AHDS Collections

Designing Shakespeare Collection - Video Interview Clip

- Reinterpreting Shakespeare

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Designing Shakespeare Collection - Reinterpreting Shakespeare
Filename	:	DS_SJ_vi14.mov
Short Desc	:	Fourteenth video interview clip with Theatre Designer Sally Jacobs
Description	:	Answer: It happens as soon as you take away all the trappings of historic and academic sign posting. I've just seen a production of A Winter's Tale at the Roundhouse done in with American accents as if in, I don't know, Sicilyå? Gangsters and the Appalachian Mountains as the, as the rustics. It worked perfectly. And not a lot of scenery. It was not over emphasised, this contemporary rendition. It wasn't overloaded with signposts. It was just done very simply in that juxtaposition in that transposition. And the play was instantly accessible. So I think that it can be done very quickly, I mean, you see it all the time. If you do a rehearsal in front of an audience, not a dress rehearsal, just a plain rehearsal in front of an audience, the plays are as clear as a bell and what you mustn't do is apposticate [ph] them with over pictorialisation and over conceptualisation. I mean, of course you have an obligation to reinterpret them over and over again. Pieces which that wouldn't have lasted this long if they didn't have so much wonderful examination of of the, you know, of of the human content in them, the human condition. They are about the reality that we live everyday. And so everyday we try and reinterpret them and sometimes we can go down terrible blind alleys and sometimes we can hit the nail on a contemporary headå? that is dead right. Of course, the further you go in conceptualising a production the quicker it dates. But this is our contemporary obligation. That we must keep making the references in these great works to our our contemporary sensibility. It can be a terrible trap is what I am saying, but there but there's an obligation to do it. You can back off from that.
Source	:	DS_10_05_02 (mini DV tape)
Format	:	Quicktime Progressive (video)
Type	:	Resource Movie
Rights	:	This clip may be used for educational purposes only, any commercial use of this material requires permission from the copyright holders. Misuse or misrepresentation may result in legal action. Copyright holder: Christie Carson, COMPH, Royal Holloway University of London.
Length	:	2 minutes 07.26 seconds