What to Cut
Man, as I begin to read Richard the Third, I'm finding it very long and very tough sledding.
Anthony Sher's great book Year of the King (which I'll review later in the month) discusses the pain of making cuts to the text, but what to cut?
The play is rarely performed unabridged, but what to cut?
Sometimes entire characters are cut, but who to cut?
This is something I'll need to think about as I read... stay tuned for a discussion later in the month.
[or is this just post-holiday lethargy?]
Anthony Sher's great book Year of the King (which I'll review later in the month) discusses the pain of making cuts to the text, but what to cut?
The play is rarely performed unabridged, but what to cut?
Sometimes entire characters are cut, but who to cut?
This is something I'll need to think about as I read... stay tuned for a discussion later in the month.
It's always strange to me when directors make cuts before rehearsals even start. (I'll admit that this must be done given a severely truncated rehearsal period.)
I should say that part of my bafflement stems from the fact that I am not a "concept" director. I consider myself a shepherd of the story, and my goal is to simply tell that story on stage -- not to impose my own take on it. (Of course, I WILL impose my own take on it without trying to do so, but that's never my goal. I try to remember that Macbeth starts with "Ma" not "Me.")
I am not berating directors who use texts as vehicles to express some story or idea of their own. I've seen great productions like that. But it's not me, and I don't really understand how to work that way.
So I never cut to shape the story to my own ends.
I also don't cut -- before production starts -- out of a fear of boring the audience. Which isn't to say that it doesn't scare me. It does. But knee-jerk cutting isn't the answer. Many times, in rehearsal, a "boring" scene yields gold once you start working on it with live actors who make interesting choices. It's only boring when it's lying flat on the page.
The most frequent comment I heard about my "Much Ado" was "Wow. I always thought this play was a light comedy. Actually, it has some really moving, serious scenes in it." I wasn't sure what made my production different. I now think it was my "decision" (really my default) of leaving in the entire Friar speech and working hard to make it exciting. There are other serious scenes, of course, but that scene -- often cut -- topples the second half of the play into something much more complex than "The Beatrice & Benedict Show."
If you cut a scene prior to rehearsal, you don't give that scene a chance.
The final reason I don't make early cuts by myself is that doing so foolishly ignores my most useful tool: my collaborators.
When we do make cuts, we make them together, as a company. I am the final arbiter, but I work with so many smart actors, it would be foolish not to listen to them.
Usually, while we're doing table work, discussing the play line by line (sometimes word by word), we discuss possible cuts.
Once, I knew I needed to shave off about a thousand lines. I tried an experiment: I asked each of my ten actors to submit 100 of his lines to be cut. It worked really well. The actors, who knew their characters intimately, made smarter decisions than I would have. And they OWNED those decisions. They weren't upset that I had torn the guts out of their characters. They were excited by the chance to shape their characters themselves.
An idea: why don't you post the act and scene number of a bit from Richard III that bores you. Maybe we can discuss it and find some gems in the tedium. Or, at least, we can agree that it really is tedious.
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First, I want to know where you are too.
I am not really involved with the theatre, although I have audited an intermediary acting class and will enroll in an introductory acting class at a local community college. In neither class is Shakespeare covered, but in both I told the instructors that I'm taking the class to learn about Shakespeare by acting, and so that is what I'll perform, like it or not. I've already taken two English classes on Shakespeare, but I think the only really deep way to learn it, is by performing it. That said, I'm less interested in a director's point of view, especially if he has a "message," than in Shakespeare's. I might feel differently if more directors had good sense, but my experience has been that they often wreck the play for the sake of their message. I recently saw a performance of Othello that was so bad, that I'd gladly accept the torture that awaits Iago in Venice to avoid seeing it a second time.
As for Richard III, for me, editing it would depend on whether it is being performed as the final part of a four part saga, or as a stand alone play.
As part of a four part story, I like the idea of having the actors trim their parts. This would be done mostly for the purpose of length (do we really need to see ALL of the ghosts of Richard's victims?).
The tricky edits come when the play is presented as a stand alone production. I've been to two performaces of Richard III, and I spent the intermission and some time after the close explaining to people who Margaret was; that Clarence's name is George and that he is the Duke of Clarence; that Anne is escorting the body of Henry VI, her father-in-law, and that her husband was Edward, Henry's son, and both victims of Richard; how Clarence betrayed Edward IV by switching sides, and that's why Richard can manipulate Edward against their brother; that all this struggle is really one huge family feud, and that they are all related; etc.; etc.; etc. There just too much in this play that relates to the Henry VI plays to leave it unedited.
But what to change? If you cut Margaret, you break the link to the past. If you leave her in, her anger becomes justified because we don't see her dip dying Rutland's hankerchief in his own blood and then present it to his father, Richard of York, before she murders him. Nor do we see her conspire against Gloucester. You can't cut Clarence, but without his betrayal of Edward, he comes across as this nice guy who gets caught up in Richard's web.
If you think about it, even Richard's opening soliloquy doesn't really make a lot of sense without 3 Henry VI. What is this "winter of discontent?" Who is this "son of York," and why is it a pun?
I'm looking forward to suggestions, because is too hard a knot for me to untie.
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Still don't know where Marcus is located... as for me: Ventura County in southern California.
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I guess it's a pretty big oversight that we don't list location on our site! Thanks for pointing that out.
Folding Chair is in NYC. Our next show, in April, will be "The Tempest." I'm in pre-production now. When we next update the site, we'll add our address.
I hope I didn't come across as if I believed that my way is the right way. That would be arrogant and boring.
I'm glad there are "conceptual" directors. As you so rightly pointed out, these plays are incredibly layered. Experiencing that layering is one sort of pleasure; having a guide who makes pointed decisions about which layers to show and which to hide is another sort of pleasure. Why chose when you can have both?
(One thing that fascinates my is that both approaches will never fully succeed. I can tell myself that I'm not interpreting, but that's impossible. Every decision I make will close off certain avenues and open other ones; meanwhile, the concept director will always get thwarted by nuances that allow the audience's mind to wander away from the concept. These plays play us as much as we play them!)
I'm always nonplussed by "Shakepeare should be done this way" statements. The one that irks me the most is "Shakespeare is meant to be seen, not read." I'd be rich if I had a penny for every time I've heard that.
The irony is that I work in the theatre, and so I should be pushing people to see the plays rather than to sit at home and read them. But I see great value in solo reading.
Certainly, it's much easier for beginners to enjoy them through performance than it is via the text by itself.
But those of us who really love WS know that there are certain pleasures you can only get from being alone with his writing -- being able to go through the poetry, line-by-line, word-by-word, at your own pace. (Of course, there's are other pleasures one gets by seeing a great performance or production.)
This is a fantastic blog! Please keep it up.
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I LOVE The Tempest!
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Wow: small world! I spent ten years teaching tech courses (photoshop, video editing, special effects, animation, programming) and I now work as a programmer. I still teach on occasion.
I don't meet a huge number of tech people who are also into theatre (except for "techies," of course), but the ones I do meet are usually into Shakespeare. I think he appeals to the same part of the brain that enjoys intricate technologies.
As a tech teacher (and a blogger about Shakespeare), you're in the business of explaining complicated systems.
Man! I would have loved to have seen Hopkins as Prospero!
"The Tempest" is going to be a huge departure for my company. We usually produce our plays on a bare stage with no sets or props. We try to tell the story entirely through language and acting.
But for "The Tempest" we're doing a show with actors, puppets and musicians. These three groups will be doing a complicated "dance" around (and with) each other, the details of which we're still working out.
I'm working with a talented puppeteer, and I'm currently auditioning actors and musicians.
I'm doing the play uncut with five actors voicing all the parts. Each part will have a puppet counterpart. Actors and puppets will both be visible to the audience -- as will the puppeteers.
There will be a lot of doubling. Probably the most interesting of which is Miranda, Caliban and Ariel, all of which will be voiced be the same actor.
Which immediately roots me in the world of "concept," despite my usually attempt to keep things neutral. I see those three characters as Prospero's children (not a revolutionary interpretation, but, I think, an apt one). By having the same actor play all three parts, I am moving the audience towards my interpretation -- closing the door to other ones.
I've made a few other choices like that -- more than I usually make. It's interesting to be outside my comfort zone.
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The similar backgrounds are too funny... I'm may have to "friend" you on FB so we can take this discussion off this particular thread.
Your Tempest sounds incredible. How much of a Bunraku influence will your puppets have?
When you have a press release for the run, lob me an email... I'd love to throw you some publicity on both the blog and the Facebook page!
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This is a little too weird for me, but I taught graphic arts software from a printing, prepress perspective for a few years. Now, I'm in sales.
I came to Shakespeare in a roundabout manner. Until a few years ago, my total exposure consisted of a few movies (mostly Kenneth Branagh productions), aside from typical high school and undergraduate assignments (all in the distant past).
My job involves a lot of windshield time, and one day I decided that I had enough of evening talk radio, and so I bought an audio book "What a Piece of Work is Man, The Seven Great Tradegies of Shakespeare" by Harold Bloom. I enjoyed that, so I bought an Arkangel audio production, then another, and another until I had about twenty plays. At that point, I figured I might as well get them all. Now, my drive time is in plays, not hours. Home to Ridgecrest and back: that's a Hamlet or two comedies. Home to Apple Valley and back: a Coriolanus or Richard II. Home to Rosamond and back: that's a Taming of the Shrew (minus the induction).
I find reading the plays to be hard work most of the time. I can do it, but it isn't easy. I usually have to catch something by ear first, then I can go back to the text and work out the details.
Now I want to see the plays on stage.
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I've read some on Bloom... but never his books themselves... thanks for the tip.
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I'm not a fan of Bloom anymore, especially his take on Hamlet and Falstaff, but he got me started on Shakespeare, and for that, I'm grateful.
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Funny, I just downloaded the Seven Tragedies book... listening to it as I work... my God, what a blowhard.
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He lost me on the whole "Invention of the Human" thing. I don't see how anyone who has grappled with "Oedipus" or "The Oresteia" can believe that Shakespeare invented the idea of "The Human," though maybe I misunderstood Bloom's point.
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