Much Ado
I met a woman at a party who declaimed to the room that Shakespeare is overrated. It was obviously a riff she is fond of exercising; the party was populated by her friends who seemed to have heard it all before. But stating that Shakespeare is overrated is a sign of gross ignorance, and of a kind that I feel I can be helpful with. So I proceeded to inform her that, far from being overrated, in fact most people don't know just how great a craftsman Shakespeare actually is. And I gave her a few examples.
But she has a personal beef against Shakespeare, to wit, that since she got her Master's Degree in post-modern feminist literature, Shakespeare's picture should not be on her degree, and moreover, her professors spoke far too highly of him.
She didn't actually know anything about Shakespeare. And since her study was post-modern feminist literature (can we really call it that yet? Are we sure?), there's no reason why she should. The one thing she did know, at great length, and often repeated, was that Shakespeare is overrated.
Go and see Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing. If you still have a soul, when you have seen it, you will know why Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist of all time.
I've never seen a production of a Shakespeare play where the actors didn't wink and nudge the words, saying them louder, or, gods help us, slowly, to make sure the audience understood that this part is funny, or this part is important. There was none of that in this production. Since they had no audience but the camera, the director and actor trusted the words. The words tell them each character's passions, desires, relationships, hopes, and fears. And that's what they played, moment by moment, like fencers, using the words as their weapons, and we watch each engagement hit home.
Whedon heightened the sense of the scenes with his choice of setting and timing. The party of the first night rolls over into the drunken aftermath in the cold morning light, and in that context, the Prince's off-hand proposal to Beatrice, poignant though it is, finally makes sense. The choice that Borachio had a history with Hero was brilliant, and made his choices, and his sudden confession and contrition, work.
Seeing Nathan Fillion play Dogberry was a joy. Though the biggest surprise was looking up the actor who played Benedick and realizing I'd seen him for years, in Buffy, but didn't recognize him in this. How I love a shape-changer.
Four hundred years after it was written, this story still works. The beauty, magic. and joy of this play are conjured unerringly in this production. And isn't it awesome that this one will run forever.
But she has a personal beef against Shakespeare, to wit, that since she got her Master's Degree in post-modern feminist literature, Shakespeare's picture should not be on her degree, and moreover, her professors spoke far too highly of him.
She didn't actually know anything about Shakespeare. And since her study was post-modern feminist literature (can we really call it that yet? Are we sure?), there's no reason why she should. The one thing she did know, at great length, and often repeated, was that Shakespeare is overrated.
Go and see Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing. If you still have a soul, when you have seen it, you will know why Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist of all time.
I've never seen a production of a Shakespeare play where the actors didn't wink and nudge the words, saying them louder, or, gods help us, slowly, to make sure the audience understood that this part is funny, or this part is important. There was none of that in this production. Since they had no audience but the camera, the director and actor trusted the words. The words tell them each character's passions, desires, relationships, hopes, and fears. And that's what they played, moment by moment, like fencers, using the words as their weapons, and we watch each engagement hit home.
Whedon heightened the sense of the scenes with his choice of setting and timing. The party of the first night rolls over into the drunken aftermath in the cold morning light, and in that context, the Prince's off-hand proposal to Beatrice, poignant though it is, finally makes sense. The choice that Borachio had a history with Hero was brilliant, and made his choices, and his sudden confession and contrition, work.
Seeing Nathan Fillion play Dogberry was a joy. Though the biggest surprise was looking up the actor who played Benedick and realizing I'd seen him for years, in Buffy, but didn't recognize him in this. How I love a shape-changer.
Four hundred years after it was written, this story still works. The beauty, magic. and joy of this play are conjured unerringly in this production. And isn't it awesome that this one will run forever.