Alexis Hopper
Sh*t-Faced Shakespeare
On Friday May 18th, the excited and jet lagged group of London Rocks summer 2018 headed over to our first group event of the abroad experience. Buzzing on the adrenaline of being in a foreign place was one of the reasons that made this first experience so exciting. The lack of sleep was rough but we pushed through. I was rather excited that we would be watching one of my favorite plays written by Shakespeare. I am a Shakespeare advocate so I was interested to see how this added twist of one of the actors being not just drunk but border line on the ground would go. The play being performed was Merchant of Venice, and in this the plot of the story is rather simple but the overall satire throughout the developing story makes for a offensively, hilarious classic that has come to be top 5 of my favorite Shakespeare works. The only thing better than a Shakespeare comedy is a Shakespeare comedy with copious amounts of alcohol. The play began and I found myself thinking more about who was the actor that drank the alcohol rather than what was actually happening in the play. Usually, I would not enjoy this because I love traditional Shakespeare but in this case it was rather refreshing to see a twist on a classic. It was obvious that the character playing Jessica was the pegged actor who consumed the alcohol. This made for a significant change in the play because myself as an audience member was automatically more interested in what she was doing. This added factor for me made Jessica the “main” character in this version of the Merchant of Venice, simply because her actions were more demanding than her sober co-stars. In the original play one could argue that the main character are Shylock and Antonio but because of Jessica’s drunk improve this play had a hilarious added element. I was pleasantly surprised that despite a lot of fluffed improved the actors gracefully maneuvered as best they could to stay true to the original plot. Overall, they made this already comedic comedy more fun and exciting.
Our professor told us to think about what makes this particular event entertaining to the public. I remember him asking do we pay money to watch a Shakespeare play or do we pay money to watch an actor or actress get drunk and perform for our pleasure and comedy niche. My answer to this question is both. I am sure that different people would have different answers but for me I love Shakespeare and I honestly love traditional Shakespeare but let’s be real, most people do not enjoy classical plays. The added element of a drunk actor and creating room for improve keeps the audience on their toes and for me keeps me interested on what is going to change. As previously mentioned this was refreshingly awesome and I appreciated how hard the actors tried to stick to the original plot despite the obstacles. There is no room in this for criticism because they give you what you pay for and it was a wonderful experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment