Unorthodox stage direction in Shakespeare's plays

For instance, I always wanted to direct As You Like It with Rosalind's disguise fooling no one. There'd be a lot of snickering and eye-rolling and 'get a load of this guy' cam stuff going on behind her back. Orlando would always talk to her as sarcastically as possible, and she'd never pick up on it. I'd direct it this way for no other reason than to antagonize Bardolators (and you know who I mean).

If you guys were going to direct a Shakespeare play, would you be traditional or do something different?

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I once see a King Lear where all characters were in contemporary dress (suit and tie), and Lear was actually the CEO of a company named "Lear, Inc."

It was appalling.

The right thing to do as a director for classic plays is to be vaguely historical (not too precise, not trying to emulate too hard the "old time" unless it's required by the play), and be discreet. The audience must focus on the text, not on the director's quirky ideas. The text is king.

There are also excellent non-traditional productions that are revolutionary precisely because of the "director's quirky ideas". For example, Peter Brook's 1970 Midsummer Night's Dream.

The problem lies in the director's competence to effectively convey and express those ideas without sacrificing the text or the whole production.

in the winter's tale, i would have actual bears

You, sir, are a blower sprung with the affection of thy spring.

I actually agree (plays are not holy material, they shouldn't be religiously respected), but it only works if the director is a genius.

An ordinary director should be more humble, know his limits, and acknowledge his ideas are less interesting than those of Shakespeare.

Saw a Hindi performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, complete with subtitles on a screen and Bollywood dancing. Shit was cash.

I'd like to see a Richard III who fakes being a cripple.

Wait, you mean Midsummer dubbed in Hindi or an Indian adaption of it?

The actors were speaking Hindi and there were English subtitles on a screen. The subtitles were the original Shakespeare so presumably it was just a translation rather than an adaptation. The whole production was in an Indian style.

>

I've always wanted to see Romeo and Juliet where they don't kill themselves at the end, but instead runaway together, and the play abruptly ends with almost no resolution.

Just to see the looks on peoples faces, the confusion at a surprise (and bad) ending for a story they think they know.

This, but also the kid princes he kills being complete little shits

Is this for real?

>Romeo and Juliet by Walter Shakespeare

I would adapt Hamlet to the 1990's Seattle Grunge scene.

The entire text is translated to ironic witticism and all the action takes place on a couch while the characters channel surf infomercials.

The murders take place only symbolically (someone's can of beer is spilled, someone is offered a hit but smokes the whole bowl) until the final act (the only set change) when Hamlet shoots up his school before turning the gun on himself.

It would be called "Conscience doth make Consumers"

alternative title: "Sell The Kids For Food"

Josh Whedon's version of Much Ado About Nothing was awesome and very organic, not jarring at all, but most often what you're talking about is just gimmicky and detracts from the play.

I'm currently rewriting Othello in an unorthodox and progressive way. My aim is to mix it with contemporary rap culture, to enable the ghetto youths of this country to connect efficiently with the text, and give them equal opportunities to penetrate white culture. Then maybe they'll become new, exciting writers with amazing things to say!

Excerpt:

>ACT 5. SCENE II. A bedchamber in da ghetto: DesDemonah nude in bed wif her legs open like a $5 crack addict hoe; a police lightbar shining in da background yo.

(Enter Otelo)

>Otelo
Fuck dat white shit, fuck dat white shit, nigga,--
Dont give a fuck if she dindu nuffin!--
Fuck dat white shit. But I'll not rape dat ass;
Nor put my knife in that cracka white skin
That's smooth as Dr Dre's first album yo.
Yet she gotta die or she'll fuck more niggaz.
Put out the lightbar like the sheriff's dead:
If I blow thee like bitches blow my dick,
I can unblow your shit like the mafia,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou fucking pattern of fat nigga nature,
I know not where is that Caribbean heat
That can thy shit relume. Your pussy stinks
Like the semen of dat nigga Cassio.
I'm a mad dawg: smell my pimp shit instead.
(Jizzing on her fucking bitch mouf)
Fucking hoe lips dat would even persuade
Judges to break their shit raycist gavel…!
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
And fuck thee after. One more, and this the last:
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must jizz,
But they are cruel semen drops: this shit's heavenly
Like mah bottle of Courvoisier. She wokes.

>DesDemonah
Who's there? Otelo?

>Otelo
Ayyy yo, DesDemonah.

>DesDemonah
Will you come to bed, my nigga?

>Otelo
Ooga booga bix nood mufugga.

>DesDemonah
Ayyyyy, my nigga.

>Otelo
If you think ur a nigga you cracka
Imma kill ya wif mah big Glock ooga
Maybach mufugga.

>DesDemonah
Yo big nugga, what dya mean by dat?

>Otelo
Fuck dat shit I'm gonna be brief mufugga:
I ain't killin your unprepared ho ass
Like Trump! Imma kill yah cracka soul yo.

>DesDemonah
Talk you of killing?

>Otelo
Ayyyyyo gurl.

>DesDemonah
Then Jesus
Get my bitch ass outta dis nigga hood!

>Otelo
Imma let you finish but fuck dat shit!

>DesDemonah
If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.

>Otelo
Bitch!

>DesDemonah
And yet I fear you; for you got such mad skillz
When your ill eyez roll I'm not afraid,
Since only the cracka police shoots us.

>Otelo
Think you're a ho.

>DesDemonah
I gotta twerk dat shit nugga.

>Otelo
Ayyyy bitch Imma smoke ya like a hot blunt.

I know you're shitposting, but I did once see a theatrical troop perform who adapted Shakespeare's plays line-by-line into hip hop. It was really good

anthony and cleopatra

i'd make their codependent relationship the forefront and the war be a byproduct

cast someone who looks as much as a drunk as bukowski does for enobarbus

make caesar's lust for octavia obvious

do the 'I am dying, Eypt' scene right, which i've never seen. everyone makes cleopatra out to be a bitch for stealing mark anthony's deathbed spotlight, but i'd make it be intimate. it is.

i wouldn't mess with the setting, i'd just want something minimal but not minimalistic. let the set designer deal with that.

That reminds me of the opposite youtube.com/watch?v=6dfLkcTAR80

You obviously put a lot of work into this so here's your (You).