Alec Guinness on Modern Dress Shakespeare
Alec Guinness articulated his very sensible approach for the first Stratford Festival Program, 1953. The photo shows him performing as the King of France, with Irene Worth as Helena.
There
is nothing new about presenting Shakespeare in modern dress. In fact
the plays were always performed in contemporary costume until about
one hundred and twenty years ago, when the actors Charles Kean and
Macready startled theatrical London with their elaborate productions,
the results of painstaking historical research.
Perhaps
the ideal way of presenting the plays is to dress them in Elizabethan
or early Jacobean costume, as Shakespeare did; but he was notoriously
indifferent to historical accuracy and was quite content to make
ancient Romans refer to clocks and rapiers, buttons on their togas
and a dozen other anachronisms. On the other hand, the English
historical plays cover a comparatively short span of years and are
not too far removed from Tudor times for Shakespeare's carelessness
to be noticeable, and I think it right that productions of these
should at least suggest their own periods. When it comes, however, to
some of the plays of no particular period, I believe that modern
dress will often pay rich dividends in presentation. In a difficult
play like All's Well That Ends Well many points can be elucidated
by dress. If an actor appears in a dressing gown audiences will be
immediately aware that he has come from his bed; if he is in evening
dress they will know he is at a social function; if in military
uniform, that he is a soldier; if he is extravagantly overdressed
they will come to conclusions about his character, and if, for
instance, the heroine appears in academic robes, they will credit her
with scholarship, and so on. Our lack of knowledge of ancient
costumes would let these often important points of character and
situation pass unnoticed.
If
people object to archaic language (sometimes quite as startlingly
alive and modern as the latest phrases from New York) being spoken by
people in contemporary clothes, I would suggest that it is really no
more odd than Elizabethans speaking in iambic pentametres, which of
course they never did. Modern dress will often breathe fresh air on
an old play and give it a fair chance of revaluation, firmly pointing
out how little the human heart changes through the centuries, and how
remarkably alike we are to our forebears. We hope that this may be
the case with a moving and strange play as All's Well, which is so
seldom performed.
The
actor's style of playing naturally changes with his clothes. An over
life-size flamboyance and largeness of gesture which may fit happily
with tights, velvet, long sleeves and fur trimmings are obviously
unsuitable with a tuxedo. The actor has to think in terms of realism
- or at any rate with real emotion - without forgetting that the play
is written in lyrical verse and formal prose. This, at its best, will
mean that he cannot resort to "staginess" or vocal tricks,
but must treat his part carefully and seriously as if it was written
by Shaw, Maugham, Eliot, or Fry, and I think few would deny that
Shakespeare is worthy of such treatment, or that it is an excellent
approach to strive for.
posted by Flatwater Shakespeare | 9:10 AM
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