The things I will not do when I direct a Shakespeare production, on stage or film

February 26, 2006 2:48 PM

The things I will not do when I direct a Shakespeare production, on stage or film. "32. I will not employ a conception of Caliban which would require him to wear a ghastly furry costume reminiscent of a hypothetical offspring of Chewbacca and the Wolf from Into the Woods." "358. If cast members, especially fairies, are supposed to sing, I will make sure they can actually sing before opening night." Some of these appear to have been agreed to through bitter experience. I don't know about you but I'd like to add 400. I will not set A Comedy of Errors in a climbing frame which is meant to represent a lunatic asylum and have lookalikes played by the same actor in both parts as if has a split personality (watching that show was possibly the longest two hours I've spent in a theatre).
posted by feelinglistless (90 comments total)

"16. Battle scenes will not be presided over by a ridiculous contraption resembling a death-bot."

"22. Ariel should, ideally, wear more than Gollum."

Cool, although it'd take about an hour to get through the whole thing.
posted by JHarris at 2:59 PM on February 26, 2006

These are hilarious. And now I really want to see the productions that inspired this list.
posted by LeeJay at 3:07 PM on February 26, 2006

103. Either Hamlet is mad, or not. Either Ophelia is a virgin at the time of her death, or not. All are defensible positions, but I shall make a decision early in rehearsals and stick to it.

Oh, this is brilliant. I'm still working my way through. Thank you.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:08 PM on February 26, 2006

Many of these sound like wonderful ideas, and I would go to see them implemented if I could.

Maybe Rosencrantz and Guildenstern should enter on a miniature train.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:08 PM on February 26, 2006

agreed some of these are awesome:
"The Duke in Measure for Measure will not be allowed to descend from the heavens on a trapeze bearing the legend: deus ex machina."

yes he will be allowed, nay encouraged!
posted by juv3nal at 3:13 PM on February 26, 2006

10. I will not treat A Midsummer Night's Dream as though it were Un Chien Andalou.

Awesome.
posted by jokeefe at 3:18 PM on February 26, 2006

soo good.

I will not decide that Helen of Troy in Troilus and Cressida is actually a sports car, nor will Pandarus do lines of cocaine off of her. (I will especially not do this if I can't afford a real sports car and have to make do with a small toy Ferrari, set on a table).
posted by juv3nal at 3:22 PM on February 26, 2006

I will avoid dressing people up like Nazis or Fascists.

Good call.
posted by crank at 3:23 PM on February 26, 2006

255. Casting a black Desdemona alongside a black Othello is kind of missing the point a bit.

256. The Montague clan are not aliens. No, really, they're not.

Some deeply morbid and curious part of me actually wants to see these.
posted by generichuman at 3:26 PM on February 26, 2006

For the unitiated here are some stills from Un Chien Andalou. Lord.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:27 PM on February 26, 2006

You know, angevin2 is on my LiveJournal friendslist. I think at some point I need to get enough nerve to make an FPP.
posted by booksandlibretti at 3:34 PM on February 26, 2006

Ungh. Some of these must have come from a viewer of ART's Richard II, which was so painful (pool. middle of the stage. when someone died, they were kicked into it.) I tried to slash my wrists with the program.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:37 PM on February 26, 2006

Maybe someone should show this to the BBC before they do another "Shakespeare Retold" season, especially point 349. After all, even Baz Lurhmann kept the dialogue (largely) intact...
posted by Incharitable Dog at 3:39 PM on February 26, 2006

As someone who is about to embark on producing a Shakespearean play, this is eminently useful . . . and it totally validates some of my better arguments.
posted by Medieval Maven at 3:44 PM on February 26, 2006

Oh, these are superb, thanks!

"47 women in identical black wigs commuting on the train do not make a good Three Witches."
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:49 PM on February 26, 2006

FANTASTIC. Love it -- thanks!
posted by scody at 3:54 PM on February 26, 2006

What Wolfdog and juv3nal said. Purists are annoying. Should we not allow women on the stage, since Shax would never have allowed that to happen?

The tone here is esthetically prudish. But it made me laugh a lot (as someone why played Caliban in a high school production wearing a white sheet painted green. And it worked.).
posted by bardic at 3:57 PM on February 26, 2006

feelinglistless, great FPP, what fun!
Thank you.

5. I will not make actors in battle scenes wear knitted chainmail of a color that makes them resemble not so much a medieval warrior as Winnie-the-Pooh.

84. I will not demonstrate that any character is boorish and obnoxious by having him spray copious amounts of saliva everywhere with each line. The rest of the cast will thank me for it.

118. I will not dress Goneril in dry-clean-only mint green silk shantung and then block her sitting on furniture containing substantial traces of "vile jelly" from the previous scene.

156. When the audience is close enough to touch the actors, I will not instruct them to swing sharp weapons, like axes.

ROFL!

Also loved Lea's (the "creative director" of the site) Dangerously Slow Productions' digital Richard II with the play in MP3 and the funny scene synopsis.
posted by nickyskye at 4:04 PM on February 26, 2006

Reading on through the list, I'm reminded of a production of Othello that I went to see suffered through at Salford University in 1994 or '95.
Important Production Note: If Desdemona is six feet tall and has a strong and (for a woman) deep voice, the worst person you can cast as Othello is the guy who's only about five feet tall, with a high voice, whose idea of acting "angry" is to emote "Donald Duck having a tantrum".
(Who knows, maybe that anecdote will be appended to the list...)
posted by Incharitable Dog at 4:10 PM on February 26, 2006

"I will not have sheep in my pastoral scenes..." Sheep?! Wow, wish I could have seen that one! Actually, like others have said, I'm kind of interested in actually seeing productions with some of these no-nos in them.
I'm sending this link to my stage designer cousin...
posted by misozaki at 4:17 PM on February 26, 2006

Also, that list only goes up to #360. The second part of the list (up to 426) is here.
posted by booksandlibretti at 4:21 PM on February 26, 2006

I will avoid dressing people up like Nazis or Fascists.

But it worked so well in 1996's Hamlet!

... okay, they weren't Nazis per se (late 19th century), but there's something to be said for anachronism done right.
posted by PsychoKick at 4:25 PM on February 26, 2006

I'm not seeing one that should be there: "Even though the play is 5 acts long, I will not overlook the first rule of junior high school drama, speak slowly and clearly."

But you know, Titania as a domanatrix might really work....
posted by ilsa at 4:31 PM on February 26, 2006

This is great!

Some other thoughts (at the risk of total redundancy):

In a period production of Julius Caesar, it's probably not a good idea to encourage all the actors to copy Brando's performance in the 1953 movie. Particularly if they don't have American accents to start with.

No role in the Shakespearean canon is best played as an Elvis impersonator.

Any Macbeth production really should economize on the following: flying broomsticks; large, bubbling cauldrons; black, pointy hats with crescent moons and stars on them.
posted by Sonny Jim at 4:31 PM on February 26, 2006

Awesome. Thanks.
posted by Gator at 4:39 PM on February 26, 2006

36. Keanu Reeves will not be allowed near the production.

Kenneth Branagh must of had some sort of bet to prove that he could direct anyone to be a shakesperian actor.
posted by octothorpe at 4:40 PM on February 26, 2006

Ariel should, ideally, wear more than Gollum.

As a pervert, I respectfully disagree.
posted by graventy at 4:50 PM on February 26, 2006

I will not direct Touchstone as if he were Jerry Lewis.
posted by EarBucket at 4:51 PM on February 26, 2006

37. I will not pantomime every image employed in the text in concert with its recitation under the assumption that it's the only way the dumb audience could possibly understand Elizabethan text.

Hear! Hear! What I really hate is productions in which any time someone mentions anything remotely sexual, the "bawdy" actor makes a really broad jacking-off gesture. Or, if there's a sexual innuendo in the text, the actor won't let it STAY an innuendo -- instead, he will PUSH the dirty word to make sure we really GET that "this ain't your grandpa's Shakespeare."

When I directed "The Winter's Tale," I accidently cast an End Stopper. For those of you who don't know what that is, I'll tell you: it's someone who hold's the absurd belief that one should speak as if there's a period at the end of every verse line. I think Director/Scholar John Barton is responsible for this "theory."

End stoppers point out that Shakespeare probably didn't write the punctuation that is in the printed editions. "All we have," they say, "are the line endings, so those should be used as the 'periods' at the end of the 'sentences.'"

His first line in the play was...

Nine changes of the watery star hath been
The shepherd's note since we have left our throne...

[It's been nine months ("the watery star" = the moon), by the shepherd's reckoning, since I (royal 'we') have left my kingdom...]

He said it like this:

Nine changes of the watery star hath been [PERIOD. PAUSE.]

The shepherd's note since we have left our throne [PERIOD.]

NOTHING I could do or say could convince him this was insane. I told him it sounded like his first "sentence" was incomplete: "Nine changes of the watery star hath been..." Hath been WHAT?!?

He (somewhat plausibly, I guess) suggested that it meant "There have been nine changes of the moon lately)." So then I asked him the meaning of "The shepherd's note since we have left our throne." Note WHAT? He said he didn't know, but that was how the line read, and we just had to trust that Shakespeare knew what he was doing, say the line that way, and eventually it would all make sense.

I know someone who worked with Kelly McGillis in a Shakespeare play. Apparently she's an end stopper too. It's an epidemic.
posted by grumblebee at 4:55 PM on February 26, 2006

It is unwise to cast people simply because you're fucking them as any part in any play whatsoever. Unless it is first proven they can act. Especially as Rosalind in As You Like It or any other major role.

Wow. I think I was in that production. She sounded like the Chicken Lady from Kids In The Hall.
posted by EarBucket at 5:00 PM on February 26, 2006

I would like a TOTAL ban -- in all theatrical productions, not just Shakespeare -- of any productions that...

1) are set in a post-apocholyptic world. (YAWN.)
2) try to make a point about "racism" (Either we KNOW it's bad or we don't care, and a seeing a black Romeo and a white Juliet isn't going to suddenly change our mind.)
3) dispense with the curtain call, because "WE WANT THE AUDIENCE TO LEAVE THINKING, NOT CLAPPING!"
4) Are staged in a relatively straight-forward way until the very end, and then the director suddenly throws in some sort of surprise "twist." (I saw a great production of "The Crucible" on Broadway a few years ago. It was staged and acted simply and truthfully. Then, at the end, the set broke apart and tumbled down -- I guess to show us how "society was crumbling".)
posted by grumblebee at 5:03 PM on February 26, 2006

While some of these are great, I agree with those above who are a little rankled by the overtly snobbish, purist attitude in some of these. People who went to see these plays originally wanted to see sex and violence. Putting a little crudity into the staging is NOT a bad thing, if done right, because there's a tone of crudity in the language already. And as far as anachronism and radical changes... sure, sometimes it doesn't work, but arguably the best adaptations of Shakespeare are Kurosawa's because he so freely adapts the material to his cultural context.
posted by papakwanz at 5:10 PM on February 26, 2006

Heh. I once saw Hamlet with Aidan Quinn in Chicago (I think I recall that Polonius was played by Del Close). It was done as a quasi-modern production, with the King's speech seen by the audience on a television monitor, the gravediggers played by black actors with Southern accents, and at the crucial moment, Quinn walked out onto stage, opened a can of spray paint, and graffitti'ed


2 B
____

¬ 2 B

I didn't think it was terrible, but I understand they cut a lot of stuff out.
posted by dhartung at 5:10 PM on February 26, 2006

77. I will not make my cast simulate slow motion.
posted by obvious at 5:18 PM on February 26, 2006

I will not insert Oberon and the entire Faery Court into "Taming of the Shrew" so that I can turn the story into a drunken tailor's surreal dream sequence stage-managed by Oberon, with the Faery Court playing all the roles except Petruchio.

I actually kinda like that one.
posted by papakwanz at 5:18 PM on February 26, 2006

...She just won't stop! Part three, 427 to 538 (so far), and incorporating your contributions.
posted by booksandlibretti at 5:41 PM on February 26, 2006

162. During the "Out, damned spot" speech in Macbeth, I will remind myself that there is no reason for Lady Macbeth to be peeing on her hands. The spot she's talking about is metaphoric blood, not piss!

PLEASE take me to see that one!

If the text says "thou purple herb," I will use a purple flower.

Questionable from a historical standpoint as I've read that their "purple" might have been more reddish than ours. Good from a modern staging standpoint.
posted by papakwanz at 5:43 PM on February 26, 2006

528. I will especially not insert a sequence into the last act where the Queen, having inexplicably booted Northumberland off a cliff (!), escapes from custody, sneaks in to visit Richard disguised as a stable-groom, and is then killed during a really tedious action sequence in which Richard fights off his assassins, runs around in the woods, and then is finally gunned down to the relief of the audience. If I take leave of my senses entirely and do this anyway, I will not allow Richard to cop a feel while grieving over her body, even if I can "justify" this by claiming it as an allusion both to the historical Richard's grief for Anne of Bohemia and to his oddly necrophiliac behavior at the ceremony held when he reinterred his deceased favorite Robert de Vere. (...you know what? I'm not sure there's anywhere this list can go from there.)

Verbatim!
posted by metaculpa at 5:55 PM on February 26, 2006

495. I will never have The Ghost of Hamlet's Father appear out of a Pepsi One machine.

Heh, that sorta bothered me about Ethan Hawke's Hamlet.
posted by bobo123 at 6:02 PM on February 26, 2006

Ugh. I hate all "re-imaginings" os Shakesepeare, all changes in his play's eras, and all genderfuck approaches (while I'm down with gender- and color-blind casting, I hate it when it's the point of the play).

Shakespeare dependably works without trickery. If you don't get that, then maybe you shouldn't be tackling Shakespeare. He's tricky enough to do as written without muddying his plays further.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:10 PM on February 26, 2006

v233. I shall not give Thisbe cleavage by blowing up multi-coloured latex balloons and taping them under her dress; furthermore, during Thisbe's death scene, I shall not tape a safety pin to the end of Pyramus' sword and allow Thisbe to pop said balloons for comic relief as she tragically stabs herself.

Umm...have they read the play (Pyramus and Thisbe)? It may be Shakespeare, but it's not exactly Shakespeare. Holding back is just wrong.

But yes, I think this list has many good ideas. Miniture trains...
posted by jb at 6:15 PM on February 26, 2006

But yes, I think this list has many good ideas. Miniture trains...

< shakespeare geek> That's from Branagh's 1996 Hamlet. < /shakespeare geek>
posted by EarBucket at 6:20 PM on February 26, 2006

Branagh's Hamlet is kind of the counter-point to this list (which I did enjoy skimming): Doing "all" of that play is to do roughly four varying interpretations of Hamlet, because we don't and never will know exactly what Shakespeare wrote originally. Branagh's was way too long and incredibly tedious--especially in light of what a great job he did with Henry V.

Say what you will, but I thought Zefirelli did a much better job of bringing it to film (the Mel Gibson one, 1990).
posted by bardic at 6:29 PM on February 26, 2006

460. I will not put Caliban in bondage gear. Nor will he wear a chastity belt.

ROFL!

In 1969 our class did a truly cringeworthy version of Midsummer Night's Dream as an LSD flashback with Puck as a dealer.
posted by nickyskye at 6:38 PM on February 26, 2006

344. I will not costume fairies in nothing but body paint.

Heh, I did the airbrush painting for a production like this.
posted by Tenuki at 7:18 PM on February 26, 2006

36. Keanu Reeves will not be allowed near the production.

Laugh all you want, but I still haven't seen a better Don John than Keanu's. I've seen several other versions, and in one of them Derek Jacobi plays Don John and completely messes him up. He's a hard character to get right. I think that Kenneth Branagh knew that when he cast him, because Don John is dumb in both senses of the word, which kind of fits with Keanu's onscreen persona. Keanu Reeves doesn't make Don John flat and two-dimensional, Don John is flat and one-dimensional.

Now to actual points that I would like to avoid having to see again:

Do not have Fortinbras enter at the end of Hamlet and machinegun the entire royal court.

Playing heavy metal music to underline character's anger means that you can't hear a word they say.

No rapping.

Do not have a major character played by a small child. Yes, I know they're adorable, but if it's adorable you're after why don't you have Hamlet carry around a puppy.

Do not have Hamlet carry around a puppy.

Kurosawa can make Shakespeare characters into samurais. You can't.

Titus Andronicus is supposed to be bloody, don't try and make it nice.

Titus Andronicus is supposed to be bloody, but don't kill barnyard animals onstage.

Don't try to insert ambiguity where there was none before, there's plenty already in the text. For example, don't have Polonius be naked when Hamlet stabs him.
posted by Kattullus at 7:30 PM on February 26, 2006

nickyskye, I hate to break it to you, but I think you filmed that and I had to watch it in the late 80s!

That would've been a little after the time I scoffed when a professor mentioned Peter Brook's famous production of Midsummer Night's Dream (the one done on trapezes). The professor basically tore me a new one for being so closed minded, and rather than being an embarrassing moment for me, it was like when you go from thinking "a five year old could do that" about abstract art to getting the point of it.

That said, Astro Zombie, while I understand where you're coming from, I gotta say the single greatest dramatic performance I've ever seen was a Royal Shakespeare Company enactment of As You Like It, with only four actors. The doubling/tripling/quadrupling of roles was absolutely inspired and an (admittedly rare) example of someone actually adding to Shakespeare.
posted by kimota at 7:33 PM on February 26, 2006

Hilarious stuff. Makes me more than a little afraid to see my college's Midsummer this weekend -- I hear there's some "genderfuck," as Astro Zombie put it, as well as some other oddities. I may have some additions for this list soon.
posted by danb at 7:37 PM on February 26, 2006

277. A Midsummer Night's Dream should not have multiple make-out scenes between Oberon and Puck. Especially when Puck is 12, and Oberon is 28. [Ew. -- ed.]
posted by danb at 7:42 PM on February 26, 2006

Yeah, but the RSC can dependably get away with that. (They came and did a thing with my college's drama department, and I was taking a class -- the RSC people are totally fucking amazing on stage, and know their stuff beyond anything I've ever seen. If THEY wanted to try any of these things, I'd be happy to see them do it, but amateurs . . . yow. )

Oh, and my addition:

Hamlet is pretty much angst-ridden enough without making him a proto-Kurt-Cobain, so don't.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:46 PM on February 26, 2006

Oh, wait! Wait! I just gotta. Metafilter: "meta and not just half-assed."

Are we still doing those?
posted by kimota at 8:08 PM on February 26, 2006

I will not set A Comedy of Errors... and have lookalikes played by the same actor in both parts as if [sic] has a split personality

I just read that play last night, and wondered if such a thing had ever been tried. (Apparently it shouldn't have been. Or, as kimota says, maybe the RSC could make it work.) Or if it had ever been performed with real twins in the roles of the twins.

Nice post. Thanks.

p.s. This from the comments to the list is a pretty good rule for everybody, not just Shakespeare: I will not allow my actors to suffer under the misapprehension that "more spittle" = "better Acting."
posted by lelilo at 8:16 PM on February 26, 2006

36. Keanu Reeves will not be allowed near the production.

While I understand the sentiment, I thought he was quite good in My Own Private Idaho, which is loosely adapted from Henry IV part 1. He comes across as stiff and wooden (cuz, you know, how else is Keanu Reeves going to come across?), and it sort of works. In fact there are surprisingly many of Reeves' early movies in which he's well cast as either an idiot or a robot.
posted by Loudmax at 8:44 PM on February 26, 2006

I will not cast and costume all major characters so similarly that they can not be told apart.

I call this "Dead Poets' Society Syndrome."

4. I will not imply that Hamlet is sleeping with his mother, or wants to.

Maybe I just had a bunch of twisted teachers in high schol, but doesn't this sort of take a lot of the fun out of Hamlet?
posted by deanc at 8:47 PM on February 26, 2006

On the topic of Keanu, I recall being highly impressed with his performance in The Watcher. The man CAN, if directed right, act quite well, and is not limited to standing wide-eyed and saying "Whoa." And it is a great shame that all he's ever asked to do is stand wide-eyed and say "Whoa."
posted by kafziel at 8:50 PM on February 26, 2006

I hate all "re-imaginings" os Shakesepeare, all changes in his play's eras, and all genderfuck approaches (while I'm down with gender- and color-blind casting, I hate it when it's the point of the play).

Does this include the casting of women as women? I mean, really, in most Shakespeare comedies the "genderfuck" is the point of the play. In the epilogue to As You Like It you've got Rosalind, played originally by a young boy in drag, coming out and saying "If I were a woman [ie. not a girl and/or not played by a male] I would kiss as many of as had beards that pleased me." This line loses something when the role is played by an actual female. So where do you draw the line when it comes to "historical accuracy"?

deanc: I agree. While the Gibson-Close version might have overdone the oedipal aspect of the Hamlet-Gertrude relationship, I think one of Branagh's mistakes was completely omitting that and substituting a fully realized Hamlet-Ophelia sexual relationship.

kafziel: Gotta disagree on The Watcher. That movie was a suckload of suck. However, I did like Keanu in Constantine, comic book purists be damned.

Back on the "historical accuracy" tip, one of the "do nots" on that page said something about not doing Othello in a high school that has no black students. Again, that raises a complicated issue about historical accuracy vs. contemporary staging.

Most modern audiences (at least American ones) understand Othello's "blackness" to be identical to the our conception of black; dark-skinned Africans. Thus you've got Mekhi Phifer playing the Othello role in the adaptation O and Laurence Fishburne playing him in the 1995 movie Othello.

For Shakespeare's audience, however, the word had a much wider range of connotations. It could be a "black" person, or an Arab Moor, not someone most today would consider as "black." Hell, they called the Irish "black."

So again, how do you stage it today? Personally, I imagine that the original staging would probably have had Othello as an Arab Moor, but does that fly for modern audiences when you've got the character being called black but not looking the way we expect him to?
posted by papakwanz at 9:16 PM on February 26, 2006

I've seen some re-imaginings of Shakespeare that worked, and some that didn't, leading me to the conclusion that what ends up working works, and what doesn't doesn't, and the rest is so much hot air.
posted by kyrademon at 9:33 PM on February 26, 2006

Oh man, total freakin' Best of the Web. Thank you so much feelinglistless.

235. I will never allow the unnecessary pause between "to be" and "or not to be" to last more than ten seconds, no matter how much the actor playing Hamlet believes it will transform him into Olivier. If he draws it out for more than twenty seconds during any rehearsal, I will recast the part. However, for the good of the production, should an actor decide he must surprise me with this behaviour in front of an audience, I will wait a full minute for him to continue before giving in to the urge to humiliate him by feeding him his line in a loud stage whisper.

I did like Keanu in Constantine, comic book purists be damned.
One of the fine things about Constantine the comic book character is his humor. Keanu is nearly hopeless in this regard, almost as bad as Crowe or Fiennes.
posted by Aknaton at 9:38 PM on February 26, 2006

It's still cool for Silvius to fuck sheep right? Cool? Cool.
posted by Football Bat at 9:56 PM on February 26, 2006

Having seen al-male productions of Shakespeare, I think genderfuck was less the point than contemporary audiences think it was. Sometimes a convention is just a convention.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:10 PM on February 26, 2006

When presenting the furst productiib, I will make sure that
posted by emf at 11:46 PM on February 26, 2006

Do not have Puck dressed in a fedora and pinstripe suit and sporting a Chicago accent. And do not have Puck cast his charm over the sleeping Lysander by ashing his cigarette.

On second thought, it was pretty damn funny. Probably had to be there, though ...
posted by bcveen at 12:47 AM on February 27, 2006

62. Puck will not wear little gold Arabian Nights shoes that curl up at the toes.

Ha ha! Puck is wearing lollerskates in my imagined version.

This is great. As a high school English teacher, there are only so many Reading Aloud With An Entire Class of Endstoppers one can handle.
posted by chronic sublime at 12:57 AM on February 27, 2006

But... Shakespeare is about the beautiful language and the human truths portrayed, not about the setting or costumes. That's why it's so good. This list is peevish and small-minded.

I suspect the people writing it have seen much more Shakespeare than me, and have become tired with every 'novel' and 'outrageous' dramatic device employed over and over, which is fair enough but doesn't allow for the fact that most people haven't become so jaded.
posted by alasdair at 6:53 AM on February 27, 2006

Hamlet seems to suffer the same ‘fop’ interpretation from actors that Cyrano de Bergerac does.
posted by Smedleyman at 7:32 AM on February 27, 2006

Atrocious directing decisions regarding costume and set are unnecessarily annoying and distracting to the audience, which detracts from the "beautiful language and the human truths" in the plays. Stupid directorial decisions, whether stupid because the idea is insane or because you just can't pull it off without a million dollars, are still stupid directorial decisions. IMHO, one should respect the text enough to actually understand when to push the limits imposed by available talent and/or money, and when to not.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:51 AM on February 27, 2006

Yes, that's all true: also true is that theatre is an organic work involving different levels of taste, our "atrocious" is another person's "inspired", and the list is mean-spirited. Not that it didn't make me laugh, especially:

50. The "to be" speech should not end with the line "from henceforth shall all my thoughts be bloody."
posted by alasdair at 9:53 AM on February 27, 2006

The best Shakespeare I've ever seen are the productions done by Actors From the London Stage, a troupe that stages plays using only five actors to do all the parts. No props or scenery except maybe a couple chairs and a stick or two. Very simple costumes - maybe everyone has a scarf they wear differently to help signify which character they are currently playing.

The point is (usually) not to emphasize corrospondences between characters by having the same actor play them (although such correspondences crop up all over Shakespeare's plays and this method does bring that out in neat ways), but to have an inexpensive production that travels cheaply, yet has every single part played by a fantastic actor. I've seen seven of their productions and it's some of the best theatre I've ever seen.

And yes, they occasionally do the annoying thing of explaining the jokes with pantomime (Look! He's grabbing his crotch! That must've been a sex joke, HAW HAW! [nudge nudge, wink, wink, say no more]), but they hardly need to because they say the lines so well.
posted by straight at 10:42 AM on February 27, 2006

I suspect the people writing it have seen much more Shakespeare than me, and have become tired with every 'novel' and 'outrageous' dramatic device employed over and over, which is fair enough but doesn't allow for the fact that most people haven't become so jaded.

As a director, actor and frequent-audience member, I would like to address this. I hate "novel" productions of Shakespeare. Saying this DOES sound snobby and jaded, and I'm sorry about that. But my view stems from a passionate love of the plays. And I do mean the PLAYS. So many bad productions seem to be less about the plays and more about the gimmicks. This is why we Shakespeare lovers scorn the "novel" productions. In them, it's easy to miss the forest (Shakespeare) for the trees (Keanu Reeves/midgets playing Hamlet and Ophelia).

Many people fear Shakespeare. To my shock, I've discovered that many actors and directors fear Shakespeare. To my utter amazement, I've met many SHAKESPEAREAN actors and directors who fear -- and sometimes seem to hate -- Shakespeare.

Why should this be? If you hate Shakespeare, the natural thing to do is to avoid him. There are so many plays out there. Why produce Shakespeare if he make you uncomfortable. My (armchair) psych analysis is that many people bite the Shakespearean bullet because they think it's good for them. They've been TOLD it's good for them.

In school, most of us are taught that Shakespeare is a God. If you don't like him -- if you don't understand him -- then you're an uncultured moron. No one want to feel like a moron, so naturally we wind up with a lot of people producing -- and watching -- theatre that (in their secret hearts) they'd rather not be watching. I reject the idea that a dislike of Shakespeare is a sign of stupidity. And I loath the idea of people watching Shakespeare because they think they SHOULD. I want my audience to think of my shows as wine and candy -- not Castor Oil!

But regardless of my desires, we've got a large consumer group who, though they don't really want to see Shakespeare, feel like they SHOULD see Shakespeare (and feel like they should WANT to see Shakespeare) -- and where there's a market, there will always be salesmen. The result is a ton of Shakespeare productions for people who don't like Shakespeare. I think of them as "spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down" productions. Shakespeare is the medicine that is helped down via crude gestures, theatrical gimmicks, huge amounts of cutting, big Hollywood stars, etc.

When I sit with audiences at these plays, they seem to be mostly enjoying the gimmicks -- not the play itself. (I don't look down on them for this; most of the gimmicks are well done and enjoyable). They leave, and they pat themselves on the back and feel as if they can check Shakespeare off their list of things to do. And they thank God that someone made the plays palatable for them.

But in my (snobbish?) view, they haven't really experienced Shakespeare. If you tell me you hate tea, I may put ten spoons of sugar in your cup. And that may help you get the liquid down. But you really haven't tasted tea -- or learned to like it. I guess the idea is that I can gradually reduce the sugar. But I don't see this happening in the theatre. There are evermore gimmicky productions of Shakespeare. People who only experience the plays this way can go on experiencing them this way forever.

From the other side of the footlights, the same fear exists -- but in reverse. We directors and actors think, "Well, I like Shakespeare, but what if the audience DOESN'T? That means when they see the play, they won't like ME! They will be bored by ME!" And the desire to pepper the play with easily accessible junk is overwhelming. I know. I've felt it myself. I am constantly tempted. Actors constantly try to talk me into adding spoons full of sugar. Most of the time I resist. But it's hard. It's scary! My love for the language is what saves me most of the time.

In my company, we usually do the plays uncut. Even though we've worked this way for five years -- and even though the plays are almost always successful -- when it gets close to opening night, actors start freaking out and begging me to make cuts. This happens EVERY TIME. "The audience will get bored! They won't sit through it." I totally understand. I feel the tug myself. But I refuse to give into it.

And the reward is the continual cry of, "Wow! That was three-and-a-half hours long? It just flew by!" We also hear a lot of "I don't usually understand Shakespeare, but I followed and enjoyed the whole thing!" This is really cool, because we work without costumes or sets (or even lighting changes). Just actors on a bare stage -- and the lines. And yet people who don't like Shakespeare can follow it!

We do this by FIRST making sure that WE understand every word of the play (it's amazing how often this step is skipped!). We spend the first month of rehearsal (we rehearse for two months) sitting around the table, going through the play word by word. We don't start staging until we know the play so well that we feel like WE wrote it. It's a tedious but thrilling process.

I'm sure this whole post sounds snobbish and self-congratulating. I guess it is. But it's the truth from where I stand, based on years of thought and hard work -- and deep deep love.

Yes, I would prefer people not come at all if they're coming because they think it's "good for them." Shakespeare should be a choice, not an assignment. School does great damage to the soul. Generation after generation is taught to hate Shakespeare. This makes me want to weep.
posted by grumblebee at 11:33 AM on February 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

If I didn't have a full-time day job, a mortgage and a fiancee, I'd be on the next train to New York to join grumblebee's company.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:45 AM on February 27, 2006

Grumblebee -

As a fellow theatrical rofessional, I must respectfully disagree.

You are entirely correct that the key to any production of Shakespeare is understanding the play completely, and the key to a great production of any work is truly loving the play.

But "re-imagined" productions of Shakespeare can work just fine - if the staging serves a purpose and serves the play, rather than being there just to be a gimmick, which I also object to.

Many "re-imaginings" indeed seem to serve no purpose other than "this bores me - let's do something crazy!" I hate those. Why set the piece in 19th century Italy? Because you had leftover costumes from something else? Whenever I see a change that seem pointless, I have serious problems.

However, I think it's a mistake to think that every wild idea has to be pointless. Plays in Shakespeare's time were certainly seen as social and political commentary. Some are clear commentaries on war, on gender, on racism, etc. Why not use a staging that makes the connection to the modern day clearer? Or makes use of currently relevant references? Or plays with some of the ideas already present in the plays?

Now, admittedly, some of those are horrible as well. But some that I have seen really work. They aren't attempts to "make the play go down easier". They are efforts to really delve into "what is this play about, and how can we make the meaning and relevance shine through?"

No re-imagining is, of course, a substitute for thoroughly understanding the play and wanting to do it. But re-imaginings are not, on the face of it, necessarily awful awful awful. Many of the things on this list made me cringe. But more than a few made me go "what on earth is wrong with that?" or even "hey, I *liked* that production!"

As I said before, the ultimate test to me is, if it worked it worked, and if it didn't it didn't.
posted by kyrademon at 11:59 AM on February 27, 2006

I have seen re-imaginings of Shakespeare that worked, but so rarely as to hardly be worth mentioning.

The best productions I have seen, in general, have been those that recognized that Shakespeare was first and formost not a literary writer, not a poet, but an author of dramatic and comic plays, and tried to hit the dramatic and comical beats as well and as forcefully as possible.

When you see Shakesepare production done as a play, rather than a meta-analysis of Shakespeare the literary figure, is when his power and importance as a playwright becomes evident.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:08 PM on February 27, 2006

Astro Zombie, I don't disagree.

But I suspect I have seen more re-imaginings that *were* done as plays, and *did* work, than a lot of the people here. Living 500 feet from a nationally prominent year-round Shakespeare festival for a decade and a half probably helped. :)
posted by kyrademon at 12:17 PM on February 27, 2006

Really, really wonderful post.

No rapping.

posted by Kattullus at 9:30 PM CST on February 26 [!]

I would have agreed with you before seeing this. After that, I'm tempted to produce a version of "Measure For Measure" set in the world of gangsta rap...

Some of mine that I added to the comments of the list. Sadly, all of these are from actual experiences I've had in theatre:

- I will not change the word "niggardly" to "covetous", "avaricious", "miserly", "stingy", or "frugal" in order to appease uneducated souls who incorrectly believe the word to be a racial epithet.

- I will not dress Launcelot Gobbo as a harlequin. Or a doll of any sort.

- I will use some sort of blood during a production of Macbeth. Red scarves, SOMETHING. I will not puss out because the costumes were SO EXPENSIVE.

- I will not cast an introverted manic/depressive actor as Macbeth. Or Richard of Gloucester. In fact, I won’t cast introverted manic/depressive actors, period. Only extroverted manic/depressive actors.

- I will attempt to make the twins in any of the “mistaken identity” plays to look SOMEWHAT alike. I will not cast bad actors who look exactly alike. I will understand that with costume and body language, actors or similar size can be made to look like twins. I will NOT cast a white twin and a black twin just to make a point about color-blind casting, because that’s just stupid.

- I will not cast a drag queen as Lady Macbeth unless he/she can actually act.
posted by weirdoactor at 12:31 PM on February 27, 2006

As a fellow theatrical professional, I must respectfully disagree.

We don't disagree at all. If it seems like we do, it's due to my sloppy writing. I'm not against innovative stagings. I'm just against ANY sort of staging that doesn't further (or illuminate) the story.

I will admit that, in my experience, the stagings that DON'T serve the story TEND to be the wild ones. But this isn't always (or necessarily) the case. And I definitely didn't mean to imply that my stripped-down approach is the only way that works. It's not. It's just a way that works for me and my company. I've seen elaborate productions that were lovely.

What I hate are those versions in which the director is trying to get across (a) some highly abstract idea, i.e. "all the characters are Hamlet," (b) some social/political agenda, (c) how creative he is.

When I direct, I cut moments that are too "cool" or "creative." It's my version of Hemingway's "kill all your darlings." Every time I hear an audience member leaving the theatre saying, "It was really cool the way they did the ghost" or "I loved the way the director staged that sword fight!", I worry that the audience is thinking more about the company (or about me) than they are about the story. So I shy away from that stuff (though it's hard when you come up with a really cool idea!). I want them to walk out saying, "Hamlet reminded me of my brother" or "When Lear banished Cordelia, I was on my seat wondering what was going to happen next!"

Audiences might say that coming out of a really elaborate production. But if it's set on Mars, I would really worry that they'd come out thinking about the director: "Cool how he set it on Mars!" Some might be okay with that; I'm not.

The "it serves the story" thing is tricky, because the "Mars" director, above, could probably explain exactly how Mars maps onto Verona (or whatever). And the audience members might get it. But I would STILL call this a problem if the "getting" was purely intellectual. If they walk out thinking, "My God! That was totally appropriate how the director set the play on Mars!" then they are STILL thinking more about the director -- and his totally appropriate choice -- then they are about Shakespeare's words, characters and plot.

In my company, we define "story" as plot and character, and we ruthlessly cut ANYTHING that upstages either of those elements.
posted by grumblebee at 1:05 PM on February 27, 2006

Fair enough. Since I also run a theater company specializing in stripped-down productions (of new plays), we're pretty much in agreement, although I do it for a slightly different, but related, reason.

We generally take the tack that a play needs talented actors and a good director a heck of a lot more than it needs elaborate sets, so we spend our time and money on rehearsals and personnel rather than wood, paint, and construction.

Since we do new plays, we're also pretty light on the far-from-the-printed-script ideas - no need to "re-imagine" something that's being imagined for the first time, generally.

But I wouldn't mind if an audience member left thinking a particular element of the staging or direction was cool, as long as they *also* left thinking about plot, character, and theme ... if they leave saying, "It was interesting how they set it on Mars, because that really brought home to me how Mars *is* the Verona of the modern age", I would probably count that as a success.

And thanks for correcting my typo when you quoted me. :)
posted by kyrademon at 1:17 PM on February 27, 2006

This is why we Shakespeare lovers scorn the "novel" productions.

With respect, this one does not scorn novel productions. This one likes to take each production on its merits. Elitism is okay ("Most people don't understand Shakespeare and go because they feel they have a duty to like it. This is bad.") but snobbery is not ("The parts of theatre that are more accessible, like sets and costumes and spectacle, are less worthy than the ever-so-densely-read text.")

Your theatre company sounds very interesting. I should love to see them someday.
posted by alasdair at 1:38 PM on February 27, 2006

Great. And when I said, "we Shakespeare lovers," I hope I wasn't taken as speaking for ALL Shakespeare (or theatre) lovers. There are MANY Shakespeare lovers who frown on "experimental" productions, and I just wanted to clarify why they (or some of them) did so. It's not necessarily snobbery; it's a desire for purity -- a desire to protect the poetry from being overshadowed by other elements.
posted by grumblebee at 2:03 PM on February 27, 2006

143. I will not set The Tempest in a Gilligan's Island episode, and have my actors play their roles as characters from the show.

Oh, come now. That's brilliant. Next you'll be forbidding the Gilligan's Island castaways from putting on a musical version of Hamlet.
posted by Spatch at 2:44 PM on February 27, 2006

Every time I hear an audience member leaving the theatre saying, "It was really cool the way they did the ghost" or "I loved the way the director staged that sword fight!", I worry that the audience is thinking more about the company (or about me) than they are about the story.

Much as I am mostly in agreement with the "I hate gimicky productions of Shakespeare" crowd, your reluctance to do anything interesting bothers me somewhat. The truth is that I've seen Hamlet many, many times. While I know that I only understand the slightest sliver of the play (insofar as anyone can), I certainly do want to see interesting ways in which the directory decides to portray the ghost, stage the swordfight, or (actually, most interesting to me in Hamlet), stage the play-within-a-play that is performed in front of Claudius. All of these varying interpretations add something and help me understand Hamlet a little bit better.

On a similar note, one of the least satisfying Shakespeare productions I saw a was a college production of Romeo and Juliet which was staged in contemporary dress. There wasn't any reimagining or reinterpretation of the setting or anything. They simply opted to wear modern clothing instead of costumes. I wasn't annoyed that the staging was gimicky. I was annoyed that the modern staging was so pointless and added nothing. Appreciation for the Elizabethan era itself is one reason people enjoy Shakespeare and to ignore it for no good reason -- and not replace it with anything else -- was just lame.
posted by deanc at 6:21 PM on February 27, 2006

I think the best re-imagined Shakespeare comes by way of these guys.
posted by papakwanz at 7:05 PM on February 27, 2006

Nope. The best reimagined Shakespeare is right here.
posted by COBRA! at 7:12 PM on February 27, 2006

I actually am partial to this one.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:45 PM on February 27, 2006

I disagree.
posted by kafziel at 7:16 AM on February 28, 2006

Also, yeah, 10 Things I Hate About You really was a lot better than it had any right to be.
posted by kafziel at 7:16 AM on February 28, 2006

deanc, anything that adds to your enjoyment/appreciation of the play is great. I was talking about ghosts and sword fights that were gratuitous -- that work against the text (making you think more about the director/actors than the play itself). Like I said, I HAVE seen elaborate/wild versions that worked. They worked because the elaboration illuminated the text.

But one must be very careful that the experiment doesn't obscure the story. I was shockingly reminded of this recently. The ghost is an obvious choice for a director to have fun with. So almost every "Hamlet" I've ever seen has gone wild with the ghost. I've seen gratuitous ghosts that don't work; I've seen elaborate, experimental ghosts that DO work.

But about a year ago, I saw Trevor Nunn's "Hamlet." The ghost was very ordinary. He walked over to Hamlet, sat down next to him on a bench and talked. I realized that for the first time -- having seen dozens of Hamlets -- I was actually listening to what the ghost was saying, and that the ghost and Hamlet had a complex relationship, something more than fear and awe. Though nothing remarkable was happening via the staging, it was the most startling and original ghost I had ever seen.

I'm not suggesting that this is the only way to do the ghost.

I totally disagree that I don't do anything interesting in my productions (though naturally this depends on one's definition of interesting). The other day, I saw a video of Richard Eyre's "Lear." I was struck by an utterly original moment:

Gloucester (speaking of his son, Edmund): He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.

In Eyre's production, Edmund looked on, rather bored, while his father said, "He hath been out (away) nine years." But then, when Gloucester added, "and away he shall again," Edmund looked completely stunned. Clearly, he had no idea that his father intended to send him away again.

I've seen many "Lears", but I've never seen that moment played that way before. It added a great little nuance to the father/son relationship.

This was just one of many such moments in Eyre's production, which was staged very simply. Had the staging been more grand and theatrical, I probably would have missed this nuance.

Obviously, some people find these little character moments more thrilling than other people do. Those who have spent years in college are more likely to be interested in big thematic events. To each his own. I find character/language subtleties to be HUGE and MEANINGFUL, and those are the original/interesting things I look for in my own and other-people's productions. It's those little moments (utterly different in each production) that make it worthwhile seeing the same play over and over. And Shakespeare is so rich that the plays contain almost an infinite possibility for each moment.

Here are some notes I made, years ago, for the most famous line in "Hamlet." When I'm preparing a production, I write a couple of pages like this for pretty much every line (sometimes every word). I'm too busy doing this to care much about whether to stage the ghost as an actor covered by a sheet or a hologram. Such effects -- to me -- pale in comparison to the nuance of language and character:

To be, or not to be,--that is the question:--

1. [spoken quickly, as one phrase] “to be or not to be” [reflecting on the phrase] That IS the question.

Emphasizing “is” works with the iambic rhythm (to Be or Not to Be that IS...). It implies that Hamlet is replying to an earlier thought (from his own head, since no one else is talking to him) along the lines of “What’s the point of thinking about life and death?” It’s similar to...

A: Why is there a lion here?
B: Well, that IS the point of a circus, isn’t it.

A: What’s the point of thinking about mortality, anyway?
B: Well, “to be or not to be.” That IS the question.

The same sense could be reached by emphasizing “the”. That is THE question.

2. 1. [spoken quickly, as one phrase] “to be or not to be” [reflecting on the phrase] THAT is the question.

By emphasizing “that”, the implication is that Hamlet is correcting a previous, erroneous thought about ANOTHER question.

A: Maybe I should be thinking about how to talk to my mother.
B. No...”To be or not to be.” THAT is the question.

This rubs against the grain of the rhythm, but the line is irregular anyway (extra syllable).

3. [As if this is the complete thought] To be. [Then, the other possibility occurs to him] Or not to be. [Laughs at the irony] Ha! That is the question!

Notes:

This will be hard to play if life/death are equal possibilities. Hamlet should want to die and then try to talk himself out of it. Or, he should want to live, and try to talk himself into dieing (actor can try each on different nights). The choice will wildly change the reading of the speech.

Who is H talking to? Self? If so, we should work out a couple of “personalities,” so that the speech becomes active. There can be the die “personality” and the live “personality”. Audience? Does H assume they are on his side or hostile? Is he talking to a trusted friend or trying to convince a foe? Again, it would be interesting to vary this because each will lead to a different performance.
posted by grumblebee at 8:56 AM on February 28, 2006

Kyrademon is right:

I've seen some re-imaginings of Shakespeare that worked, and some that didn't, leading me to the conclusion that what ends up working works, and what doesn't doesn't, and the rest is so much hot air.

I actually really liked Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet. I also liked Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (with Ethan Hawke), Pepsi One machine and all.

Shakespeare liberally reimagined and remixed his source material -- he was no purist. If someone 400 years later can reimagine and remix his writing in a way that creates a compelling new work, more power to them.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:01 AM on February 28, 2006

it was the most startling and original ghost I had ever seen.

Well. I wish you'd seen me as Banquo. I slumped in Macbeth's throne with the posture of a bored couch potato. Not angry. Not savage...just "ho hum, I'm a ghost....oh well". I made that choice because my death scene was pretty nasty, and I figured that a key change was required. I actually got laughs, which at first I thought was a bad thing, until I realized why they were laughing; not because it was humorous, but because it was a tension release. The makeup helped; my face looked like that of a glowing radioactively poisoned kabuki clown. A friend who saw the show swears to this day that I had a remote in one hand and a beer in the other.

One thing that I like to remind myself of is this: as much as we heap loads of significance on Shakespeare’s words; and people fear the language and perceived depth, these plays were the sitcoms and soap operas of their time. Shakespeare did not write for an educated audience; he wrote for the pits. Marlowe wrote for the snobs; Shakespeare wrote fart jokes into “serious” dramas. When we give them some sort of magical weight, we miss the point. A re-imagining of “The Tempest” with characters from “Gilligan’s Island” might make a purist vomit, but it isn’t far from the mark; although I think a re-imagining of “The Tempest” with characters from “Lost” would be more interesting.
posted by weirdoactor at 9:12 AM on February 28, 2006

"Gilligan's Island" seems WAY off the mark to me. That sitcom was about people from various classes all trapped together on an island (i.e. a millionaire and a farm girl). But the characters in "The Tempest" are all aristocratic (except for the spirits). This is a pretty important facet of the play to cloud over by Gilliganizing it.

Again, I think it's very possible to NOT be a purist -- or a snob -- and still object to this sort of thing. I don't care a jot about "what Shakespeare intended" or "how the plays were done 'back then'" But I DO care about the language, characters and plot that are in the plays NOW. If "Gilligan's Island" somehow helps illuminate those elements, great. I just don't think it does.

I SORT of agree with you that Shakespeare wrote the sitcoms of his day, though I'd argue that he wrote for ALL classes -- not just the uneducated (he DID write plays to be produced at court, as-well-as at the Globe). But I think even many of today's sitcom writers would tell you that they care passionately about nuances of language. Pay attention to the writing on "Seinfeld" and you'll see what I mean.
posted by grumblebee at 9:31 AM on February 28, 2006

I like this thread :)
posted by papakwanz at 5:32 PM on February 28, 2006