tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886645843874813719.post1964840923589284346..comments2024-03-17T13:16:32.825-07:00Comments on PsychologySalon: "Original Practices" for Shakespeare: Faithfulness or Fundamentalism?Randy Paterson, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00582873372042325191noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886645843874813719.post-71728357417731421952013-05-31T12:16:51.341-07:002013-05-31T12:16:51.341-07:00I suspect I might well enjoy an OP performance at ...I suspect I might well enjoy an OP performance at the Globe in London or a place that is purpose-built for this type of production. <br /><br />Using the Festival Theatre for it, though, felt quite artificial. It takes their incredibly sophisticated lighting system and preplanned "random fluctuations" to simulate an outdoor performance, which felt glaringly artificial. It created, as one critic commented, a Brecht-like alienation effect that pulled me (and apparently most of the critics and audience) out of the play, the plot, and the text. Judging from the empty seats after the interval, it also pulled some of the audience completely out of the theatre.<br /><br />Some folks in a related stream on reddit have argued in favour of the purity of OP over the artificial tarting-up of Shakespeare by setting it in spaceships, the back seat of cars, in mid-air, in Miami, and so on - anything to provide a song-and-dance that distracts people from the fact they are watching (and hearing) Shakespeare. (Like stuffing dog medicine inside a piece of cheese.) I agree that many productions seem to have little faith in the actual plays and have caught myself rolling my eyes at the contortions people go through to make the plays "relevant."<br /><br />But I do think there is an absurd quality to the use of modern technology to pretend that there is no modern technology. And I do wonder how Shakespeare would stage his own work if he were brought into the modern age. I suspect he might put on an OP production now and then "for old times' sake," but that he would also embrace the technology to facilitate a more direct (not distracting) presentation of his text. By this I don't mean crashing chandeliers, landing helicopters, or web-slinging aerial fights, obviously. Randy Paterson, PhDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00582873372042325191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3886645843874813719.post-52777633625285430282013-05-30T21:49:44.871-07:002013-05-30T21:49:44.871-07:00Dr. Paterson,
I work with an "Original Pract...Dr. Paterson,<br /><br />I work with an "Original Practices" company in Maryland and your blog post was passed along to me by another company member that found it on the internet. <br /><br />I've worked on Shakespeare almost my entire professional theater career and done it every way imaginable. I've also seen Shakespeare done terribly in every way imaginable (and taken part in a few of those productions). I submit to you that you might have just seen a bad show. Believe me, it happens.<br /><br />I offer to you this defense of OP. In Elizabethan England, audiences went to "hear" a show. Nowadays we go to "see" them. OP offers actors, directors and designers the chance to replicate (we think!) some of the practices of Shakespeare's company, not as simply a historical exercise, but as (hopefully) a chance to see if the plays open up even further to us. Honestly, I've seen it work beautifully. I've had audience members say to me they've never understood the plays better than when all the extraneous stuff was stripped away and the actors let the words speak for themselves.<br /><br />Actors often wonder why Shakespeare takes 10 or 20 lines to describe the forest, or the castle, or the battle. Just get to the action! He takes that time because he had to paint the mental picture for the audience. These days, money has been spent to build the forest,or castle; or 20 extras are paid to play dead soldiers. Those beautiful descriptions become unnecessary. <br /><br />I think if we asked Shakespeare how to perform his play today he'd say, "Speak my words beautifully, and don't let the clown go on too long."<br /><br />I wrote this long comment only to say: I hope you'll give another original practice performance a chance. I can't speak to this particular production of R&J, having not seen it, but don't let it talk you out of OP forever.<br /><br />Thanks,<br />Jared Mercier<br />Maryland Shakespeare FestivalAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com