Yes "bums on seats laddie, bums on seats". So of course S is worth his
due, but currently I think we're not seeing his true worth. His worth
is overloaded, or pre-loaded yer might say. If only any other
playwright such persistent well-funded marketing support, with
students fed S every day. Of course, you may argue this is a bad thing
but we won't know unless the support is turned and a more level
playing field is put in place. And of course, you have to teach them
something; in my day you had to do a S play for A level. Stopping that
would be good, IMO.
When Friends production finished, like the death of the first Doctor
Who, you could almost hear the fading hiss as the life-support being
turned off as marketing finished. In my opinion, S is on life-support,
his value in the market artificially high. When my ex worked for a
colostomy firm, their price artificially high cause the NHS is a
guaranteed market.
Most firms - whose main aim in life is to get their brand in yr face
almost 100% of the time - would die for such brand placement as S
gets.
Roger
On 12/14/05, Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: "David Bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > Of course Shakespeare is an artifact and compounded of sludge. Flat
> > characterisations? You bet - he's full of stage villains and stage fools -
> > anyone looking for psychological depth is looking in the wrong place.
>
> "Shakespeare" (like "Love" and "Democracy") should come with a health
> warning: Which variety of the same are you talking about?
>
> dave's lines above are (to an extent) true of Shakespeare's plays +except+
> in a period between roughly 1605-1610 when he (and other dramatists of the
> time -- Middleton, say) did seem to be (briefly) intrigued by psychological
> realism. _Othello_ would be the major example in Shakespeare. Or the
> difference between _Richard III_ and _Macbeth_. (I once saw Macbeth staged
> with the soliloquies delivered a la Dick of Gloucester -- excruciating, but
> illuminating in suggesting where Macbeth's soliloquies are at.) _Hamlet_
> (circa 1601) is a dubious case -- some people see it in psychological terms,
> others (me included) don't.
>
> ... except that Bill the Bard got bored/dissatisfied with this. Leontes in
> Acts 1-3 of +The Winter's Tale+ is Othello without the
> psychological/plausible underpinning -- WS is no longer interested in
> exploring why the character is (jealous) as he is, more with illustrating
> the state of jealousy as such, and its consequences.
>
> As to Roger's point (with which dave seems to concur), well it comes down to
> bums on seats, doesn't it? One reason why actors avoid refering to Macbeth
> by name (bad luck) and calling it the Scottish Play is that when a rep
> company has a run of bad houses and needs to fill the theatre, they stage
> Macbeth. You can virtually guarantee a 90% sell-out, and the punters ain't
> all there because they've been brainwashed by the Establishment.
>
> Then there's Bill's republican play. Julius Caesar, anyone? Walter Ralegh
> got into deep shit for promulgating similar sentiments when Jimmy the Sixth
> and One was looming on the horizon -- "Better a republic than that Scottish
> toerag ruling us."
>
> A Remittance Academic
>
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http://www.cb1poetry.org.uk/
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