Jan's Blog #2: Historical Settings

by jan
Sunday, April 20, 2008 9:10pm (PST)

Hello, Bugjune--

In answer to your question, nooooooooo, our productions will NOT always feature modern settings! In fact, in every LTSF season, you will be able to count on at least one of our shows being set in traditional historical fashion.

You're not alone in loving period costumes; in my experience with directing and producing Shakespeare in America, I have found that a healthy proportion of our audience members love to take that visual trip back through time, and really prefer period setting to any other.

Sometimes it seems that modern settings have become de rigueur. I had a conversation a few years ago with my daughter that brought it home to me; she was a young teen, and I was asking her opinion on how I was planning to do a production of ROMEO AND JULIET that would tour to schools. I said I was thinking of setting it in a big, gritty modern American city, and her response was, "Oh, Mom--that's what everyone does!"

I join you in loving historical settings for Shakespeare, not just because it's a visual delight, but also because it frees me from having to do any "translation" of language or attitudes to fit them into a different vernacular. It allows the verse to sweep us up in all its full power and eloquence without 'distraction'.

However, I ALSO adore an unusual setting--whether modern, historical, or avant garde--that brings new clarity and life to the language of the play, a circumstance that allows it to resonate with shadings of meaning that feel fresh. For me, it really depends on the play, the setting, the circumstance, the quality of the production, acting, etc.

So, as a resolute Shakespeare geek, I love it all. What I don't love, however, is a gimmick--setting the play in a bizarre way to show off how clever the director is, when the stimulus is a hungry ego and not an authentic artistic insight. The audience keeps us honest in this regard--when we're too full of ourselves, you let us know!

You make a good point, Bugjune, that it's not always clear in publicity which shows will be historically set, and we will take that into consideration in the future. So to answer you more precisely, this summer RICHARD III will be our period piece, set during Richard's 15th century reign. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM will have a modern setting, at least in the human world. The fairy world will be another thing altogether. It's a thrilling take on the play, one that's fresh but comes from Michael's authentic reaction to the combination of the play and the environment in which it will be produced.

You're right--it's the comedy that will get the modern setting! Very smart of you to notice...

3 Comments...

Could actors read?
Posted by William August | Saturday, May 3, 2008 11:43am (PST)

Since you are doing Midsummer Night's Dream this summer, this may be the chance to get an answer to a question that I've always wondered about. Could Shakespearean actors read and write? We know that Shakespeare produced "sides," the lines that only an actor has and not the whole play, and that there was a prompt book which contained all of the lines of the play. But I thought "men of letters" were actually few and far between in the Elizabethan era. And in Midsummer, you have the mechanicals, who are obviously not schooled, not learned, and not just a little ignorant, being handed their "sides" from which to speak their parts. And, other than pronouncing Ninus "Ninny," these crude vocationals seem to be able to read. So was reading (and writing) so widespread, or did, as I always thought, the actors learn their lines by rote, i.e., having someone speak them to them? If this takes this forum to far into an academic area, please forgive me. But it's always bothered me that these otherwise ignorant saps in Midsummer could take a written scroll and run with it.

Reading actors
Posted by Jan | Saturday, May 3, 2008 11:49am (PST)

Fabulous question, William! I'm going to pass this on to our MIDSUMMER guest director, Michael Walling, for an answer. Watch for his post!

Answer to Reading Actors
Posted by Michael Walling | Saturday, May 10, 2008 1:46pm (PST)

From Michael:
It's more a scholarly question than a theatrical one - you've sent me back to my university days, when I was lucky enough to include the great historian Keith Thomas (Religion and the Decline of Magic) among the lecturers. I remember him talking about this very issue, and explaining that people have tended to think of the Renaissance working-class as illiterate because of the "Xs" used for signatures - but in fact people who could not write could very often read, and there is much evidence that they could. The mechanicals in the Dream are in case in point. In fact, Snug the joiner, who confesses to being "slow of study", asks for the lion's part as text so that he can read it. If Snug can read, so can most people! We think of reading and writing as going together - but this wasn't always so.

Michael Walling,
Artistic Director
Border Crossings