Genre Watch

At BAM’s Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn, an updated version of Macbeth is playing. Rupert Goold directs, and his characters wear modern-day clothing in his “Stalinist version” of this Shakespeare piece starring Patrick Stewart (yes, closet Star Trek fans, that Patrick Stewart). This production has taken the liberty to add chaotic staging and frenzied orchestration to convey emotional high points. Also, the set design includes things rarely seen in Shakespearean productions: linoleum, white tiles, an iron-gated elevator, a washbasin that runs “blood” at the end of the show. According to this review by John Lahr, audiences feel the high anxiety described in the prologue: the walls in the theater flicker with projections of a flat-lining soldier’s EKG printout. Clearly, this is no hum-drum high school interpretation. The audience sees the Nursing Sisters, who turn out to be Shakespeare’s witchy Weird Sisters. The article says that they are even scarier since they seem to initially be part of the ordinary world. “Traditionally, the Weird Sisters are staged as the Fates, and their scenes verge on Halloween voodoo. Goold stages the Sisters as their psychologically astute author intuited them to be—as incarnations of Macbeth’s unconscious.” Here, the Sisters permeate the action of the play − appearing in the kitchen as maids, holding knives suggestively, waiting table at Macbeth’s feasts, haunting Macbeth and the audience silently.

Looking at this description, I thought this interpretation might be a form of postmodernism. After all, the play combines the old and the new (present-day clothing and technology in a Shakespearean play), resulting in something original and compelling. However, there is purpose behind these decisions, and it does not appear that anything is being subverted. So, I concluded this was not postmodernism. I know that aspects of plays oftentimes get updated, as do films. For instance, the musical Spring Awakening uses 19th century language and dress, but the lyrics and melodies of the songs are very modern-day. Romeo and Juliet starring DiCaprio and Danes retained the Shakespearean language but updated the clothing and setting to present-day. Personally, I like this anachronistic tension of thematic elements because it adds new dimensions of interpretation. In terms of genre or categorizing, it seems that this technique has become quite common. Perhaps up-dating aspects of plays/ musicals/ movies will happen enough that standardized terminology evolves. Until then, it will just have to remain an adjectival qualifier to the main piece (“modern-dress” Macbeth, “rock-infused” musical adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s Spring’s Awakening), similar to the use of “musical” as adjective before noun.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/theatre/2008/03/03/080303crth_theatre_lahr