Shakespeare by the numbers...

[shadowkat]

Was thinking about this today, after reading a review by NPR of the current tv season where they stated that we all know that there are no new stories and people just redo the same ones over and over...

True and not true. Yes, similar tropes or archetypes get revisited. But there is a difference between say doing another remake of Pride and Prejudice or Shakespeare or Dicken's Christmas Carol or It's A Wonderful Life - and using themes or archetypes in those tales and spinning a different tale entirely. It's sort of the difference between rebooting Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and well doing True Blood, the Vampire Diaries or Rachel Morgan - Bounty Hunter. Or for another example? The difference between rebooting or remaking Forever Knight, and doing Angel.

I don't think you can claim either Grimm or OUAT (Once Upon a Time) are retreads of Bill Willingham's Fables. Which NPR's critic does claim, making me wonder if the critic actually read Fables? I did. One? Overrated. Two? Misogynistic in places, Chauvinistic in others, and mildly sexist to start. Bill Willingham? Not a fan. Actually Neil Gaiman handles folk narratives better - in The Sandman and in American Gods. But Gaiman respects and loves women as equals, Willingham? Not so much.

Also was thinking of a few writers who have been overdone. To the point in which you wonder if it's a right of passage or something to perform or do a version of this writer's work? In regards to Shakespeare? I always thought the great Shakespearean actors: Olivier, Gielgud, Stewart, Wells, and Brannagh went a bit overboard - I think they've done five plays each as films and theater productions. But no one beats Derek Jacobi, who I think did them all. LOL!

As a former English Major, and theater geek, I can say that I've seen and done my fair share of it. Performed, watched, and recited more Shakespeare than I can list.
(Plays I've seen? Twelth Night (4 times), Macbeth (3x) Much Ado (2x), Hamlet (5x) Romeo & Juliet (4 x), Richard the III (2x), King Lear (2x), The Tempest (3x) Midsummer Night's Dream (an nude homosexual modern dance version - which was interesting - Laretes fell for Demetrios, as opposed to Helena. It was rather amusing.) 4x - also performed it., Anthony & Cleopatra, Titus Adronicus, As You Like It, Henry the V (2x), Taming of the Shrew (5x), Merchant of Venice (1x) and various others that I don't have a clear recollection of - we did a marathon in college once. All I remember is Derek Jacobi is an incredibly versatile actor. Would like to see the lesser performed ones, which I may have seen and just do not remember.)

Out of curiousity, I decided to see just how many ways people have adapted and/or filmed Shakespeare plays and which ones. Is it really as many as I think? I was admittedly surprised - since it turned out to be more. Hint? Much Ado has actually been filmed four times, even more than that on tv, and has several musical interpretations as well as having a Klingon version (yes, someone translated and performed it in Klingon.) But Romeo & Juliet has everyone beat with 48 film versions in multiple languages, I swear they filmed it once a year. As does Hamlet - which has the most adaptations. When they say everyone does Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet, they aren't kidding.

According to Wiki? Hollywood has made over 250 films based on Shakespeare's Plays. This is not counting television productions, loose adaptations such as 10 Things I Hate About You, or
A Thousand Acres nor is it counting ballets and musicals such as West Side Story.



* Taming of the Shrew:

1) Kiss Me Kate (film version and Broadway musical, Noel Coward), 2) Liz Taylor and Richard Burton film version, 3) Moonlighting - Cybil Shepard and Bruce Willis play the roles in an episode of Moonlighting. 4) Ten Things I Hate About You - Modern Teen Comedy starring Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles. 5) Rewritten by Orson Scott Card for people who don't understand Shakespeare. (apparently Card has never seen Ten Things I Hate About You.)6)Quantum Leap did the Taming of the Shrew (I must have missed that), And there was an anime version.

* Romeo & Juliet:

1) West Side Story (by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim) - Broadway version and film version, also doing it on Glee, 2) Franco Zefrelli's film version of Romeo and Juliet, 1968 (most famous version) according to Wiki there have been, I kid you not: 48 film versions - they were doing one a year, and in about five different languages. They even have one in Yiddish and an Anime version. The other popular one is Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer by George Cukor in 1938, and of course Baz Lurham's post-modern rock version "Romeo + Juliet"
with Leonardo di Caprio and Clare Danes in 1996. 3) The ballet. 4) The Opera.

*Much Ado About Nothing:

1) Television: According to Wiki? Several times on TV. Actually done the most on tv and apparently mostly in the UK. In 2005 the BBC adapted the story by setting it in the modern-day studios of Wessex Tonight, a fictional regional news programme, as part of the ShakespeaRe-Told season, with Damian Lewis, Sarah Parish, and Billie Piper. (I wished I'd seen that one. Took me a minute to remember who Billie Piper is (hint? Doctor Who). 2) Film:
The first cinematic version in English may have been the 1913 silent film directed by Phillips Smalley. The first sound version in English released to cinemas was the highly acclaimed 1993 film by Kenneth Branagh. It starred Branagh as Benedik, Emma Thompson as Beatrice. The 2001 Hindi film Dil Chahta Hai is a loose adaptation of the play. (wouldn't mind seeing that one). In October 2011, Joss Whedon announced a film called Much Ado About Nothing. 3) Operas -The operas Béatrice et Bénédict (1862) by Hector Berlioz and Much Ado About Nothing by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1901) are based upon this play.
4) Recently the Klingon Language Institute translated Much Ado About Nothing into Klingon, similar to The Klingon Hamlet. 5)Another adaptation is the 1973 New York Shakespeare Festival production by Joseph Papp, shot on videotape and released on VHS and DVD, that presents more of the text than Kenneth Branagh's version. (I've seen this one). The Papp production stars Sam Waterston, Kathleen Widdoes and Barnard Hughes. 6) In 2006 the American Music Theatre Project produced The Boys Are Coming Home, a musical adaptation by Berni Stapleton and Leslie Arden that sets Much Ado About Nothing in World War II America. (yes there's a musical version). 7) 2011 Catherine Tate and David Tennent post-modern version for the London Theater, which I think has been taped and can be downloaded if you have access to certain sites (I don't).

* Hamlet...which has been done almost as many times as Romeo and Juliet, except not as a ballet. The one's I've seen?

1) Laurence Olivier's version, 2) Franco Zefrelli's version with Mel Gibson and Glenn Close,
3) Derek Jacobi's version, 4) Kenneth Branagh's version, 5) Richard Burton - directed by John Gielgud. 6) there's also the modern version with Ethan Hawk and Kyle McLachlan.
Plus a ton of adaptations in various languages. 7) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
That play is quite popular. Try to get a BA in English without reading and seeing Hamlet ten times.

*Macbeth - 1) Richard Burton did this play too - I know, we listened to the Burton version in high school. 2) Maurice Evans did a television version. 3) Orson Wells directed a film version in 1948. On the stage - he did an all African American version of the play. 4) Roman Polanski did a film version - The Tragedy of Macbeth in a971, 5) A Japanese film version - Throne of Blood was done in 1957, 6) James Marsters recently directed and starred in a stage version that they did an audio tape for the internet - 2010-2011. 7)Trevor Nunn and Judi Dench's Televized version in 1977, 8)2009 - Patrick Stewart's version of Macbeth aired as a film for PBS. 9) An interactive theater piece by Punchdrunk entitled Sleep No More is adapted from Macbeth. 10) India did a version entitled Magbool - set entirely in the Mumbai underground.

* King Lear - 1) Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, 2) 1985 - Japanese film adaptation: RAN, which may be the most famous, 3)King of Texas - Patrick Stewart - TV adaptation, 4)Don Boyd's My Kingdom, 5)Second Generation - Channel 4 - UK adaptation. Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Lear (I saw it on stage with Anthony Hopkins in the lead. It's not been done as much as the others.)

Lesser know plays of Shakespeare's that have been done?

*Coriolanus
1) BBC Television Shakespeare Coriolanus (TV, UK, 1984) (videotaped) Released in the USA as part of the "Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare" series. (Which I watched in College, most of these stared Derek Jacobi for some reason) 2)Coriolanus (film) (UK, 2012)
Ralph Fiennes as Coriolanus, Gerard Butler as Tullus Aufidius ,Vanessa Redgrave as Volumnia
and Brian Cox as Menenius (now that I wouldn't mind seeing - that's a cast!)

The others can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_William_Shakespeare_film_adaptations

It blew my mind how many times some of these plays have been done. I don't think anyone has had their work performed and adapted more than Shakespeare. There's clearly something about Shakespeare that has a universal appeal which transcends both time and language. Personally, I have quibbles, there aren't that many good women's roles in Shakespeare. The few good female roles are either women posing as men, or in the tragedies. The best role may be Lady Macbeth. Part of the reason for this was back then, women weren't permitted to perform on stage. It's a very male dominated group of plays. So..again why the focus?

Comments

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

Shakespeare is *the* bourgeois theater author/producer. At the core, elisabethian drama has the early bourgeois individual/character (structure of psyche) (mostly a male hero) - and since we still live in a bourgeois society, the content of Shakespeare's work is still "universal" in it's appeal (for our western society: I don't think people in PRChina, or Saudi-Arabia, or India have the same outlook on this ;-)).

So, i agree that it transcends "time and language" insofar, as we still live in a society for which the plays were written.

Let's see the other most played dramatist of the world: Bertholt Brecht. His plays never made the grand leap from theater to TV/movie, and i think that is because his work doesn't have the bourgeois character at it's heart.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Possibly true, except for the number of plays that were translated into Indian films and Japanese films. Not so much China.

Also, not sure I agree about Brecht - I don't think that's the reason. I think the reason we don't see many films of Brecht's and the lack of universal appeal is not so much the "political content" but the style or how the play is written to be performed - it makes it more difficult to adapt. Most of Brecht's plays fall within "avante-garde" cinema.

Similar examples can be found in books. James Joyce's Ulysses requires a lot of work to read it. Has zip to do with the content, which is actually about a middle class guy with the clap during the course of one day. And everything to do with narrative style.
Brecht from what I remember and have read - seemed to distance the audience from his characters, disrupted the flow of the play with jarring musical interruptions and was obsessed with the structure.
Often it is how you tell the story that is the most important. Shakespeare had similar hurdles in the "iambic" pentameter, but the narrative structure is more straight-forward, less jarring.

Another thing to point out? Germany doesn't make that many films. Or nowhere near as many as India, UK, and US. India actually makes the most - believe it or not. They just aren't very good at exporting them to the rest of the world. And they also have a very "middle class" or bourgeousie sensibility. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a country that doesn't. China does - I've seen Chinese films, very strong bourgeoisie mentality. And I know quite a few recent Chinese immigrants. It's different, but I'd say the bourgeousie sensibility is there. As it is elsewhere. The structure may be different, the content might, but the sensibility still exists.

Brecht's plays seem much like George Bernard Shaw's to critique it.
But they be too political and too jarring narratively to appeal to a broad audience?

[rahael.livejournal.com]

Just to concur on the subcontinental side of things - you are more likely to run into people in the Asian Subcontinent who can quote shakespeare by heart than you are in the UK (and not just the well known lines). In fact, I saw the plays of Shakespeare, Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Gabriel Garcia Lorca and more on the stage in my town all before the age of 10. I knew lines from the plays of Lorca, Williams and Shakespeare long before i could even read!

India does export its films very well to the rest of the world, it just doesn't register in the Western consciousness as such. I meet people from all over the world - (last month it was a young Nigerian woman) who watch Bollywood and have their fave stars (her was Amitabh Bachchan)

[rahael.livejournal.com]

also, my controversial opinion: Shakespeare is more populist than bourgeouis - if such a word could fit into Elizabethan society anyways. Given that its a time when "bourgeois" or the Middling sort were regarded as dangerous when they had political opinions - its a bit misleading in my view. It's why Elizabeth forbade playwrights from discussing 'constitutional affairs' on the stage and why one historian argues that Shakespeare moved to writing plays about Roman politics.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh I so agree. All you have to do is read Henry the IV and Henry the V - where Prince Hal leaves his friends in the lurch. The tragic character of Henry the V is Falstaff and in some respects the true lead of both plays. There's an underlying social and political criticism in Shakespeare's plays that is lost on a lot of the adapters and interpreters. They forget the time period - the Virgin Queen whole ruled with a fairly iron fist, and many at the time felt should marry and let a guy rule. Women couldn't even perform on stage. I think Shakespeare much like Jane Austen and to a degree Dickens - did heavy social commentary in their works, which is lost on a more modern interpretation.

Also, keeping in mind who the plays were generally performed for.
The plays were performed for the masses. And often not considered..worthy of the middle or upper class.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

And ah...you're right, of course...Indian films have made it over here, just not as prevalent - I rarely see them in a movie theater, but probably doesn't matter since I rarely go to the movie theater to watch movies. With the internet and netflix - exporting film is made easier. I'm not sure if US films are more prevalent in movie theaters overseas or not? I do know, Bollywood outdoes Hollywood in production. Far more and a far wider variety of films are made in India than in the US.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Much Ado About Nothing works way better with Klingon characters than Hamlet.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Really? I would have thought the opposite. Although it probably is more hilarious.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

A central couple who fight until they realise they actually are attracted to one another, threats of dueling all over the place.

Whereas Klingons watching Hamlet would be shouting "OK, kill him already!" about twenty minutes in.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

"fight until they realise they actually are attracted to one another" being what ST:TNG and DS9 implies is the usual course of a Klingon romance. Although there would have been slightly less repartee and more actual kicking each other in the face.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

And I'm guessing the whole Hero/Claudio storyline would have been lost on them.
Not that it makes much sense in the original for that matter - although apparently some people think that plot thread is dark and noir? So...who knows.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Hero/Claudio is pretty grim if you think women are autonomous beings. I remember one person on LJ who is a huge Shakespeare enthusiast describing Claudio as "the Shakespeare comedy romantic hero who NOBODY likes".

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It's probably worth bearing in mind that the whole Hero/Claudio plot thread was meant to aid weight to what Beatrice and Benedict were bantering about. Also, the time period - Virgin Queen who ruled England for a very long time. A lot of Shakespeare's plays can be read as sharp political commentaries on Elizabeth's rule and the prevailing sentiment that she should have gotten married and let a guy run things. Taming of the Shrew definitely can be read that way, as can Twelth Night. Much Ado is bit less blatant than Taming, but not as deft as Twelth Night.

I can see why Whedon and others have done it in modern times - it's a nice critique of Romantic or "physical" love. But if you don't look at the political undertones...you miss half the story, and the
critique comes across as bit more chauvinistic and sexist than it should.

Much like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, a lot of the meaning of the story is lost when you pull it too far out of context - because all three writers were to an extent commenting on social politics and political structure of their time. To some degree that is timeless, but not entirely. A portion, perhaps the most interesting portion, gets lost in the translation.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

And they would not be the only ones. I swear that was my response to the Ethan Hawk and Derek Jacobi versions.

[gingerwall.livejournal.com]

Wow. A very thorough list. But one of my favorites was missing: the 2006 teen movie version of 12th Night with Amanda Bynes ("She's the Man") was hilarious... you should check it out if you haven't yet.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hee. I got tired before I got around to doing Twelth Night - next to Midsummer Night's Dream - I think it's the comedy that has been done the most. Including the oscar winner - Shakespeare in Love, which basically blends Twelth Night with Romeo and Juliet.

[gingerwall.livejournal.com]

I saw Shakespeare in Love so long ago, I never realized there was 12th night in there as well as R + J. I'll have to check it out again.

And yeah, don't blame you for getting tired... that list was super long. :)