Shakespeares plays have come to be seen as remote and far removed from the experience of the common man, when the reality is that Shakespeare was all about the common man an the commonalities of human experience. The recent trend of staging his plays in the 19th, rather than the 16th century has not helped with this problem. In fact, it seems to have aggravated it. Now actors in late Victorian-era suits suddenly have swords that appear from nowhere and the unfortunate generations of students subjected to this are left to draw what conclusions they will. What is worse: the actors continue to recite the dialogue in ponderous R. P or received pronunciation, which tends to destroy many of the jokes, puns and double entendres, and to generally slow down the speeches and drag out the dialogue. Long ago, I heard that Shakespeares plays had originally been quite fast-paced. After all, most of the audience in the cheapest parts of the theatre had to stand in order to watch the performance. A return to the earthy O.P or original pronunciation brings the Bard back home to us. How I would love to watch Twelfth Night or Midsummer Nights Dream in their original tongue! youtube/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 17:09:39 +0000
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