WEEK 5 - SHAKESPEARE TODAY

QUESTION: Analyse contemporary Shakespeare productions with reference to live performances you may have seen or clips or footage available online. You should comment on what you notice about them and how they differ from what you know about the original performance conditions of Shakespeare’s work? (Don’t be afraid to point out the obvious).

Consider how these productions are employing all the techniques, technology and resources of modern theatre.

National theatre: Twelfth Night

One contemporary production of Shakespeare, was the national theatre’s modern interpretation of  Twelfth night. As soon as the production started, you could tell it would be action packed and exciting. From the set to the acting a lot of money had gone it to this remediation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Differ from the original

I believe the main difference between this version of Twelfth Night and Shakespeare original version, is the set and the lighting. What I’m by this in Shakespeare original production the set was very minimal and bare, unlike the national theatre’s where the set, and lighted played a heavy part in the show, they used intricate set, with the 360 rotation stairs, and the lights that were used to set the mood and tone. Set and lighting is often used in modern day theatre because it helps create the desired atmosphere, I think it adds more intensity and believability to a performance, and overall make the experience more enjoyable for the audience.  However this wasn't available during shakespeare’s time, so they had to rely pretty much solely on the actors, to create the world of the play, as they couldn’t use set and lighting for atmospheric effect.   

Another difference between this production the original is the audience, in the National theatre productions, the audience, only had to performance, in one direction, as the audience only slight curved round to the side, but only by a tiny bit. Unlike in the original production, and the audience would have been located in 3 sides around the stage, a thrust staging. Also there was no ‘Yard’ for the audience to watch the play from, they were all sitting in seats throughout the performance. This means doing shakespeare production, the actors would have need to be more warey about the body language on stage, to make sure they are not blocking for on side of the audience.

 

Midsummer Night’s Dream- Tiff (festival 2014)

Another modern adaptation/production of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night’s Dream. From watching a Clip of youtube, I can tell that their version of Midsummer Night’s Dream, is very different to the original. From the short clip, I could see that the direct took more of what I would call an ‘ modern artistic’ approach to the play. They was use of multimedia using projects,music, and movement.

Differ from the original

One of the more significant difference, which common in contemporary shakespeare, is that they had women actors as, well as men. This is something you would never see in shakespeare’s version, you would have the men playing the women. This because they felt that acting was a job only for men, and at the time, not something a women had the rights to participate in. Obviously time has moved on since then, and more time’s than not women will be playing female roles, unless it is for comedic effect. I think that having women play female parts make it more believable and more relateble when watching it.

From watching the clip I also think they used a lot of physical movements, to create the production, which as far as I know wasn’t used in Shakespeare’s original productions. I don’t think Shakespeare used it because it hadn’t yet be discovered as a way to tell/show theatre. I think adding physical theatre to the production, will add more depth in the performance, and will make the show more interesting as the will be more than one way to portray something to the audience.  

Another notable difference in the multimedia used in it, which I briefly mentioned before. In their production they used, projected onto the back, which showed loads of different videos with a sort of graphic design feel to them. The projects were used to add to the scene, and increase the mood, and create more of a tense atmosphere. The technology to do this wasn’t available during shakespeare time, which meant they could take advantage of the use of technology like Tiff could.