What happens when art loses its sacred humility? When directors, no longer midwives to genius but usurpers of it, decide their "vision" outweighs the truth of the work itself? Shakespeare’s words, Wagner’s holy agonies, the raw flesh of drama and music meant to embody rather than explain. These are being disemboweled by cleverness.
The Norwegian crowds celebrating their national day knew something we’ve forgotten: joy flows from participation in tradition, not improvement upon it. Their costumes, songs, and unselfconscious pride were, in a way, incarnational: the past made living flesh. But in our theaters and opera houses, we’ve replaced incarnation with concept, submission to genius with the director’s “Look at me!”
Wagner’s Parsifal is not a Chekhovian family drama any more than the Eucharist is a metaphor. It is a mystery, a thing to be entered, not deconstructed. The director who strips away its sacred signs, who turns the Spear into a penknife and the Grail into a therapist’s prop, commits a kind of artistic Docetism… denying the flesh of the work in favor of abstract relevance. But art, like divinity, must be enfleshed to save us.
The tragedy is not just bad productions, it’s the starvation of a culture that no longer believes in feeding its soul. Norway’s celebrations, Shakespeare’s language, Wagner’s sacramental music… these are all meant to inhabit us, not the other way around. When directors invert that order, they don’t elevate the audience but rather exile them from the very thing they came to experience.
In the past few years I've seen several adaptations of canonical plays that have rewritten the text to be the opposite of the author's intended meaning. Yet often I feel the adaptors have simply misinterpreted the original play and believe they are fulfilling the author's actual vision.
I'm not sure which is worse -- the perversity of a director or writer who thinks they know better, or the narcissism of a director or writer who cannot receive the work outside of their own prejudices.
Since Shakespeare himself rewrote (and improved upon) the old Scandinavian story of Hamlet (or Amleth), I don't mind it when a new artist (director or writer) tries to remake the story. I wrote a novel call Locus Amoenus set in 2009 that makes Hamlet into a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. It was fun finding parallels with Shakespeare's play and the contemporary world of corruption. I even brought in detail of the "straw trick" from the Tragedy of Amleth. https://vnalexander.com/locus-amoenus-2015/
If the revision is forced and done poorly, that can be painful to watch.
Of course I don't mind adaptations doing their own thing -- just call it something else (as you did). What I'm referring to are productions presented as accurate renderings of the plays as originally written.
I like the way you describe the local celebrations, with local costumes and music.
Some may think that the desire to preserve local customs and traditions (which are in part arbitrary and merely habitual and in part grounded in the physical constraints of the local conditions) is "nationalistic" and smacks of fascism, because Hitler. In fact, the preservation of local differences protects diversity. It is the opposite of totalitarianism.
If we don't cherish local traditions, soon enough the whole world will just be one homogenous blob. People travel IN ORDER to see things that are different from what they have at home.
Sometimes visitors bring their customs with them and set up little insulated communities, like a China Town in a big city. And that's nice too.
There is nothing wrong with little protected niches, provided there is only a slow flow of information going in and out.
Thanks Iain and I'm so pleased you are not dead, even though I had not even heard those rumours but I had missed your essays. Norway sounds and looks like a divine country to visit.
As for your friend Jonathan Gaisman's report on the current state of the 'directorship' of theatre and opera; I cannot comment directly as I too am of the 'lowly order' and sad to say, of only 'common breeding' and so have never been to a Shakespeare play, nor could I probably afford even the booking fee for one, let alone the ticket prices. I have been to wonderful operas and the ballet here in Spain though, where prices are more affordable, sometimes even free for the community and directorship very traditional and respectful.
However, I 'metaphorically' agree with what Jonathan reports as I cannot truly comment but the way this world is going I am not surprised in the slightest. I would also point out that it is quite possible that whilst most young people may not know who Shakespeare is; they may well not know what Blind Date or Brexit are either!!
I was listening to a podcast this week whereby an eminent author was alluding to this exact same thing, whereby many publishers had no idea or respect for the authors' stories or those he wanted to write or tell, only that they had to meet the 'trends' and include references to our modern world or they would not sell. Those trends looking nothing like the good old days and I'll leave it there for now. 😉
I loved your descriptions of your experiences in Norway. Thank you. Sounds so much like what I need on my next vacation. Norway is on my bucket list.
What a well written review of the state of affairs in the theater...very disappointing. I cannot imagine being filled with so much hubris as to think I should seriously alter any of the Great Playright’s bodies of work. I can understand minor tweaks here or there or changes to reduce runtime, for example, but to alter to the point of changing the intent seems like artistic blasphemy.
While it’s somewhat shocking, especially for the uninformed theater-goer, it is par for the course these days. There’s nothing sacred anymore and there is a seemingly dedicated push to make everything homogenized. It’s in boring, new architecture, popular color choices of black, gray, and white, and in a bunch of other areas as if it is a uniform of non-vibrancy.
As for this nonconformist, I will live in the real world, in living color, and apparently be very cautious about what theater shows I choose to attend. Maybe I’ll just re-read the Classics and save my ticket money for more travel adventures.
Yes indeed! The difficulties with directors. Urg! I gave up on it all, leaving opera school in the early 90s. Us Australians seem to be particularly bad, certainly we lead the way back then. I remember being 18 and deciding that if a new work or a new production of a work had pages of explanatory notes in the programme, it was rubbish. Same for galleries. 🙏🏽❤️
"I felt nostalgic for a more innocent and healthy society." This remark reminds me of my Gen Alpha grandchildren asking, "why does he characterise the brain 'as-if' it's a whole person, when in reality it's a biological organ? Is it because he was a literary critic and loves the matrix-of-allusion found in poetry?"
Checky Monkeys! No respect for their elders these days. I blame education and all those spectacular images to a whole Universe they're exposed to.
It’s particularly frustrating when the Globe indulges itself in these shenanigans because the whole purpose of the endeavour of setting is up was to offer modern playgoers a unique insight into the constraints and opportunities offered to Shakespeare and his actors by their contemporary working conditions. Having said that, the RSC is equally guilty at times. A Much Ado About Nothing set in the immediate aftermath of the 1914-18 war delivered insights into the effect of post-conflict trauma on romantic relationships. It is hard to say something similar about Much Ado’s latest transposition into the world of elite international football.
Lovely pictures on a calm sea... Norway, has an interesting history and heritage catapulted into modern riches at the top of the world.
Custom and Art... I am remote from performance art these days having gone effectively deaf, especially noticeable for digital reproduction of music, but I am interested in imagining art and knowledge surviving a pinch point in history. (MacIntyre in ‘After Virtue’ asked us to imagine his ‘disquieting suggestion’ regarding such a breakdown for the natural sciences.)
I wonder. The modern mind has taken some strange turns of late in the way it handles its past, let alone its heritage, even its humanity, but that estrangement has been a long time coming. The Western mind increasingly since the Reformation/Renaissance and particularly since the Enlightenment became divorced from what CS Lewis was to call ‘the Mediaeval model’, even if that was retained in part in later poetry. There were reasons. It is in all seriousness difficult to enter the language of the past and spirit.
Prior sensibility might be accessible via poetry and music and vestigial in common human relations and celebrations, but scarcely reliably in shared educated discernment? The 19thC, the growth of mass societies, European migration, the insufficient accommodations with industrialisation, urbanisation, schooling, theories of the past and origins, and the competitive world hegemony, stranded the past along with the agrarian context and earlier education. Wagner and Parsifal, indeed Scott with Donizetti, ‘Lucia di Lammamoor’, Mendelssohn and Fingal, so with the industrious historians of religion and the antiquarians, attempted renewal in the educated mind. But I cannot read Blake properly because of my inherent lack of religious knowledge, and he died almost unperceived by the 19thC mind. So, the catastrophic 20thC, the Waste Land, poetry and erudition? We struggle in this next iteration for a human future? It would be a pity to lose it, Beethoven against the odds, as it might be.
It's my understanding that in the time of Shakespeare -- and whoever wrote under that name -- directors didn't even exist. Only fights, songs, and dances were rehearsed. Actors showed up knowing their own lines and their cue lines for exits, entrances, and dialogue; no one had a full copy of the script, to reduce the chances of it being stolen. Ergo, they didn't need directors.
As a playwright, I wouldn't want to return to that extreme, but I'd prefer it to my work being just a vehicle for some director's egoic need to demonstrate his/her genius.
To see a country celebrating their traditions and being proud of them is a rarity in the West where it's almost expected to ridicule them. I live in America and it seems this country is trying its best to dismiss and denigrate everything that is good and beautiful.
The latest Disney reinterpretation of Snow White is a case in point. Not as auspicious as Wagner perhaps, but a diversion from the intent of the 1937 original. No acknowledgement of the original source material. And none of the charm.
What happens when art loses its sacred humility? When directors, no longer midwives to genius but usurpers of it, decide their "vision" outweighs the truth of the work itself? Shakespeare’s words, Wagner’s holy agonies, the raw flesh of drama and music meant to embody rather than explain. These are being disemboweled by cleverness.
The Norwegian crowds celebrating their national day knew something we’ve forgotten: joy flows from participation in tradition, not improvement upon it. Their costumes, songs, and unselfconscious pride were, in a way, incarnational: the past made living flesh. But in our theaters and opera houses, we’ve replaced incarnation with concept, submission to genius with the director’s “Look at me!”
Wagner’s Parsifal is not a Chekhovian family drama any more than the Eucharist is a metaphor. It is a mystery, a thing to be entered, not deconstructed. The director who strips away its sacred signs, who turns the Spear into a penknife and the Grail into a therapist’s prop, commits a kind of artistic Docetism… denying the flesh of the work in favor of abstract relevance. But art, like divinity, must be enfleshed to save us.
The tragedy is not just bad productions, it’s the starvation of a culture that no longer believes in feeding its soul. Norway’s celebrations, Shakespeare’s language, Wagner’s sacramental music… these are all meant to inhabit us, not the other way around. When directors invert that order, they don’t elevate the audience but rather exile them from the very thing they came to experience.
Sounds like what they did to the Mass, and to music and to architecture.
Just as arrogant and bewildering.
I wish I’d written that last sentence.
In the past few years I've seen several adaptations of canonical plays that have rewritten the text to be the opposite of the author's intended meaning. Yet often I feel the adaptors have simply misinterpreted the original play and believe they are fulfilling the author's actual vision.
I'm not sure which is worse -- the perversity of a director or writer who thinks they know better, or the narcissism of a director or writer who cannot receive the work outside of their own prejudices.
Since Shakespeare himself rewrote (and improved upon) the old Scandinavian story of Hamlet (or Amleth), I don't mind it when a new artist (director or writer) tries to remake the story. I wrote a novel call Locus Amoenus set in 2009 that makes Hamlet into a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. It was fun finding parallels with Shakespeare's play and the contemporary world of corruption. I even brought in detail of the "straw trick" from the Tragedy of Amleth. https://vnalexander.com/locus-amoenus-2015/
If the revision is forced and done poorly, that can be painful to watch.
Of course I don't mind adaptations doing their own thing -- just call it something else (as you did). What I'm referring to are productions presented as accurate renderings of the plays as originally written.
That's fair.
I like the way you describe the local celebrations, with local costumes and music.
Some may think that the desire to preserve local customs and traditions (which are in part arbitrary and merely habitual and in part grounded in the physical constraints of the local conditions) is "nationalistic" and smacks of fascism, because Hitler. In fact, the preservation of local differences protects diversity. It is the opposite of totalitarianism.
If we don't cherish local traditions, soon enough the whole world will just be one homogenous blob. People travel IN ORDER to see things that are different from what they have at home.
Sometimes visitors bring their customs with them and set up little insulated communities, like a China Town in a big city. And that's nice too.
There is nothing wrong with little protected niches, provided there is only a slow flow of information going in and out.
Thanks Iain and I'm so pleased you are not dead, even though I had not even heard those rumours but I had missed your essays. Norway sounds and looks like a divine country to visit.
As for your friend Jonathan Gaisman's report on the current state of the 'directorship' of theatre and opera; I cannot comment directly as I too am of the 'lowly order' and sad to say, of only 'common breeding' and so have never been to a Shakespeare play, nor could I probably afford even the booking fee for one, let alone the ticket prices. I have been to wonderful operas and the ballet here in Spain though, where prices are more affordable, sometimes even free for the community and directorship very traditional and respectful.
However, I 'metaphorically' agree with what Jonathan reports as I cannot truly comment but the way this world is going I am not surprised in the slightest. I would also point out that it is quite possible that whilst most young people may not know who Shakespeare is; they may well not know what Blind Date or Brexit are either!!
I was listening to a podcast this week whereby an eminent author was alluding to this exact same thing, whereby many publishers had no idea or respect for the authors' stories or those he wanted to write or tell, only that they had to meet the 'trends' and include references to our modern world or they would not sell. Those trends looking nothing like the good old days and I'll leave it there for now. 😉
I loved your descriptions of your experiences in Norway. Thank you. Sounds so much like what I need on my next vacation. Norway is on my bucket list.
What a well written review of the state of affairs in the theater...very disappointing. I cannot imagine being filled with so much hubris as to think I should seriously alter any of the Great Playright’s bodies of work. I can understand minor tweaks here or there or changes to reduce runtime, for example, but to alter to the point of changing the intent seems like artistic blasphemy.
While it’s somewhat shocking, especially for the uninformed theater-goer, it is par for the course these days. There’s nothing sacred anymore and there is a seemingly dedicated push to make everything homogenized. It’s in boring, new architecture, popular color choices of black, gray, and white, and in a bunch of other areas as if it is a uniform of non-vibrancy.
As for this nonconformist, I will live in the real world, in living color, and apparently be very cautious about what theater shows I choose to attend. Maybe I’ll just re-read the Classics and save my ticket money for more travel adventures.
Yes indeed! The difficulties with directors. Urg! I gave up on it all, leaving opera school in the early 90s. Us Australians seem to be particularly bad, certainly we lead the way back then. I remember being 18 and deciding that if a new work or a new production of a work had pages of explanatory notes in the programme, it was rubbish. Same for galleries. 🙏🏽❤️
"I felt nostalgic for a more innocent and healthy society." This remark reminds me of my Gen Alpha grandchildren asking, "why does he characterise the brain 'as-if' it's a whole person, when in reality it's a biological organ? Is it because he was a literary critic and loves the matrix-of-allusion found in poetry?"
Checky Monkeys! No respect for their elders these days. I blame education and all those spectacular images to a whole Universe they're exposed to.
It’s particularly frustrating when the Globe indulges itself in these shenanigans because the whole purpose of the endeavour of setting is up was to offer modern playgoers a unique insight into the constraints and opportunities offered to Shakespeare and his actors by their contemporary working conditions. Having said that, the RSC is equally guilty at times. A Much Ado About Nothing set in the immediate aftermath of the 1914-18 war delivered insights into the effect of post-conflict trauma on romantic relationships. It is hard to say something similar about Much Ado’s latest transposition into the world of elite international football.
Lovely pictures on a calm sea... Norway, has an interesting history and heritage catapulted into modern riches at the top of the world.
Custom and Art... I am remote from performance art these days having gone effectively deaf, especially noticeable for digital reproduction of music, but I am interested in imagining art and knowledge surviving a pinch point in history. (MacIntyre in ‘After Virtue’ asked us to imagine his ‘disquieting suggestion’ regarding such a breakdown for the natural sciences.)
I wonder. The modern mind has taken some strange turns of late in the way it handles its past, let alone its heritage, even its humanity, but that estrangement has been a long time coming. The Western mind increasingly since the Reformation/Renaissance and particularly since the Enlightenment became divorced from what CS Lewis was to call ‘the Mediaeval model’, even if that was retained in part in later poetry. There were reasons. It is in all seriousness difficult to enter the language of the past and spirit.
Prior sensibility might be accessible via poetry and music and vestigial in common human relations and celebrations, but scarcely reliably in shared educated discernment? The 19thC, the growth of mass societies, European migration, the insufficient accommodations with industrialisation, urbanisation, schooling, theories of the past and origins, and the competitive world hegemony, stranded the past along with the agrarian context and earlier education. Wagner and Parsifal, indeed Scott with Donizetti, ‘Lucia di Lammamoor’, Mendelssohn and Fingal, so with the industrious historians of religion and the antiquarians, attempted renewal in the educated mind. But I cannot read Blake properly because of my inherent lack of religious knowledge, and he died almost unperceived by the 19thC mind. So, the catastrophic 20thC, the Waste Land, poetry and erudition? We struggle in this next iteration for a human future? It would be a pity to lose it, Beethoven against the odds, as it might be.
Norway is filthy rich. I do not think you can overlook this factor when assessing their national mood.
Glad you had a lovely break away. Brilliant article by your friend.
a grown up has finally entered the room.
It's my understanding that in the time of Shakespeare -- and whoever wrote under that name -- directors didn't even exist. Only fights, songs, and dances were rehearsed. Actors showed up knowing their own lines and their cue lines for exits, entrances, and dialogue; no one had a full copy of the script, to reduce the chances of it being stolen. Ergo, they didn't need directors.
As a playwright, I wouldn't want to return to that extreme, but I'd prefer it to my work being just a vehicle for some director's egoic need to demonstrate his/her genius.
Thank you
To see a country celebrating their traditions and being proud of them is a rarity in the West where it's almost expected to ridicule them. I live in America and it seems this country is trying its best to dismiss and denigrate everything that is good and beautiful.
The latest Disney reinterpretation of Snow White is a case in point. Not as auspicious as Wagner perhaps, but a diversion from the intent of the 1937 original. No acknowledgement of the original source material. And none of the charm.