return of the ESOL!

[angevin2]

This is cross-posted, but hey. Since it made Metafilter, I figured it'd be fun to cross-post the long-awaited third part of the Evil Shakespeare Overlord List, newly corrected and augmented. I have incorporated suggestions made on Metafilter, so if anyone has come in from there, thanks! :)

Evil Shakespeare Overlord List, #1-359
Evil Shakespeare

Comments

[darthfox]

With regard to Measure for Measure, it is probably not effective to have Angelo open and close his mouth while he's thinking about what to say. Likewise, it might be best if he didn't bounce slightly on his toes and hold his arms kind of stiffly away from his body. He is neither a codfish nor a marionette.

[ricardienne]

I will not have dead characters pop back into the action later in the play to repeat Significant Lines, (e.g. Mercutio wandering around the final tomb scene saying "a pox on both your houses") as this is not meaningful but confusing.

[kerrypolka]

Corollary: this practice is acceptable for characters who are not-quite-dead, such as Margaret in Richard III and Hermione in The Winter's Tale.

To contribute:

[arriterre]

(All taken from a terrible Comedy of Errors I recently saw)

One should never insert gimmicky interludes between scenes such as people running around dressed in "We are Sheep" t-shirts. That is wank.

Place names should never be changed for political and/or patriotic ones such as "Iraq" or "Christchurch" for cheap laughs.

"Heavy accent" does not equal "great chracterization"; it in fact usually only equals "coherency out window".

Physicality does not take precedence over voice; this is Shakespeare.

There will not be some stupid physical gag in the background going on to detract from a "boring" speech, or because the director is afraid that the audience "won't get" the wit that is actually being spoken.

The audience does not need visual aids to understand what is being said, such as people becoming a ship or the sea to show the audience what a ship or the sea is, because it's Shakespeare, and they might suddenly lose all their powers of comprehension when faced with a speech more than three lines long.

[arriterre]

450. I will not make the apparitions in Macbeth (including Banquo's ghost) invisible. There's no way to avoid the supernatural element in the play, so why not revel in it?

I disagree with this in part, actually. If the fellow playing Macbeth is as fantastic as Michael Hurst, he can make the audience as terrified as though they were sitting next to Banquo in the audience. However, I entirely agree if the reaction and mood can't be properly established. But sometimes imagination and words do more than the visuals can, imo.

472. I will not make Claudius look like Henry VIII.

Bless you for that, my darling. :D

495. I will never have The Ghost of Hamlet's Father appear out of a Pepsi One machine. (sonneta)Now that that's got me thinking about E. Hawke's Hamlet, here's several in that vein

[sadcypress]

The more I think about it, the more I need to add one:

There is no need to insert a scene into 'Measure for Measure' of Juliet angsting alone in prison to the sounds of Damien Rice. Especially with writhing on the ground.