Do you like Shakespeare? (1 Viewer)

[Boy_of_wonder75]

and spoil the reaction at the tobacconist?

I will not buy this record, it is scratched.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Earlier this year, I spoke to the actor Natasha Magigi, a regular at Shakespeare’s Globe. With the audience crowding close around the stage, she must know exactly when a play is or isn’t landing, I suggested.

“One hundred per cent. You can see the whites of people’s eyes and you can also see when they start to zone out. You can’t pretend that you haven’t said something weird, especially if you catch someone’s eye.”

The conversation made me wonder where audiences and creatives stub their toes on Shakespeare’s plays. Unfamiliar language, outdated ethics, baffling behaviour? We’ve become used to sifting racism or sexism in these texts – but what other problems give people pause in rehearsal or performance?

Blanche McIntyre has been juggling problems in All’s Well That Ends Well, one of the gnarliest of the comedies, currently staged at the Royal Shakespeare Company. “It’s almost as though Shakespeare wrote an anti-romcom,” the director says.

“Every time it seems to be progressing straightforwardly, there’s a sudden turn and everyone is left sprawling in the dust.”

Nonetheless, McIntyre explains, “intractable problems, both of situation and personality, make for juicy drama. You go to watch people going through things that you can’t imagine going through.”

In All’s Well (“famously the play where you don’t like anyone”), the biggest stumbling block is a moral one – Helena, the heroine, beds her crush Bertram by convincing him he’s having sex with someone else.

“The idea of a bed trick is ethically questionable,” McIntyre protests. “It’s essentially a sexual assault: Bertram can’t consent because he doesn’t know who he’s sleeping with. But the play has no problem with the bed trick. The play thinks it’s fine; it even cheers her on.”…….

If there’s one thing worse than Shakespeare’s gore, it’s his comedy. Who hasn’t endured the tumbleweed silence of an audience faced with ancient puns? Both Much Ado and All’s Well contain clown roles that are notoriously hard to animate.

“On the page some of it is woefully uncomic,” Hastie concedes. Casting helps, he reckons, getting “a brilliant comic actor in the room” – in his case Caroline Parker, as the watchman Dogberry……

To be or not to be cancelled: how directors deal with Shakespeare’s problematic side

Misogynist gags? Ancient puns? Unethical bed tricks? Theatre-makers discuss how they tackle the Bard’s trickier works

www.theguardian.com

 

[saintmdterps]

I get it. I respect it. I don't dislike it. Yet still not a big fan.

Kind of like the Beatles

 

[Optimus Prime]

Watching the movies helped some, at least I can see what's going on, but the language is still an impenetrable wall to me

Denzel Washington's just released MacBeth is supposed to be fantastic

I watched this a couple weeks ago

Couldn’t tell you what made me put it on

It was beautifully shot, black and white isn’t used nearly enough, too many think it’s too old fashioned but it can convey moods and majesty in ways that color can’t

Very well acted

Denzel is a mesmerizing actor even if you don’t understand what he’s saying

And I didn’t

I know enough about the story and saw enough context clues to follow well enough along and get the basic gist of everything

But I found the language just as impenetrable as I always did

 

[Consigliere]

I watched this a couple weeks

Yes it is very good. I always love the Porter scene. "Drink hath three effects upon a man..."

 

[Saintman2884]

I watched this a couple weeks ago

Couldn’t tell you what made me put it on

It was beautifully shot, black and white isn’t used nearly enough, too many think it’s too old fashioned but it can convey moods and majesty in ways that color can’t

Very well acted

Denzel is a mesmerizing actor even if you don’t understand what he’s saying

And I didn’t

I know enough about the story and saw enough context clues to follow well enough along and get the basic gist of everything

But I found the language just as impenetrable as I always did

Macbeth and the Tragedy of Julius Ceaser are just two of some of Shakespeare's most famous plays, but they seem to be a little more relatable, and perhaps more understanding of all the characters' motives, plots settings, roles and minor/major story arcs like how Lady Macbeth is really the major mover-and-shaker behind the scenes where Macbeth convinces her husband he should kill the king, crown himself and to lift up his uneasy conscience, he continually goes to the three witches to get assurances he won't die or be killed in retaliation.

If you really take the time to step back and view Macbeth from the perspective of the three witches introduced at the play's very beginning, one gets the sense they have no really political/power interests in either side to their benefit, nor do they care, Macbeth is almost a "useful idiot" to them, whispering murderous power-grab schemes in his ears that they know he secretly covets and wants. Then they just sit back and watch all the chaos unfold and unwind, the countless bloodshed and murders comment on it, like they've joined us, the readers and or audiences, as spectators.

 

[Yatman]

I will not buy this record, it is scratched.

my hovercraft is full of eels

 

[Scorpius the Allfather]

"One doth not simply love Shakespeare, one merely longs to embrace the radiating luminance of excellence." - Scorpius
So not exactly true, I just wanted to say something that sounded cool.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

"One doth not simply love Shakespeare, one merely longs to embrace the radiating luminance of excellence." - Scorpius
So not exactly true, I just wanted to say something that sounded cool.

 

[Scorpius the Allfather]

Hardy har har.

 

[Sun Wukong]

Romeo and Juliet is a farcical black comedy.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Feels like this should be bumped

 

[Optimus Prime]

Was there a contemporary of Shakespeare’s, whose work was just as well received that for whatever reason history more or Jess forgot about?

 

[Sun Wukong]

Was there a contemporary of Shakespeare’s, whose work was just as well received that for whatever reason history more or Jess forgot about?

Ben Jonson was at least Shakespeare's equal during that time in terms of popularity but, while remembered, is nowhere near as celebrated today. He was more of a satirist and his work fell out of favor during the rise of Romanticism while Shakespeare's work became more popular.