Shakespeare in Rap
Flocabulary: Hip-Hop in the Classroom presents this great video, a summary of the plot elements in Macbeth.
Flocabulary offers CDs of their raps as well as teacher resources related to verse and rapping. Much of the CD contains the Shakespeare’s verse rapped, others that are classically performed, and some that are interpretation or synopses (like the video).
Second Life Shakespeare
Last week, when I wrote about the auditions for a production of Romeo & Juliet that would take place in an online game, someone asked me if it was on Second Life. Well, now I see that the phenomenon exists there too. Hopefully without the actual suicides…
The SL Shakespeare Company is Second Life’s premier professional
theatre production troupe. According to artistic director Ina Centaur,
“Since the beginning, we have been dedicated to creating and bringing
serious theatre to Second Life. We hope to continue doing so by
reaching out to and connecting the thespians around the world.” Of
note from 2008, its inaugural year, the Company performed SL’s first
historically accurate Elizabethan production of Hamlet
The Secondlife Newspaper M.A.C.E.: Auditions for the SL Shakespeare Company
They are auditioning voice actors, because they want the Second Life version to be visual and auditory. The actors who are chosen will have wardrobe provided, just like a real-world production, which is a big deal when 3D modelling is a skill that is usually highly paid.
Auditions for “Twelfth Night: Act 1″ (why aren’t they doing the whole play?) will be at 1pm on January 24th at the SL Shakespeare Company… in Second Life, of course.
Church of Shakespeare Collapsing
Sensationalism begets readers, and nostalgia begets pity.
In a blog post titled Should We Save Shakespeare? Lee Jamieson brings to our attention that Holy Trinity Church may be closed within five years. The place where Shakespeare was baptized and also where he is buried is in disrepair and poses a health risk. More specifically, the windows in the 800-year-old building are falling apart.
It is certainly important to get this information out to the public, so that those who feel inclined to save this church have the time to do so. Lee does not go beyond the press release from the Mirror, but suggests that if you had planned to visit, your time is running out. The important part is that Friends of Shakespeare’s Church are attempting to raise £2.5 million if you wish to donate, but there are no public funds allocated to help.
Everybody hates sensationalism in the media, and so my first point here barely needs mention: “Should We Save Shakespeare” is a headline made to get clicks, not to accurately describe the content of the article. I clicked it right away because I love Shakespeare’s writing, and I want to save his writing and performance of his works. The thing I don’t care about is his corpse or his religious affiliation.
Which brings me to the more important point: history is not the same as nostalgia. Having historical landmarks is important to remind us of important historical events. They provide us with a physical place to associate with milestones in human history. Was Shakespeare’s baptism important? I don’t think so. Was the ceremony of his funeral? Nope. Is his decomposing body? Well, like Einstein’s brain, perhaps it is important to keep his brain for further study. But the church where it is currently housed? Not in my opinion.
If the church is condemned, do we move the body? Don’t forget the curse:
GOOD FREND FOR IESUS SAKE FORBEARE,
TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE.
BLESTE BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES,
AND CVRST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES.
Just for the record: curses don’t exist. But I digress.
Lee says, “I think it is appalling that there are no public funds behind the project. Does Shakespeare really mean that little to us?” My reply: It’s his writing that means so much to us. Preserve the house where he wrote, perhaps. Preserve the theatres where his works were originally performed. These are places where events worthy of historical record took place. It’s his church that means so little to us.
I look at it like military history. Yes, I want a statue of a famous captain standing where a major battle took place, with a plaque to read about why it was important. Why did so many soldiers die in this place? The history that matters is the battle. As a whole, society has a duty to mark the battleground, but not to preserve the captain’s birthplace, his house, his favourite restaurant. Perhaps family members will preserve those things. Perhaps store owners want to brag that the captain slept there, and they preserve it to get more tourists. All of these examples of preservation are private enterprises and we can agree with them or not, support them or not, based on what we each think is important. The government should only preserve buildings and land that are, in themselves, of historical merit.
Does Shakespeare really mean that little to us? No, Shakespeare means so much to us. Should We Save Shakespeare? Absolutely. His poetry must continue both on the page and on the stage. Should we save Shakespeare’s Church? That’s for you to decide to donate to a private foundation, because despite being a Shakespeare supporter, I think that it would be a misuse of public funds.
Do We Save Them?
After 27 years it has come to this: Either the SSC board raises $300,000 by Monday, Dec. 22, or the 2009 summer season will be shelved. And if that happens, the company will likely face “the most unkindest cut of all,” to quote Marc Antony in “Julius Caesar”: extinction. [Read More: Shakespeare Santa Cruz: To be or not to be?]
Many theatre companies face closure, and it’s not just this year’s recession (depression) to blame. Performance groups face this crisis every year, and Shakespeare troupes more and more. I’m a believer in natural selection, and the economic equivalent: market forces. So on one hand, I say, “Let them die if they can’t figure out how to live,” but on the other hand, I have to ask myself, “Is the theatre’s job to make money or is it worth saving because they’re important to culture and education and enlightenment?” What’s your stance?
Shakespeare For Blind Actors
Steve Gladstone is blind. At the age of 17, he was diagnosed during a routine exam with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), which is a degenerative disease that causes a progressive loss of vision.
“It happened over a long period of time. I was sighted half of my life and I´ve been blind half of my life. It´s been frustrating with the progression of the disease. But, most of the characters I play on the stage are not blind. I wind up playing able-bodied characters that are sighted as very few blind characters show up in classical literature or are written into scripts. Being blind is something that can be hidden to an audience,” Gladstone explained.– Pam Vetter, Florida Actor Encourages Early Education for Change in Acceptance of Performers with Disabilities
Many companies already have policies against racial discrimination, what some call “colour-blind casting”. This means that black actors are no longer limited to Othello. Members of any ethnicity can be seen in Shakespeare, because many of us are against discrimination.
The same is not true of actors with disabilities. In most auditions, a visually impaired person will not even be considered for a role that is not explicitly blind. In fact, blind characters are portrayed in most cases by sighted actors. The most famous examples are Al Pacino in “Scent of a Woman,” and more recently Jamie Foxx in “Ray.” If we install ramps in every public building and expect corporations to hire employees regardless of physical handicap, we should not exclude the theatre from our standards of fairness. Sight impaired actors should not be excluded from performing, and we should do whatever we can to level the playing field.
Challenge 1: Movement, Blocking, Action
Sighted actors rely on glow-tape to find their way around a darkened backstage, and not to step off the lip of the stage when the lights go to black. It should be easy for an actor to imagine what it would be like without any visual cues. In everyday life, visually impaired people must use other means to move around without bashing into things or falling. In the street, many use either a “seeing-eye dog” or a cane. On the other hand, at home or in familiar places, they are so accustomed to the placement of walls, stairs and furniture that they can move around from mere memory.
You will never work with an actor with more precise blocking than a blind actor. At their accurate cue, they will turn the correct angle, walk the necessary number of paces and reach out a hand in the exact place to take their hat off a rack. They memorize their movements with accuracy and reproduce them exactly, though not robotically, every time. But this precision can only be achieved through rehearsal and with a director who understands this need.
New Life, a theatre company composed entirely of visually-impaired performers, prefer to stage comedies because the auditory feedback from the murmuring and laughing audience helps the actors orient themselves better than the austere silence of viewers of tragedy. Since all the actors are in the same boat, their entire rehearsal process is geared around solutions for their actors.
Challenge 2: Lines
There are three traditional methods for a blind actor to learn their lines: partner work, computer text-to-speech, braille reading.
Braille
Braille reading is one more step of interpretation and therefore bad for memorization of spoken lines, as discussed in another article. You don’t want your brain learning by touch, and translating into speech, because that’s an inefficient use of your sensory modalities. It’s important to learn sounds (speech) from sounds (hearing).
Partner
A dedicated scene partner is a great resource. The partner reads the lines and the actor repeats. If there are any mistakes, the partner can correct him. Partners need to drill the actor’s lines and their cue lines which is very time-intensive. The New Life company drill lines together in rehearsals until they are perfect, and only then do they start moving. If you are the only blind actor, don’t expect a troupe to cater to you in this way.
Text-to-speech
Computer text-to-speech is an amazing innovation. If you are sight impaired, it is likely that your computer is reading this webpage aloud to you right now. For those with limited experience of this type of software, you probably think that everything sounds like Steven Hawking, but in fact there have been enormous advancements in speech synthesis, and in many cases it sounds like a real person. (Hawking did not upgrade because he identifies with the voice as his own.)
As far as text-to-speech has come, it still does not do well with the rhythm of the lines in Shakespeare, since they are programmed for sentences, not verse. On top of that, Shakespearean vocabulary is often not represented well, and the computer will have problems with contractions. In the sample, listen for the butchering of “solemnized” and “se’nnight”.
Rosalind
Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the
contract of her marriage and the day it is solemniz’d; if the
interim be but a se’nnight, Time’s pace is so hard that it seems
the length of seven year.
[dewplayer:http://www.memorizeshakespeare.com/sample/rosalind-line092-TTS.mp3]
The Superior Alternative
ScenePartner works exactly like partner drills, but without inconveniencing another person. The expert readers always pronounce the lines clearly, and with the appropriate rhythm. Download our audio files to listen and repeat the lines. Then do the same for cues.
[dewplayer:http://www.memorizeshakespeare.com/sample/rosalind-line092.mp3]
Notice how it is natural and best of all, properly pronounced. You’ll also remark that the tone is neutral, so that you can add your own acting and vocal inflections, not forced to imitate acting choices from the reader.
Challenge 3: Artistic Justification
A black actor can play any role in which the lines do not betray skin colour, and a blind actor can portray any role where sight is not explicitly needed. A king can be blind, but not Lear: even in the first scene, he says “Hence and avoid my sight!” to Cordelia and “Out of my sight!” to Kent, who responds with, “See better, Lear, and let me still remain The true blink of thine eye.” Then, just before exiting, he announces to the King of France, “Thou hast her, France; let her be thine, for we Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see That face of hers again.” Then, at the end of the play, his final words are “Do you see this? Look on her! Look her lips, Look there, look there -” A director could cut these lines, but they are memorable, and some would say integral to the scene and the character.
On the other hand, the role of King Henry IV could be reinterpreted for a blind actor. Although he says things like “Look who comes here,” it may be imagined that he did not actually see the person, but recognized the sound of their walk or their smell, or even have an advisor whisper in his ear when others approach.
Finally, given sufficient rehearsal time and a good director, the audience might never know. Like Steve Gladstone and the precision of the New Life company, the blind actor could play a sighted character. In that case no justification is necessary.
Acting! Sense Memory and Emotional Memory
by Mark Westbrook
Sense Memory and Emotional Recall (also known as Affective Memory) are closely related ideas in the theory of acting. These two terms are primarily connected to the Stanislavski School of acting and those schools that have derived themselves from Stanislavski’s systematic approach to acting and actor training. These schools each have points of divergence with Stanislavski’s own ideas; this is what has given those schools their own slant on Stanislavski’s work and their own identity. It is not helpful to adjudge these schools as more or less true to Stanislavski, only acknowledge their relationship. It is often the case that Stanislavski-related acting terminology has slightly varying meaning and application from school to school as the methodology changes, transforms, and evolves.
Sense Memory is a training tool that helps to develop the dramatic imagination or what Stanislavski referred to as ‘Creative Fantasy’. The ability to create a ‘sense of truth’ around the make-believe circumstances of the play is an essential skill for the Stanislavski trained actor. In Sense Memory exercises, the actor trains their imagination to respond to the memory of their five senses. Using the actor’s memory, the aim is to connect the imagination to the memory of the real sense. It is claimed that the actor who does not use Sense Memory only pretends or indicates through representation that they are cold. It is claimed therefore that the actor using Sense Memory can recreate, relive or re-experience that cold sensation and therefore their acting is more truthful. In other word connecting real sensations to a pretend scenario can help the actor to experience the make believe world of the play as real.
Our senses do not work equally well as triggers for the recall of specific memories. Whilst our sense of smell is the most powerfully connected to our memory, touch, taste sight and hearing may each affect an individual differently. Finding the sense that most strongly triggers a response is part of the Sense Memory training.
Have you ever been hungry and the thought of a cheeseburger, or some other food has caused your mouth to water? The connection between a real cheeseburger and the memory of the taste, smell, sight of a cheeseburger from you past creates a real response in you. This is because the human mind is highly suggestible. This suggestibility can be employed by the actor to create truthful reactions to remembered stimulus.
Psychologists call this S-R Theory, Stimulus-Response Theory. The most famous example of how S-R Theory works in practice will give you a better idea of how sense memory can work. The Nobel Prize winning psychologist Dr Ivan Pavlov developed his famous S-R experiment with dogs whilst investigating an unrelated digestive matter. He would feed the dogs every day at the same time but noticed that if he entered the room with the dogs at any other time, they would salivate as if they were about to be fed. Pavlov posited that the dogs were responding to the white lab coat that he wore and their salivation was occurring as a direct result of this. He then set up an exercise where he would ring a bell during the feeding of the dogs. After a while, the dogs would salivate on just the sound of the bell. This type of response to stimulus is called conditioning. Both humans and animals can be conditioned to respond to stimulus. Stanislavski was aware of Pavlov but was most influenced by another S-R psychologist named Theodule Ribot whose theories support Stanislavski’s work on Emotion Memory.
By training the actor in Sense Memory, Stanislavski believed that their capacity to treat the imaginary world as if it were real would be increased and honed. Furthermore, he believed that a flexible and malleable sense of creative fantasy could assist the actor in connecting deeply to their stored emotions. Sense Memory trains the actor to treat their sense memories as real and use them within the Emotional Recall exercise to stimulate or trigger certain truthful emotional responses.
Jean Benedetti, the foremost British scholar on Stanislavski suggests in his book Stanislavski and the Actor the following Sense Memory exercises to try:
SIGHT: Picture the following:
- A house where you once lived or visited
- A starry sky
- One of the most famous buildings that you ever visited
- Your Mother’s face in detail
SOUND: Hear the following:
- Rain against a window pane
- The buzzing of a bee
- A dog barking
- Feet crunching on snow
SMELL: Smell the following:
- The Sea
- An Apple, Orange or Lemon
- Smoke from a wood fire
- Bacon
TASTE: Taste in your mouth
- Roast Chicken
- Chocolate
- Butter
- Milk
TOUCH: Imagine the feel of:
- Stroking a cat or a dog
- Hot tea on your tongue
- The surface of a wet fish
- Taking a hot shower
Developing the dramatic imagination in this way helps the actor to believe in the make believe world of the play with more investment. The culmination of this work is to combine the five senses together.
During Sense Memory, the actor develops their capacity to recall actual experience. It is possible that the actor will sit with a cup of coffee in their hands. They will note for themselves the taste, touch, smell, hearing and sight sensations that are produced from quietly taking in the coffee. In a later session, the actor will recall these senses from memory and again note their real responses. Exponents of Sense Memory claim that through constant practise, it is possible to recall strong sense-led memories and use these to develop the dramatic imagination, the dramatic sense of truth and real emotion.
The next stage is to use what you have learned in your Sense Memory training to assist you in recalling REAL events or occurrences. No memory should be forced, the mind is suggestible but it refuses to be function at will.
Try to recall a simple memory, keep it simple, not dramatic. Whilst you are recalling the memory, work your way through your senses, filling in as much detail as possible. As stimulus for this work, recall:
- A highly enjoyable party
- Something that made you very angry
- When you felt ashamed
- When you felt you were poorly treated by someone
- When something made you joyful
Emotional Recall aims to help the actor to connect to their own feelings and emotions. The technique of Emotion Recall (also known by Stanislavski was Emotion Memory) is the most highly controversial aspect of Stanislavski’s work and was made even more controversial as it has come to be the fulcrum of the Stanislavski off-shoot known as ‘the Method’. In the Method, this exercise is referred to as Affective Memory.
In an emotional memory exercise, the actor first seats themselves and uses Relaxation techniques in order to reduce any physical, mental or emotional tension. The next stage is to begin performing some simple Sense Memory work and then to turn that work towards the chosen memory of a moment from the actor’s life. Strasberg advised that the memory should be at least seven years old so that it’s rawness did not distract the actor from their task. The actor must choose a moment to remember that is analogous with the emotion that the character is experiencing.
It is important to know that despite the massive emphasis on the production of emotion from real truthful memories, Stanislavski did not insist that the stimulus was actually experienced by the actor first hand. If you had cried when you saw the planes ploughing into the World Trade Center Towers, this was probably not experienced in New York, but your response to it was really experienced.
It is finally essential to note that Stanislavski all but gave up his use of Emotion Memory in the final stages of his work. He felt that the work was exhausting to actors and that it produced negative side-effects such as tension and hysteria. He opted to focus his work on physical action as he believed that this would provide a more solid basis for the actor’s work, rather than the ‘fickleness of emotion’.
To make a summary of these ideas:
In order to act under the imaginary circumstances of the script, it is important for the Stanislavski trained actor to develop faith in their sense of dramatic truth. They must be able to believe in the imaginary factors of the play in order to react truthfully on stage with true feeling. Sense Memory is used to assist in the recall of real past occurrences and in turn this is employed in the performance of the Emotional Recall exercises.
To learn a practicable acting technique, why not visit http://www.actingcoachscotland.co.uk
About the Author
Professional Acting Coach and Director
How do actors memorise their lines? – Times Online
This interview from the Times Online elaborates on the importance of context in memory, and how this is especially important for actors. Context is #3 on our list of Top 8 Tips For Memorizing Shakespeare.
Are their brains bigger than ours? In a public discussion held at New York’s Columbia University this month, the RSC’s Michael Boyd and Dr Oliver Sacks compared notes
Michael Boyd: We worked with about 30 actors over nearly three years on the RSC’s last complete cycle of the history plays. All the actors were in at least seven of those plays and learnt a huge number of roles. Halfway through the project, we left the first four plays behind for nearly a year. And we had to revive them. The actors began to get anxious about whether they would remember them: not only their principal roles, but the roles they understudied – thousands of lines, hundreds of states of emotions. An extraordinary feat of spatial memory was required, too: they had to remember where to go. Where am I? Backstage or front of house?
Channeling Macbeth, Patrick Stewart Threatens to Kneecap Us
Photo: Manuel Harlan
by Sarah Maslin Nir
Patrick Stewart is on a Shakespearian high, playing a host of the Bard’s greats in back-to-back-to-back productions: Last summer he dazzled British critics as Twelfth Night’s Malvolio, and next year he’s taking on Hamlet’s uncle for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In between, he continues his role as the ambition-addled Macbeth, as BAM’s 1984-esque reimagining of the play moves to Broadway. Trekkies be warned: Macbeth may be a commander, but Stewart’s not reprising his famous stint as Jean-Luc Picard — Captain Picard was far too nice of a guy. Stewart, proudly, is not. And he’ll probably break our kneecaps for saying so. [Read More...]
A Jaundiced Eye on the Stratford Festival’s 2009 Playbill
by Clarence Threepwood
We scanned the Stratford Festival’s announcement of its 2009 season with interest. If its 2008 lineup is losing a lot of money, as reported, will the 2009 lineup do better? (See my recent article, “The leadership debacle at the Stratford Festival,” on the artistic director fiasco at the Stratford Festival and its unfortunate consequences.)
More selfishly, how many of the shows will I personally want to trek all the way from Rochester, New York in 2009 to see? Let us compare this year’s lineup with next year’s and judge:
Hamlet (2008) vs. Macbeth (2009) (both at the Festival Theater)
It’s a box-office draw. Hamlet is the world’s best known and most popular play, and Ben Carlson gives a strong performance. (See my review of this year’s Hamlet.) But Macbeth isn’t nearly as long, and it has witches and moving forests.
Will I see the 2009 show? Maybe. Macbeth is lower on my list of favorite Shakespeare plays.
Romeo and Juliet (2008) vs. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2009) (both at the Festival Theater)
The 2009 show is likely to draw more. Both appeal to romantics, but people will expect, and will probably get, crowd-pleasing Lion King-style special effects from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And the 2008 Romeo and Juliet production is a dud.
Will I see the 2009 show? I hope so. It’s not my favorite Shakespeare comedy because I don’t get its jokes in time to laugh. But I’m ready to give it a fair chance.
The Taming of the Shrew (2008 at the Festival Theater) vs. Julius Caesar (2009 at the Avon Theater)
The 2009 show will be a better draw. A lot of people known Julius Caesar from school. And it’s better crafted than The Taming of the Shrew, which some people may avoid because they see it as misogynist.
Will I see the 2009 show? For sure. I love Julius Caesar, and I’ve never seen it on stage.
All’s Well That Ends Well (2008) vs. Cyrano de Bergerac (by Edmond Rostand) (2009) (both at the Festival Theater)
In probable popularity, a draw. This year’s Shakespeare play isn’t well-known, but there have been enough different versions of the Cyrano story over the years that audiences will come. But will they come in large enough numbers to fill the Festival Theater? I doubt it.
As for me, my level of interest in Cyrano just isn’t that high. (We liked this year’s All’s Well That Ends Well.)
Love’s Labour’s Lost (2008) vs. Bartholomew Fair (by Ben Jonson) (2009) (both at the Tom Patterson Theater)
In probable popularity, an edge to 2008. The general public doesn’t know either play, but Shakespeare has more fans than Ben Jonson, and this year’s Love’s Labour’s Lost is a delight.
Will I see Bartholomew Fair? I hope so. Undeterred by an eye-glazing Edward II several years ago, I want to try another Elizabethan playwright.
Fuenta Ovejuna (2008) vs. The Three Sisters (2009) (both at the Tom Patterson Theater)
In probable popularity, an edge to 2009. Theater-goers who only want to see “fun” plays will steer away from Chekhov. But they’ll see Chekhov before they’ll buy tickets for a 400-year-old Spanish drama they never heard of.
Will I see the 2009 show? Maybe. We saw a remarkably fine production of The Three Sisters at the Shaw Festival several years ago, and I do want to see the play again. But it may be too soon. If Martha Henry is acting as well as directing, that could tip the scale in favor.
Caesar and Cleopatra (2008) vs. The Importance of Being Earnest (2009) (both at the Avon Theater)
In probable popularity, an edge to 2009. Sure, Christopher Plummer is a draw, but who’d want to miss Brian Bedford in drag? Stratford Festival patrons love Oscar Wilde.
As for us, we thought the production of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Shaw Festival several years ago couldn’t be improved upon, but we love the play and can’t see it too often. And Bedford slays us.
The Trojan Women (2008 at the Avon Theater) vs. Phedre (by Racine) (2009 at the Tom Patterson Theater)
In probable popularity, an edge to 2009. Classical plays have narrow appeal. But one would also guess that interest from French-speaking Canadians would make the Racine play a better draw.
We’d like to see Phedre. Our interest in the French classics was whetted long ago by a college course in French literature (in translation), and we regret missing other promising opportunities to see plays by the French master dramatists.
The Music Man (2008 at the Avon Theater) vs. West Side Story (2009 at the Festival Theater)
In probable popularity, a draw. But more tickets will be sold for West Side Story in the larger Festival Theater.
But I probably won’t go. West Side Story leaves me cold, as I mentioned in an earlier post praising Bernstein’s Wonderful Town, which is playing at the Shaw Festival this year.
Cabaret (2008) vs. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (2009) (both at the Avon Theater)
In probable popularity, an edge to 2008. Sondheim’s A Funny Thing is a better show, in my view, but Cabaret has been hot on Broadway, in Toronto, and on the movie screen for the last ten years.
We want to see the 2009 show. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a hilariously funny show with a great score. And we’ll need something lighter after a heavy dose of the classics.
There Reigns Love (2008) vs. Ever Yours, Oscar (2009) (both at the Tom Patterson Theater)
In probable popularity, an edge to 2009. The combination of Oscar Wilde and Brian Bedford will pull them in.
Will I see the 2009 show? Probably not. Somehow, we find we don’t go to see performances made up of readings.
Hughie/Krapp’s Last Tape (2008) vs. The Trespassers (by Morris Panych) (2009)…
Palmer Park (2008) vs. Zastrozzi (by George Walker) (2009)… Moby Dick (2008) vs. Rice Boy (by Sunil Kuruvilla) (2009) (all at the Studio Theater)
In probable popularity, an edge to 2008. People know and like Brian Dennehy (Hughie/Krapp’s Last Tape), and everyone’s heard of Melville’s novel. It may be that the three Canadian playwrights scheduled for 2009 have constituencies in Canada, but Americans in general don’t know them.
Will I see any of the 2009 shows at the Studio Theater? Probably not. If I do, it might be the Panych play. We’ve seen his work as a director at the Shaw Festival. The Stratford Festival’s affirmative action program for Canadian playwrights is fine, but the Festival should understand that its numerous American patrons don’t care whether a playwright is Canadian or not.
Frankly, looking at the 2009 season as a whole, I don’t see why the management at the Stratford Festival would expect it to be more profitable than the 2008 playbill. It’s a good financial decision to put a big musical back in the Festival Theater. And personally, I’m glad to have a chance to see Racine and Ben Jonson. But besides the Shakespeare plays, the only straight play that seems likely to draw full houses is The Importance of Being Earnest.
Personally, I’m disappointed that only three Shakespeare plays will be presented in 2009 — a bit ironic, now that they’ve changed the name to the Stratford “Shakespeare” Festival. I wanted a history play this year, like Richard II or Henry V. I’m not mollified by the Festival’s excuse that the two musicals have their roots in Shakespeare. That’s weak.
And I’m seriously disappointed that no Shakespeare play is scheduled for 2008 in the Tom Patterson Theater. Shakespeare works better in this venue than in any of the other theaters in Stratford, and perhaps better than in any other theater anywhere.
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