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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2018 20:07:29 GMT
From posts on here it looks as though a few male playwrights have jumped on the bandwagon and written about the #metoo movement. I know this is an issue for everyone to investigate but I can’t help feeling that this is appropriation and wish that they would step back sometimes and let the women have the floor.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2018 21:43:48 GMT
Indeed. I'm sure they're coming from a place of empathy, and knowing that their best way to process things is to write about them, but this is one of those cases where it would be helpful to focus on amplifying women's voices at this time rather than adding their own to the throng.
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Post by duncan on Apr 25, 2018 13:59:22 GMT
Brian Blessed was outstanding in I, Claudius Best death scene in television. EVER.
I'm on the Maxine Peake is terribly annoying bandwagon and also put me down as the person who wonders why Football has to dominate the news. Man leaves job after 22 years isn't a lead news item.
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Post by crowblack on Apr 25, 2018 14:24:44 GMT
Mark Rylance. He just doesn't do it for me. I didn't see Jerusalem, and I've booked for Othello hoping to be converted but thus far he's always been a blind spot for me. I thought he was miscast in Wolf Hall (actually, most of the casting in that was weirdly off) and those all male Shakespeares he did just struck me as misogynistic and greedy (he's not a smooth-chinned teenager so there was no 'historical recreation' justification). His comments on the Today programme this week haven't helped.
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Post by kathryn on Apr 25, 2018 14:31:02 GMT
I think even those of us who are fans of Rylance as an actor would agree that he's a terrible literary historian - and snob - whose views on the authorship of the plays should be ignored.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 14:54:17 GMT
I've never been particularly enamoured by Rylance. That said I want to see him live at some point. I had a ticket to see Nice Fish but then I won Dreamgirls lottery not long after it opened so, you know, priorities! 😂
I've heard that his performances in the likes of Jerusalem and Twelfth Night were pretty career defining though. Do we think he has one or two more defining roles like that to come?
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Post by crowblack on Apr 25, 2018 15:29:49 GMT
I've just watched a clip of this online and it's, well - a cross between panto dame and a Thatcher drag act. I don't mind drag acts in certain contexts but this feels awfully like the socially 'acceptable' form of 'blacking up' - and hopefully not acceptable any more. I thought maybe he's like Anthony Sher, a great entertainer on stage but whose performance style doesn't translate to the small screen or cinema.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 15:42:51 GMT
I've just watched a clip of this online and it's, well - a cross between panto dame and a Thatcher drag act. I don't mind drag acts in certain contexts but this feels awfully like the socially 'acceptable' form of 'blacking up' - and hopefully not acceptable any more. I thought maybe he's like Anthony Sher, a great entertainer on stage but whose performance style doesn't translate to the small screen or cinema. That version along with Richard iii were t be a recreation of how they would have been performed in Shakespeare's times as women were not allowed to be on stage so all the men had to be the female parts( interest innuendo here). Haven't seen Rylance on stage but have a ticket to Othello which I am looking forward to a lot.
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Post by Jon on Apr 25, 2018 15:44:45 GMT
Rylance was very good in his recent film roles like Dunkirk and Ready Player One.
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Post by crowblack on Apr 25, 2018 16:12:54 GMT
the men had to be the female parts But the female roles back then were played by teenage boys, not middle-aged men as in Rylance's productions. I presume Othello would have been a white man blacked up - that would never be acceptable these days. There are very few good Shakespeare roles for women even with 'ordinary' casting and it just seems bizarre and selfish and greedy to have an all male version where the men even take those as well!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 16:15:22 GMT
the men had to be the female parts But the female roles back then were played by teenage boys, not middle-aged men as in Rylance's productions. I presume Othello would have been a white man blacked up - that would never be acceptable these days. There are very few good Shakespeare roles for women even with 'ordinary' casting and it just seems bizarre and selfish and greedy to have an all male version where the men even take those as well! I think the reasoning for that specific production was to stage it exactly how it would of been staged with regards to women and such. I completely agree it isnt fair, but for the intention of that specific production I understand the reasoning.
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Post by crowblack on Apr 25, 2018 16:19:21 GMT
exactly how it would of been staged But that would mean casting boys, not adult men like Rylance.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 16:22:40 GMT
exactly how it would of been staged But that would mean casting boys, not adult men like Rylance. Well they made it male generic. The general assumption I think is that only men played the roles. I didn't even know it was tennagers who played the females.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 16:35:55 GMT
Everyone who's seen Shakespeare in Love, a reasonably popular Academy Award winning film, knows that Shakespeare used squeaky voiced boys to play girls.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 16:39:03 GMT
Everyone who's seen Shakespeare in Love, a reasonably popular Academy Award winning film, knows that Shakespeare used squeaky voiced boys to play girls. I haven't seen it. All I know of it is Judi Dench won the Oscar for like 7 minutes of screen time. But I can't stand Gwyneth Paltrow, at all. Every ounce of my being can't stand her. And the fact she has an Oscar over some more deserving actors who have been nominated multiple times and never won just infuriates me. Though I suppose I can't really judge her specific performance as I haven't seen the film. But still, can't stand her.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 16:39:08 GMT
I saw Rylance play Romeo when I was a young teenager and my mother still laughs about how she thought my eyes might pop out of my head because I was so transfixed when he was topless for a bit. I enjoyed his performance!
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Post by crowblack on Apr 25, 2018 16:41:52 GMT
squeaky voiced boys to play girls. Rylance played Cleopatra, who actually says, thinking of how her enemies will mock her in popular culture: "the quick comedians Extemporally will stage us, and present Our Alexandrian revels; Antony Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness I' the posture of a whore."
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 17:36:38 GMT
I haven't seen it. All I know of it is Judi Dench won the Oscar for like 7 minutes of screen time. But I can't stand Gwyneth Paltrow, at all. Every ounce of my being can't stand her. And the fact she has an Oscar over some more deserving actors who have been nominated multiple times and never won just infuriates me. Though I suppose I can't really judge her specific performance as I haven't seen the film. But still, can't stand her. You're quite right though, even if you haven't seen it. The film is good fun but Gwenda is by far the weakest thing in it. By a long way.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 17:40:01 GMT
I haven't seen it. All I know of it is Judi Dench won the Oscar for like 7 minutes of screen time. But I can't stand Gwyneth Paltrow, at all. Every ounce of my being can't stand her. And the fact she has an Oscar over some more deserving actors who have been nominated multiple times and never won just infuriates me. Though I suppose I can't really judge her specific performance as I haven't seen the film. But still, can't stand her. You're quite right though, even if you haven't seen it. The film is good fun but Gwenda is by far the weakest thing in it. By a long way. The most wonderful thing about the stage version was no Gwnny. Actually I lie it was the dog. But a Gwynny free anything is a bonus.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 17:50:08 GMT
You're quite right though, even if you haven't seen it. The film is good fun but Gwenda is by far the weakest thing in it. By a long way. The most wonderful thing about the stage version was no Gwnny. Actually I lie it was the dog. But a Gwynny free anything is a bonus. I'm sorry? What the what now?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 17:50:45 GMT
@ryan ....my bad. Lack of Gwynnie was third then.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 17:55:02 GMT
In fairness, with that beuatiful man, who would be looking at her?! Please tell me he was naked in that scene?!
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Post by mrbluesky on Apr 25, 2018 18:10:05 GMT
In fairness, with that beuatiful man, who would be looking at her?! Please tell me he was naked in that scene?! From what I recall, Tom was only shirtless in that scene :-( Bloody good show it was though.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 18:11:18 GMT
In fairness, with that beuatiful man, who would be looking at her?! Please tell me he was naked in that scene?! Unfortunately, the sheet stayed on. Damned restraining order.
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Post by mrbluesky on Apr 25, 2018 18:27:24 GMT
Can we make it a requirement that T. Bateman has to get his kit off in a show at some point?
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