71 replies to this topic

[igb]

Honoured Guest, on 10 August 2012 - 05:09 PM, said:

this is an example of ignorant people who aren't open to any experience but who, on past RSC form, expect a variant of RSC Shakespeare, which they could have been informed in the blurb wasn't on offer.

Like you, I haven't seen the piece.

It's perfectly possible for a piece of work to be innovative, new, exciting, edgy, dangerous and also appalling, so I think it's unfair to assume that people who think it's rubbish are doing so out of ignorance.     The mere fact of being innovative (etc) doesn't guarantee success.   One possibility is that the audience isn't up to speed with the innovation (etc) of the work.  Another is that it's genuinely dreadful.  That the company has a strong track-record is no guarantee: after all, the RSC and the National have done the odd piece of half-decent work in their time, but have also produced some shocking turkeys.

I also think that if a production is produced under the imprimatur of the RSC, it's not unreasonable for people to assume that it is in some sense related to the RSC, and in some sense related to their standards and history.

[David J]

I go and see Shakespeare plays at the RSC because I have come to expect them  (Gregory Doran, Rupert Goold, David Farr) not to do the same thing over and over again, but to do something different or interesting

Now to be fair I bought tickets for this production from the start not because of The Wooster Group, but because it was the first time I was seeing this play and that Rupert Goold was (at first) co-directing it. I only vaguely knew that The Wooster Group was experimental.

Yet I was open minded, although I was confused during the first few minutes, and I was interested by the techniques that they were using. Even by the interval I had a sliver of fascination left, which was why I stayed for the second half. The problem is that these ideas got tiresome QUICKLY

Now that I come to think about it, if The Wooster Group wanted to bowl me over with their experimental style, they should have added more techniques, and therefore more variety to their scenes. A great example I can think of is Frantic Assemby's Othello. That company pulled all the stops out to bring physical theatre and dance to the play that it was effective and cohesive to the story.

[Honoured Guest]

As an example, in the Telegraph review comments, a commenter called simon1970 has posted:

"The contribution of The Wooster Group is perhaps the worst performance of a Shakespeare text as I have ever seen on a professional (or amateur) stage. They simply do not understand how to use the language to develop character, situation or narrative. It is appalling acted from their cast members."

This is a complete misunderstanding of The Wooster Group. A simple outline in the RSC "blurb" would have told simon1970 that language and performance style, including acting, wouldn't be presented in the way he wished and so he would have known not to attend.

I take the point that this may indeed not be a good production (I've been disappointed by all three World Shakespeare Festival commissions I've seen so far!) but what's really annoyed me has been the many comments that criticise it for not doing what the commenters wanted it to do but which it never set out to do.

[Matthew Winn]

This whole exchange reminds me a bit of an episode of Family Guy that split fans of the show right down the middle. Those who loved it claimed that those who hated it didn't understand what the episode was trying to do. Those who hated it said they understood perfectly well what it was trying to do, but thought it had done it with spectacular ineptness: it had tried and failed. But the latter group's message never got through to the former.

[Honoured Guest]

Hmm, there's a lot in that. But David J is broadly in the latter camp and he's communicated his responses rather well.

[dude-1981]

Honoured Guest, on 10 August 2012 - 10:23 PM, said:

As an example, in the Telegraph review comments, a commenter called simon1970 has posted:

I'm 99% sure that Simon from Oxford and Simon1970 are the same person just FYI.

[xanderl]

I assumed that too.

Billers gives a rave review to Coriolan/us today so he's clearly not averse to radical approaches to Shakespeare

[xanderl]

Just seen an elderly lady buying a programme for T&C at the RST shop. As she left the woman behind the till asked her colleague "do you think she knows what she's letting herself in for?"

Meanwhile Ravenhill is sitting outside Carluccios looking pensive

More news as we get it.

[Honoured Guest]

dude-1981, on 11 August 2012 - 10:15 AM, said:

I'm 99% sure that Simon from Oxford and Simon1970 are the same person just FYI.

He's also NN51970 on the Guardian website where he has the cheek to link to his own WoS review without admitting that he wrote it!

Quote

NN51970
10 August 2012 9:30AM

Looks like at least one review gives it the drubbing it deserves
http://www.whatsonst...sida (RSC).html

[xanderl]

At the halfway mark and I'm enjoying it so far. Can't see what people are getting so angry about