Month: July 2008

I was going to put this in the “what makes it funny” thread, but thought it might stand better on its own. Once upon a time, after I’d seen one of my first productions of Les Miserables, a friend asked for a review.  I remember responding, “Well you have to figure, the source material that the show is working with is just so good, that any review is going to start at about a 7 out of 10, and is going to have to work pretty hard to get below that.”  The same is true for something like a Jesus Christ Superstar.  In my own little world, when you’re working from great literature, you’re starting with a leg up on the competition.  Alan may already tell me I’m an idiot, who knows. Anyway, just now a coworker asked me for a review of the Boston As You Like It, which as my readers will know I gave a “meh” review.  When it came to the question of whether I would recommend somebody else see it, I found myself giving a similar answer:  “You have to realize that you’re talking to someone who already loves this stuff so much that I’m going, either way.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Shakespeare show that was so bad that I regretted it.” Which gets me back to the “funny” thing, which is basically the same general idea – where does the quality lie, in the printed word, or the performance?  We all know that you can have a line that is funny on the page that just dies in performance, or vice versa – something that looks stale on the page that comes to life when delivered.  Is it possible to explain the balancing act that goes on between the two?  Can you ever really have a “bad” Shakespeare show, or is it a completely different review if you say “The acting and directing were bad, but the source material is good.”

http://www.shakespearepost.com/2008/07/27/julie-taymor-planning-film-version-of-%E2%80%98the-tempest%E2%80%99-with-helen-mirren-as-prospero/ Ok, TheShakespearePost scooped me on this one.  Julie Taymor, who I’d noticed did her own Tempest a little while back, is looking to do it again.  This time with a twist – Helen Mirren to play Prospera, Miranda’s mom. “It goes back to the 16th or 17th century, and women practicing magical arts of alchemy, who were often convicted of witchcraft. In my version, Prospera is usurped by her brother and sent off with her-four-year daughter on a ship. She ends up on an island; it’s a tabula rasa: no society, so the mother figure becomes a father figure to Miranda. You have the power struggle and balance between Caliban and Prospero; it’s not about brawn, but about intellect.”

I mean right now, to present day audiences.  What’s a good comedy, and why?  Is Shrew better than Much Ado?  Twelfth Night over As You Like it?  Say that you had opportunity to get all the comedies in front of a group of people who otherwise aren’t Shakespeare fans, and who were just looking to be entertained / get a laugh.  Which come out on top of the pile? Is it the slapstick?  Do people need to be falling over each other and wrestling in the mud? Or maybe it’s a “timeless issues” thing, like the battles between men and women, or everything that surrounds a “romantic comedy”?  People laugh at what they recognize to be true, so to speak.  I still contend that this is the primary reason for the popularity of Shrew. Does the writing and the dialogue count for much?  If you have one guy out on the stage saying witty things, will he carry the audience’s good favor and end up at the top of the pile?  Or most often does the witty dialogue go over people’s heads? I’m curious if we can get a discussion going on the subject.  Recently Alan was hyping the value of Shrew over in a different thread.  Having just seen AYLI for the first time, I can say that I thought a line like Rosalind’s “Don’t you know I am a woman?  When I am thinking, I must speak” (or however it was said) would have brought the house down, but it barely registered.  But the simple exchanges between Jaques and Orlando: “Rosalind is your love’s name?”
  “Yes, just.”
“I do not like her name.” and “I was seeking for a fool when I found you.”
   “He is drowned in the brook: look but in, and you shall see him.” Got a much better reaction.  The second in particular, Jaques didn’t even have to follow up with the “There I shall see mine own figure” to get the laugh, people understood it without that. 

When marketing and design folk need generic copy to fill space, they use something called “Lorem Ipsum”, a sort of greek gibberish that pours out of generator scripts in as long and varied a length as you need it: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed vel nibh id augue tincidunt feugiat. Integer auctor ante at sapien volutpat ultrices. Donec congue. Suspendisse pellentesque. Proin vitae augue. Aliquam sapien metus, cursus vel, rutrum vel, pharetra eu, felis. Donec sed diam sed eros ullamcorper commodo. Duis faucibus ante eget justo. Aenean sollicitudin purus sollicitudin arcu. Nulla a turpis id tortor congue gravida. Praesent sodales cursus est. Nullam eu enim. Sed dolor nunc, accumsan ut, mattis vitae, consectetuer sit amet, ipsum. Etiam scelerisque nisi porta risus. Donec velit. Curabitur lobortis, dui quis condimentum bibendum, dui metus lacinia tortor, nec tincidunt lacus diam sed est. Cras et arcu ac nisi auctor pretium. As a software developer I tend to work more in objects and actions than in actual copy.  Right now for instance I’m doing a database of relationships between people and educational institutions, so I’ve got a database full of stuff like “Gertrude is the parent of Hamlet, Claudius is the husband of Gertrude.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are former friends of Hamlet.  Horatio is a friend of Hamlet. Horatio and Hamlet are students at Wittenberg….”  and so on, for testing the various branches of the system.  (Like, Gertrude as the mother of a student might by default be allowed certain permissions, whereas her new husband does not get those same rights.  Similarly, Horatio’s friendship with Hamlet allows for functionality that R&G no longer get…) I find it fun, and I like to think I’m educating my coworkers 🙂

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/greatest_shakespeare_movies/1097245-hamlet/ Rotten Tomatoes, a popular movie review website known for unapologetically telling it like it is when it comes to the movies, has put up it’s “Top 30 Shakespeare Movies.”  Fans and purists alike are sure to find stuff to infuriate :). I am only disappointed in one thing, and that is that they seem to have gone through their database and grabbed everything that mentions Shakespeare.  So for instance Lion King is on the list (and ranks relatively high), but it’s hardly a Shakespeare movie.  It’s only borderline Hamlet-inspired, at best. Also worth mentioning is Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet, which we were trashing last week.  Yeah, it’s 30 out of 30.