Gosh Roger - I wish you could see what Australians (at their best -
there is the cringe factor, but that doesn't interest me) do with
Shakespeare. If ever you get a chance to see A Poor Theatre's film of
Hamlet, shot in Bourke St and Flinders St Station at night time Dogme
style, rush along. It's quite brilliant - raw, gritty, passionate,
moving and brilliantly acted. And it shows what is exciting and
subversive about Shakespeare, rather than the dog acting/dead theatre
you're talking about.
To my knowledge, Frances Yates was mandatory reading among the avant
gardist theatre types of the 1970s, along with Brook and Brecht. In
other words, very important to movements that are the reverse of
convservative. The same way Shakespeare was very important politically
in Poland under Soviet Russia as a means of dissent, and more recently
in Ceaušescu's Roumania. And even now, under repressive regimes in the
Middle East. It's hard to keep a good man down.
Cheers
Alison
On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 4:34 PM, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Only because the grant-maintained theatre in this country gives
> English luvviedom a permanent home in Shakespeare Heritage Land. And
> the globe is sponsored heritage, almost as bad, no it's worse because
> it's a damn sight more conservative, if that could be at all possible.
> (yeah, I can already see the howla) The rest of us are indoctrinated
> to this crap at birth. Oh, look, there's Shakespeare the Genius. Bah,
> humbug. Yeah, more like Shakespeare the Patriot. Stand up straight and
> shoot the French, son.
>
> And you there in Oz, stop cringing at the Great White European
> Theatre. Get on with something more interesting.
>
> The Globe. Really, not many are interested in it these days, not many
> care. As for the Qabbalistic stuff. Meh. For specialists specialising
> in belly-button fluff.
>
> Roger
>
--
Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
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