fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2945 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2945 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Not a Harem Heaven, It's a Yandere Hell]

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[Game of Thrones]

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[In the Flesh]

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[Hudson Leick as Callisto in Xena, Warrior Princess]

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[Plebcomics]

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[Great British Bake Off]

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[Captain America: The First Avenger]

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[Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu LOVE!]

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[Queen]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 048 secrets from Secret Submission Post #421.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The main reason is because the language is beautiful; secondarily, because it is famous. People go to Shakespeare plays/movies to hear Shakespeare's language! Many productions will actually adapt certain aspects of the language for modern audiences (regardless of the setting of the piece), but they will generally be small vocabulary things like substituting "corpse" for its antiquated synonym "corse."

How well an added modern setting integrates with the text is a delicate balance! To my mind, some of the things in Romeo + Juliet work (the swimming pool) and some things don't (calling guns "swords", siiiigh). For some productions, a modern setting can give a better answer to something that is vague in the text: for example, the notoriously difficult question of Lady Macbeth's characterization. If Lady M is played as a woman who has lost a child in the modern day, it has a context of deeper loss and isolation now than in a properly medieval setting, when infant mortality was high and extremely common.

However, if you actually want Shakespeare plots without Shakespeare's language, you might be interested in a miniseries called Shakespeare Retold. It adapts Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Taming of the Shrew, with varying degrees of success. I fully recommend the Macbeth one, but not so much the others (okay, maybe Much Ado).

Edited 2015-01-27 01:19 (UTC)

AYRT - Thanks! Yeah, what really creeped me out at the time was when they kept the line about Paris wanting to marry his daughter, and the father was like "but she's only thirteen." (I'm afraid I forget the proper line.) Just... squick squick squick. Didn't work.

Female characters are frequently stated to be between 13-16, partly because yes, girls that young were considered marriageable/adult, and partly because those roles would be played by boys of that age, so it was easier for them to play teen girls than older women. Basically nobody really casts them that young anymore, but you could consider it a contributing factor to the "idiotic young love" interpretation, if you like.

But the age of Shakespearean characters is frequently confusing! If you ever want to start an argument, ask a group of Shakespearean scholars how old Hamlet is!

Or the complicated situation of the Henry VI plays, which takes the king from his father's death (which was when he was 9months IRL, but he's roughly a preteen in the play) to his own death (at 49 as IRL). Should one actor play Henry in all 3 parts, or do you switch between 1 and 2? What age is he supposed to be at each important point, when this is frequently inaccurate WRT the historical figure? And what does that mean for his wife Margaret of Anjou, who is treated as being older and wiser than Henry, when in reality she was 8 years younger?

[ SECRET POST #2945 ]

Re: Things you always wanted to ask about certain things

Re: Things you always wanted to ask about certain things

Re: Things you always wanted to ask about certain things