After our class workshop, Toby took us all down to see the Canterbury Tales at the Shakespeare Tavern. I had been to the Tavern before and enjoyed their production of Romeo and Juliet, so I was looking forward to the Canterbury Tales.
What we saw didn't disappoint me; the play was funny, energetic, and well produced. Some of the tales were more enjoyable than others, but overall I enjoyed myself. What really stood out about the play, however, was that fact that they took several of the tales and updated them into various modern settings.
The idea of adaptation fascinates me. I'm not one of those purists who deplore the idea setting Romeo and Juliet in modern L.A. or turning Julius Caesar into a Western (Harold Bloom, I'm looking at you). I think it's perfectly fine to allow directors their creative licenses, and changing the setting of a familiar story often brings a new understanding to the work. The version of The Canterbury Tales was interesting to watch. I like the disconnect between the Middle English coming out of the actor's mouths while they wore business suits or carried a machine gun because it forced me to think about the tales in a new way and see the connections these older stories have with more contemporary books, movies, and plays.
Updating and and adapting a story into a new setting can be incredibly helpful for our students, allowing them to deepen their understanding of the play. Reading a play can be incredibly difficult, especially Shakespeare. With only dialogue and a few stage directions, the students often have trouble visualizing and comprehending the action of the play. It's perfectly fine for students to act out Caesar's death with foam swords if the purpose is to give the students the chance to see how Caesar is killed and the betrayal of realizing Brutus is there. It is not a "dumbing down" of Shakespeare (again, Harold Bloom, I'm looking at you). Likewise, seeing a familiar play in a new setting forces the audience to re-think their perception of the play and make new connections and understandings of the material. It's Intertextuality at it's finest.
Hi, I'm an ardent fan of Bloom and came across your blog via my google alert. I can't blame you for giving Bloom the glare, his scorn towards Harry Potter, Stephen King and others make him seem to generally disapprove of anything popular or some might even say fun. But what really is his contention is noot "creative license" as you mentioned but quality (or strength as he likes to say, however subjective either of these terms may be.) A couple examples of Shakespearean adaptations that Bloom has commended include Kurosawa's versions of King Lear and MacBeth--Ran and Throne of Blood--which he says to be the best film versions of any Shakespeare play period. Another I've heard him admire is Kiss Me Kate. He also praises Karin Conrood's striped down modernized versions of the plays and claims to have enjoyed the film Shakespeare in Love.
ReplyDelete