MY SCEPTICISM ON MODERNISED SHAKESPEARE

The forest of flying chairs
www.thestage.co.uk

A couple of weeks ago I saw Polly Findlay’s interpretation of As You Like It at the National. A high-impact show that did have the audience wow-ing at a dramatic scene change involving a mechanical office being dragged skywards, turning chairs into an eerie and textured Forest of Arden, but nevertheless a disappointing recraft of such an enjoyable play. Both I and the original script sat hand in hand, both losing our plots together as we witnessed a sad example of not-so-big actors being outshined by a budget seriously out of their depth. Had Shakespeare not been…well…Shakespeare it could even be said that the director had been given an embarrassing script and a lot of time to think of something to cover up the shamefulness of the naked production.

But this isn’t an embarrassing script or a naked production. Back in the day of the playwright, Shakespeare was enjoyed in a smelly pit where lines had to be shouted from the side of the stage because actors had only rehearsed once or twice before appearing in front of the live audience. He still gained an enormous crowd, and still made it to being unquestionably the greatest English playwright of all time. For years people have enjoyed Shakespeare’s plays, and the Globe theatre still is an incredibly popular go-to theatre for London locals and tourists alike who want to experience Shakespeare as close to the original as we can get. So why do modernist directors like Polly Findlay feel the need to rely so heavily on special effects in order to drag in audiences and keep us entertained?

Perhaps the director thought the punchy rock music and red lights during the fight scene of As You Like It might contradict the stigma that Shakespeare is boring. In Elizabethan times, audiences would have been attracted to this play since transvestism was against the law, so cross-dressing was seen as shocking and rebellious. We all know this isn’t the case now, so maybe an exciting set change has to do the job that a man dressed as a woman dressed as a man would have done back in Shakespeare’s day. Or maybe the British public is too lazy to listen properly when they go to the theatre, so a complex Shakespearian script is simply too difficult to understand if we don’t have such visual aids as a shower of post-it notes as Orlando instructs ‘Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love.’

Michelle Terry and Simon Harrison in As You Like It at Shakespeare's Globe, 2015
www.thestage.co.uk

 I guess I sound quite party pooper, after all it could easily be asked why we wouldn’t want to utilise modern visual techniques to make Shakespeare exciting for a 21^st century audience when they’re ready and waiting to be used. Also, the whole act of going to the theatre isn’t as exciting now as it would have been when As You Like It was first performed. Elizabethans could enjoy the bear-baiting and bull-fighting that would have gone on next to the theatres, and the experience of being a ‘groundling’ (standing at the theatre) was undignified but a lot of fun. Now, theatre is expensive, cultural and generally quite serious. The Elizabethans would probably laugh at the way in which contemporary audiences enjoy plays with so much decency!

Despite this consideration, it still seems like there’s a bit of an elephant in the room with modernist Shakespeare. It’s great to re-set and re-costume everyone into modern-day dress, but by putting Shakespeare into a contemporary context aren’t we forgetting that the original script simply doesn’t make sense in the society of today? In As You Like It, Rosalind disguises herself as the male ‘Ganymede’, appearing on the line ‘I could find it in my heart to disgrace my man’s apparel and to cry like a woman’, but said ‘man’s apparel’ in the National’s production was just skinny jeans and a hoodie. Admittedly androgynous, but we can’t itemise a pair of jeans and a jacket as ‘man’s apparel’. Artistic license leads me to believe that as an audience member I should stop worrying about this and start enjoying the show, but the critical niggle forever whirring in the back of my mind can’t help commenting irritatingly on everything I see on stage.

Despite my ability to be a great bore and rant about why modernised Shakespeare just doesn’t work for me, I still have to say I did enjoy As You Like It. I mentioned the audience wow­­-ing at the dramatic scene change – perhaps I should make it clear that I wasn’t pretentiously sitting and tutting at this when I was at the show, looking down on the peasants who don’t understand the true meaning of Shakespeare. No, although I can be a bit of a bore I do still relish in high-budget shows that keep me excited with flashy lights and flying chairs. It’s just a shame that directors feel they’ve got to employ all these techniques to remind us Brits that Shakespeare really is worth going to see.