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Post by Jan on Jun 28, 2022 14:16:06 GMT
Also disappointing Read Not Dead rehearsed readings are not returning, a whole season of those were announced pre-Covid but have not yet been rescheduled.
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Post by nottobe on Jun 28, 2022 14:30:03 GMT
Interested by Titus Andronicus. It's a play I have wanted to see for some time. I would prefer if another theatre took it on like the National or Almeida as I think it deserves a large scale production that really gets into the gory side of the play.
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Post by Jan on Jun 28, 2022 14:47:19 GMT
Interested by Titus Andronicus. It's a play I have wanted to see for some time. I would prefer if another theatre took it on like the National or Almeida as I think it deserves a large scale production that really gets into the gory side of the play. Actually it works better in a small theatre - it makes the violence really immediate and oppressive. |
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Post by peggs on Jun 29, 2022 14:24:34 GMT
Also disappointing Read Not Dead rehearsed readings are not returning, a whole season of those were announced pre-Covid but have not yet been rescheduled. Could have sworn someone told me they were going to a read not dead last week? Think perhaps currently odd ones rather than whole season? |
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Post by Jan on Jun 29, 2022 15:08:08 GMT
Also disappointing Read Not Dead rehearsed readings are not returning, a whole season of those were announced pre-Covid but have not yet been rescheduled. Could have sworn someone told me they were going to a read not dead last week? Think perhaps currently odd ones rather than whole season? Yes they did one I think, a Polish play ? But no more are currently scheduled. |
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Post by joem on Jun 29, 2022 19:22:16 GMT
What happened to the idea of having non-Shakespeare Jacobean plays at the Inigo Jones?
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Post by peggs on Jun 29, 2022 20:08:41 GMT
Could have sworn someone told me they were going to a read not dead last week? Think perhaps currently odd ones rather than whole season? Yes they did one I think, a Polish play ? But no more are currently scheduled. That was the one I was thinking of, a polish Antony and Cleopatra? |
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Post by partytentdown on Jun 30, 2022 8:32:41 GMT
Would like to book some of these but never again will I sit on those hellish benches for three hours. My spine will never be the same again. All for authenticity but there are certain Jacobean traditions that should be left in history. Put some seats in!
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Post by kathryn on Aug 13, 2022 19:22:54 GMT
Went to see Henry VIIIto tick it off the list, as it is so rarely performed. Reading this thread makes me realise I probably haven’t actually seen it!
🙄
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Post by Jan on Aug 13, 2022 19:54:52 GMT
I adore Shakespeare, but Henry VIII is flat out obscure, no great monologues from the play, it is no Henry V or Richard III. Doesn’t the musical Six do it a lot better? Now think I need to go to confession, Henry wouldn’t approve. But it can be made into an interesting evening, if only for aficionados. I remember the very good Greg Doran production in the mid-90s with Paul Jesson and Jane Lapotaire. The Doran production was strong on processional and spectacle. Before that there was an interesting Brechtian production of it by Howard Davies emphasising the political aspects with Richard Griffiths and John Thaw. In the latest Doran cycle he simply omitted it without explanation. |
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Post by peggs on Aug 14, 2022 0:46:16 GMT
Went to see Henry VIIIto tick it off the list, as it is so rarely performed. Reading this thread makes me realise I probably haven’t actually seen it! 🙄 At a rough guess maybe two thirds. I flicked through the play the other day to see what was cut/added, actually bits I thought added often weren't, lines yes as mentioned but not as much as I thought. I'd seen a filmed version before and honestly couldn't remember the bits that seem to have gone. I had such low expectations for this and have ended up loving it. Yes it's crude, yes it's not the play quite as written but I really like the refocus on playing it from a female perspective and having felt bit mottled out by lines from elsewhere first time, second time they just fitted in. |
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Post by thistimetomorrow on Aug 15, 2022 23:18:59 GMT
I've not been having a great time at the Globe having seen Henry VIII and Julius Caesar recently and not enjoying either of them at all. Hoping The Tempest and Much Ado will be better.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Aug 16, 2022 0:30:14 GMT
Don't forget I, Joan which is getting a lot of attention at the moment
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Post by kathryn on Aug 16, 2022 13:23:29 GMT
Yes, although for a silly reason!
(For those not keeping up with the Twitterz, Joan is going to be ‘non-binary’, which a lot of feminists are complaining about because, obviously, she wasn’t - the concept not existing back then. Being a woman is absolutely central to her story - it wouldn’t *be* a story if she were not a woman. And because suggesting that a woman who bucked the gender norms of the day and was a leader and fighter was somehow *not really a woman* is sexist. So then there’s lots of responses saying that the complainers don’t understand theatre and The Globe’s historic tradition of cross-gender casting, and feminists pointing out that the historic Globe’s cross-gender casting was because women were not *allowed* to act…..and so on, and so on.)
Full disclosure: I criticised it too. But the ‘debate’ has gotten very very silly.
If anyone is going, please report back!
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Post by alessia on Aug 16, 2022 13:54:50 GMT
Yes, although for a silly reason! (For those not keeping up with the Twitterz, Joan is going to be ‘non-binary’, which a lot of feminists are complaining about because, obviously, she wasn’t - the concept not existing back then. Being a woman is absolutely central to her story - it wouldn’t *be* a story if she were not a woman. And because suggesting that a woman who bucked the gender norms of the day and was a leader and fighter was somehow *not really a woman* is sexist. So then there’s lots of responses saying that the complainers don’t understand theatre and The Globe’s historic tradition of cross-gender casting, and feminists pointing out that the historic Globe’s cross-gender casting was because women were not *allowed* to act…..and so on, and so on.) Full disclosure: I criticised it too. But the ‘debate’ has gotten very very silly. If anyone is going, please report back! no intention of going, right now - as like you I find this interpretation of Joan, sexist. However, would be interested in opinions from those who will see it. |
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Post by Jan on Aug 16, 2022 14:44:19 GMT
Must be one of our leading playwrights - has also got commissions with the RSC, NT, Headlong and Pentabus.
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Post by David J on Aug 16, 2022 17:12:45 GMT
This is what happens when you push to re-appropriate or cast plays to please every gender, race and so on. There will always be one or a few groups who won't be happy with some of your decisions.
Change the gender of a historic figure that women look up to? Yeah, that's going to rile some people up.
When will companies realize that trying to represent and cater to everyone as their mantra is not achievable.
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Post by jojo on Aug 16, 2022 17:21:54 GMT
Yes, although for a silly reason! (For those not keeping up with the Twitterz, Joan is going to be ‘non-binary’, which a lot of feminists are complaining about because, obviously, she wasn’t - the concept not existing back then. Being a woman is absolutely central to her story - it wouldn’t *be* a story if she were not a woman. And because suggesting that a woman who bucked the gender norms of the day and was a leader and fighter was somehow *not really a woman* is sexist. So then there’s lots of responses saying that the complainers don’t understand theatre and The Globe’s historic tradition of cross-gender casting, and feminists pointing out that the historic Globe’s cross-gender casting was because women were not *allowed* to act…..and so on, and so on.) Full disclosure: I criticised it too. But the ‘debate’ has gotten very very silly. If anyone is going, please report back! no intention of going, right now - as like you I find this interpretation of Joan, sexist. However, would be interested in opinions from those who will see it. I have no issue with the idea of plays/films/tv gender switching characters, even when they are based on real people. Sometimes when gender is not an important part of that character's story it's nothing more than a means to provide gender balance, especially if setting an older story in the modern world where you would expect women to be involved. Sometimes the roles aren't gender swapped, but the actors are - usually to let female actresses have a go at some of the classic roles, and create a fresh performance. Sometimes it's a way to challenge our perceptions and shine fresh light on a story or the issues. This production could have been doing it for that latter reason, which could be interesting, but if what I read is correct, they seem to be pushing the 'we can't be sure that the few strong and interesting characters from history were proper women' angle, rather than 'what if' approach. Which is tiresome. There are a number of interesting issues raised, and I'd like to think most people want to engage with them, but inevitably there are people who love an online rammy who drown out those voices. I don't see the point wasting time amplifying the nonsense by repeating it, except to say I wish we could stop using the time when women were banned from the stage as your mic drop argument to insist it's not sexism, but art when men play female roles. Pointing out that women have played traditionally male roles also misses the point about representation. I don't want to hold the production or actors to account because of an ill-judged marketing campaign. It will be interesting to see how it pans out - possibly proving that the marketing wasn't that ill-judged after all. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2022 17:48:10 GMT
Yes, although for a silly reason! (For those not keeping up with the Twitterz, Joan is going to be ‘non-binary’, which a lot of feminists are complaining about because, obviously, she wasn’t - the concept not existing back then. Being a woman is absolutely central to her story - it wouldn’t *be* a story if she were not a woman. And because suggesting that a woman who bucked the gender norms of the day and was a leader and fighter was somehow *not really a woman* is sexist. So then there’s lots of responses saying that the complainers don’t understand theatre and The Globe’s historic tradition of cross-gender casting, and feminists pointing out that the historic Globe’s cross-gender casting was because women were not *allowed* to act…..and so on, and so on.) Full disclosure: I criticised it too. But the ‘debate’ has gotten very very silly. If anyone is going, please report back! no intention of going, right now - as like you I find this interpretation of Joan, sexist. However, would be interested in opinions from those who will see it. It's always funny to me when people complain about shows they have no intention of seeing. Joan was a woman, yes, who wore men's clothing to acclimate into a man's society - one of the main reasons she was persecuted and executed. This is probably the most obvious reason people on the gender spectrum relate to her. They aren't being sexist for feeling that Joan may have been like them, they're looking at history and trying to see themselves in it because they've been denied it. You don't agree. That's fine. But the constant attacks on the community, calling it sexist, misogynistic, etc is quite a reach. |
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Post by kathryn on Aug 16, 2022 19:37:17 GMT
Hey, the play may turn out to be excellent - that’s why I’d be interested to hear reports back.
Of course people can see themselves in people from history. Projection is a thing.
It just seems to me like making Shylock Christian, or Othello European. It defeats the object - it’s just not the same story when you change the central feature of the central character.
Joan was, and identified as, a woman. She felt she had a mission from God to save France by leading its armies into battle AS a woman. She was used by powerful men to further their political cause, because as a woman she was subject to their authority and had none of her own. She was persecuted as a heretic by a different set of men because as a woman who claimed divine inspiration she threatened their authority.
Wearing ‘men’s clothes’ wasn’t really the issue. (She wore armour in to battle with trousers because it was practical, but when not fighting she wore dress-like robes with it.)
She was burned at the stake as heretic, because the English needed to discredit her claim to be doing God’s will and destroy the French’s inspirational figurehead, not because of what she wore. Wearing a dress on the battle-field would not have made any difference to that.
Making her non-binary makes about as much sense - to me at least - as making her an atheist.
Edit
‘Non-binary’ people don’t see themselves in history because it’s a modern concept that didn’t exist until really very recently. The concept only began to appear in obscure academic writing in the 1990s, and didn’t begin to spread outside of that arena until the 2000s, entering popular parlance as an identity category in the 2010s.
It’s like making a historical figure a Scientologist. You can - of course you can - but people are going to point out the anachronism.
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Post by jojo on Aug 16, 2022 20:10:23 GMT
no intention of going, right now - as like you I find this interpretation of Joan, sexist. However, would be interested in opinions from those who will see it. It's always funny to me when people complain about shows they have no intention of seeing. Joan was a woman, yes, who wore men's clothing to acclimate into a man's society - one of the main reasons she was persecuted and executed. This is probably the most obvious reason people on the gender spectrum relate to her. They aren't being sexist for feeling that Joan may have been like them, they're looking at history and trying to see themselves in it because they've been denied it. You don't agree. That's fine. But the constant attacks on the community, calling it sexist, misogynistic, etc is quite a reach. This is a great explanation for why people would want to put on a play like this, and much better than pretty much everything that was said on social media. I think it is very fair to say that someone like Joan is interesting to trans men, and non-binary people, and it makes sense that those people would want to explore the 'what if' possibility. I do, however, think it's also fair to say that it is sexist to assume that women who chose to adapt to survive in a man's world, rather than meekly accept what was expected of women in those days, weren't proper women. Joan is an important historical figure to a lot of cis-women, because she didn't conform and because she was persecuted for not conforming. We should be able to share. The occasional interpretation of Joan as non-binary (or a trans man) doesn't mean that the interpretations of her as a cis-woman don't exist any more. Telling Joan's story as non-binary isn't automatically sexist, but the Globe were naive if they didn't realise that re-gendering interesting women from history can be sexist. What appears to have triggered the complaints was that the promotional material that went with the play seemed to be playing into the trend of assuming that the most interesting women in history or literature aren't proper women. In this case blurb for the show that was shared on social media included a discussion on Aethelflaed and Elizabeth I, who were both referred to, individually, as 'they' not 'she'. As far as I can tell, that's what wound up a lot of people, many of whom said they were OK with a non-binary Joan in a play or with gender switching. Then other people joined in and people started arguing about whatever it is they like to argue about. It's not that long ago I remember some archaeologists discovered evidence that hunter-gatherer women did more hunting than previously assumed, at which point some people with good, but misguided, intentions were suggesting that we shouldn't assume female skeletons with hunting equipment are women. Rather than question the assumption that only men did the hunting, we should be questioning whether they were really women. The blithe way some still try to limit what women do continues to harm women today. Trials showed women (and ethnic minorities) did much better in exams when they were were marked 'blind', especially in science and engineering. Professional and educated women are too often assumed to be the admin assistants to their male colleagues. A play doesn't change any of this, but there's no need to deny that assumptions made about how women should behave and what we should be good at are harmful. For balance, the assumption men don't like beautiful things or aren't nurturing is also harmful. I don't know whether it's new or not, but the main page for this on the Globe's website has a bit about other interpretations having Joan as a woman and this is just one different take. If they did a tactical edit, then good on them. It's OK to admit there's a potential conflict of interests when interpreting a non-conforming woman as non-binary or a trans man. |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Aug 16, 2022 20:27:09 GMT
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Post by kathryn on Aug 16, 2022 21:09:30 GMT
Aethelflaed‘s actual title in the Chronicles (Anglo-Saxons and Irish) was ‘The Lady of the Mercians’.
She only inherited authority after the early death of her husband - her authority derived from him.
Her life was defined by her sex.
Trying to claim her as some kind of non-binary figure because she was a leader and wielded authority normally only available to men is mind-boggling. I mean, it’s actual misgendering. It’s apparently ok to misgender if you’re making someone a flavour of trans when you’re doing it.
(I wrote my undergrad dissertation on Queenly Power in Anglo-Saxon literature - the Anglo-Saxons were actually more open to women wielding authority than the Normans were. Honestly, it was all downhill for women from 1066.)
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Post by oxfordsimon on Aug 16, 2022 21:16:04 GMT
I did find Michelle Terry's response to the criticism was rather strained.
Particularly the line about 'they' being used as a singular pronoun in the 13th century.
That is utterly irrelevant to the issues being raised about the script seeking to impose a modern construct of gender identity on an important historical figure.
We all know that theatre is there to explore and challenge and that anything can be possible on stage with a little imagination.
But the Globe needs a more coherent response. What they are saying at the moment isn't really getting to the heart of the criticism that it is receiving.
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Post by Jan on Aug 16, 2022 21:40:33 GMT
We all know that theatre is there to explore and challenge and that anything can be possible on stage with a little imagination. But the Globe needs a more coherent response. What they are saying at the moment isn't really getting to the heart of the criticism that it is receiving. I doubt they’re bothered - they’ll take the criticism as validation of how edgy and on trend they are, all the right people are complaining, and the pre-publicity will ensure that the play isn’t remotely challenging for most of the audience who end up seeing it. When was the last new play that challenged an audience by saying something they didn’t already agree with ? |
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