11 replies to this topic

[Welthorpe]

Anyone else catch these two productions as part of the RSC's complete works? For those who missed them, you are very lucky indeed! What a couple of stinkers!   But the Richard III - An arab tragedy was terrific. Cann't win 'em all I suppose.....

[Jan Brock]

The non-RSC productions have been particularly variable - of the ones I saw Cymbeline was by far the worst (but I missed Timon).

[Duncan]

There was an interesting discussion between Michael Billington and Carol Rutter (Warwick uni prof) on Radio 3's Nightwaves late last year. They discussed the Complete Works Festival and touched on the relative merits of the Othello and Cymbeline adaptations, with Rutter defending Cymbeline against Billington who did not like it. Her defence was based on the fact that adaptations in contemporary English are just as valid as say an adaptation into contemporary German, as was done with Othello, and that Kneehigh's Cymbeline retained a great deal of the original text and took fewer liberties with the essence of the play than did the German Othello.

I recorded it and wrote the above from my recollection of a couple of listens. It isn't available to listen to via the BBC website, though there is a mention of the programme here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/nightwaves/pip/67c7a/

As I only saw Cymbeline I couldn't say which was better, although I did feel some disappointment that it was an adaptation. Never mind, there's a production of the original at the Barbican later this year.

I saw Timon at Stratford and found it 'interesting' if only because an amateur cast shouting at each other while running around in underpants is an experience that lingers in the memory for a long time.

[Jan Brock]

Hard to know where to start to explain why Cymbeline was so bad. For example, if you are going to give over extended scenes of exposition to a pantomime dame it would be as well to ensure the actor playing her had some talent for comedy.

I would dispute the Prof's comment that the adaptation retained large amounts of the original text - this is simply untrue - interestingly, the scenes that worked the best (such as Imogen's later scenes) were those that did use the odd line of the original.

[Welthorpe]

I would agree that the non-RSC productions have been extremely mixed. However, some have been wonderful - particularly Titus, the Dream and Henry VIII. Others, have been simply dreadful - particularly the two I started this thread with and the Yellow Arts King Lear which was pretty excrutiating too.

I think that some of the adaptions have been interesting, without necessarily being good. Othello was certainly not Shakespeare's play, but it was moving in its own way. Cymbeline was OK for me. Not as good as other Kneehigh productions, although my suspicion about Kneehigh is that they are going through the equivalent of a new artist's second album after the triumph of Tristan. But then again, I throught the RSC's adaption of Merry Wives was not great. It was fun enough and good seasonal fare, but not that memorable. Perhaps the lesson is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Or perhaps, don't meddle for the sake of it - the Arab Richard III was adapted with a point and, at least for me, it worked well.

Having said that, I suspect that doing an adaption for some of the touring companies has afforded some protection from being seen to mess up the productions - as sadly the two American productions (Henry IVs and Loves Labour Lost) did. Neither did I share the critical reaction to the Shrew.

My conclusion so far would have to be that while the RSC may not always get everything right in its productions (not that that would be possible) it is far more consistently good than other Shakespeare productions (as indeed you would expect given its concentration, but good to see it works!) and for that, we should be grateful. That's not to say that some of the RSC productions have not been pretty average - Caesar was dull, Romeo was average and for me Richard III was a dissapointment - but overall it seems you have to search far and wide to find productions that are of the quality of the RSC's when it comes to Shakespeare.

[Duncan]

I would dispute the Prof's comment that the adaptation retained large amounts of the original text - this is simply untrue - interestingly, the scenes that worked the best (such as Imogen's later scenes) were those that did use the odd line of the original.

Based on Jan's comment I went back and checked what Carol Rutter actually said, as opposed to my recollection.

Michael Billington stated that Kneehigh's Cymbeline had been 'perverse to junk all the language' of the original. Carol Rutter responded by saying: 'By scene 17 I had counted over 200 lines of Shakespeare'.

Carol defended Kneehigh's approach to the script as being a 'very serious and impressive and profound translation of this text into 21st Century English idiom' thereby 'rewriting it in terms of the lost children' in the same way that the German Othello had been rewritten in terms of Iago.

Michael's said in reply that while the German Othello had taken the play seriously, Kneehigh's Cymbeline had a 'post-modern tongue-in-cheek ironic jokiness'.

[Lynette]

The best two non RSC shows I saw were the Love's Labours' Lost by the American company from Washington, utterly funny and bright, and the Henry VIII in the church by ?

[Welthorpe]

The best two non RSC shows I saw were the Love's Labours' Lost by the American company from Washington, utterly funny and bright, and the Henry VIII in the church by ?

AandBC. It was lovely wasn't it? The venue certainly helped. I thought LLL was better than the other American offering but I felt it would have been so much better if they'd done something more 1960s ish with the songs themselves. I certainly didn't hate it though.