Ship of Fools: Unexpected Directions

Thread: Unexpected Directions Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

A suggestion by Brenda Clough about donating unwanted clothing to your local Am-Dram had me thinking which G&S operetta could be best costumed in a collection of A-line skirts and hand knitted cardigans. Definitely The Mikado: return the three little maids to school and set it all in a ladies' seminary.

Which is not a lot wackier that some Directors' ideas for putting their individual stamp on some musical or theatrical warhorse.

What productions have you seen that were either illuminating or terrible?

If you had the singers/actors and an unlimited budget, what kind of makeover would you like to give some favourite work?

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

In the illuminating/inspired category:

A few years back I saw the RSC do Julius Caesar. They had an all-black cast and set it in modern-day Africa, with Caesar as an aspiring African dictator who gets assassinated by his generals, triggering a descent into civil war. They were dressed in a mixture of traditional African dress (they cunningly picked a drapy one with a vague reminiscence of the toga), modern Western-style dress (mostly shorts and t-shirts for the plebs) and army fatigues. While the theatre was filling, they gradually filled the stage with the African party atmosphere - a guy selling Caesar-themed memorabilia off a crate and people playing djembes. The soothsayer was a traditional witch-doctor.

It was phenomenal. In particular, Mark Antony raising up the rabble was amazing: “these are honourable men”. I think honour is a concept that has far more currency in Africa than it does in the West these days.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Terrible - Cymbeline with all the actors dressed in white robes and holding masks - Japanese Noh style. As an idea for a play that isn't well known it didn't illuminate anything.

Illuminating: two, King Lear put on by a Belarussian company where they were wearing variations on what I guess was Belarussian traditional peasant dress, well, when they were dressed, and the wealth Lear passed on was land, cases of soil. (It was in Belarussian too.)

And Isango's version of Venus and Adonis where they were all dressed in dull coloured African dress/Tudor dress, barring the white cloth that passed on who was performing Venus.

Carmen set in what looked like a modern / 20th century South American army camp was OK too.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Terrible: a production of The Winter's Tale with the court represented by Bill Gates' people (computers literally glued to a totem pole) and the countryside represented by some sort of fadged up Iniut group. say whut?

Sort of worked: Dr. Faustus by Marlowe played by the inmates of an insane asylum.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

Terrible: 'Hamlet' as a 1930s Mafia family, in which Polonius was the godfather Claudius' henchman. It doesn't sound such a terrible idea until you realise that making Polonius a bad guy removes the only bit of humour in the whole, 4-hour-long play ...

Another terrible 'Hamlet': the Ghost as Darth Vadar. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

Since I'm sort of addicted to Shakespeare there are many plays I could put in both categories. But my very favorite adaptation (of my very favorite play) was A Midsummer Night's Dream in Stratford, Ontario, last year. The whole play was set as the entertainment for a gay wedding in Theseus' backyard in 21st century Ontario. It was the happiest, funniest, most wonderful MND ever!

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
Terrible: 'Hamlet' as a 1930s Mafia family

If I see ONE more production Macbeth/Julius Caesar etc in which they are Mafiosi...

That's the trouble with do many avant-garde productions - they are in fact arrière-garde*

*rearguard

Posted by georgiaboy (# 11294) on :

Two Shakespeare productions that remain burned in my memory for their awfulness:
1) MND set in an eastern European circus (Romanian?) with Titania's handmaids wearing ripped fishnet hose and draggedy dresses. The rustics looked like Ralph Cramden on a bad day. The only bearable one was Puck, and he was hobbling about on a cane because he had (for real) a broken foot. I spent approx the last third of the play in the bar.
2) same company, even worse concept: Titus Andronicus (which IMHO isn't worth doing, anyway) set as a rock opera on an alien planet called IIRC Krone. As someone once said, it 'explored new depths of badness.' I left at the first intermission, and went to the Box Office and asked for my money back (of course, I didn't get it!)
This director could now be the darling of the Metropolitan Opera!

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

Some adaptations, especially of the comedies*, are great fun, if a bit fluffy. I just saw "The Merry Wives of Widnsor" set as a 1950s sit-com. It was cute.

My basis for judging a great adaptation is if, after seeing it, I think to myself "THAT is what Shakespeare had in mind!" One amazing example of that was seeing the film broadcast of the National Theatre's "Timon of Athens" with Simon Russell Beale. I left the film conviced that Shakespeare really meant it to take place in 21st century London during the Occupy movement.

*Comedies adapt well, and some tragedies. I really don't like the histories staged in the wrong times and places.

Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :

quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
In the illuminating/inspired category:

A few years back I saw the RSC do Julius Caesar. They had an all-black cast and set it in modern-day Africa, with Caesar as an aspiring African dictator who gets assassinated by his generals, triggering a descent into civil war. They were dressed in a mixture of traditional African dress (they cunningly picked a drapy one with a vague reminiscence of the toga), modern Western-style dress (mostly shorts and t-shirts for the plebs) and army fatigues. While the theatre was filling, they gradually filled the stage with the African party atmosphere - a guy selling Caesar-themed memorabilia off a crate and people playing djembes. The soothsayer was a traditional witch-doctor.

It was phenomenal. In particular, Mark Antony raising up the rabble was amazing: “these are honourable men”. I think honour is a concept that has far more currency in Africa than it does in the West these days.

Yes, I'd agree entirely. I saw that on it's UK tour date in Sheffield (a taped version was also played on tv that Christmas). It really was incredible.

Playing on the same themes, The Tempest with Anthony Sher and John Kanu was excellent. They used South African-style puppets to conjure up Sycorax and some of the other magical elements.

Northern Broadsides, a company that specialise in dialect and northern accented classics, always have fascinating staging and heavy use of music. Some of the battles in a performance of Shakespeare's War of the Roses cycle were staged as a drum battle between two timpani and the main fight was a clog dance. Sounds corny, but totally worked.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

King Lear as a biker gang. Complete with Lear holding one of those plus-sign shaped wheel wrenches as a cross while he gives mad speeches and various characters riding motorcycles on stage without adequate provisions for exhaust.

On the other hand, Midsummer Night's Dream set in a garden full of insect characters was wonderful.

From a different direction, a production of the musical South Pacific was interrupted by a power failure during a thunderstorm. I went a few nights later and they'd incorporated the power failure into the production, using flashlights for a few minutes.

[ 26. October 2015, 21:08: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]

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