Butchering the Bard
Jun. 15th, 2004 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kukla_tkoMy performance troupe is doing a "Shakespeare in the Courtyard" event for the Sisters of St. Joseph. They auctioned off a "Renaissance Evening" and got over $800 for it. The Sisters are providing the food, drink and Courtyard... and my Troupe is providing the entertainment, in the form of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
And people look at me wide-eyed. "That's awfully ambitious!"
No, it isn't.
Is this a dagger I see before me? Good, I can cut down this overweight script...
See, we aren't doing the entire play, just "Highlights from" A Midsummer Night's Dream.
I am removing entire characters and acts, and cutting it down to about four Scenes. It's a five-act play with two scenes per act (except for act V which has 1 scene). And it is extremely repetitious, so I can ax out some of the repeated plot points. For example, In Act III, Scene 2, Puck goes on and on about his own cleverness and tells Oberon that the Fairy Queen is enamored of an Ass. Since we will have already seen the bit acted out for us, I am going to have Puck tell Oberon what's going on in MIME, simultaneous to the conversation going on in the foreground between the silly young lovers. Then, when they get to the bit where Puck's error is discovered, they can come to the front and begin to speak. It will be like a three-ring circus, but those who are paying attention will be very amused.
The man who I have cast as Bottom is an accomplished performer, and his wife and 1 year old son will also make an appearance. After all, the quarrel between Titania and Oberon centers around her refusal to give an Indian boy to Oberon and his Wild Hunters. Oberon suspects that Titania was not only faithless in the sense of sleeping with an Indian prince, but that she conceived and bore a son from the union- very tacky. Oberon and Titania are consorts to one another, and according to their discussion are each taking lovers where they will. But Oberon's jealousy rears its ugly head when he thinks that she has borne a son to a mortal. He figures that the only reason why Titania would refuse to give up the child would be if that child is her son. It does not occur to him that she is keeping the child in memory of the child's mother... who loved and doted upon the Faerie Queen.
heh.
As soon as a date is set, I will build a rehearsal schedule. We actually start this weekend, and I will have the Midsummer.1 script finished at that time. By the following weekend, I will have version 1.5 done, and hopefully that will be our final working script.
Anyone in town is welcome to attend our rehearsals, we might need an unbiased eye to make sure the story still makes sense.
I am going to end up playing the Faerie Queen, which is odd for me. I never really wanted to play Titania, since my favorite role in this one has always been Bottom the Weaver, the one who wears the Ass-head.
We shall see how it all comes out...
And people look at me wide-eyed. "That's awfully ambitious!"
No, it isn't.
Is this a dagger I see before me? Good, I can cut down this overweight script...
See, we aren't doing the entire play, just "Highlights from" A Midsummer Night's Dream.
I am removing entire characters and acts, and cutting it down to about four Scenes. It's a five-act play with two scenes per act (except for act V which has 1 scene). And it is extremely repetitious, so I can ax out some of the repeated plot points. For example, In Act III, Scene 2, Puck goes on and on about his own cleverness and tells Oberon that the Fairy Queen is enamored of an Ass. Since we will have already seen the bit acted out for us, I am going to have Puck tell Oberon what's going on in MIME, simultaneous to the conversation going on in the foreground between the silly young lovers. Then, when they get to the bit where Puck's error is discovered, they can come to the front and begin to speak. It will be like a three-ring circus, but those who are paying attention will be very amused.
The man who I have cast as Bottom is an accomplished performer, and his wife and 1 year old son will also make an appearance. After all, the quarrel between Titania and Oberon centers around her refusal to give an Indian boy to Oberon and his Wild Hunters. Oberon suspects that Titania was not only faithless in the sense of sleeping with an Indian prince, but that she conceived and bore a son from the union- very tacky. Oberon and Titania are consorts to one another, and according to their discussion are each taking lovers where they will. But Oberon's jealousy rears its ugly head when he thinks that she has borne a son to a mortal. He figures that the only reason why Titania would refuse to give up the child would be if that child is her son. It does not occur to him that she is keeping the child in memory of the child's mother... who loved and doted upon the Faerie Queen.
heh.
As soon as a date is set, I will build a rehearsal schedule. We actually start this weekend, and I will have the Midsummer.1 script finished at that time. By the following weekend, I will have version 1.5 done, and hopefully that will be our final working script.
Anyone in town is welcome to attend our rehearsals, we might need an unbiased eye to make sure the story still makes sense.
I am going to end up playing the Faerie Queen, which is odd for me. I never really wanted to play Titania, since my favorite role in this one has always been Bottom the Weaver, the one who wears the Ass-head.
We shall see how it all comes out...
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-15 08:16 am (UTC)(With your closer interaction this year, you didn't happen to discern where the money is going, did you?)
Re: Money
Date: 2004-06-15 09:19 am (UTC)Are you asking me about the finances of my Troupe or about the Sisters' various charities and pet projects?
Honestly, I don't care what the Sisters do with the money. They do good things for many people and have many (ongoing) projects which need cash flow. Sr. M.A. is a wonderful lady and an inspiration. I offered to do this as a favor for her, and helping Nuns raise money does my heart good. I am catholic, and went to a catholic school from Kindergarten through 3rd grade. The school (at that time) sucked pretty bad, but oddly enough all the nuns were lovely people. There was a Sister Mary Ann (aren't they all named that?) who played the guitar at the kid's masses and taught us the really beautiful songs in our standard songbook. She was the one who had them order all new song books, and this was the late 70's, so it was all fuzzy post-Vatican II folksy stuff, and dammit, I like that kind of thing. No one ever rapped my knuckles with a ruler or anything.
Oh, there was one exception; the principal of the school was a nun. I didn't like her as a child. (But what grade school kid likes their principal?) But as an adult looking back, I am bothered by her incompetence, which was ruining what should have been a great school.
There were far more "lay" teachers that bothered me. The burned-out Kindergarten teacher who would leave the classroom for a "coffee Break" and leave all 35 of us alone with the TV on. The 3rd grade teacher who swore at the kids and liked to humiliate the "troublesome" students in front of the other kids. The 1st grade teacher whom everyone believed a saint... who was old enough to be a first-wave saint, at that. I think that she was 70 when I was in her class. And she still believed in spankings. Sweet, but old and out of date.
Hmmm. This turned into a different rant all together...
At any rate, if you want to know what "specifically" the money is being spent on, I would be happy to find out for you.
I, personally, don't care. The sisters are unlikely to be spending it on weapons or drugs, so I am not worried. (Giggle. Nuns with drugs and guns. Sounds like a new punk band. "Right! I'm Sister Mary Kick-Your-ASS!")
Re: Money
Date: 2004-06-15 09:46 am (UTC)Everyone working on things for "Sister M A's charity thingy" just makes my curiousity itch on account of vagueness. Not a Catholic issue at all. But not enough for you to find out specifically. You were just more involved this year, so I thought you might have seen or heard something more specific. Don't worry about it.
(If you ever want me to *help* with something charitable, I do need to know what it is I'm contributing to, though. FWIW.)
Re: Money
Date: 2004-06-15 10:08 am (UTC)I was told "The Sisters."
Good enough for me!
I was a little preemptive about the Catholic thing, but I figured I ought to be clear about my stance on Catholic Nuns. It seems to be a hot topic amongst my friends.
I <3 Nuns.
Yay!