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'24 inspiration
...All the World's a stage.....
a 2024 sojourn to England...
Late winter in England. The sun, the cold, the overcast skies. The mood and hue of the environment are distinctive.
Ancient buildings hold clues to place and time...rough hewn stone blocks, sturdy wood, iron-braced hinges, hand-cast nuts'n'bolts holding together bespoke structures and framework.
Cavernous interiors with hand-crafted ceilings in dark wood, paneled and painted with religious icons, arched support frames finished in stone tiles especially made for that purpose.
A chair made of darkened oak by craftsmen.
Hand-blown, hand-colored glass, lead-lined and soldered into window panes of houses of worship.
Family crests, representing linages traced back to 1066, struck and registered centuries ago, adorn the vestibule of these great houses and Churches.
...Richard's England...
the play's the thing
Othello @Sam Wannamaker Playhouse London
Mash-up contemporary with striking notes of Elizabethan London.
Bold and brisk. Language loud, fast and furious.
Blending contemporary physicality with historical mise en scene.
Hand-cranked iron chandeliers with candles lit and extinguished by cast members.
Loose shirts and leggings, motor-bike boots and duffle coats.
Overt love-play between Desdemona and The Moor
[a no/no back then!]
Stone jugs filled with Ale or wine or brandy or beer.
Musical instruments made today but played for yesteryear.
A Midsummer Night's Dream @ RSC Stratford
A fantasy 'sky' lit from within and without...modern magic.
Characters inhabiting the stage as the audience took their seats.
Playful singing and jesting like a 'warm-up' comedian does to a live TV audience.
Quirky, eclectic, off-beat baggy pants, flowing skirts, multi-colored shirts under ill-fitting purple suit, spikey gelled hair.
Naughty. Bawdy.
Many conjurings with LED lights.
Platform boots. Bare feet.
Doc Marts.
The Merchant of Venice 1936 @ The Swan, RSC Stratford
A Jewish family opens the play celebrating a holy day, as family members offer apple juice to the audience so they can join in.
A woman plays Shylock.
Set in Europe against the rising tide of Nazism and the beginning of Jewish persecution.
Prejudice abounds. Propaganda proliferates.
Politics pushes to the forefront of the action.
Generic black military uniforms, bold black symbols adorn red armbands playing 'victim'.
Jews openly ostracized and avoided when mixing with gentiles.
Even the Maid avoids contact with them.
Posters slandering Jews are pasted to the family front door.
...Shakespeare now....
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