|
|
Andrew Gurr, Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Reading and director of research at the International Shakespeare Globe Centre in London, delivered a lecture on April 22 about the contrasting assumptions of film and theater. Some highlights:
On Elizabethan fear of illusion as the work of Satan: “The hatred of plays and play going was certainly a great deal more than a knee-jerk reaction by Puritans to people enjoying themselves. Elizabethans were terrified of all forms of deception and illusion; play acting was comprehended as a deliberate act of Satanic deception.”
On the results of this fear on the stage: “Theater is expected to be anti-realistic. What were the positive effects of this fear of illusion? First, the absence of scenery and the mobility of playing on a bare stage. Second, the transparency of disguise, which privileged the audience over the characters on the stage--only the characters are being fooled. Third, the use of verse, spoken soliloquies and asides, prologues and choruses. Shakespeare was not interested in, or capable of, cinematic realism.” |
|
