From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.theatre
Subject: Re: sort of LOCAL:  UC Santa Barbara Shakespeare
Date: 13 Apr 92 16:49:55 GMT
Organization: University of Delaware

In article <kuc34rINNnek@news.bbn.com> ahsiung@labs-n.bbn.com (Anita Hsiung) writes:

>Last weekend we took a jaunt up to Santa Barbara and caught the
>American Shakespeare Company of UCSB doing "Love's Labor Lost". ...

>The women were overplayed, but I do like
>Shakespeare's women; they're strong and smart.  

He did write great women's roles, didn't he.  (Alas, not MANY of them in
most of his plays.  That made sense in his day when boys played women,
but it's hard on the actresses in a gender-balanced rep company.  LLL
actually has as balanced a ratio of the sexes as he ever wrote.)

It's also true that the women's roles are often overplayed, all giggles
and flounces and archness.  I had hoped that this was an old-fashioned
approach that had long since died out (I prefer to see human beings
onstage, not cartoons); but I have seen it crop up in a couple recent
productions.

>Costuming was terrible, not in the clothes themselves, but in
>consistency.  Half the players wore modern double-breasted suits or
>skirts half the time.  Everyone ended up in period costume by the last
>scene, but I was very confused as to what they were trying to say in
>the cross-period dressing.

This sort of thing is not unheard of in Shakespeare.  Sometimes it can
work, if well done (and the meaning made clear to the audience); mostly
it just seems pointless.  Often the director is reduced to "explaining"
his reasons in a program note -- an admission of failure.  In this case,
I can only guess, but it sounds as if he wanted to avoid the audience
thinking at the start (as I must confess audiences at Shakespeare can
tend to) "Oh, isn't this sweet, isn't this quaint and funny" as if it
had nothing whatever to do with our lives.  This sort of approach is
often intended to "shock" people out of that attitude; and then it
sounds as if the plan was to ease up and let it go back into period once
the audience was involved.  I'm just guessing at a possible reason...not
saying that it worked or was a *good* idea.

>I guess back in the Old Globe days, no one worried too much about
>lighting.  Is Shakespeare supposed to be just generally lighted?  No
>follow spots, no changes in colour?  (This is my first Shakespeare
>production...)

Well, in the REAL old Globe, it was always done in daylight; lighting
simply wasn't an option, except a couple of torches as props maybe.
There's no "supposed to" about how you'll see Shakespeare done; the
whole range from the most sophisticated modern effects to unchanging
general lighting will be found in different productions.  The late
Tyrone Guthrie was very much of the opinion that there should be no
lighting changes in Shakespeare, even for night scenes.  Maybe your
director was following on this idea.

Personally, I hate follow spots under all circumstances.  I do like to
see creative (though sensitive) use made of lighting possibilities,
though.

>The play lasted very long, almost three hours, but this _is_
>Shakespeare after all.  I liked the way everything was elaborated; if
>a man was in love, he spoke long soliloquys about this love, not your
>usual half-hour sitcom where the same themes are "developed" in 22
>minutes.

Three hours is a pretty typical length.  With really expert verse
speakers (of whom there are few), who can "think through the verse"
clearly enough to make it intelligible and musical at high speed, LLL
would probably last a quarter of an hour less.  Some of the plays can be
played in about two hours, and some of the great tragedies like Hamlet
need four.

>Does anyone think the four men would return to their women at the end
>of 12 months?  I didn't think so, but some of the romantics in our
>group fervently hoped so!

I guess I'm a romantic.  I always figured that the four couples do
reunite after a year passes.

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.arts.theatre