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Re: Thoughts about updating plays to a modern audience

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Le 03/03/2019 à 13:29, Anson Carmichael a écrit :
> Perhaps this is more commentary than a question, but it is in regards to
> the classic play "Doctor Faustus" by Christopher Marlowe and ponders the
> necessities of altering the original work to make it relevant to a
> modern audience...
> 
> Last year I saw the play "Faust" by a local theatre company. The play seems 
> to be performed here and there on occasion, just not very often. The play is 
> in iambic pentameter and the setting is around England in the 16th century, 
> which is when it was written. Because of this, I understand the urge to 
> update the play to the interests of a modern audience, but I wonder if 
> rewriting a play works as often as people think. 
> 
> In the performance I saw, the director took from Christopher Marlowe's 
> play "Doctor Faustus" and, supposedly, mixed with Goethe's "Faust" to 
> create something new. It certainly was "new", but I'm not sure how I feel 
> about it. 
> 
> In the original Marlowe version of Faust, Doctor Faustus sells his soul 
> to the devil and dreams of changing the course of history with his new 
> power. By the end of the play, however, he is reduced to performing 
> magical amusements for the king and queen. Marlowe's point was that by 
> selling his soul to the devil, Faustus was turning away from God, which 
> in turn was the wellspring from which great accomplishments are achieved. 
> Thus, Faustus begins the play as a great man of knowledge and by the end he 
> is reduced to a kind of jester. 
> 
> In the version of Faust by the local theatre company, Faust just rapes 
> everybody. I mean that literally. Faust sells his soul to the devil and 
> his first act thereafter is find a gambler who is willing to sell his 
> daughter in exchange for winnings. Then he stops a wedding to kill the 
> groom and rape the bride. After that, he kills a knight who is unimpressed 
> with him and has sex with a queen while the king is given loads of gold. In 
> between all of this, some characters (I assume they were the Seven Deadly 
> Sins) come out and talk about how Faustus is damned for his actions.
> 
> This is very different from the Marlowe play. In the Marlowe play, Faustus 
> shows off his power in the beginning but becomes more and more of a joke. 
> Further, there are intermittent comedic scenes featuring Faustus' manservant 
> who find's Faustus' book of magic and plays pranks with it on his friends. 
> This meant as a comedic interlude between scenes of Faustus running around 
> doing his thing. All of this is to show Faustus failing at his ambitions 
> because of his erroneous assumption that gaining power would not change him.
> 
> As I mentioned before, I do understand the need to put a modern spin on an 
> old story. This is especially true for stories written in an old style from 
> so long ago. I feel in this case, however, the director destroyed the nuance 
> of the original work and replaced it with something less nuanced and even 
> approaching camp. At the end of the play, the song "Sympathy for the Devil" 
> by the Rolling Stones came in over the speaker system. I just had to cringe 
> and how clichéd that has become. It was just hitting all the obvious notes,
> if that makes sense. On the other hand, it did receive a number of 
> nominations for the production, so perhaps I'm the one out-of-step with the
> audience rather than the director and theatre company.
> 
> Can anyone give any thoughts on this?


Did anybody ever answer? i am sad to see the decline of usenet!!!!

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Thoughts about updating plays to a modern audience Anson Carmichael <noemailexists@example.com> - 2019-03-03 17:29 +0000
  Re: Thoughts about updating plays to a modern audience bingo jones <bingo@no.com> - 2023-05-12 14:42 +0000

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