The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #154097   Message #3613220
Posted By: MGM·Lion
27-Mar-14 - 06:52 PM
Thread Name: BS: 'Updates' - why?
Subject: RE: BS: 'Updates' - why?
We haved drifted a bit. But re Shax: I said in a review I wrote, probably about 25 years or so ago now, that it was refreshing to see a play done in Elizabethan-style costume, as modern dress had been the absolute bog-standard norm for so many years. In fact, of course, they were always played "modern dress" in Will's own time, in the sense that the Greek & Roman & Ancient British plays [Caesar, Coriolanus, Ant & Cleo, Troilus, Timon, Titus Andronicus, Cymbeline, Lear] would all alike have been played in contemporary doublet & hose, not togas and tunics or furs & woad. So Will wrote them for the language to fit any age; & I long ago became of opinion that the factors which bring about the success or otherwise of a production are independent of the costuming; I have seen some excellent ones, which really brought new insights, in modern dress, & some dire ones more apparently "authentically" costumed. It's the directorial vision & concept that count above all.

~M~