Ok, I understand that some people do not need the interpretation at theaher, but its no kind of art to play a play, just in one way. I must not be a political reading, it just can be the reading of an other view - thats waht ist interresting for me, how others interpret the stuff.
I have no problem with different readings, but I prefer not to see them.
And yes, it is art to play the plays as Shakespeare intended them to be played. They were made for the masses. (I use to say that if Shakespeare were born today, he would make "Jerry Bruckheimer" movies.)
The actors were interrupted by the audience and forced to react spontaneously to the verbal intrusions. Can you believe that to happen in a "respectable theatre"? I can't.
I've witnessed an actor complaining to his audience because it could not keep quiet. How lame is that? A good actor would have stayed in his role and lectured the audience accordingly.
In Shakespeare's time, plays were not considered what they are considered now: high art. During the middle ages, plays had been effectively suppressed, apart from the re-enactment of the Christmas story in church. Only in the early modern age, plays were again being written. The most prestigious art of the English court (and therefore Shakespeare's, too) was sonnets! By the time Shakespeare came around, the sonnets had been around for long and he ridiculed them in his sonnet circle.
(If you read it closely, you'll notice that most of them are directed towards a boy and the rest to a dark lady. Now, the lyrical I has stong feelings for both of them and in one sonnet is highly jealous because something happened between the boy and the lady. But I digress.)
Also, if a play was no longer making any money, it was cast aside and S. sat down and wrote another one. Just like todays movies.
Needless to say that S.'s plays do have a quality of their own, but that is mainly because they feature topics that are still appealing to us today: love, revenge, hate.
There is no need to reinterpret Macbeth with Nazi insignia, to give a crude but nonetheless valid example. There is just a need of decent actors. (Many hobby-actors on renaissance fairs would give pros a run for their money as on these fairs a great deal of stage-audience interaction is still present.)
Greetz,
Tex
