WEEK 5 - SHAKESPEARE TODAY

Recently I've seen two productions of Shakespeare plays. The first one I saw was a production of 'As you like it' at the Globe Theatre. I also saw a production of Richard II, Henry IV (part 1 & 2) and Henry V all at the Barbican Theatre.

The performance of 'As you like it' at the Globe Theatre was probably more true to the performances in Shakespeare's time than the performances at the Barbican. This was mainly because it was performed in the reconstruction of the same theatre. Two significant differences between the plays were that the performance at the Globe was in the open air and the actors interacted with the audience whereas at the Barbican the performance was on a conventional proscenium stage and the audience felt quite distanced from the actors.

However, even the production I saw at The Globe would have been an extremely different experience to watch than a production in Shakespeare’s time. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, the performance I watched was in the evening and used artificial lighting. However in Shakespeare’s time the performances would always take place in the afternoon as there were no adequate forms of artificial lighting and so if the performance was too early, it would be too bright and if the performance was too late it would be too dark.

Secondly, in both of the performances, which I saw, the audience were well behaved and quite quiet. Whereas in Shakespeare’s time the audience were more unruly and if they didn’t enjoy a performance they would make there feeling known, by doing things such as throwing food at the actors or damaging the theatre. Also, fortunately the audience nowadays are much more sanitary and make sure that they have a shower at least a day before going to the theatre and use the public toilets. This is because in Shakespeare’s time the audience would smell extremely bad and the groundlings would go to the side of the area to relieve themselves.

Another major difference between the performances nowadays and the performances in Shakespeare’s time was that in Shakespeare’s time there were no women actors and young boys would play the female roles, which is quite strange considering that the country was run by a female.

Actors in Shakespearean times probably wouldn’t have been as prepared for the role as the actors nowadays. This is partly because they didn’t have as much times to rehearse as they do nowadays. Also, they got a scroll with only their own lines and their cues on them, this was because of the high cost of ink and paper.

However, very often the actors would go on tour with the same company for a number of years and so the chemistry between the actors would’ve probably been better then nowadays as actors usually only work together for one or two plays. Also, Shakespeare would’ve created the different characters with a certain actor in mind, for example the role of Dogberry was written with William Kemp in mind. Obviously these actors are no longer able to perform and so occasionally the actors may not fit the role as well which makes the casting experience much more important and in the power of the director. Also, actors these days would be more respected whereas in Shakespeare’s time actors were seen as a danger to a peaceful society and not of as high a status as they are nowadays.

Another thing, which I noticed when watching the plays at the Barbican, was that the fight scenes were not as realistic as I would imagine the fight scenes in Shakespeare’s time to be. This is because, in Shakespeare’s time to be an actor you had know how to sword fight and it was the weapon of choice at the time and so the actors would be more familiar to it.

Nowadays the performances may not highlight certain things that would’ve been relevant at the time. For example, there may have been certain political references that nowadays, we wouldn’t be aware of.

In Shakespeare’s time the productions would’ve been aimed towards most people and would have a wide target audience. This is because, in Shakespeare time, you did not have to be educated to understand was being said and so many people could enjoy it. However, nowadays, Shakespeare production are targeted to a more educated audience because generally more educated people would want to go to a Shakespeare performance, which is a shame.

Nowadays the acting is much less melodramatic, because of influences from theatre practitioners such as Stanislavski. This means that occasionally it is harder to hear the actors nowadays because they often think less about their voice projection. However, in Shakespeare’s time the performances were probably less realistic but would involve the audience more and therefore the audience would find it easier to understand the dialogue.

Finally, nowadays some of the words used by Shakespeare may not be relevant as so they often are interpreted in different ways. For example, in some performances the word ‘sword’ would be used but the actor would be holding a gun. Therefore because of the language Shakespeare’s plays have to be studied in order to be fully understood whereas in Shakespeare’s times the plays would have been understood by everyone straight away.