Thursday, March 12, 2009

Night Out

I went out for the first time in a long time last night. To see a play. Hamlet with a twist: the entire cast was female. I was very ambivilent about going and when the cold weather forced the cancelation of the outing, I was not all that upset. Then I found out the ticket's would be honoured for upcoming shows. So I grudgingly got talked into going.

It was actually very good. Calgary has a vibrant theatre scene with a number of small and unique theatre companies as well as a very good drama programs at both the University and Mount Royal College. There is usually something interesting playing somewhere. But I never go anymore. Like most other things, its too much of an effort, is stressful on everybody involved in the outing, and just not usually not that much fun for me. So I have basically curtailed going out and doing things like this anymore.

But I am glad I went to see this play. The all female cast gave it a very interesting interpretation. I have seen about 6 different incarnations of theatrical productions of Hamlet now. This one ranks among the very best At first I thought the all female cast would be a novelty and a distraction. But that proved not to be true mostly because the cast were all very talented. It's a difficult play to pull off and they did a great job.

Prior to going to see the play I was involved in a rather bizarre online chat session that included a male theatre major who was completely appalled at the idea of an all female cast. He kept repeating "it's just wrong, it's just wrong." When I pressed him as to what was so "wrong" about it, he just blew smoke and said it devalued the playwright's intent. My theory though is that Shakespeare's plays have survived this long and are still so popular exactly because of productions like this, that re-imagine and reconfigure the plays so that they mean something. The audience was engaged and interested. I am not a theatre expert but I can't think of many other 400+ year old plays that still resonate with modern theatre goers and are still regularly performed everywhere from junior high classrooms to The famous Globe Theatre in London.

Shakespeare's Titus is playing in June. I may have to go.
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7 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 12, 2009 at 3:44 PM

    Cool.
    Dean

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  2. cheesecakeMarch 12, 2009 at 3:53 PM

    Sounds great except fot the cold. Glad you enjoyed yourself.

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  3. JohnMarch 12, 2009 at 4:45 PM

    Your online chat discussion is indeed bizarre. In Shakespeare's day, the cast was all male. I don't know if it was strictly the result of chauvinism or what, but the idea of an all female Hamlet sounds like a cool idea to me.

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  4. AnonymousMarch 12, 2009 at 6:23 PM

    We saw it earlier. Enjoyable for sure and youre right the cast was top notch. Thanks for the blog invite. It's been a long time. Good to hear from you again. I was wondering.

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  5. blogauthorMarch 12, 2009 at 8:43 PM

    That's really interesting because by happenstance I was just talking to Wheeler the other day about acting. I was saying that I think it would be neat to have a TV show or movie where it really was about the acting, that the characters, if they were say, a suburban white couple with 2 kids, they could be played by an African-American couple with an Asian child actor and a white child actor. But the context would be a white couple with white kids. Or substitute gender instead of race. Or height instead of race. Or, something crazy like, someone in a wheelchair playing the part of an AB. That last one I just thought of right now.

    Thanks for the link to you new blog btw. I have the proud distinction of introducing you to blogging. :) (are you cursing me yet?!!)

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  6. AmandaMarch 13, 2009 at 9:36 AM

    Yeah John I mentioned to him about males (and often young boys) playing all the female roles in Shakespeare's time--women were just not allowed to be actors then. His reply was "it's not the same, don't make this about gender. It's deliberately wrecking the playwright's intent."

    An argument that makes no sense to me, and when I pressed him on it, he got mad and said he wanted to be taken seriously--the chat room was full of females and most were reacting much as I did. Not putting him down, but trying to understand why he thought it was so wrong. I am hoping to have another chat with him sometime. Maybe I will better understand what he was arguing. Or--more likely--I will lose it on him :P

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  7. BroknWingMarch 28, 2009 at 10:21 AM

    I'd love to get to see the all-female production of Hamlet! Do you by any chance still have the playbill? I bet Mark would LOVE to have something unique like that to add to his Shakespeare collection... :) The guy you were debating with is a chauvanistic moron...How was he to know that the all-female cast was "wrecking the playwright's intent" UM...as you said in Shakespeare's day females weren't allowed to participate so males played ALL the roles, so why can't females take the roles back and do a production in a mirror image of sorts? I think it's genius!

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