Mr Rice (my high school Shakespeare teacher) used to talk about how great the Shakespeare festival in Ashland, Oregon, was. We tried to get him to take us there on a field trip, but he said no, but that we should definitely go on our own. Since then, I've always wanted to go there. Well, it's been over 30 years and I still haven't been. We did pass through Ashland last summer on our way home from a family reunion. I thought, "Hey, I've been wanting to come here for years. I think we'll stop here and take a look around." The others in the car didn't mind, so we walked around town for a bit, and ate lunch, and then continued on our way. One of these days, I'll go see a play there.When I was at BYU, everyone talked about the Shakespeare festival down in Cedar City, and noises were made about going there. I thought, well, it's only three and a half hours away, not half a day or more like Ashland, so I ought to go. I never did.When I say I never did, I mean I never did when I lived fairly close and was single and had no obligations. No, I waited until I lived twice as far away and had four children tagging along. Actually, my first visit to the Utah Shakespearean Festival was totally spontaneous. Back in the summer of 1996, I was driving myself and those very same four children up to Idaho to a family reunion. (Because of work commitments - meaning stupid year-round school - Gary was unable to go with us that year.) Anyway, as we passed through Cedar City, I thought (as I later did in Ashland), "Hey, I've been wanting to come here for years. I think I'll stop here and take a look around." The others in the car had no say in the matter, so I walked around town for a bit with four kids in tow. Except we didn't eat lunch.I can't remember what other plays they were doing that year, but I did notice one of the plays was The Winter's Tale. I had just recently read that play for the first time and really liked it, so I decided to buy tickets for me and the gang. There was no show that day, but we could stop a week later on our way back home and see it then. At that time, the minimum age limit for children attending the plays was five years old (I think now it's six). Ian would be five by then (he had his birthday during the reunion), so I wouldn't need to worry about leaving him in the car with a bag of Cheerios. As it turned out, they questioned me going into the theatre about how old Ian was. They said there was an age limit. I responded that I knew about the age limit, that it said children under five not admitted, and that my son was five. They let me in, but I've wondered since then if that was the reason they changed the age limit to six. By the way, Ian did very well. I had to hold him on my lap during the fifth act, but otherwise he and the girls were rather well-behaved during the whole thing. Whenever he began to get really squirmy, something exciting would happen on stage: the lightning and thunder at Leontes' rejection of the oracle's decree, or the bear, or the dance at the sheep-shearing festival.As for my reaction, I can't describe it adequately. I can't explain what a marvelous experience it was to be so affected emotionally, intellectually, even spiritually, by what I saw. I'm not saying the play was perfect. There was some less than adequate acting. There were technical problems (this was only the second showing after the premiere the week before). But it was as fulfilling an experience as the plays I'd seen and loved at BYU, maybe more so.The play began with the sound of tolling bells, designed, I guess, to wake everyone up, since the play had a starting time of 8:30 pm, and they started nearly ten minutes late besides, according to the watch belonging to a man sitting behind us. (How did I see his watch? I can't tell you.) There was fake snow falling, which stopped just as the whole cast came in from vomitories (isn't that a great word?) halfway down the aisles. They walked onto the stage and, with uplifted hands, sang a verse of Christina Rossetti's "In the Bleak Midwinter".I'm not sure if this is what the director's motive was, but what it did for me (besides make me think, in quick succession, "That's not Shakespeare, that's a Christmas song", "I know who wrote that song!", and "Gee, I'm pretty smart") was put me in mind of the Nativity, which in turn led me to think that this was going to be one production of The Winter's Tale that focused on love and forgiveness. Another hint was that "love" and "forgiveness" were printed on the tickets. I was glad to know it, because I would've hated to see Hermione reject Leontes at the end of the play, which I've heard has been done by some very hateful director-types. In the program notes, the director, James Edmondson, wrote: "The Winter's Tale is the story of a deep spiritual journey shared by several people over many years. It is a parable of human destruction and loss, followed after a time by redemption and grace achieved by faith and forgiveness. It is perhaps the most spiritual of all of Shakespeare's plays." Okay.After they sang the verse, the lead characters took turns quoting significant lines from the play as they moved crisscrossing over the stage: lines like "Thou met'st with things dying, I with things newborn", and "What's gone and what's past help should be past grief", and "It is required you do awake your faith." Then they sang another verse, most of the cast departed, and 1.1 began. Finally.I should say right here that, although some of the lesser parts were played in a rather amateurish manner, I thought the acting overall was quite professional. I was particularly impressed with Kathleen McCall as Hermione, Gary Armagnac as Camillo, and Michelle Farr as Paulina, in that order. The guy who played Leontes was also pretty good, but the anguish of his jealousy was identical to the anguish of his penitence. Well, maybe some people are like that.
There was no indication of when Leontes' jealousy began - that it was a pre-existing condition or anything. Just all of a sudden he begins to say veiled things to Hermione, who can't quite tell if he's serious or not. Like Othello, he talks himself into his wife's infidelity, only he doesn't wait for any "proof". As he begins his speech in 1.2 ("inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one"), his son Mamillius (who looked like he was played by a five-year-old - see, I knew five-year-olds were allowed in the theatre!) comes up to have a bonding moment with his father. "Go play, boy!!" Leontes roars at him impatiently, shocking the poor little fellow and the audience.In 2.1, when Hermione tells her ladies to take Mamillius off her hands, it is done jokingly (he wouldn't put his nightgown on), but almost immediately she calls him back to her, and they are very close when Leontes storms in with his guards and practically wrenches Mamillius from his mother. The exchange between Leontes and Hermione here is very powerful as she tries to make Leontes see how mistaken he is. But, "I must be patient," she says, and "I am not prone to weeping," yet her voice breaks as she begs to be allowed to take her women with her to prison. Leontes shakes his head at first, but relents with a gesture when she says "for you see my plight requires it." This is a perfect example of how you can take the same words and, with a pause or gesture here or there, make a completely different interpretation of Shakespeare. I've never seen that specific moment in the scene done that way again.Paulina appears in 2.2, and brings Hermione's baby to Leontes. The actress got some laughs here as she resisted her husband's and the king's efforts to usher her out of the room. She made me a little nervous with her treatment of the "baby", though - she kept forgetting to support its head as she picked it up, passed it around, etc. Being a doll, it was stiff as a board and didn't need any support, but it distracted me just the same.Act 3, scene 2 - one of my favorites to read, and I wasn't disappointed in the performance of it - has Hermione brought on in a rude cart made of sticks lashed together, the kind you associate with prisoners being hauled to the scaffold. She looked haggard and wan, wearing the same nightdress she had been arrested in, only now it was somewhat bloodstained and dirty. There were audible murmurs from the audience (of pity, I assume) as she was brought on. She could hardly stand, and frequently clung for support to the cart or, when she got down from it, to one of the courtiers or her women. When her eloquent defense is over, and she asks for the oracle's decision to be read, she and Leontes kneel at the front of the stage in a ceremonial manner with their hands raised (an echo of the position the actors took as the play began), waiting for the decision. As it is read, Hermione nearly collapses in relief, her hands on her head, then stands and goes to her women to hug them, while Leontes remains kneeling, hands up. All of a sudden he stands and denounces the oracle. As he finishes, there is sudden thunder and a flash of lightning, then a courtier runs in to announce Mamillius' death.As far as I know, it's physically impossible to control the flow of blood to one's face, and I'm sure Hermione didn't really turn pale, but it certainly seemed like she did as she swayed a couple of times, her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell to the floor. It was very awesome, in the real 'awe' sense of the word.Act 3 scene 3 has Antigonus placing the little bed holding Perdita on some pretend rocks adorning the front of the stage. Suddenly, a polar bear comes out of the trapdoor center stage and begins pursuing Antigonus, but then turns toward the baby. Antigonus yells to draw the bear away from Perdita and towards himself, the bear knocks him down, and he scuffles, crab-like, offstage with the bear looming over him. Intermission.I'm afraid the appearance of the bear got a big laugh from certain members of the audience. One woman seated right behind us was almost hysterical with laughter the whole time the bear was on. She laughed even harder when Antigonus got knocked down. Myself, I couldn't see it. I mean, it was strange in a funny kind of way to have this bear rise up suddenly from the middle of the floor, and my first thought was "Are there polar bears in Bohemia?" But a snicker or two would have sufficed. The excessive laughter seemed more inappropriate than the color or behavior of the bear and was certainly more distracting. My kids, however, generally agreed that the bear was the most exciting part of the play thus far. The lady behind us apparently didn't agree: she and her escort did not return after the interval.Act 3 started out all right and got better as it went along. Autolycus and the shepherds tried to be real funny, and the shepherds sort of succeeded, but Autolycus is not one of my favorite characters, so that may affect the way I saw him. Also, I thought his singing could've been better. It was kind of tuneless and he sounded like he was out of breath. I think maybe he was just really nervous. There was also some continuing business with him accidentally dropping the money purses he'd pinched. They'd thud to the floor and he'd sheepishly try to hide them with his shawl, hoping his victims wouldn't notice. It all seemed rather awkward and silly to me, but perhaps it got better as the play continued its run. The best part about act 4 was the dance the sheep-shearing festival participants did. It was a real foot-stomping energetic country dance - very joyful and fun. My kids considered it another of the show's highlights.Then comes act 5 with the amazing statue scene. Oh, there was one bit earlier in the act where Paulina makes Leontes promise he won't marry anyone without her permission - just prior to this Leontes had been engaging in some self-flagellation with a little hand whip with multiple cords. That bit didn't work for me, maybe because I was sitting in the second row and could see that the strands of the whip were about as sturdy as yarn.Hermione's return to "life" was very moving. She remains still for so long that Paulina has to call her down from the pedestal six or seven times. She moved stiffly at first, towards Leontes' outstretched hand, and when she touched him she drew a deep breath - it reminded me of a newborn baby taking its first breath. After that she moved more naturally. Her reunion with Perdita was a real tear-jerker. She walked, almost unbelieving, toward her daughter, touched her on the head and a soft cry escaped her, then she held her kneeling daughter to her, finally kneeling herself as she began to ask how Perdita had managed to survive, where she had been, etc.
The play lasted about three hours, including the interval. Afterwards, my children were very exuberant in their praise, and, shortcomings aside, I agreed with them completely. We all piled back in the car and continued our journey in the late night toward home. The children were soon asleep, but I wasn't tired at all. I drove for a long time, my thoughts occupied with what I had just seen and with trying to find the words to describe it. Marvelous, awesome, fantastic, amazing . . . just words, after all.
Y'know, with Shakespeare, as with pretty much anything else, you get what you pay for. (Except sometimes, even when you pay a lot - like at the Old Globe in San Diego, CA, or the Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City, UT - you don't always get as much as you should.) Well, every now and then you find a really charming production at a reasonable price.Back in 1996, we went to an inexpensive production of Pericles at the Cassius Carter Center Stage (part of the Old Globe complex in San Diego) directed by Anne Justine D'Zmura and performed by MFA students from USD. As I mentioned previously, two of my favorite productions ever of Shakespeare plays were at BYU, but since those admittedly callow days of my theatre-going experience, I've become a bit more tentative about going to just any old student production, and with good reason. So I was a little nervous about what to expect, quality-wise, from this Pericles. Fortunately, it was a happy experience. Oh, there was some student level acting, not much better than what you'd expect at a high school show, but there was Andrea Cirie to make up for it. There was a lot of doubling and tripling of roles in this production; Cirie played Thaisa and a Myteline prostitute, but it was especially in the former role that she impressed me with her ability to make one of Shakespeare's characters seem real.The scene (2.2) where Thaisa and her father watch the knights vying for her favor was sweet and delightful and funny. Her attraction to Pericles was obvious, and she gave him appeal that the actor portraying him was unhappily not able to give himself. I was especially moved by their reunion at the temple of Diana (5.3): after she woke from her faint, her joy and her tears were very affecting.So in spite of the crazy costuming (Antiochus' court were clad in medieval-looking robes; Cleon and Dionyza had what appeared to be 18th century French clothing, complete with powdered wigs; the brothel denizens wore 1970s Goodwill castoffs; Pericles and his people dressed in a style reminiscent of late 19th century Russia) and the skimpy sets and props (or maybe because of the skimpy sets and props), it was an enjoyably adequate performance with a couple of bright spots to make it well worth my while.It was that experience that reminded me to be a little less judgemental about amateur productions. But I have found since then that the USD Pericles was an exception.We went to see The Tempest last night at the San Jacinto Shakespeare Festival in Hemet. Three things made me a little reluctant about going: 1) The Tempest isn't my favorite play, 2) the tickets cost only $10 (see "you get what you pay for" above), and 3) the San Jacinto what? But, remembering Pericles and Andrea Cirie, I was determined to keep an open mind.The venue for the San Jacinto Shakespeare Festival is the Ramona Bowl in Hemet. The Ramona Bowl is also the home of the Ramona Pageant; performed annually (since 1923!), it tells, through the experiences of a half-Indian woman (named Ramona, in case you were wondering), the story of the mistreatment of the Indians when the Americans started coming to California en masse in the 1850s.
As we got our programs and went to sit down, it was getting quite dark, and there was a nearly-full moon shining brightly just above the point where the two hills came together. It was quite a lovely sight, and I remarked to Gary that I thought it seemed an ideal setting for the story of The Tempest, which (as you ought to know) takes place on an almost deserted island. I believe that was the last positive comment I made.I don't want to be nitpicky and complain about every little thing that was wrong. It will give you an idea of how wrong things were, though, when I tell you that, just before the play began, some fellow came out and told the audience that there would be no doublets in the costuming this year, that it was a "concept" production. I never did figure out what the concept was. It looked kind of like a "there's no budget for costumes" concept, but I can't be sure, because Prospero, dressed in slacks and a blue buttoned shirt, sometimes sported a very dashing Dracula cloak. Anyway, this concept, combined with some very amateurish acting and garbled delivery of the language, made me happy that the play was only two hours long, including the intermission.Not everything was horrible. The fellow who played Prospero did pretty well, except he kept saying "uh..." between lines or in the middle of his lines, like maybe he was trying to make it sound more like natural speech. There were some interesting things, too. The character of Trinculo was renamed Trincula and played by a young woman with a kind of Betty Boop voice. (Incidentally, the characters of King Alonso and Sebastian were also changed to Queen Alonsa and...Sebastian! "Not Sebastiana?" I asked myself. Sadly, I had no answer.) Anyway, Trincula was engaged in a lot of physical humor with Stephano and Caliban, which was funny at times (I laughed), but she kept shuffling around in quick mincing steps wherever she went, and that confused me.
Caliban looked like a giant human-headed iguana wearing a cutaway trenchcoat, and sounded like Peter Lorre. Stephano, dressed sort of like a disco dancer, rolled around in the dust a lot - he was drunk, you see, and apparently he took his characterization seriously because I heard him make some pretty egregious errors in his speeches. For instance, when he should have said "How now shall this be compass'd?", he said "HOW garble garble this be comPASSED?" And then, a moment later, he was supposed to say, "Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys. Dost thou like the plot, Trinculo?" But instead he said, "Thee and Trincula shall be viceroys. How does thee like the plot, Trincula?" The director may have had a concept for the play, but Stephano had no concept of Shakespearean English.During the intermission, I heard some people talking a couple of rows behind me. I didn't really pay any attention to their conversation, because they weren't talking about The Tempest, until one of them, a young man, said rather insistently and with obvious scorn for his companion, "...based on a play by Robert Greene called Rosalind! What are you talking about?!"I wondered what he was talking about. If he meant Rosalynde - a source of Shakespeare's play, As You Like It - that was a novel, not a play, and it was by Thomas Lodge, not Robert Greene. Or perhaps that's what he was trying to tell his friend. Apparently errors abounded in the audience as well as among the cast. At any rate, I found their conversation much more intriguing than what was happening onstage at the Ramona Bowl.When it was over, I reflected again on the need for more widespread Shakespearean theatrical training in this country. And on where I need to go and how much I have to pay to find decently performed Shakespeare. And on how seldom I see a seductive attitude on stage carried off convincingly. And on why ingenues always look and sound so vapid. And on what a real iguana would look like in a little coat.P.S. After writing this, I googled the San Jacinto Shakespeare Festival and found their MySpace site. Someone there wrote that the concept of The Tempest was supposed to be that of a "1930s pulp story", like an Indiana Jones adventure. Well, they should have mentioned that in the program or something, because it explains Betty Boop (sort of), and Peter Lorre, and the Dracula cape, and the queen and her pals wearing khaki shorts. Oh, and Ferdinand's fedora. Ferdinand's fedora! I like that; d'you know, I do! It should be the name of something, somewhere.
I'm pretty sure the reason it took me so long to start going to Shakespeare plays again was because of my four children. At first they were too young for me to feel comfortable leaving them with a babysitter. I was worried about what might happen while I was gone. But by the time the youngest was three - that was in 1994 - I figured any babysitter worth the money ought to be able to take care of herself or, in some cases, himself when left alone with my children. I credit Shakespeare with this giant step.Leading up to that step, I had been doing some much-needed catching up. It will give you a hint of how much catching up I needed to do when I tell you that I took a Shakespeare class at BYU and never actually finished reading any of the assigned plays. I think I had seen one or two of them on tv, and I let that suffice. One of those I had not seen (at least, seen and remembered) was Hamlet, and until I started studying the play in preparation for Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film, the only thing I knew about it was that Hamlet talked to a ghost, himself, and a skull; that at one point he got captured by pirates, and at another he put on a play; that his girlfriend went crazy; and that by the end everyone pretty much died. I got a C+ in the class, a fact which has been a source of shame for me ever since. I started out in easy steps by going to our public library. I took all the kids along and let them look at books while I checked out the video section, particularly the PBS kind of stuff. Back then, they charged for checking out videos and I had limited funds. When it was time to make our selection, I'd be saying to the kids things like, "Wouldn't you like to watch King Lear? It's got a big storm, and sword fights, and one guy pokes out another guy's eyes, just like you're not supposed to do when you play with your friends."But they didn't care. They always wanted to get something like My Little Pony: The Movie or The Land before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving. For me, it was the time of the great giving in. We went home with the animated, anthropomorphized critters.So when I found out that the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego was doing Twelfth Night, I thought "This is a great opportunity to introduce the children to the concept of babysitters." Twelfth Night had been one of my favorite plays ever since I saw it back in 1975, so I was very much looking forward to an enjoyable evening.I think by that time I had developed an appreciation for the variety of interpretations that Shakespeare's plays lend themselves to. I considered myself a rather open-minded viewer of the plays, and I still do. I don't care if they're done in modern or period dress (except early 1970s). I'm not disturbed by some of the far-fetchedness of Shakespeare's plots. I don't agonize over the disparity between Elizabethan sensibilities and those we hold today. In fact, I suppose that my main criteria for enjoying Shakespeare may be, first, how realistically the roles are acted; second, with how much skill and understanding the lines are spoken; and third, how much the production concept contributes to the first two points. I think it was my experience at this production of Twelfth Night that crystallized all that for me.The play was directed by Laird Williamson. In his director's notes, he wrote of the "bittersweet wistfulness" that diffuses through the play. It was a little too diffused, I guess, because I was unable to sense it at all. There was just too much laughing going on.I like to laugh as much as the next person, and sometimes more, and I know Twelfth Night is a comedy, but there are some sad and disturbing things going on in the play. In this production, which was set in some bizarre sort of dreamlike, nondescript landscape, everything - with one exception - was played for laughs. I sat there wondering what Williamson was up to. "Is he just trying to be really, really different?" I asked myself. I wasn't the only one with such questions. When the lights came up during the interval, the woman next to me turned and said, "Have you ever seen anything quite like this?" No...no, I haven't, I assured her.I think I got a clue to what the director was up to when Feste made his comment in 3.1 about a sentence being like a glove to a good wit: "how quickly the wrong side may be turned outward." Only Feste didn't call it a "chev'ril glove" as is written. He called it a "kidskin glove". "Chev'ril" means "kidskin", but I could only suppose that Williamson supposed that most people wouldn't know what "chev'ril" meant, so he changed it. (See #20 in "Things I will not do when I direct a Shakespeare production".) So I started thinking, "Maybe Williamson approached Twelfth Night in this unanchored, slapstick, bizarre manner because he though his audience wouldn't understand Shakespeare. He wants to make sure we enjoy it anyway. He just doesn't want us to go away bored."I don't know. Things were very topsy turvy. The funniest lines were often thrown away - spoken too rapidly, or hammed up, or (worst of all) gabbled through in a manner that told you the actor didn't understand what he or she was saying. (I found that to be most often the case with the actress playing Viola, which made me very sad because she's my favorite character.) Serious or sad moments were accompanied by a piece of silly business, as if to remind the audience that this is one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies, by gum, and you will get a kick out of it!That's why, in the one bit that was played really seriously - when Feste looked at Malvolio in his dark confinement (which was a huge urn with a lid, which Feste lifted off so he could see) - Feste's sudden, horrified screaming was jarring (pun intended) and almost out of place. What, no laugh? Are we to suddenly sympathize with the simpering steward who has been milking giggles from the audience all night? Feste can see Malvolio in the urn; the audience cannot. Perhaps it would have helped if they could. I know I was horrified when he first appeared after reading Maria's letter in a strange pseudo-Elvis outfit with cross-gartered yellow-spangled bell-bottoms and an open shirt exposing his hairy chest.Well, even though I missed the bittersweet stuff, I laughed along with the rest of the audience because it was funny, after all. My personal favorite was Dan Shor as Sir Andrew - sort of a Laurel to Sir Toby's Hardy who, incidentally, brought the only true moment of heartbreak to the play. Sir Toby, Maria, and Feste were all well played. Viola and Olivia were adequate (which for me means disappointing). But poor Orsino was just lost. I was surprised at what a non-entity he was in this production. I kept reminding myself whenever he came on stage that, oh yes, he's a character in this play, too.Well, it was an experiment, one in which I learned two important things: 1. my children could occasionally be left with babysitters and I could return and find a minimum of destruction, and 2. depending on the production, not even my favorite plays will always give me that combined emotional/intellectual high I get out of well-performed Shakespeare.
Much of the Shakespeare I've seen over the years has been on television or movies. I think the very first play I saw was a tv production of Hamlet with Richard Chamberlain. All I remember thinking about that is "Dude, everyone's dead." Except I didn't say "dude" back then. I said "Man." Back then, I thought "dude" was a stupid word. I still think it's a stupid word, but everyone going around saying it all the time has finally influenced me, so now I say "dude." I wish it worked the other way. I wish I could influence people, and then they would go around saying things like "Lousy knave" and stuff like that.Anyway, the first stage production of a Shakespeare play I saw was The Merchant of Venice at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, back in my senior year of high school. I'm pretty sure it was during the Fall semester, so that would make it 1972. I had pretty much decided by then that I was going to be an English major when I went to college, so I thought I'd get an early start by taking two English classes that year, with two brilliant English teachers: Senior English (English Lit - with Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats, and all that wonderful stuff) taught by Mr Turner, and Shakespeare/Modern Novel taught by Mr Rice. I actually looked forward to going to those classes, if you can believe it. For a brief moment in my life, school (or part of it) was fun.So, in Mr Rice's class, we went on a field trip up to San Francisco. It was very exciting. Not only were we seeing a Shakespeare play, but we got to skip all our classes. The play was a modern dress production, and back in 1972 that meant Portia and Nerissa went about in slinky, very flared pants and halter tops, and Nerissa, who was played by an African-American, had one of those huge early 70s afros. I seem to recall vertically striped bell-bottom trousers on the men, but that may just be the vestiges of some nightmare I once had.After so many years, I don't remember too much else about the production. I have no recollection of Shylock or the trial scene at all. I recall that the laughs were played up pretty much in the non-Shylock scenes. And I remember - in fact, it's about the only concrete memory I have about the play besides the women's costumes - I remember a very affecting performance by Marsha Mason as Jessica. Her final scene with Lorenzo - "in such a night" was both shocking and moving. The scene was played more as a series of accusations one against the other, escalating in anger until they ended with Lorenzo slapping Jessica's face. The director also transposed a couple of other scenes with Jessica, and those changes, along with that very serious duet with Lorenzo, made it seem as though Jessica had been wrong to run off with him, and the one she really belong with was Launcelot. It was sad.Most of the other plays I saw in those days were at BYU. In June 1974 I saw a wonderful production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Max Golightly. It was a very realistic production, meaning the forest really looked like a forest, and an enchanted one at that. I went and saw it twice, I liked it so much. Or maybe three times. The second time I went with my brother Bob, and to this day, every time we see each other, we break into a series of Shakespearean insults. "You bead, you puppet, you acorn!" says Bob. "You minimum of hindrance!" says I. Much better than "Dude!" (Incidentally, it's supposed to be "You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made", but I learned it wrong those many years ago, and now it's fossilized that way.)In 1975, I saw the Reader's Digest version of The Taming of the Shrew, put on by the New York City Center Acting Company. They were touring college campuses and stopped at BYU in April of that year. It was all right. It was funny, but I don't like to see the plays cut up like that.I believe it was early in 1976 (but it may have been 1975) that I saw my first (and one of the best versions of) Twelfth Night, directed my Marion Bentley. I saw that production twice, too, and Viola (played wonderfully by Karla Hendricks) became one of my favorite characters. Also, around the same time, I saw a graduate student production of As You Like It. I don't remember much about it, except that I enjoyed it. I have the feeling it was pretty heavily cut, too, but at the time I didn't know that play as well as I knew The Taming of the Shrew. I do recall that it was updated to 1930s Chicago, and Duke Frederick was like some gangster boss, wearing a pinstriped suit, black shirt with white tie, and a fedora. When Rosalind disguised herself as a boy, she dressed the same way.Also in 1976, when I was back in California, I went with my friend, Wendy Carpenter, and her sister to see Othello at the ACT in San Francisco. Once again, I remember liking it, but that's about it. It'll give you an idea of how little I remember when I say that, while watching Othello on tv 20 years later, it surprised me when Desdemona got smacked in the face. I was not expecting that at all. I had to go look up the scene in the play to see if it was really that way.Finally, when Rhonda and I went to England in 1982, we saw a production of The Taming of the Shrew at the Open Air Theatre in London. I wish we'd been able to afford seeing something when we went to Stratford, but alas, we decided against it. (I didn't know it at the time, but there was a production of All's Well That Ends Well at the RST - the one directed by Trevor Nunn, yes, the one with Harriet Walter, Peggy Ashcroft, and Cheryl Campbell - that now I would give my eye teeth to have been able to see. My only consolation is that I think they'd already left Stratford at that time. Yeah, probably they'd gone to the Barbican Center in London...but I don't want to think about that.) So, here's what I wrote in my journal at the time about Shrew:"The Taming of the Shrew was pretty darn good. They did it in the setting of post-WWII Italy, and Petruchio, no wait, Lucentio and his buddies were American-Italian soldiers. The acting of Katharina and Petruchio, and everyone, was really good. Parts of it were so hilarious."Okay... Naturally I wish I'd described it a little more. The only other thing I remember now is that, at one point, Katharina was so angry and frustrated that she took a shoe (from her own foot?) and started whacking one of the nearby bushes.Hmm, it doesn't sound that funny when I tell it, but it was very funny. I promise.And then comes the Long and Pitiful Hiatus, when I had to rely on tv and vhs for Shakespeare. I call it Long and I call it Pitiful, and indeed it was, but there were bright spots provided by Kenneth Branagh. My hero!
I got this list a number of years ago from a Shakespeare chat group. I've modified it a bit. For instance, I took out the one that said "I will not let Glenn Close within 10 feet of a Shakespeare production" because I actually liked her work in the 1990 Hamlet film.1. The ghost of Hamlet's father will not be played by the entire ensemble underneath a giant piece of diaphanous black material.2. I will not imply that Hamlet is sleeping with his mother, or wants to.3. I will not make actors in battle scenes wear knitted chainmail of a color that makes them resemble not so much a medieval warrior as Winnie-the-Pooh.4. I will not allow any actor to bring a knife to a gunfight.5. Likewise, I will not allow any actor to bring a gun to a knife fight.6. I will not cast actresses as Helena and Hermia who are the same height.7. Richard II's minions will not be made to wear pink.8. Battle scenes will not be presided over by a ridiculous contraption resembling a death-bot.9. Ariel should, ideally, wear more than Gollum.10. I will not work in any pop music.11. I will not use long red ribbons to represent blood, particularly if the long red ribbons bear an unnerving resemblance to pasta.12. I will not cut important scenes simply because I do not like them.13. As much as I enjoy his films, I will not steal from Kenneth Branagh. It's not like people won't notice.14. I will not employ a conception of Caliban which would require him to wear a ghastly furry costume reminiscent of a hypothetical offspring of Chewbacca and the Wolf from Into the Woods.15. I will not pantomime every image employed in the text in concert with its recitation under the assumption that it's the only way the dumb audience could possibly understand Elizabethan text.16. I will not flood the stage with water.17. The Twelfth Night Fool will not be split into four parts: Gotcha, Misha, Feste, and something else (can't remember - I was Gotcha).18. Titania should not be portrayed as a dominatrix.19. Olivia being played by a man who really looks more like a woman is not that good of an idea.20. I will not change words in the text simply because I fear "glass" instead of "mirror" or something similar is too difficult for the audience to understand, as I am not Shakespeare and should just leave it alone.21. If I'm doing Twelfth Night, Sebastian will not be played by a 6'6" man with a heavy black beard and Viola will not be played by a 5'4" woman with a big chest and strawberry blonde hair and we'll just pretend nobody can tell the difference.22. If I'm doing As You Like It, when the Duke says "Find Cesario" I will not have the player playing Cesario standing 2 feet away staring at them.23. I will not have actors prancing about in the background acting the seven scenes of man's life in As You Like It, no matter how stupid my audience is.24. I will not allow the King's ghost in Hamlet to look like a hairy popsicle.25. Macbeth will not wear a kilt that goes down past his shins. That, my friends, is a skirt.26. Puck will not wear little gold Arabian Nights shoes that curl up at the toes.27. Sir Andrew Aguecheek will not be a young, lean, attractive man who no one in the audience can understand why Olivia turned away.28. I will not re-stage Twelfth Night to take place in Wonderland.29. If I cannot or will not get an actor to impersonate a corpse, I will not use a mannequin and then make a dramatic point of revealing said corpse.30. I will not aim for realism in my fight choreography when both armies together only number about ten people. Especially if I have a big stage.31. Richard III will not be portrayed as a whiny little prat who couldn't seduce or murder his way out of a wet paper bag.32. People playing human (non-elf/fairy/spirit) characters will not be made to wear costumes that sparkle unless there is a good reason for it.33. I will not make my cast simulate slow motion.34. When characters are required to speak with accents, I will make sure the actors in question can actually do them.35. I will not fail to employ a dictionary if there are words in the text whose pronunciation is uncertain, and I will strongly encourage my actors to do the same. I will not allow an actor playing Richard II to go through the rehearsal process without being disabused of the notion that "Antipodes" rhymes with "nematodes" if he is in need of such disabusement.36. No character will be allowed to skip around the stage without a particularly good reason. Particularly if it's a guy.37. I will not open the play with scenes from the fifth act and treat the action as a flashback.38. I will not have Henry throwing tomatoes at a spinning fan blade whilst yelling at Montjoy.39. I will not portray Mercutio as a speed addict and Tybalt as his dealer. I will try to do the world a favour and cease from modernising Romeo and Juliet.40. In a production of Cymbeline, Jupiter should not be played as some kind of bizarre winged thing on a high metal contraption with a magnifying glass for a face. Additionally, portraying the Leonati as four faceless figures swathed in one long, connected white cloth and bunches of gold Christmas lights with their lines delivered from offstage through the sound system that echoes and is impossible to understand is a bad idea.41. I will recognize that there is never a need for a monolith a la 2001: A Space Odyssey in Macbeth.42. I will not project a PowerPoint slideshow onto a large screen above and behind the actors, ever, for any reason, no matter what.43. I will refrain from "correcting" the text politically or "improving" it to avoid possible offense.44. Thematically apt though it may be, I will not have anyone in Twelfth Night resemble a character from Rocky Horror.45. I will not allow my actors to suffer under the misapprehension that "more spittle" = "better acting."46. I will not have sheep in my pastoral scenes.47. I will not put La Pucelle in a Xena-esque metal bikini, no matter how attractive the actor's legs and stomach are.48. No matter how clever or "modern" the production, no characters in Shakespeare will ever be portrayed at a rave.49. I will not cut the mythological "filler" from characters' dialogue to shorten a play's running time.50. No matter how much I may personally be enthralled by Dadaism, I will not insert random Dadaist elements into a production of Taming of the Shrew. I will especially not have actors carrying gigantic black bowlers through the scenes for absolutely no reason.51. I will not use a chipmunk puppet, a frog puppet, and a neon green alligator puppet (or indeed, any puppets at all) instead of actors.52. I will not portray Oberon and Puck as two handsome and well-built young men dressed in little more than blue and green paint. This is for the simple reason that it is distracting.53. I will not dress Goneril in dry-clean-only mint green silk shantung and then block her sitting on furniture containing substantial traces of "vile jelly" from the previous scene.54. If Macbeth is dressed in 1930s-era fascist chic, Lady Macbeth will not be allowed to dress in a 1960s caftan, complete with beads.55. I will not stage Macbeth as the leader of a Scottish mafia family.56. I will not put Titania in a neon-green wig, especially when the actress has perfectly fairy-esque short, curly brown hair.57. I will not make my Midsummer Night fairies into furniture for the other actors to sit upon. It's cruel and painful, no matter how cool it looks, and the audience will laugh at them.58. The Three Witches in Macbeth should never appear clad entirely in burlap sacks, including sacks over their heads. And there's no reason to have 9 of them, even if you're trying to do some stupid Norn fates thing because it's SCOTLAND, OK? Not Scandinavia.59. Lady Macbeth doesn't start out the play insane. If she does, there's nowhere to go. It's called a character ARC!60. Lady Macbeth should never give her biggest speeches lying facedown on a green couch.61. The Three Apparitions should NOT crawl offstage in full view of the audience after giving their speeches, particularly not while wearing a silver lame evening gown.62. If you are setting Macbeth in the modern era, there is no excuse for people fighting with broadswords in the subway, no matter how much you loved Highlander.63. Forty-seven women in identical black wigs commuting on the train do not make good Three Witches.64. At the end of The Merry Wives of Windsor do NOT have the company arrive to torment Falstaff dressed as for Venetian Carnivale in all white robes with pointed hats. It ends up as a Klan rally gone seriously awry. Poking Falstaff with the point of your Klan hat should ABSOLUTELY be avoided as it causes uncontrollable laughter on the part of the audience.65. Even if you're short on budget, any set from The Merry Wives of Windsor should in no way resemble Faust's hell.66. The Duke in Measure for Measure will not be allowed to descend from the heavens on a trapeze bearing the legend: deus ex machina.67. I will never portray Lady Macbeth as practicing Wicca. Especially if the production keeps the play in medieval Scotland.68. I will not use a timpani as a substitute for dramatic tension during battle scenes.69. Hamlet's mother will not be played by a woman who could have gone to high school with the actor playing Hamlet. At least not without rather a lot of aging makeup!70. I will not set The Tempest in a Gilligan's Island episode, and have my actors play their roles as characters from the show.71. If I have a high concept production, I will make sure it makes sense to people who aren't me.72. I will not allow my extremely young Juliet to have caffeine before the performance. She's supposed to be immature, not a Muppet on speed.73. I will have a contingency plan for outdoor plays in case of disasters other than weather. For instance: search helicopters looking for fugitives in the area. The actors are accomplished clog-dancers, but it's not fair to ask them to do that for the interim.74. If unable to avoid going post-modern, I will not cast and costume all major characters so similarly that they can not be told apart. It's just mean to the new kids.75. I will not cast the ghost of Hamlet's father as a tinny voice speaking from inside a green-lit coffin.76. Puck should not wear a tutu. Nor should he be twins.77. As much as I like the actress, I will not cast Hamlet as a woman pretending to be a man.78. I will not have men in kilts leaping down from set pieces.79. When the audience is close enough to touch the actors, I will not instruct them to swing sharp weapons, like axes.80. I will not begin A Midsummer Night's Dream with a song-and-dance number featuring Puck tap-dancing.81. I will not replace all the famous lines in Romeo and Juliet with pantomime just because everybody already knows the lines.82. Just because somebody can play an instrument, I won't necessarily have them do so.83. If I must stage Macbeth in a modern setting, there is no reason to dress the Scottish nobles as Hare Krishnas, especially if I also arm them with machine guns.84. I will not make the spirits summoned by the witches in Macbeth resemble glow-in-the-dark ducks in a shooting gallery.85. At no time shall Romeo slap Tybalt with a fish. This is especially key during their confrontation in 3.1.86. I will not cast a 6'6" walking wall as Tybalt and a 5'4" pretty little man as Romeo without giving some thought at least as to how I will choreograph the above mentioned confrontation in 3.1.87. If I am staging an outdoor production of Romeo and Juliet, I will make sure that I use whatever is necessary to keep the nearby bats from attacking the audience.88. I will never try to cast Richard III as a cyberpunk war between two companies.89. I will not have Hecate in the back of every scene of Macbeth, posing and trying to look interested, nor will I have her do an impromptu dancer's leap off stage-left at the end of Act III. It will only make my audience giggle and point.90. If the text says "thou purple herb," I will use a purple flower.91. Hippolyta is an AMAZON QUEEN; I will not portray her as a weak woman.92. I will not put Puck, nor Feste, nor Lear's Fool, nor any other character, in a Maxfield Parrish-esque fool costume COMPLETE WITH BELLS. If I absolutely MUST do that, I will make certain that the bells do NOT jingle.93. I will not allow juggling nor acrobatics to be involved in my production.94. I will not have actors rap rhyming passages.95. I will not cast as Charles the wrestler someone who is better-looking, more charismatic and more talented than the actor playing Orlando. Having the audience cheering for Charles is a bad thing.96. Spandex is not a costume, even for the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Especially pink and green spandex.97. Do not use a cooking video to illustrate the magical feast in The Tempest, no matter how funny it was at the time.98. If the play I am producing does not have a swordfight, I will resist the urge to add one.99. I will not use combs to substitute for knives. Nor will I use ski poles. Or big sticks.100. Anything that requires anyone to be flopping long sheets of cloth in the background to symbolize something, including "our set designer's on strike", should probably be rethought.101. There is no reason to be tying people up in King John. Okay, maybe when putting out Arthur's eyes. But that's all.102. Juliet does not chew gum, even if she is fourteen.103. I will not rehearse hand-to-hand fight scenes in small rooms with brick walls, unless I wish rehearsal to be held up by one of the actors suffering a concussion.104. If I am going to stage anything outside a theatre requiring actors to be out in public with swords and armour, I will remember to warn the local police first. The show will not go on with half the cast in the cells.105. Mummification in Saran wrap does not make for a good costume, even for fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream. Especially if it is performed outdoors in the middle of summer.106. If I make the fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream wear headlamps in my outdoor production because the lights look cool moving through the woods at night, I will come up with an alternative costuming idea for the matinee performances, when the lights just make them look like deranged miners.107. Beatrice is generally well-liked by everyone except Benedick. Thus she should not be a raving bitch to everyone she meets. I will remember that there is a big difference between wit and PMS.108. If I decide it's a good idea to set Much Ado during the Spanish Civil War, I will refrain from altering massive swathes of the text to accommodate it, especially if I have no sense of meter. Shakespeare knew what he was doing. Benedick is NOT the fourth Stooge.109. Similarly, I will remember that Much Ado is a comedy. I will refrain from having the company dress in funereal black for the wedding, dancing to sombre music, and then dying in a bombing raid. Even if am labouring under the misapprehension that this would be terribly artistic.110. I will never dress Puck in a black t-shirt reading PCUK, even if it seems funny when I think of it.111. I will never cause a character to fall into water (e.g. swimming pool) just because the actor looks good in a wet t-shirt.112. I will not allow my actors to speak so fast that the words mean nothing. Neither will I encourage them to stress the iambic pentameter until the sense leaves the words.113. Nor will I encourage them to hold their breath while other actors are speaking.114. And in addition to "Lady Macbeth should never give her biggest speeches lying facedown on a green couch", may I add: Neither should Lady Macbeth give speeches while lying on her back in the bath, with her face underwater. It's deeply inadvisable.115. I will never have the cast of Midsummer Night's Dream try to pull members of the audience onto stage to dance. It's not very clever to begin with, and it takes so long to find someone willing to dance that the music finishes before you get back on stage.116. As tempting as recasting a Shakespeare play into a different historical era may be, it does require more of a twist than simply dressing people in different costumes. The Three Witches in Macbeth need never be portrayed as Central Park bag ladies; Hamlet need never be the tale of the son of a 30s mafioso instead of the son of a late-medieval Danish monarch. Twelfth Night does not need to be re-cast with the leads from the television show Friends.117. Never give in to the temptation to use pyrotechnics during the storm at the beginning of The Tempest, especially when the gauze you have tied to the front of the stage is fireproof - but the paint on it isn't.118. I will not have the major dramatic characters in Macbeth wear make-up that makes them appear as an animated stained glass window.119. I will not have the entire cast of Macbeth clad entirely in black, except for Lady Macduff, who will be in pale blue. If I MUST, for some reason, costume everyone entirely in black, the set will NOT be entirely black as well.120. I will not decide that Helen of Troy in Troilus and Cressida is actually a sports car, nor will Pandarus do lines of cocaine off of her. (I will especially not do this if I can't afford a real sports car and have to make do with a small toy Ferrari, set on a table).121. When "the barber's man hath been with" Benedick, I will make him look at least slightly shaved.122. I will not incorporate an ominous witch-doctor woman into Romeo and Juliet, having her stalk the streets of Verona until she's finally revealed as the apothecary.123. I will not have Romeo and Juliet's clothes gradually become more modern as the play progresses, to symbolize that their love is eternal, especially if this means that Juliet has to wear a pink mini skirt for her death scene.124. If characters mention the music that they hear playing, I will make sure there is music for them to listen to.125. I will not cast Hamlet as two people, one male and one female.126. I will not give Thisbe cleavage by blowing up multi-coloured latex balloons and taping them under her dress; furthermore, during Thisbe's death scene, I will not tape a safety pin to the end of Pyramus' sword and allow Thisbe to pop said balloons for comic relief as she tragically stabs herself.127. I will never allow the unnecessary pause between "to be" and "or not to be" to last more than ten seconds, no matter how much the actor playing Hamlet believes it will transform him into Olivier. If he draws it out for more than twenty seconds during any rehearsal, I will recast the part.128. I will not set Macbeth in World War Two era garb, or leave Hecate on stage - in a rocking chair - for the entire fourth and fifth act. There is also no need to make Hecate a sexually ambiguous goth with a walking stick.129. The "Man of Wax" Paris will never be an ugly fat man.130. The Nurse will not face the audience with every line, no matter how much musical theatre experience she has.131. If an actor cannot convincingly cry on stage I will not force them to state the lines "boo hoo hoo boo hoo hoo" in their place (Lady Capulet in particular).132. I will not allow, no matter how tempting or how realistic, the production's Romeo to drink warm soy sauce as poison... It is unnecessary and unpleasant to him and those all around him (including Juliet who then must kiss his lips).133. Romeo's tunic will not be covered in ORANGE flowers.134. While in a period production, even a low budget production, Romeo's boots will not have an "Adidas" visibly in sight.135. If I must give in to my need to modernize Much Ado About Nothing, I will not set the entire play in an art gallery, and make Benedick attempt to hide by pretending to become part of the paintings.136. Casting a black Desdemona alongside a black Othello is kind of missing the point a bit.137. The Montague clan are not aliens. No, really, they're not.138. No matter how much homoerotic subtext has been built up over the course of the play, I will not end Richard II by having Henry pull Richard's dead body out of a pool of water, having him proceed to lie on top of it, and then roll, the one over the other, all over the stage in complete silence until the curtain comes to hide them from the audience's bleeding eyes.139. In a production of As You Like It, I will not portray the banished Duke and his followers as a community of Mennonites simply because I have an excess of those costumes in the costume storage shop.140. If I must stage Macbeth as set during Nazi-era Germany, I won't let Macbeth wear a kilt and a red swastika armband.141. I will not set fire to the actors to emphasise their emotions. It never helps.142. I will not end Comedy of Errors with a shower of "gold" foil coins and a Singing In the Rain-esque umbrella dance while the cast sings "Pennies from Heaven."143. I will not be afraid to portray Romeo and Juliet as a comedy, but whether I portray it as a comedy or tragedy, I will decide that before I have auditions.144. Do not EVER, under ANY circumstances, dress fairies in 1950's style prom gowns.145. If you decide to put Christmas lights in your fairies' hair, try to find a better way to hide the battery pack than making a huge corsage and pinning it to their chests. This is especially important if you ignored the last rule.146. If I absolutely must stage Julius Caesar on 1930's Wall Street, I will not make it impossible to tell the characters apart - identical suits and haircuts do not a good production make.147. Taming of the Shrew may, possibly, work when set in the Wild West. It will not work, however, if ALL the characters are shouting ALL their lines in horrible Texas accents.148. If I have to include Hecate, I will not cast a pretty boy and put him in a white dress and give him white contact lenses, no matter how "cool" I think it is. Particularly when this makes "her" look like a Greek statue.149. I will check up on the set designer on a regular basis so that they do not surprise me when the time comes to put the set in the proper space by 1) not showing up and 2) not having done anything but paint a bunch of platforms black. Especially when my original set design didn't call for any black whatsoever.150. I will check up on the costume designer on a regular basis so that they do not surprise me two weeks before opening night by coming into the prod staff meeting with a single suitcase full of fabric and a half-assembled costume and saying, "Well, this is what I've done so far..."151. I will also make sure that the costume designer is aware that if they measure people for their costumes, they should not measure them over their clothes, particularly when the temperature has been in the lower forties.152. I will never stage Macbeth entirely in freestyle rap.153. Failing this, I will absolutely not have the first act staged normally and the second act in rap - the contrast will be immediately obvious and the "out damn spot" scene does not work when Lady Macbeth is clearly sane enough to talk in perfect rhythm, if not sane enough to turn down the part.154. Failing both of the above I will at least not attempt this with a class of middle-school, middle-class, white Jewish students who wouldn't know rap if it bit them on the backside and who have only fourteen days of rehearsal time. Total.155. I will never have Romeo shoot Tybalt in the back.156. I will never, when directing Romeo and Juliet, choose to set it outdoors near a known landing site for rescue helicopters, as it confuses the audience during the tomb scene.157. I will never cast the same actor as both Mercutio and Lord Capulet, without a major costume change to alert the audience that no, this is not Mercutio returned from the dead to berate Juliet for not wanting to marry his murderer.158. I will never instruct Romeo and Juliet to "die faster, people didn't come here to see you two die."159. I will never inform my costume crew, after they've finished the fairies costumes for Midsummer, that I've changed my mind about the entire cast looking like various rock/pop/alternative musical groups, and am instead going for a late Victorian garden party setting - then tell them to just leave the fairy costumes as they are, but make everyone else's fit the new theme.160. I will never tell my actors that they don't need to understand the text, they just need to say it.161. I will never, ever, ever, use an Enrique Iglesias song as background music for a love scene. It makes the audience gag.162. I will under no circumstances have the same actor play Hamlet, the king and Hamlet's father, thus allowing a fight scene where Hamlet beats up an ugly blow-up doll.163. I will not have the background music be loud drums and metallic sounds that makes it impossible for the audience to hear what is being said.164. I will not present Macbeth with Klingon characterization (no matter how many Trekkies are in the cast).165. It's fine to cast people of various different body-types as the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, you should not then costume said fairies in lycra body stockings. Particularly if the first thought the audience members have upon seeing Titania & Oberon's attendants is: Wow, look at all the chunky fairies!166. Trying to do Macbeth set in a pseudo-prehistoric Scotland set - complete with an enormous Georgia O'Keefe cow skull, lots of chains hanging around and inexplicable macramé tabards for Macbeth and his Lady - is a really bad idea. Trust me.167. Similarly, do not conceptualize Taming of the Shrew as being a B-grade Sci-Fi movie wherein Bianca's lesser would-be lovers are costumed as lizard men.168. I will not set Macbeth in a post-apocalyptic future wasteland. Furthermore, under no circumstance will Banquo be a robot, alien, mutant, or any combination of the above.169. I will not use a basketball in a sack for Macbeth's severed head. If I absolutely must do so, I will anoint the stupid sack with stage blood to make it look a little more convincing, and I will let out enough air from the ruddy ball so that it does not bounce when it hits the stage.170. I will not kill Banquo by lethal injection (with or without "O Mio Babbino Caro" blaring in the background).171. A bunch of people dancing around with suitcases is not an acceptable substitute for the whole Three Witches thing.172. When Macbeth exclaims that he sees a dagger before him, a machete is not an acceptable alternative.173. Upon being stabbed, Tybalt should die, not propel himself backwards across the entire length of the stage.174. Make sure the actor cast as Juliet can actually pronounce the letter R correctly. Please, for the love of heaven.175. Any actors should be forbidden from calling anyone "Dude". This also applies to minor characters.176. I will not allow actors playing such roles as Juliet's Nurse, Queen Margaret (in Richard III), Mistress Quickly, or Justice Shallow to deliver their lines in a tone that can shatter glass. To that end, I may bring wineglasses to rehearsals.177. I will not costume Henry V in Star Trek uniforms.178. I will remember that updating Othello and making him a boxer would require me to cut around ten pages from the play entirely.179. I will not add four scenes to Othello in order to make things clearer to the audience, when the show's already been clocked at three and a half hours.180. Making Iago a woman is a bad idea. Making her seduce Roderigo is a worse idea.181. I will not add 'Iago's dream scene' before the murder of Desdemona, with strobe lights, just so the female!Iago can kiss Desdemona and Emilia. This scene will also not have modestmouse blaring in the background.182. Box cutters are not swords, and no actor is good enough to convince the audience that they are.183. It is rarely necessary for a costume to involve spandex, red sequins, silver lamé, or chicken wire, and certainly never necessary to involve a combination of them all.184. I will not cast people who sound like Kermit the Frog. I will particularly not cast them in dramatic or romantic roles as this makes it impossible for the audience to take the play at all seriously. (Jim Henson and company are of course exempt from this rule, but no one else is.)185. I will not pronounce "Titania" to rhyme with Titanium.186. I will not dress the fairies in glitter and a few carefully-placed leaves.187. I may do A Midsummer Night's Dream in period costume. I may do it in modern costume. I will never do MND with everyone in period costume except for the fairies, who are in biker leathers.188. I will not costume fairies in nothing but body paint.189. I will not costume fairies in shorts and hiking boots.190. I will not decide that the best way to portray "Exit, pursued by a bear" is to have the rest of the cast dressed in brown and do some sort of modern-dance amoeba thing to absorb the character.191. I will never say "And under no condition will I trim this Shakespearean script, even if the production is four hours long!"192. However, if I do decide to cut the script, I will not write my own soliloquies to insert at various points.193. Under no circumstances should the sound designer decide that it is a good idea to have the fairies in MND dance to "Chim-chim-cherree" (from Mary Poppins) instead of "Philomel With Melody".194. If you must have one of the characters sing, don't have the accompanying music so loud that you can't hear the words.195. In the same vein, make sure the actor can actually carry a tune and stay in key.196. I will not dress Oberon as Aladdin and top it off with ballet slippers and a crown of thorns. Particularly when Titania is wearing something resembling a toga with gold embroidered seashells.197. No matter how cool it looks to have fairies in Midsummer carrying candles in the final scene, I will refrain. Wings, flowing gauze skirts, and flower garlands are highly flammable. At best, I will have fairies mincing with looks of terror. At worst, they will catch fire. I will also not have them leaping and dancing over scenery while carrying lit candles.198. No matter how clever it seems, in no way will Death stalk both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. This is especially true if the costume consists of a black tracksuit with a glow-in-the-dark Halloween mask.199. If I deem it necessary to change the time period of Romeo and Juliet, I will make sure that Friar Laurence is not replaced by an aging hippie.200. If Shakespeare had intended for any character to say, "YEEEEEEEEHAW!", it would have appeared in the text.
I've been a Shakespeare lover since I was 14 years old, and maybe earlier than that. Some time ago, I made it my goal to see all of Shakespeare's plays performed on stage. I also began writing reviews of some of the plays I've seen. My dream (one of my dreams) is to someday direct the plays, but, other than a few efforts involving high school students, I don't think that's ever going to happen. So I criticize other directors' productions instead. It's easier and a lot more fun.
Anyway, this blog is for my reviews, starting with the early ones back in the day, and for other Shakespearean items and ideas I happen to come across.
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