Performance at the Almeida Theatre in London on the 21st of July 2016.
Though a play is
written to be produced in a live-action format, it still usually exists
originally on the page, as a thing, a printed document that a director, actors,
costume designers, etc. help bring to life. Many critics fail to recognize the
mutuality of this relationship — between a production and the text of the play
itself. Too often they dismiss a production as “not faithful to the play” or
criticize it for “excessive cutting.” In these critiques, the text of the play
represents an ideal or standard that any given production must live up to, a
notion that assumes the play’s meaning is objective and stable; In this, the
faithful production is relegated to an entirely subordinate status where it is
praised for not diverting from the true meaning of the play, while the
unfaithful production is abruptly dismissed for tampering with that meaning. I
want to argue here for a different kind of thinking about the relationship
between the text of the play and a live performance or film of it. These are,
for me, a conversation -- one in which neither the play nor performance of it
have the high ground or upper hand. In "Shakespeare and the Film", one of my most precious possessions, Roger Manvell
writes, “we shall discuss in this book
the degree of artistic responsibility with which Shakespeare’s plays have been
transferred to the screen". For Manvell, filmmakers and stage directors touching
Shakespeare handle something precious, something requiring immense care and a
sense of duty. The director’s “artistic
responsibility,” in his estimation, is to “transfer,” not to transform, not to condense or expand, not to
interpret. Manville’s view, while dated, continues to be taken up quite
frequently by film critics today. Films are often still judged by this standard
of faithfulness.
Manvell also writes, “The new
media, with their emphatic close-shots, can be brought into full play to
enhance and underline the significance of the words. Or they can . . . use
spectacle and pictorialism to mute the sense of the lines, and turn
Shakespeare’s scintillating poetry into what sounds like the baying of human
hounds” Here he expects the film (or the play) to be a literal rendering of the
lines. Elsewhere, Manvell discusses how Shakespeare’s “characterization and his
poetry will most effectively be served by the screen”, as if the film or the play is
meant to do the work of the lines—is slave to the lines. Later, he critiques
the “vandalism” of some adaptations. Often, film and stage productions are not only
expected to be faithful to the text of the play but also to the conventions of
theatre. Certainly, it is important to consider how film and theatre overlap
and to think about how they comment on one another, but there are significant
differences between the two media as well. In theatre, the actors and the
audience are in one room; in film, they are not. In theatre, sets are
recognizable as sets; in film they are not. In theatre, every look of an
audience member is done from one static angle. In film, there is a camera that
moves dynamically and there are cuts, which determine the angle. Thus, the film
medium presents a unique way of adapting Shakespeare, and there is definite
utility in valuing the power of film to reveal its subject in new ways. For
example, we could look to two very different film adaptations of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing", the 1993 film from director Kenneth Branagh and the
2012 film from director Joss Whedon. Both directors are known for having a very
idiosyncratic directorial style. These are not films where the director
disappears in service of the lines. There are things I appreciate about both
films, but I would also admit that neither is a perfect film -- at least not
for me as a viewer.
What I note is how radically different these two
productions are from each other, one a lavish richly-colored delight with
expansive wide shots and hundreds of extras, the other a quieter black and
white experiment all shot at a single location. It is, in fact, the boldest
choices made by these films -- the moments where they most liberally interpret
Shakespeare's play -- that draw me to them. I would argue that the best film
adaptations (and the best stage adaptations, for that matter) do not bend to
the text, but rather thoughtfully adapt the text for another medium. Manvell
argues that there is a “transmutation” of a play when it is filmed. In the last
paragraph of his introduction to Shakespeare and the Film, he writes: It can be
claimed that Shakespeare’s dramatic art is best fulfilled on the screen through
an uncompromising transmutation of everything for which his words stand into an
entirely new form, made up of images-with-sound. In this case much, or even at
times all, of what he wrote for a stage where everything had to be created in
the imagination of the audience through the speech he put into the mouths of
his actors, may well have to suffer a ‘seachange
into something rich and strange’—poetry cast in the mold of another medium
as potentially powerful in its own right as his own. Manvell still insists
that the lines “suffer,” but there is
a clear sense here that this type of “transmutation” could also be capable of
enriching the lines. This "transmutation"
is not something controlled only by a director. Shakespeare doesn't, literally,
put speeches into the mouths of his actors. Instead, the actors find the words
upon a page and, with the help of a director, they put those words into their
own mouths in very characteristic ways. Emma Thompson's Beatrice (in the
Branagh film) is very different from Amy Acker's Beatrice (in the Whedon film).
Thompson chooses to go big (emoting right up to the rafters) in places where
Acker chooses to have her Beatrice go small. Both make very deliberate choices,
and in my view, their performances are the anchors in each of these films. In
the "O, that I were a man!"
scene, for example, Acker's Beatrice paces around the set and has her back to
the camera at several key moments. Acker's extensive experience as an actor for
both screen and stage suggests to me that this was a conscious choice. (As an
aside, Acker played Hero in a live production of Much Ado at the American
Players Theatre in 1999.) Perhaps, she turns her back at certain well-known
lines to de-emphasize them -- so that we hear other lines we might have missed
before. Even if the choice were purely instinctual, what Acker succeeds at
doing is making this scene about a woman's assertions of herself at great cost
and through great resistance -- and this is echoed both in her words and in
what we see on screen. The scene, then, becomes a conversation between Acker
and her director, between Acker as Beatrice and the audience, and between Acker
and Shakespeare. She is not changing the scene, but bringing a different kind
of light to it. Adaptation functions as a form of interpretation not a
reconstruction of Shakespeare’s work. In this, the films become primary texts
in their own right while also engaging directly with their sources. A film
version of Much Ado About Nothing is a reading of the play, but it is both a
literal reading of the lines themselves and a critical reading or
interpretation of their meaning. Films become more than just reenactments; they
become critically responsive texts—they become active readers. This kind of
work honors the shifting, fluid status of meaning in the plays. Shakespeare’s
plays are something that exist perpetually in the present—a film is capable of
bringing life in some new way to "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", or to Much Ado
About Nothing" as do readers who continually bring to them new interpretations.
What about Rupert Goold's adaptation of Richard III? This post is already too long. To cut things short, suffice to say, Ralph Fiennes was an astounding Richard III. As I’ve said elsewhere, forget the recent movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Fiennes' movie is not really in the same league as the Mckellen version, but it’s still one of the best in terms of recent productions of Richard III. Scott Handy as George, Duke of Clarence, was also excellent. Finbar Lynch as Buckingham was also above par. Daniel Cerqueira’s Catesby was also bloody good (is he a Portuguese actor?), as was James Garnon's Hastings (his delivery of "Bloody Richard" was terrific).
When I went to watch it I had some misgivings. For starters I didn’t know who Rupert Goold was. After having watched this play by him, I’m comfortable in saying that he’s one of the best directors around (too bad about the defilement scene; it was really uncalled for): he made sure that a healthy tension was maintained throughout the play, such that the actors' emotions did not devolve into embarrassing ham-acting. Unfortunately, we have a lot of that in English and Portuguese theatre at the moment. As I’ve stated in another post, Richard III is my favourite Shakespearean villain. I love an arch villain knocking off rivals before building to a big battle at the end. Villains are always great fun to play and this one has all the best lines. I’ve always thought a play about Richard must put the stress on Richard's misogyny and in that regard Fiennes was quite impressive. At times the best Richards should make me laugh, but it should also make me very uncomfortable, like the best of horror.
What I didn’t like: the defilement scene (Richard and Aislín McGuckin as Elizabeth). Was it really necessary as a way of adding dramaturgy to the play? I still have no idea why some directors change things the way they do, when we simply don’t have it in the Shakespeare text. I’m not against introducing new scenes when the added value is just that. Added value. But not in this case. What was Rupert Goold's thinking...? Johanna Vanderham’s Anne: Terrible performance. She just delivers all of her lines in a monocordic tone of voice. She was absolutely dreadful.
Goold’s Richard didn't bother to conceal his own motives for doing the things he did, bending people to his will with unspoken consequences and a single look. Overall a performance that transcended the stage, gripped me from the first moment and didn’t let me go until the last scene. Fiennes gave me a truly devastating performance; it was a bit like witnessing some freak force of nature at play on stage. Quite an experience.
Incidentally, Anthony Sher’s Richard III back in the 80s is still my absolute favourite. It was a chillingly menacing performance.
NB: All pictures and clips taken by me, in stealth mode. using high-tech devices, during the performance...
