Drama...

The performance on Saturday...excellent.  I was very impressed by the actors that they cast for each of the parts.  Watching The Winter's Tale really helped me understand who was speaking to whom, where the action was being directed, and what the characters were feeling.  The actors' behavior put more emotion into the play, and it really drove home the fact that Shakespeare is meant to be performed, not simply read.  That means that interpretations of the play can change quite dramatically (yes, I went there), but that's part of Shakespeare's magic, I guess.  That ability to lend itself to anyone's imagination and still show us profound insights into the human mind. 


I was intrigued by the way the director chose to modernize the costumes.  To me, that was probably the most jarring aspect of the play, the part that stood out to me the most.  I don't believe that the original text was altered in any way-I could be wrong here, please correct me if I am-so seeing people in twentieth-century getup (I heard someone say that they looked like they belonged in The Great Gatsby) beg the forgiveness of Apollo and refer to themselves as monarchs and courtiers was a little strange.  Perhaps the director modernized the costumes to demonstrate the fact that Shakespeare's insights are still valuable to "modern" people, that we can still learn something about redemption and forgiveness.