Theatrical Adaptation

Meditation 12

During class we were discussing the various adaptations that have come from Shakespearean shows. A few mentioned were movies like “She’s The Man”, “10 Things I Hate About You”, and other productions which basically follow Shakespeare’s plotline but place the character in modern settings. But there are other films like Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, or Richard III which take Shakespeare’s lines, almost exactly, and incorporate them into a new time period and I thought that was an interesting take on Shakespearean adaptations.

When people in the class were talking about the different types of Shakespearean shows they had seen and performed I thought of a production that my school did for One Act Play two years ago. It was called “Shogun MacBeth” and it was a kabuki stylized show complete with elaborate Japanese costumes and white make-up with very defined, dark facial expressions. It was such a stylized form of performing that it made me think of Shakespeare in a whole new light. The two dimensionalness of the characters only added new perspectives to the complexities of Shakespeare’s original characters. Like I said in my last meditation, the amount of creativity that people can incorporate into adaptations is infinite. The possibilities are endless.

posted by Taylor @ 9:06 PM