Modernised Shakespeare
Shakespeare's plays have been modernised for many different reasons and purposes. But some of his plays were specifically modernised to help tackle some of the social issues that were going on at the time.
Modernising Shakespeare makes the world look at the social aspects of that time period to provoke social discussion. The language might not change but the universal themes will remain the same. Social discussion is to talk about something in the past or present that has the power to change the world and universal themes is something everyone can relate to.
A Midsummers Night's Dream
Written in the mid-1590s, the actual plot is that Theseus, duke of Athens, is preparing for his marriage to
Hippolyta. Egeus marches into Theseus’s court with his daughter, Hermia, and
two young men, Demetrius and Lysander. Egeus wishes Hermia to marry Demetrius (who
loves Hermia), but Hermia is in love with Lysander and refuses to comply. Egeus
asks for the full penalty of law to fall on Hermia’s head if she flouts her
father’s will. Theseus gives Hermia until his wedding to consider her options,
warning her that disobeying her father’s wishes could result in her being sent
to a convent or even executed. Lysander
and Hermia decide to run away and go through a forest and Helena and Demetrius
follow.
Meanwhile Oberon is mad at Titania, a fairy
queen, so he decides to use a magical flower to make her fall in love with the
first thing she sees when waking from sleep. She later falls in love with
Bottom, whose head was turned to an ass's head. Oberon and Puck apply the
magical flower on the lovers trying to solve their problems but it makes it
worst. Lysander and Demetrius now both love Helena and Hermia is feeling
unloved. In the end, they all get in arguments but Oberon orders Puck to
remove the charm. They all wake up the next day without any recollection and
their woes are solved. This all takes place on Midsummer's Night.
Tim Supple modernised this in a very interesting way. What he did was he made the full cast Indian and Sri Lankan. Supple’s Midsummer uses about half of Shakespeare’s English text, with the rest translated into Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, Sanskrit and Sinhala. It maintains the plot and characters intact, although it includes elements of local theatrical traditions in music, dance, martial arts and acrobatics. This play was modernised into so many different languages purposefully so the Indian community would watch it. This was to tackle the issue of arranged marriages. This play provoked social discussion because the themes of marriages was being talking about by Indian community. This put pressure on the government to make a change, hence support groups were created.
Romeo and Juliet
A boy (Romeo) and a girl (Juliet) fall in love. But they come from families which hate each other, and know they will not be allowed to marry. They are so much in love they marry in secret instead. However, before their wedding night Romeo kills Juliet's cousin in a duel, and in the morning he is forced to leave her. If he ever returns to the city, he will be put to death.
Juliet is then told she must marry Paris, who has been chosen by her parents, who do not know she is already married. She refuses - then agrees because she plans to fake her death and escape to be with Romeo.
She takes a sleeping potion and appears to be dead, so her parents lay her in a tomb. However, Romeo does not know about the plan, visits her grave, finds her 'dead', and kills himself. Juliet finally wakes up, finds Romeo dead, and then kills herself.
This was modernised by setting it in a modern-day city of Verona Beach. The Montagues and Capulets are two feuding families, whose children meet and fall in love. They have to hide their love from the world because they know that their parents will not allow them to be together. There are obstacles on the way, like Juliet's cousin, Tybalt, and Romeo's friend Mercutio, and many fights. But although it is set in modern times, it is still the same timeless story of the "star crossed lovers".
This appealed to the target audience of teenagers and their parents. This appealed to teenagers because it was modernised into something that interesting that would keep their attention. Guns, cars and attractive actors. Social discussion was created. The themes of gang violence was a main issue talked about by the parents. They now knew a bit about it. They spoke to other parents and their children about it. A result of a lot of people talking about it caused some action to be taken about gang violence.
Othello
Othello is a black soldier who starts out the novel being accused of
stealing his soon-to-be wife Desdemona. However, Desdemona loves Othello very
much and the two are to be married much to the dissatisfaction of Desdemona's
father. Iago, Othello's right hand man, is angered at the fact that Othello
picked a man by the name of Cassio to be more important to him. Iago comes up
with a plan to bring down Othello but eventually leads into the downfall of
most of the characters. During a fight, Cassio is stripped of his lieutenant
markings and has to try to please Othello. Because Othello does not care
anymore, he goes to Desdemona to seek help. Iago uses the meeting between
Cassio and Desdemona against them and tries to make Othello believe that they
are seeing each other.
Iago plants a handkerchief in Cassio's room and begins to tell
Othello about what he has "seen" Cassio do. Othello becomes
increasingly jealous throughout the story and eventually comes to a boiling
point when he believes Cassio to be talking about his wife. Othello and Iago
come up with a plan to kill Cassio and Desdemona. As Othello tries to kill
Desdemona, Emilia who is Iago's wife comes in and tells Othello the truth about
Iago. However, it is too late and Desdemona dies. When Othello confronts Iago,
the villain kills his own wife and tries to run but is captured by some guards.
Othello then proceeds to kill himself because of all the horrible doings that
he has done.
This play
was modernised by making the company photo-negative, which features Patrick
Stewart in the title role surrounded by a predominantly black cast.
Showing a production with photo negative casting may rouse controversy
because of the racial mix of Washington, where approximately 60 percent of the
population is black, but it is the 30 percent white minority who hold most of
the power and make most of the decisions and go to the theatre. When an all-white
or mostly white audience watches a black Othello, the reaction can be liberal
but patronizing. This production is a deliberate attempt to reverse that
situation, to make white audiences experience some of the feelings of isolation
and discomfort that black people experience all of the time in their lives.
This would have created social discussion because of the awkwardness that the
white community would of felt when watching Othello. But also for the black
people who watch it as well, they might think to themselves if that's how they
could make white people feel. Everyone could sympathise with each other.
