Poll

Leah Maher wrote:
-------------------------------
I fear reverse snobbery. People refuse to go and see Shakespeare because it's too hard. The kids won't try becasue of the highbrow reputation. So we have to package it as a Hollywood block buster, which suceeds while, as you yourself said, REAL Shakespeare (like the Twelth Night) sinks without a
trace. Are we, in the name of re-inventing things and repackaging them to keep them alive, slowly killing the real thing? Give people a substitute that's easier to swallow and they won't bother with the original.

***

Granted, this may be the case - to an extent. I keep coming back to Kenneth Branagh because I have just completed my thesis on his work and I have a lot of time for what he does. Branagh recognises the fact that kids today might have shorter attention spans than in previous generations - the sad result of playstation, foxtel, and the internet - and packages Shakespeare to suit. That may not be ideal - it may not be 'Real Shakespeare' (sic) - but it's
a start. People often forget that the kids of today are the adults of tomorrow, and if we don't bring some form of culture to them, in a manner which they might identify with and enjoy, then they may never have any interest in authors like Shakespeare and Eliot, and Dickens - geniuses whose works have been rendered 'boring' by dry English classes at school. I have always been of the opinion that kids who hated Shakespeare only did so
because they had not seen his works on stage - the only problem is that we need to hold their attentions somehow. As long as we are not changing the texts radically (ie updating, which Grant's "Fair Northbridge" and "Banish'd to Mandurah" came worryingly close to) and instead work to make the milieu more interesting, with an eye to Shakespeare's unshakeable universality, we might succeed in converting some young people to carry the flame on into the future. If that means more Baz Luhrmann Shakespeare with thousands of teenaged girls queuing up for third and fourth viewings, then bring it on. I don't feel as though Shakespeare's texts are compromised by reinterpretations - and I don't think there is anything wrong with
adaptations. Shakespeare himself adapted almost every one of his plays ('The Dream' being the notable exception and even then the Lovers were pinched from sources) and there might well have been a hue and cry in London in 1601 when the London Danish population realised that this Warwickshire upstart had rewritten one of their most famous legends ('Amleth'), but
today it endures. And while 'The Lion King' will never replace 'Hamlet' just because it was adapted from its story, there is room for both original and adaption in our society. It is directors such as Branagh who recognise the need for accessible adaptations, but at the same time covets the text jealously, and succeeds. 'Much Ado' was made for $8 million and made $22
million in one summer. Not bad for a 400 year old production.

And while adaptations of Shakespeare can never come close to the Bard's work, it is hard to dispute the fact that Bernstein's 'West Side Story' or Verdi's 'Otello' are true works of genius, ones that will endure long into the future.

I agree with you, Leah, that the 'dumbing down' of culture is an alarming trend. But we must recognise the fact that society has changed to such an extent that kids would rather see 'Con Air' than 'King Lear' - illustrated so beautifully in John McTiernan's 'Last Action Hero' where Arnie plays Hamlet, preferred over Olivier. As long as the texts remain, I think everything will be okay.

Yours,
Toby Malone