Shakespeare Meme

[charliesmum]

Day #12: Your favorite scene

Can anyone really narrow this down? I don't know. So many moments in Shakespeare take my breath away when done right, but that self-same scene can leave me cold when in the hands of someone who doesn't 'get' it. *coughclairedainescough*

I really enjoyed acting the seduction scene in Richard III. I'd also done Kate in Taming, and one of the things that struck me was how alike the wooing scene in that show was to the one in Richard, just in terms of the woman successfully laying the verbal smack-down on the guy, who continued to be charming to the last, and, ultimately, wins. Taming it is played for over the top laughs, Richard, it's disturbing.

In short, I have no real way of answering this question.

Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
Day #3: Your favorite hero
#4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5 & 6: Your favorite villain/villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy/Day #9: Your favorite tragedy Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line

Comments

[geishawhite.livejournal.com]

I regret to say I've never read the Richard scene you refer to -- although I directed the Taming scene! -- Which incidentally, we didn't play for laughs. It was more menacing, flipping back between sweet & terrifying. We wanted to make the point that Petrucio was an abusive shit, so. Y'know.

Where is the Richard scene from?

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

It's toward the beginning of the play - Richard basically seduces Lady Anne over the corpse of Henry VI.

It's a really great scene - at first she is all haughty and calls him names and totally holds her own against him, but as the scene goes on, he charms her, and convinces her that he is completely repentant of all his evil deeds. He tells her how he was spurred by her beauty, and all that.

Anne isn't an idiot, and she really does hold her own for a long time in the conversation. She's just one over by his convincing 'I have a heart of gold' act.

It just really does mirror the K & P scene in a really dark way.

One of my favourite bits that I noticed - in Shakespeare - one says thee and thou if one being affectionate or speaking to an inferior, and you and your if one is speaking to someone above one's station, or being formal. In the beginning of the Anne/Richard scene she's calling him 'thee' indicating her contempt of him, and he uses 'you'. You KNOW the moment he knows he's one because Anne switches to 'you' and HE switches to 'thee'. It's so...cool.

Interesting that you went dark for Taming. How'd you justify the ending? Was it sad, or was Kate happy at the last?

[geishawhite.livejournal.com]

It was a little like Stockholm Syndrome ;) We had Petruchio totally in control -- but Baptista as a woman, so Petruchio's manipulation of females was quite constant, the whole way through. The scene began with Katerina slamming around, and Petruchio quite calm, quite sweet, almost laughing intermingled with really lovely, poetic declarations -- and then she goes to hit him, and Chris, the actor in the first walk-through, grabbed her arm mid-slap and the next line was so, so cold and so so in control -- absolutely deathly 'no, you will play this game with me on MY terms' -- and then flipped back to sweetness. At one point, he actually threw her down on the chaise-settee we had on stage, and pinned her physically -- it looked like a rape, and it preeetty much came close to giving that uncomfortable, prickling feeling movies do to the whole scene. You saw Kate FIGHT, and the audience went from laughing at Petruchio's initial professions of love and Kate's total '...wtf' reaction to them, to laughing uneasily, to silence. It was quite the mood shift.

And then you saw Petruchio totally rain terror -- in the scene where he rejects all the food, etc, the actor again, improvised -- he was six foot four, so when he was sat at the table, being proferred food, he stood up in a rush and threw the table over -- Kate screamed, the servants recoiled. And then you saw Kate begin to learn to appease him.

It ...wasn't much of a comedy? You had the juxtaposition of couples -- Bianca in control of her partner, Petruchio in charge of his, and that speech on womanhood, flickering between Kate being 'reformed' and being quite clearly a victim. I would've played with it more, but I only had four weeks to put it on. :/

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

I wish I could have seen it. It sounds really good, and thought provoking.

When we did it - and oh, I could rant for days about how badly it was done - the director wanted 'Comedia Del Arte' but didn't know how to get it. And our Pet. was terrified of looking silly, so he just emoted the whole time. It was Not Good.

[geishawhite.livejournal.com]

The ending sort of sagged but then... so does the play? It's as if there was no suitable ending to that build up. But someone videoed it -- I've never had a copy though. :/ I left fairly shortly after February, and the play was before the vacation period. I was also not a Liked director xD I bullied and cajoled and humiliated people into learning lines and being word perfect -- there was not a single prompt in three performances, and these were students unaccustomed to Shakespeare. It was a smashing performance, but my cast united in their :/ of me xD There's a whole host of photos on a friend's facebook

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-ash1/v55/117/14/1229430163/n1229430163_30017023_1253.jpg -- the handgrab

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-ash1/v55/117/14/1229430163/n1229430163_30017043_6671.jpg -- arguing

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-sf2p/v55/117/14/1229430163/n1229430163_30017051_6978.jpg -- pre table-toss: you can see Harriet (Kate)'s expression in the background there.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-ash1/v55/117/14/1229430163/n1229430163_30017075_2448.jpg -- the finale -- you can see in that tableau JUST how in control Petruchio was. I like to think she stabbed him one night :3

We didn't cast it deliberately with the height difference -- tiny actress, tall actor, but it worked, by god. I also was playing with the budget, so we had a stark, stark white set, with the actors in colours that represented their stature, and very non-era costumes: the girls wore an A-line strappy dress that were made for them, the boys a shirt with black trousers. We had shades denote power -- strong colours meant strong positions, servants were paler shades of their masters, etc. Katerina was in green, Petruchio in red. Damnit, I can't find colour photos that haven't been photoshopped for contrast, but it was lovely. :3 I loved that play.