One more thing before I go to bed...
I was twiddling around the Internet again (actually, this was to find out what search terms one would need to use to find my LJ on google if one was looking for reactions to the Globe tour) and came across this link -- it's a review of the Globe Twelfth Night by David Nicol, who'd seen it in its original production last February.
Some of what he says is very interesting, albeit rather condescending towards most of the audience, but for the most part (see especially point 2 in the article) I was left wondering if Nicol had seen the same show I had -- he found it a disappointment, while I (obviously) found it a triumph. (Although in a very real way we hadn't seen the same show -- a great deal of the cast was different!)
Must consider further his remarks that the Globe has been rather facile in its attempt to put the productions in historical context. Here's his summary:
Kennedy asserts that the Globe company must force its audiences to confront Shakespeare's difference from us; Rylance, in contrast, sees value in the audience's identification with what had previously appeared foreign. The Globe, rightly, tries to walk a tightrope between the alienation of historicism, and the accessibility of modernization (and certainly a number of their productions have deliberately rejected historicism by adopting obviously modern staging practices on the Globe stage). But if they are supplied with the right tools, audiences can be enabled to understand historical differences without effacing them; and there are ways in which those differences can be emphasised in order to challenge more powerfully the audience's assumptions. Hopefully, the Globe's future forays into recreating the Elizabethan Shakespeare will prove less reliant on the belief that costume, stage-construction, and snack recipes are all that is meant by 'historical context.'
This is probably too thorny an issue to respond to at ten minutes to five, but provides much food for thought to a good little new historicist like me. ;) And it rather chimes with some of the conversations I've had with my adviser on the whole concept of the new Globe, where the point's come up several times that there's essentially no way any modern production can really replicate the Elizabethan theatrical experience, because the times really have changed, and neither company nor audience can unburden ourselves entirely of our cultural baggage. We can recreate the staging practices, to the best of our knowledge, but pretty much everything else -- our views of gender roles, class, the theater, swordplay, yellow stockings, what we'll be doing after the show, how we got there, what we're wearing, what we ate for breakfast, the government, the geographical location (at least for us Yanks who saw it on tour), and so forth -- is different. Except for the stuff that's the same. I suppose the problem is determining what that is, isn't it? Obviously, for Twelfth Night or for any other Shakespeare to move us we have to be able to connect to it; sure, I know more about the historical context than a lot of people (not to blow my own horn, although I've been accused of such in the past), but it had to start somewhere, right? And where do "historicist" productions like this fit in? Is it the "authenticity," however we define that, that excites the audience (although Nicol described his production's ovation as reluctant and led by a group of fanatics, no doubt people like me!) or just the material itself? Are the problems some critics have had with the Globe's approach to tradition just a case of academic overthinking?
And then, too, I'm reminded of the prof who told me that it sounded like my interest in early modern literature was founded in the appeal of the exotic, and that I got interested in Chaucer because working through the cultural differences was such a thrill. But I think I still tend more towards Rylance's POV (as noted above) on this matter, which ought to make Palin very proud of me!
(All this blather, I suppose, recalls my question about whether Nicol and I saw the same show, really. Obviously not: besides the casting differences, he saw it in London, in February 2002, at Middle Temple Hall, while I saw it in Ann Arbor, in November 2003, at the Michigan Union. He's British (I assume), I'm American; he's male, I'm female; I'm 24, and he's probably rather older than I am and has been in the field longer. He may also be less prone to fangirlism. ;))
Wow, that was a heck of a ramble, wasn't it? And I didn't say anything useful -- but then, stagecraft and metatheater is my specialty, and rambling is even more so... ;)
Some of what he says is very interesting, albeit rather condescending towards most of the audience, but for the most part (see especially point 2 in the article) I was left wondering if Nicol had seen the same show I had -- he found it a disappointment, while I (obviously) found it a triumph. (Although in a very real way we hadn't seen the same show -- a great deal of the cast was different!)
Must consider further his remarks that the Globe has been rather facile in its attempt to put the productions in historical context. Here's his summary:
Kennedy asserts that the Globe company must force its audiences to confront Shakespeare's difference from us; Rylance, in contrast, sees value in the audience's identification with what had previously appeared foreign. The Globe, rightly, tries to walk a tightrope between the alienation of historicism, and the accessibility of modernization (and certainly a number of their productions have deliberately rejected historicism by adopting obviously modern staging practices on the Globe stage). But if they are supplied with the right tools, audiences can be enabled to understand historical differences without effacing them; and there are ways in which those differences can be emphasised in order to challenge more powerfully the audience's assumptions. Hopefully, the Globe's future forays into recreating the Elizabethan Shakespeare will prove less reliant on the belief that costume, stage-construction, and snack recipes are all that is meant by 'historical context.'
This is probably too thorny an issue to respond to at ten minutes to five, but provides much food for thought to a good little new historicist like me. ;) And it rather chimes with some of the conversations I've had with my adviser on the whole concept of the new Globe, where the point's come up several times that there's essentially no way any modern production can really replicate the Elizabethan theatrical experience, because the times really have changed, and neither company nor audience can unburden ourselves entirely of our cultural baggage. We can recreate the staging practices, to the best of our knowledge, but pretty much everything else -- our views of gender roles, class, the theater, swordplay, yellow stockings, what we'll be doing after the show, how we got there, what we're wearing, what we ate for breakfast, the government, the geographical location (at least for us Yanks who saw it on tour), and so forth -- is different. Except for the stuff that's the same. I suppose the problem is determining what that is, isn't it? Obviously, for Twelfth Night or for any other Shakespeare to move us we have to be able to connect to it; sure, I know more about the historical context than a lot of people (not to blow my own horn, although I've been accused of such in the past), but it had to start somewhere, right? And where do "historicist" productions like this fit in? Is it the "authenticity," however we define that, that excites the audience (although Nicol described his production's ovation as reluctant and led by a group of fanatics, no doubt people like me!) or just the material itself? Are the problems some critics have had with the Globe's approach to tradition just a case of academic overthinking?
And then, too, I'm reminded of the prof who told me that it sounded like my interest in early modern literature was founded in the appeal of the exotic, and that I got interested in Chaucer because working through the cultural differences was such a thrill. But I think I still tend more towards Rylance's POV (as noted above) on this matter, which ought to make Palin very proud of me!
(All this blather, I suppose, recalls my question about whether Nicol and I saw the same show, really. Obviously not: besides the casting differences, he saw it in London, in February 2002, at Middle Temple Hall, while I saw it in Ann Arbor, in November 2003, at the Michigan Union. He's British (I assume), I'm American; he's male, I'm female; I'm 24, and he's probably rather older than I am and has been in the field longer. He may also be less prone to fangirlism. ;))
Wow, that was a heck of a ramble, wasn't it? And I didn't say anything useful -- but then, stagecraft and metatheater is my specialty, and rambling is even more so... ;)