Sunday, June 10, 2018

The Future of Shakespeare is Female

Ambitious director and lead of Hamlet, Michelle Terry puts her twist into the revenge thriller. She committed to a gender-blind production and the outcome was fantastic, yet took awhile to grasp. With London being an open-minded city and accepting to all, this play brings it all together. I've never seen a proper play so this was definitely spellbinding.

To begin with, not having gender based roles has allowed you to see the true talents of each actor and that maybe the future of Shakespeare is going in the right direction. Michelle Terry was indeed adept to playing with identities by portraying Hamlet as a clown rather than just another King. Turning the murderous tousle between two medieval people into a more decorative and strange confection open to interpretation. Ophelia was also played by Shubham Saraf, which brought on confusion but managed to keep up with the plot of the story.

Sexuality and gender has always been a prominent theme in Shakespeare's plays as being used for manipulation or form of propaganda. The fact that Terry was able to break all of these and give an ode to how women getting their rights to in the career. She is able to keep up with modern day inclusivity and is shown in her work. She manipulated the stage and cast to make the show more engaging due to lack of stage equipment and to compensate for the gender differences. Even the wardrobe open minded ranging from vans to Levi's being incorporated. All in all the entire production shows how the Globe always celebrated reinvention, it gives everyone the opportunity to do what the theater does, which is to play!

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