Hi Everyone,
Don’t expect much traffic over the next couple of days, I’ll be pretty tied up with family stuff at least for the rest of the weekend. Feel free to continue all the discussions, I get emails for all of those are read them all :). I’ve turned off that old “conversations go into moderated mode after N days” thing so you shouldn’t need me to approve comments.
Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours!
Duane
I believe that part of what has caused Shakespeare's theatre to endure is it's inexhaustible modernity- Shakespeare remains relevant, remains "current" in a sense, because his plays deal with the most fundamental aspects of human nature. The "colonial" take on Caliban is troubling, even upsetting in terms of what it infers, but did Shakespeare say Caliban is supposed to be a black Islander? Well, no. He's supposed to be a supernatural fish monster. Is there a nested commentary in the way Shakespeare's characters treat this "savage"? Or in the forced conversion of Shylock? Is Falstaff a quiet, lingering damnation of Henry V? I think all those things are present, but not explicit.
I rarely think "Shakespeare had Ophelia say", because it seems almost impossible to me to ever determine what Shakespeare wanted us to take away from his plays. But I always enjoy seeing different companies tell these stories, because they inevitably see in them something new, something I hadn't considered.
Perhaps One of the reasons we keep mounting these plays is the profusion and complexity of the symbols within, and the desire to re-examine them through the lens of each age's thought and experience.
Merry Christmas, Duane, and thanks for giving us all this fun stuff to talk about for the past few days!
— Carl
A Very Merry Christmas!, Duane, to you and yours.
Merry Christmas! 🙂
all the best for you and your family.
Will