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Sep. 11th, 2010 11:06 pmThis evening we went to see Much Ado About Nothing performed for free in a local park. Michael and I saw some Shakespeare when we used to have season theater tickets (King Lear and the rock opera version of Two Gentlemen of Verona), but I think I was in college the last time I lounged on a picnic blanket to watch a Shakespeare play.
It was a fun performance. Their Benedick was particularly good, and the young woman who played Dogsberry was fun to watch. Claudio's acting didn't stand out, but his looks certainly did: he was gorgeous.
Before the show there was a brief introduction in which members of the company explained the ways in which they try to replicate the original performance style for the plays: dropping the fourth wall to make asides to the audience, contemporary-to-the-production music, minimal sets and props, ambient light rather than lighting effects, doubling roles, crossdressing (women playing male roles rather than vice versa).
There was a playground not far from the theater area, and after we finished dinner Colin spent most of the evening there. Michael and I swapped off so that we'd each get to watch some of the play. Alex, surprisingly, sat through almost the entire play. We prepped her with a comic book retelling so that she'd have some ability to follow the plot, but let's face it - the comedies move fast and don't make a whole lot of sense, and they have a lot of characters to keep track of. She asked a lot of questions. At the end, when the entire cast broke out singing and dancing to the Beatles' "She Loves You" (a surprisingly good match-up), Hero wound up not far from us and Alex ran up to dance with her.
They weren't kidding about the breaking-the-fourth-wall aspect. For the scenes when Beatrice and Benedick are in the arbor, overhearing carefully-staged conversations, the actors moved into the audience and blended into the various picnicking groups. At one point Beatrice ended up hiding under our picnic blanket. (Yes, we had finished eating by that point.) Alex was in heaven.
It's interesting to be in the position of trying to explain the whole phenomenon of Shakespeare to someone who hasn't ever heard the name. It is kind of odd: there are these plays that are more than 400 years old, and even the least literary English-speaker imaginable has heard of the playwright, while pretty much everyone who has been to school has seen at least one of the plays. They are very hard for people to understand, but still they are important enough to us that some people donate money so they can be put on for free in a public park, and random other people drag out their lawn chairs and picnic baskets to listen to long strings of sentences they can barely track. And they enjoy themselves.
I wonder if there will ever be a time in the English-speaking world in which Shakespeare will no longer seem important or worthwhile. The language and culture have already changed so drastically, and yet here we all still collectively are. What kind of change would be necessary for Shakespeare to be discarded, and would anything else from the past survive?
It was a fun performance. Their Benedick was particularly good, and the young woman who played Dogsberry was fun to watch. Claudio's acting didn't stand out, but his looks certainly did: he was gorgeous.
Before the show there was a brief introduction in which members of the company explained the ways in which they try to replicate the original performance style for the plays: dropping the fourth wall to make asides to the audience, contemporary-to-the-production music, minimal sets and props, ambient light rather than lighting effects, doubling roles, crossdressing (women playing male roles rather than vice versa).
There was a playground not far from the theater area, and after we finished dinner Colin spent most of the evening there. Michael and I swapped off so that we'd each get to watch some of the play. Alex, surprisingly, sat through almost the entire play. We prepped her with a comic book retelling so that she'd have some ability to follow the plot, but let's face it - the comedies move fast and don't make a whole lot of sense, and they have a lot of characters to keep track of. She asked a lot of questions. At the end, when the entire cast broke out singing and dancing to the Beatles' "She Loves You" (a surprisingly good match-up), Hero wound up not far from us and Alex ran up to dance with her.
They weren't kidding about the breaking-the-fourth-wall aspect. For the scenes when Beatrice and Benedick are in the arbor, overhearing carefully-staged conversations, the actors moved into the audience and blended into the various picnicking groups. At one point Beatrice ended up hiding under our picnic blanket. (Yes, we had finished eating by that point.) Alex was in heaven.
It's interesting to be in the position of trying to explain the whole phenomenon of Shakespeare to someone who hasn't ever heard the name. It is kind of odd: there are these plays that are more than 400 years old, and even the least literary English-speaker imaginable has heard of the playwright, while pretty much everyone who has been to school has seen at least one of the plays. They are very hard for people to understand, but still they are important enough to us that some people donate money so they can be put on for free in a public park, and random other people drag out their lawn chairs and picnic baskets to listen to long strings of sentences they can barely track. And they enjoy themselves.
I wonder if there will ever be a time in the English-speaking world in which Shakespeare will no longer seem important or worthwhile. The language and culture have already changed so drastically, and yet here we all still collectively are. What kind of change would be necessary for Shakespeare to be discarded, and would anything else from the past survive?
