Monday, 22 October 2007
Possible selections from programme
Whilst Artaud's comment about staging shakespeare without using any of the text was no doubt deeply ironic, it may be possible to draw parrallels between his concept of the theatre of cruelty and Shakespeare's work. What I mean by this is Theatre of Cruelty's need to immerse the audiance and appeal to all the senses. When listening to Shakespeare i would argue that one of it's main forte's is to immerse the audiance member in the language. The tone, flow and highly poetic language serves to ingross the listener almost to a trance like state. This is however only a singular comparison, but throughout the works of shakespeare cruelty is experianced and portrayed in many different ways. In Hamlet there is physical violence but also an air of death and decay about the play. We also see through his works see scenes of implied incest which Artaud was very intersted in. In both I think we see a critique of the human condition without a sense of escapism.
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4 comments:
but at the same time it is escapism, you cannot escape the theatrical nature of Shakespeare. I just find it difficult to contemplate an Artaud style production of Hamlet without it losing some of its meaning. The language comes from the text but Artaud specifically says he wants to get rid of text. I guess I just find it hard to contemplate a Shakespeare play without the language.
Hamlet is a good example with the physical violence and the idea of incest yet you cannot help but feel that you are losing something from the production if you chose to ignore the text... I may be talking balls...let me know if I am... =D
Surely the language of Shakespeare can be lost but the core of the story retained. The language may well be viewed as the most powerful element of Shakespeare's work but it must be possible to explore the key ideas of a play such as Hamlet without the text. Shakespeare purists will lynch me for wrting this but it would be interesting to see what would happen to such works if staged without the text. Something would be lost but perhaps something else would be gained by losing what Artaud saw as unnecessary text.
Perhaps...but I still feel that if you were to remove the text from Shakespeare the negatives would outweigh the positives.
However, looking at what Grace has written Artaud says 'we should no longer be invested in masterpieces.' Maybe by removing the text and using the core story in Hamlet it would "allow for the exploration of dream-like states: physical jerks, groans, exaggerated gesture and unintelligble language would create an unnerving experience for the audience, but one that would make them investigate the realms beyond real life and cultured humanity." (Stolen from Grace =D) Yes its not a masterpiece but it would produce something different from Shakespeare's work.
In a way I think its an interesting and brave idea but by removing the text from Shakespeare I just cant help but feel its wrong...kind of liking having Simon without Garfunkel or having a banana split without the ice cream.
Another possibility for a Shakespeare play is Julius Caesar (betrayal, stabbings etc), what do you reckon?
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