A friend of mine sent me some information about a play reading being done at an istore in some other city. Was it San Francisco? Maybe Seattle. Not sure, but it was definitely not New York. It’s one of those gimmicky play readings. Shakespeare, but with a twist. A catch. A way of making the language accessible to a modern audience. A modern audience, presumably, which is so dense and limited in both intelligence and attention span that they cannot possibly be expected to understand material which has been almost constantly in production for four hundred years.
As anyone who knows anything about theatre is sure to tell you, material which has been almost constantly in production for four hundred years must not be accessible as is, and cannot possibly be performed without a gimmick. In other words, as written. The way the author intended. The way audiences for hundreds of years have been seeing and hearing it performed. Almost constantly.
The big gimmick for this production at an istore is really an igimmick: an iphone. Several iphones, to be more exact. One for each of the iactors, and possibly one for each iaudience member, although those would have to be provided by the iaudience themselves (perhaps purchased at the aforementioned istore?) The iactors will be reading the text of Shakespeare off their iphones. No need to learn the lines in advance, or even to have read the lines in advance. Why be bothered with such archaic methods? Modern marvels save us from having to do any work of any sort, after all. Isn’t that the point of having them?
What’s more, the audience is being encouraged to read along (assuming the presumably dense and limited in both intelligence and attention span modern audience is capable of reading) with the text of Shakespeare. As anyone who knows anything about theatre is sure to tell you, giving an audience the script is always a good idea! That way, they can detect every tiny deviation in the dialogue. Although, it must be difficult to find an actor who would not object to having the audience gazing down at the script (or the tiny screen of an iphone) rather than up at the actor on the stage. Even an actor who is doing nothing more than reading off the tiny screen of an iphone.
The name of the play chosen to be given this gimmicky treatment? The very bloody Macbeth. With an emphasis on the mac. As in imac. What better script is there, to read on an iphone in an istore? Makes perfect sense, and it’s one way to be sure the actors don’t pronounce it Mick-beth (a common mistake.)
I wonder, though, if the iactors are reading from their iphones, will the language be in the ubiquitous text speak? Is the iaudience to be subjected to the nightmare of “2mro n 2mro n 2mro”? Four hundred years later, and we are still at the mercy of illiterate individuals taking it upon themselves to spell words however they see fit in the moment.
To be fair to the producers of this gimmicky promotional stunt, the play reading is meant to advertise an application which will make Shakespeare accessible for downloads onto mobile phones. Hard to argue with that. How nice to consider that a geeky, high-tech computer nerd has devised a way for geeky, low-tech theatre nerds to have the complete Folio at their fingertips, wherever they are throughout the day.
That is indeed a very good thing, but does it follow that it would make good theatre? Not unless an iphone can bleed.
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