Theatre for Thought, July 16, 2011

Repercussion's upcoming Macbeth

NOT By Shakespeare

Or How to Succeed in Disrespecting Writers Without Really Trying

joel fishbane

Last week I made a passing reference to the relative lawless nature of the non-professional world – how many community or school groups will alter the text of a show to suit logistical or artistic whims, both without consulting the author and without informing audiences of the changes. Sadly, this lack of artistic respect is not confined to the non-professional world: it can be prevalent in the professional theatre too. 

To witness the most recent case of this, head on down to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival where at least two shows, to my knowledge, have been quietly changed. One is their gender-bending production of Richard III (actress Seana McKenna plays Richard); the other is Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe’s musical Camelot. In the case of Richard III, dialogue from Henry VI, Part III has been interpolated into the script. In Camelot, one song was cut while another was moved to the beginning of Act II.

Ideas: Joel Fishbane

Let's Applaud The Huck Finn Censors for Their Honesty

“jam” is different from “fruit spread”, “ice cream” from “frozen dessert”

by Joel Fishbane

With the media whirlwind surrounding New South Books and their bowdlerized edition of Huckleberry Finn, censorship has been a hot topic for bloggers and tweeters. It’s an important debate, of course, but in this case, the debaters have entirely missed the point. The true surprise about the controversy is not that the publishers altered Mark Twain’s work  - it’s that they told us they had done it.

The work of public domain authors has been quietly altered for years. From their earliest beginnings, Disney has been removing the sex and violence from fairy tales while abridged editions of “classic” works still adorn many bookstore shelves. Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables can often be found in a truncated form while J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Wendy is often published with a new title that removes Wendy from the equation.