Roger: This is silly. Shakespeare is performed on the profesional
stage in the US all the time. Two years ago I saw a wonderful
production of As You Like It in Tucson. There are sold out summer
Shakespeare festivals in Oregon, New York, and Connecticut that I'm
aware of. When I was a teenager a complete cycle of the history plays
was done at a major downtown theater in NY. Lear was done on Broadway
last year.
The ways of the censor tend to be unpredictable, perhaps because
unpredictability is such a potent weapon.
Mark
At 05:40 PM 5/25/2008, you wrote:
>one swallow a summer does not make.
>
>On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 6:35 PM, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Right now the hottest ticket on Broadway is MacBeth, with Patrick
> Stewart in
> > the title role. The run is sold out--even the scalpers are at a loss.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> >
> > At 12:47 PM 5/25/2008, you wrote:
> >>
> >> Those were the days - the Lord Chamberlain (member of the Royal
> >> Household) and his malign influence on the British Theatre. In another
> >> email list, a long time ago, I mooted the theory that shakespeare's
> >> continuing popularity down the ages was due in part to the Bard's
> >> acceptability before the LC. My logic, fwiw, ran thus: you want to put
> >> on a play and in those days, the least likeliest plays to get banned
> >> were Shakespeares. So, you play safe, put on the Bard. Until the 60s,
> >> when the LC threw away his blue pencil. Nowadays, S hardly appears on
> >> the commercial stage.
> >>
> >> American bannings are two a penny: their school libraries have
> >> committees which are battle-grounds for the inclusion/exclusion of
> >> books. Harry Potter is a notorious example of this - the poor, deluded
> >> fundies trying to stave off the influence of the heathen (WTF?). There
> >> are lists on line of books that have been banned in the US. Are there
> >> any for the UK?
> >>
> >> Roger
> >>
> >> On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 9:38 AM, David Bircumshaw
> >> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >> > Lear was banned from performance between 1788-1820 when George III
> >> > was considered insane, and the link between stage and royalty would be
> >> > too close for official comfort. Contemporaneously with this Tom Paine
> >> > was also banned in England and, famously, Coleridge and Wordsworth
> >> > were watched for talking about Spinoza (Spy-noza)
> >> >
> >> > While 'Silas Marner' was banned in Anaheim CA in 1978 (?!) and '1984'
> >> > in Florida in 1981 because it was considered 'pro-communist' (?)
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > David Bircumshaw
> >> > Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> >> > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> >> > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> >> > Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
> >> "She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
> >> She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
> >> The Go-Betweens
> >
>
>
>
>--
>My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
>"She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
>She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
>The Go-Betweens
|