To stage high concept, or not to stage high concept?
January 22, 2010 by Debra Murphy
Filed under Bard Crit, Bard at Large, Motley Bard
A bit of "director-driven, concept" Shakespeare that worked pretty well.
That is the question posed by NYC-based theatre critic David Cote in a blog article published by the Guardian UK entitled, “Most Stagings of Shakespeare Don’t Go Far Enough”.
Quoth Cote, after taking Wall Street Journal theatre critic Terry Teachout to task for “grousing” about concept staging in a Big Thing interview:
I also wince at conceptual Shakespeare, but for another reason: most directorial concepts are far too timid. Shakespeare was a moderate, nonsectarian humanist? Nonsense. Why not assume that if the Bard were alive, he’d be a bug-eyed anarchist or an eco-terrorist (he did love nature imagery, after all). Shakespeare, that notorious mixer-up of comedy and tragedy, certainly wouldn’t be churning out well-behaved divertissements for conservative critics.
And we’re lying if we say we know how his plays should be staged, or that we find every single syllable equally pellucid and penetrating. It’s 2010, and Shakespeare’s language is a glorious, perplexing welter of ageless, soul-stirring verse, antique jokes, irrelevant cultural prejudices, blazingly vital characters and obsolescent verbiage. Translation (metaphorically speaking) and innovation are key to preserving these overdone classics.
My own take: I’ve seen great traditional Shakespeare and horrible traditional Shakespeare; I’ve seen luminous “director-driven, high-concept” Shakespeare, and goofy versions thereof. Bad traditional Shakespeare is usually dull as ditchwater, bad concept-driven Shakespeare is usually unintentionally funny, so choose your poison. Ultimately, the end-product has more to do with the clarity of vision and quality of talent involved. David Cote, I think, though making excellent points, used as his launching pad one or two uncontextualized lines from Teachout’s interview that, after watching it, came across as Straw Man argumentation. In the end I think I’d have to agree with Teachout that “It’s all about what works.” In the end, too, I think Cote pretty much says the same thing, so perhaps there is less distance between the two viewpoints than initially strikes the reader.
BTW, Teachout’s interview is worth watching on a number of scores, including his views on the revolution underway in art criticism/journalism because of the digital revolution. Go here for that.
Go here for David Cote’s article.
