Oct. 18 Performance Notes- Courtney

Oct. 18 Performance Notes

Clips:

Richard III An Arab Tragedy

Laurence Olivier’s Richard III

Ian McKellan’s Richard III

Henry VI, Part III

Amy: What are the differences between the Arab and Olivier version?

Sara: Brings forward the ruse of the media by having a call from the UN or a poll. As opposed to the crowd in the Olivier version. There is a stronger realization of the power of the crowd.

Dorothy: Combine the idea of the media with the idea of the look away from the anchor at the end of the Arab clip.

Derek: The idea of the prerecorded clip. The looking off stage of the newscaster is towards his superiors. Average Arab viewers would understand that it has been staged.

Amy: Central to Richard is the propaganda machinery of whatever the period is. Richard is setting the audience up to reference their media. Their media is playgoing. Any adaptation has to remind the viewer of their conventions of swallowing media.

Sara: Loved the make-up chair.

Jenna: The moment when he makes eye contact, makes you a conspirator.

Whitney: Having Richard hearing the speech makes him more complicit.

Derek: In Olivier’s the crowd seems deeply ambivalent. In the McLellan one they really cared. The key was the difference between the way they did the line “call them back”. It seems like a show of formality. Whereas in McLellan, the only one leaving is Buckingham.

Sara: The scene is so much like Julius Cesar. If that wasn’t intentional, I’m sure it was perceived.

Ellen: Henry VI, to talk about prologues. There is a long prehistory to the character of Richard III. Richard’s father is killed by queen Margaret.

Jennifer: The bloody handkerchief is unbelievable as evidence.

Amy: What would Sofer say? How would a stage production change the bloody handkerchief?

Andrea: This handkerchief is being used in a protestant way.

Jenna: It would be too radical to use the handkerchief in a new way, in terms of deceit.

Dorothy: It is more of a visible prop reminder.

Iris: Reminds me of Othello.

Ellen: Richard killed the Lancastrian king, so that the Yorks could rule. That’s why the rival queens bemoan their lost sons and grandsons.

Ellen: The crook-back is in the text.

Amy: They’ve done it in many ways. One with two crutches. Leg Brace. Ian McKellan is on another side of the spectrum. What are the stories that the director needs to tell before the first lines and how do they tell them.

Jenna: It seems like both productions have a need to map familial relations and the resolution of the war.

Sara: In the Olivier it seems like they wanted to make clear who the boys were related to.

Iris: I think of visual ties in the dance scene of the McKellan version.

Amy: With the start of the London film version, we see big ben and go into text and authorship. The camera caressing the words start.

Justin: It was about the status of celebrity. Who are you about to watch on stage.

Jenna: Images of the roses staged a resolution.

Jennifer: The emphasis is on the crown. The legend.

Whitney: A legend has a subtext of myth.

Jennifer: Doesn’t matter whether or not it’s true.

Amy: It is interesting to think of Worthen. The words situate it in authority. They start with a return to the book. They’re clearly reaching way back.

Dorothy: A lot of the points were tacked on to the fact that it was from 1955. Credits first was a convention of the period.

Ellen: Pragmatically, character identifiers associated with actors would help identify. How does text frame the spectacle of the play. Authority is saturated into the lushness of the manuscript. What will the balance look like in the production we’re going to see. What do you, as dramaturges, think of this? What about against the McKellan version.

Whitney: The Olivier opening. The size of the fact checking screen in relation to the set could get lost. This plays well with the spectacle. It is a behind the scenes look.

Ellen: Toggling between subtitles and performance is a different narrative position. This is different than watching other versions. In relation to equivocation. This is necessarily received differently.

Amy: You’re also getting a duplicate. Do they match or not? Especially in questions of translation. The spectrum from “faithful” versions to adaptation. There is necessarily a huge gap between some sort of original and the current.

Jess: It is a really individual thing. I read costumes most. Will it evoke an emotional response in the audience?

Ellen: Isn’t part of the question do we come to Shakespeare to feel historical?

Dorothy: The Oliver is an imposing modernization. There is so much that was in relation to contemporary British history.

Ellen: It can also be read as a sequel to Henry V. Within the same production scenario. This would make it a modern enterprise.

Amy: We had some interesting discussion of crane in the blog. Since Cody isn’t here, could you, Jennifer, tell us what you mean by your blog post?

Jennifer: The clearest object to me was the body in Crane. If I were a dramaturge trying to figure Richard’s body, the connection that is made in the text seems to be that character is evident in person. It is a troubling connection. I would want to get away from this connection. He’s only awkward to the point of sympathy.

Jess: There has to be something about him that inspires ambivalence. The sick delight of seeing someone being evil.

Derek: Is it problematic that he is seen as sympathetic?

Jenna: His sympathy becomes a manipulative tool that informs his evil.

Ellen: The reason I showed you the clips of Henry VI. Richard is often seen as an Iago figure. That doesn’t take into account the arc of his character. He has trauma that he’s working through. It is an interesting moment when Richard decides to craft himself as evil.

Amy: A degree of sympathy increases the stakes of the argument.