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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  2997 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 20th Quotes Than Which No Greater Can Be Conceived

Is O'Toole saying that we're seeing Shakespeare's tragedies not as they were originally intended? If so, how could they be presented differently?





lil  ·  2996 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yes, he is saying that.

He's arguing that the way Shakespeare was and is being taught has nothing to do with the complexity of an engaged artist trying to express the complexity of his own times (and thereby all other societies in dynamic alterations) --- He says that Shakespeare as it is studied in high school, and perhaps the majority of the Shakespeare productions are being reduced to a

don't-rock-the-boat Victorian ideology.

He believes most of us have encountered Shakespeare for the first time in school through the distorting theories of Victorians who wished most of all to tame the radical critique of the plays to sustain the colonial agenda of Empire -- and that, as he says in the quotation, the plays -- especially the tragedies -- are much more than that.

As for how they could be presented differently -- good question. I have a friend who bit-torrented all the available Shakespeare he could find. One of these was a PBS version of Macbeth with Patrick Stewart (Star Trek the next gen) playing Macbeth and -- oh look:

http://www.pbs.org/video/1604122998/

here it is all two hours and 41 minutes.

This was DEFINITELY anti-Imperialist putting Macbeth into a WW 1 landscape. Something is really unhinged from the usual in this production.

I just loved it.

I think he really gets the truth of what Shakespeare was all about! XoJ