I was looking for the BBC version of the play but instead I chanced upon this;
It does not have the scenes about Bottom and the "play within the play" , actually it doesn't even go there but it covers the main points of the play. I quite enjoyed it. It's light and funny.
I think Shakespeare would have liked it. He's rather a sarcasm lover, always after a beautiful effect of laughter. Never ceases to amuse me even when he's giving the lowest dose of comedy.
It is quite funny, especially the scene where they chase after each other. And it's pretty appropriate for the target audience considering the fact that children wouldn't be able to handle the play's original level of tragedy pattern. It's brilliantly filtered from it!
It is quite funny, especially the scene where they chase after each other. And it's pretty appropriate for the target audience considering the fact that children wouldn't be able to handle the play's original level of tragedy pattern. It's brilliantly filtered from it!
If we were to ask Shakespeare if Disney could have the right to animate it, he would have said, "No wonder. One Disney may, when many asses do."
Enjoy, Bengisu.
I said, earlier, that this is a good find on YouTube, and good for kids, but I wonder if Shakespeare would really like having his play watered down. Maybe so. Do you know Charles Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare? It's also written for young people, either readers or those who like a good story told to them.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Shakespeare would want to see his play like that. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a funny play but I think it is not for children.
DeleteBatuhan
Shakespeare's audience had a wide range, as I have read in an article. Social and educational levels were as large as they could be. Shakespeare knew that plays attracted a mass that was formed by people from different levels. So there were variety of opinions and commentary about the plays. But I believe that it's hard -a nicer way of saying impossible- to understand what the audience's responses to the plays because we do not get any remarkable assumptions about them. We do not know how the plays were handled back then or how they affected the people. Were they suitable for adults or more appealing to children or to the poor than to the rich? No idea. Maybe children understood them better than their parents, who knows? We can't decide about it over the plays because they don't give us any hint.
ReplyDeleteI have also read that there were actors for whom Shakespeare wrote the plays. They were the most sophistitaced ones; two actors who supervised the puclication of the First Folio.
I think, though Shakespeare intended to make some important points in his plays about the society, he didn't feel the need to arrange his writings in any way for any level of audience. Because like I said, the demand to see the plays was from a wide range of people from different levels. So I think "not for children" is a poor apology and does not work on his plays.
Bengisu
I think when you create something as an artist, the piece of art belongs to you only until you share it with other people. After you reveal it to different eyes and brains, you can no longer possess it because what you wanted to say through your work turns out to be what people make of it. From then on it is just how a person interprets it in their way because nobody fully understands you.
ReplyDeleteThis is the only risk in the job of being an artist. You have the power to create something to say to the world and you are not strong enough to make people understand it the way you want -you can only hope so- at the same time.
Bengisu