Shakespeare Performed in Anachronous Costumes: C/D

No, this really is straight-up lamesauce

I think it has its genesis in English teachers being on some "Shakespeare was the original soap opera writer/gangsta rapper/Diablo Cody" shit when trying to engage with bored students

Do togas count as anachronous for Julius Caesar, given that Tudor productions were always in "modern dress"?

"i.e. Richard III as Hitler, Hamlet as a film student, MacBeth in a fast food restaurant. I've seen The Comedy of Errors in Bermuda shorts and swim fins."

good, sounds bad, sounds dreadful, sounds good.

Personally I don't care too much about costume/decor/concept, I just don't want anything to get in the way of the acting and talking.

I go to the globe regularly, but it's not for any athenticity, they just put on a good show and get good actors. And the atmosphere is the best.

Anachronous?

Shakespeare has been performed in anachronistic costumes since at least the time of Shakespeare, who had Romans wearing hats in Julius Caesar.

So let's make clear what we mean: Elizabehan/Jacobean costume and decor.

Really, going to that effort when the director and actors feel better about doing it in shirts and jeans is liable to inhibit their commitment.

the play's the thing, etc.
But still, yeah, get to the globe kingkongvsgodzilla.

All the actors doing their stuff in stupid ruffs and puffy trousers can be distracting also, as it just reminds me of Blackadder II.

^ exactly.

Romans did not have hats? xxp

Anyway, that seems like a relatively minor detail. I'm talking about lifting the play entirely out of its context and transplanting it into a new, more modern one.

It's always more modern, too. I've never heard of anyone setting Shakespeare in 7th century Arabia or something.

sorry that turned into like xxxxxxp

I'd also be fine if they divorced the play from setting altogether. I saw a contemporary dance adaptation of Hamlet that did this very well (unfortunately, without any language).

Some of these high-concept productions can admittedly be silly, but some of them work. I don't see what's wrong fundamentally with the idea. I mean, it's not like Shakespeare was trying to do history, or be historically accurate except in the loosest possible way. The historical setting is an exotic backdrop to the drama.

anachronous costumes for Shakespeare = total classic. What is great about Shakespeare plays is the way they can be dumped into context and setting. More people should write plays like him.

Richard III as Hitler
http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/29/2429-004.jpg

Point:

http://www.wellesnet.com/macbeth36.jpg

Counterpoint:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41N4XQ6AJ4L._SL500_AA280_.jpg

What's that first one, pancakes?

The Orson Welles Macbeth I think.

the Kurosawa films Ran and Throne of Blood are great. King Lear and Macbeth transplanted to feudal Japan, works surprisingly well

damn x-post!

It's always more modern, too. I've never heard of anyone setting Shakespeare in 7th century Arabia or something.

Throne of Blood is probably contemporary with Shakespeare's England or earlier, and is a triumph.

Zelda is correct -- it's the "Voodoo Macbeth."

I have to say "classic" with reservations. It can way overdone - I saw a production of "The Taming of the Shrew" set in the American West, pistols & saloons and whatnot: very distracting. But if you just put different clothes on that sort of quietly but constantly remind the viewing eye that these stories aren't just stories but applicable stories, which might have been set in any number of contexts and been as resonant or more resonant, then I think you do Shakespeare honor in a way that you don't if you distract people with the puffy sleeves etc: stuff that just makes the characters seem alien & other, when part of his genius is that they're never alien or other - they seem universal and timeless.

Also, Hamlet in the nude.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotope

Dept. of Unsummoned Cultural Ephemera: Anyone else remember that episode of Head of the Class where Johnny Fever does a "comtemporary" version of Hamlet with, like, motorocycles, and the "to be or not to be" soliloquy performed in front of a shaving mirror, etc?

Mostly dud but can work okay if done properly. I always figured with repertory theatre companies it was more about getting mileage out of costumes than trying to make shit "relevant", hilarious concept as that is. I have to judge it on a case by case basis. But I think I've said before, the stories are the least Shakespearean bit of most of the plays so I don't care about adhering to their narrative integrity. It's all about the words, really.

I like this. Setting Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech in a Blockbuster Video (in that Ethan Hawke version) was inspired.

"But I think I've said before, the stories are the least Shakespearean bit of most of the plays so I don't care about adhering to their narrative integrity"

nah, ws changes a number of plots very ingeniously for his dramatic purposes, so that's go to be factored in as an important shakespearian quality. what's least relevant in the plays is the setting: denmark, ancient rome, athens, verona, it's all england. which is why it's fun to play with costume and decor, but also elizabethan (english) dress reminds you of that fact.

I agree with that and perhaps expressed myself clumsily or hadn't thought it thru.

Two more down sides to the "hey! we've set it in fin-de-siecle Vienna!" thing tho. Firstly, when the company/director presents this like it's some theatrical challop, a devastatingly witty idea that they're the first to come up with. Secondly, fin-de-siecle Vienna can fuck off

You shouldn't hate on this unless it is poorly done. However, the odds favor that it will be poorly done.

there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. and shakespeare isn't the only one that gets put into different contexts. nevertheless, some of the modernist/expressionist pioneers like jessner started out recontextualizing shakespeare as a means to make a political statement.

Tsk, 'recontextualizing' is such an ugly word to let pass among friends. I prefer 'fucking with'.

tomato tomahto

i just saw a great staging of Taming of the Shrew that had some on-point 1950s costuming; i've also seen a Julius Caesar that substitutes trenchcoats for togas. when done well, anachonistic costuming can be ace.

it's called dramaturgy; look it up, haters.

also, please to drive a wedge between (a) versions of Shakespeare plays that remain faithful to the original text but make creative use of setting and (b) adaptations whose only relationship to the original Shakepeare is the structure of the plot

otherwise we're comparing apples to applesauce

it's called dramaturgy; look it up, haters.

THIS!!!!! <3 u elmo!

the fascist britain 'richard iii' was awes, haters. 'ten things i hate about you', also.

don't think anyone's talking bout (b), elmo.
but now we are, personally my eyes glaze over at any thing like that
thus i've not seen 'ten things i hate about you'.

i don't think it uses the original dialogue tbf.

guy i used to work with was always moaning about some uni drama group he was in whose mission was to 'put the bad back into the bard'

i would like to put the 'rad' back in there.

richard iii was great, but i am sort of sick of ian mckellen being Serious British Actor for the ages. the historical richard was barely into his thirties when he died at the battle of bosworth, so why the processsion of serious old dudes? and there are a lot of great actors i would've preferred to see in the title role, not the least of whom are Eccleston or RDJ (apparently both early contenders). and where was jacobi? his richmond is pretty famous -- it was a shame of the RSC to pass over him.

and also boo-hiss for the final falling f/x shot.

i rly wish i could have seen jessner/kortner's richard.

http://tbeck.beckground.hu/szinhaz/img/img/kepek_nagy/kekesi_8.jpg

http://tbeck.beckground.hu/szinhaz/img/img/kepek_nagy/kekesi_26.jpg

classic
http://musicbycybertron.com/images/other_images/forbidden4.jpg

there are a lot of great actors i would've preferred to see in the title role, not the least of whom are Eccleston or RDJ

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/2098/windowlickervideo5lf.jpg

There's a Polish adaptation of Macbeth playing in DUMBO right now. The cast all look like members of DAF and there's lots of gunfire, blood, nudity and grim techno music. Outdoors, set in a bunker. Oh yeah and it's in Polish.

there's a lithuanian romeo & juliet set in competing family bakeries that is pretty much awesome.

(b) adaptations whose only relationship to the original Shakepeare is the structure of the plot

JUST REALISED I got to take this all back, specifically for verdi (otello, macbeth and falstaff are completely awesome).

britten's midsummer is ace! just rly long.

yeah, it is that (both). think it includes a good amount of original text tho, whereas the verdi apps don't, even translated.

apps = adaptatations!

i will say that the acting company's recent adaptation of the tempest was utter shit, though.

adaptationinterpretation

Fakespeare: the Thread For Discussing Those New BBC Adaptations

(wherein I justify this concept via the medium of the Muppets)

I just rented the 1995 les misearbles on vhs (itself an updated classic, albeit awesome) and it had a trailer for the nazi version of Richard III, which prmpted many lols from all who were witness.

er, les miserables, obviously. although I do like the new title (rhymes with "marbles.")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GuD6WTrHto

Shakespeare has been performed in anachronistic costumes since at least the time of Shakespeare

haa.

I'm surprised no-one defended this practice - I love it!

That said I think it works a lot better with some play than others - with something like Lear, Othello, R&J you have these elemental plots that feel like the great old stories of the world - when those are done right it's just amazing, especially if you can leverage the fact that the audience already know the story (I've talked on another thread about Baz Luhrmann's being my favourite film). The wrong clothes just empathize the point really, I think they actually improve the play a reasonable amount of the time. On the other hand something like Hamlet or Winter's Tale or All's Well doesn't gain nearly the same thing because they're not *plot plays* in the same way, or at least their plots are more specific - I have seen a lot of anachronous-costume Hamlets and they have all been awful.

Not sure where Corolanus fits along that spectrum - maybe slightly closer to the first kind?

I can't recall seeing a Shakespeare production on the stage that wasn't in anachronistic (ie non-Tudor) costumes. Doesn't bother me at all - the language is deeply poetic and stylised, so why not the aesthetics?

i think i cd articulate better now what sucks about this when it sucks...but Fiennes' Coriolanus looks fucking must-see

i wonder how the facist/democratic elements will play in an updated version

so yeah, go see Coriolanus when it arrives.

I did. It was ok. I think it was dwarfed by its IRL setting. It was a valiant attempt and the fascist/democratic elements of the story were a perfect fit but individual scenes that might have seemed convincing in period costume on a stage seemed slightly ridiculous played out in today's global media ampitheatre - e.g. a handful of people in a television studio having the power to banish a politician. It doesn't help that Coriolanus himself is a difficult character, hardly deserving of any sympathy yet not a great villain either, at worst somewhere between a douchebag and a petulant child, at best bearing a strange noble humility - Fiennes did a great job capturing these different aspects though. Vanessa Redgrave was fantastic as his mother, with her rapacious joy at his bloody victories.

Didn't realise it was directed by Fiennes till the end. Standard shaky camera reportage for the most part, lots of well integrated stock footage. Heavy film noise in many scenes was pretty distracting.

I saw this too and I enjoyed it. The "banishment" scene was definitely the most awkward/failed translation into a 21st century setting. And the Apple product placement was distracting in the otherwise creepily-anonymous European setting. I thought the minor character chatter that was given to the talking heads on TV was well-written/directed. And the location scouting in Belgrade was fantastic. Coriolanus is a tough play with a weird ending but I dug it. ledge otm about capturing the different aspects of Coriolanus' character. The main accusation leveled against Coriolanus by the Tribunes is that he is "proud", and I think for Shakespeare that was true, but Fiennes' Coriolanus is almost the opposite. Not humble, but unwilling to make a spectacle of himself for the sake of gaining an office that, in the film, he scarcely seems to desire. Like most professional soldiers of our era, even when he is victorious on the battlefield he's uncomfortable in civilian politics.

Anyway I thought the film was a great reading of the play, and while the ending as written just lacks the tragic oomph of say Lear, did a lot more to make the play relevant to the current audience than the non-anachronistic Washington Shakespeare Theatre production I saw a couple years ago.

It doesn't help that Coriolanus himself is a difficult character, hardly deserving of any sympathy yet not a great villain either, at worst somewhere between a douchebag and a petulant child, at best bearing a strange noble humility

ie, an aristocrat?

just saw the fiennes movie and i really liked it. but the modern setting in a way disguises or misapprehends a much more ancient political conflict

i'd never seen a version of this play before (can't remember if i'd read it) and it is pretty rough, dramatically. the whole thing turns on one speech of C's mother, so that actor better be good. and his final betrayal happens pretty quickly. staging it on a grubby bit of highway was good i thought.