave.
Gary, I'd love to do an "unrehearsed Shakespeare" project here! It sounds like a great idea to get students to use the language rather than be afraid of it. Your experience is pretty common, I think, so it's good to learn some tools to make it more accessible.
But also, you point out the historical importance of these exercises: there were no directors! Actors learned their parts not from full scripts, but from sides that contained only their own lines and maybe a cue! It gives a sense of how different a practice acting was during Elizabethan times than it is now.
Jackie's point is an essential one: most people question now whether or not we can have any idea what Shakespeare meant. While I think what a living playwright intends is very important, plays always take on a life of their own, as does all writing after it's published. The meaning seems to change depending on who's reading or performing it, or who the audience is. For the purposes of this class, I encourage you to start thinking that way: what did this play seem to communicate to an audience when it was written? What might it communicate differently now? Or is there a way to make an analogy between the play as it was performed in Elizabethan times in a way that says something similar to a contemporary audience? In a sense, actors, directors and designers become translators of Shakespeare rather than puppets for his particular meaning.
But there are definitely still those who think there is a "correct" way to understand any play according to the playwright's intention, even a deceased playwright. This will become really important when we talk about Beckett, too ...
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