"It’s very hard to create, it’s incredibly difficult to be under a shot glass and a microscope like that...How does she imagine Shakespeare worked?
"When you’re trying to create new work and you’re trying to break new ground and experiment, which seems an incredibly crazy thing to do in a Broadway environment, the immediate answers that audiences give are never going to be good...
"It’s just in the nature of things that when you’re doing something very new, audiences don’t know how necessarily to talk about it immediately..."
June 20, 2011
"Shakespeare would have been appalled."
Asserts Julie Taymor, who wanted to be free of the people taking shots at her show, especially via Twitter and Facebook and blogging, which Shakespeare did not have to put up with.
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43 comments:
Unless you are willing to accept the bad with the good, maybe you are in the wrong line of work. Sounds like she wasn't willing to consider anyone that might not share her 'vision'. But isn't that really what is wrong with our modern world?
So much for diversity of opinion.
it’s incredibly difficult to be under a shot glass
I would imagine so.
She talked more about focus groups. She said Shakespeare would have been appalled at the idea of an audience focus group determining details of a story.
And no, Shakespeare did not have to contend with immediate, worldwide communication networks.
You do generally end up with better art out of artistic tyrants than you do out of marketing committees. I think that much is true.
Shakespeare would have had to deal with an immediate barrage of rotten fruit as an audience reaction. And talking in the stalls and harassing the players was a big part of the stage back then.
Delicate flowers today can't take the heat
Shakespeare did not have to contend with immediate, worldwide communication networks.
True. Shakespeare had to deal with audiences that were in your face. The audiences were rowdy, noisy, spoke to the actors on stage, stood during much of the play, etc. He had to walk the streets of London and have face to face contact with his critics daily. Shakespeare would have been appalled by this whiny butt crybaby.
She does have a point about the use of focus groups to shape the story. Uggh.
The story is badly written. Later, is she talking about the online chatter before it opened? Afterwards?
Oh well, it is the NYTimes.
"How does she imagine Shakespeare worked?"
Shakespeare was a popular entertainer, not an experimentalist.
Shakespeare had talent. That's a big difference right there. Then, there was that insight into human behavior that he had. She might look into that.
The story is badly written. Later, is she talking about the online chatter before it opened? Afterwards?
Yes, that's important. If she's talking about before, she makes a decent point.
If this were in the WSJ, the story would be clear, but it's the NYT, so this is what you get.
Shakespeare and Ibsen, and I do not know how many other playwrights, were theater managers struggling to keep their troupes going and wrote to sell tickets.
"Shakespeare had talent. That's a big difference right there."
Ms. Taymor has talent too, if not on the scale of Shakespeare, (but then, few do or ever have).
Among many other career highlights, she is responsible for the still-popular after all these years Broadway production of Disney's THE LION KING, as well as filmed versions of Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST and TITUS ANDRONICUS, and FRIDA, about the life of Frida Kahlo.
All artists have failures; this does not impeach their talent.
What do you suppose she thinks a shot glass is?
Actually, Shakespeare had to get prior permission to stage his plays from the Master of the Revels, and ran the risk of imprisonment and even death if he seriously displeased the Crown (there's a reason that Tudors tend to be the good guys).
This overrated douchenozzle along with Bono and the Edge are you typical snot nosed elitists who did not respect comic books. They couldn't go with a story that millions of people enjoyed and that made millions of dollars.
U2 has lost the feel of the street that they had when they were coming up. They are millionaires artsy fartsy douchebags.
I saw the original production of Spiderman when Traymor was the director. It was a huge steaming piece of crap.
She should be restricted to working in academia where shit like that is encouraged and celebrated.
I have a feeling is difficult and appalling to work with Bono, the Edge, and the other producers when they sank millions into a show and need to make it financially viable.
But Glenn Beck loves it. Ms. Taymor has that going for her.
That play was an insult to the genius that was Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
Lesser talents always love to trash the work of the immortals.
Why does Bono wear shooting range eyeglasses all the time? Why not just go all Elton John with big fucking stars and such and let the transformation be complete.
At least they aren't throwing rotten cabbages at her and her performers.
Shakespeare would be laughing at her.
She's right: Shakespeare would have been completely dumbfounded at people criticizing his work on Twitter.
And their iPohone would have probably scared the hell out of him at first, too.
"Ms. Taymor recalled wistfully that she initially wanted to mount “Spider-Man” in a circus tent on top of Madison Square Garden, rather than on Broadway." Why didn't they listen???
I'm reminded of the time John Henderson missed off-season practice for the Jacksonville Jaguars and Jack Del Rio said Lombardi was spinning in his grave.
What do you suppose she thinks a shot glass is?
You can trap a bug under a shot glass in order to observe it.
I won't say much except that every artistic work has focus groups to give feedback. Sometimes it's before the work is completed and sometimes after. Usually it's just called the audience and the buyers. She seems fragile like porcelein.
She's in the position of taking multi millions of dollars and wants free reign to create something.
But art is about money. If she doesn't want criticism, she should stop producing. The goal of the theatre is to make scads of money. Not to let the producer & director do what they want. MAKE MONEY.
And here's free advice - get over yourself.
I get pissed at artists who give this kind of whine after choosing an art form that requires millions of dollars to stage a performance. We are living in a golden age when it is incredibly cheap and easy to create all kinds of art and let billions of people experience it for next to nothing. You can write, make music, make small films, create visual art. You can put it on the internet and see if anyone likes it. Taymor needs a budget that would feed a small country for a month and then bitches that she has to make compromises and deal with criticism. Grow up little girl.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
William Shakespeare
They say that gamblers need that one big payday in order to become compulsive about their gambling. It's very much a dormant vice and lots of people go to casinos and their deaths without ever realizing that they are compulsive gamblers. You need to be a big winner in order to realize your full capacity for losing......Even though there are lots of manic depressives in show business, the reality of budget considerations sets a limit on their manic phase. But if they have one big success like the Lion King they can attract investors to their vision. Their vision, in retrospect, looks a lot like grandiosity. It seems that her talent was swallowed by her grandiosity. Her show cost more than the Titanic and was on track to produce a similar number of casualties. Even now, she doesn't realize that a seventy million dollar production of a twenty five cent comic book is totally whack.
The difference is that Master Will, even if he was a plagiarist, is generally recognized as having made whatever it was he adapted/stole as infinitely better.
when she can elevate the English language to heights never before (or since) achieved, she may have a jusifiable gripe.
She's right about the focus groups. They never make anything better.
pete the parrot and shakespeare
The lady doth protest too much, methinks...
Heck, isn't it theater lore that the "Groundlings" in Elizabethan audiences (who today would have some of the best seats in the house), would throw garbage if the didn't like the show?
She is suffering slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Shakespeare would point out that she can end them.
Shakespeare would be appalled by her incompetence. His plays were wildly popular over many years and made him very rich.
You want a chance to work your show outside of the spotlight? Write a show that's good enough to be compelling with a $10000 budget at Anytheatre USA. Then, once you've got a plot, some characters, etc., then you can move it to Broadway and spend a zillion dollars on it.
Among many other career highlights, she is responsible for the still-popular after all these years Broadway production of Disney's THE LION KING, as well as filmed versions of Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST and TITUS ANDRONICUS, and FRIDA, about the life of Frida Kahlo.
But she'd never written anything. Adapted for stage, yes. Written, no. Writing a musical is am extremely difficult and specific task, and they went into it with 4 writers who had never done it before.
There's a reason it's called 'popular culture'.
Shorter Julie:
In the olden days, producers could take their half-formed productions out to flyover country and see what played in Peoria. If the show was poorly received, the playwrights could make alterations in response to audience feedback while maintaining their artistic integrity. And since the rubes had no outside communication, they couldn't hinder the artistic process.
Nowadays, test audiences have their egos inflated by terms like "focus groups" and come to believe their opinion matters enough to be heard via the twitter. Their opinion is worthless and nobody takes it seriously, but they still somehow manage to axe a celebrated 21st cetury talent from her rightful perch atop a 70 million dollar experiment.
How dare they?
"If you can't take the heat, stay the hell out of the kitchen."
Harry S Truman
70 million for a comic book musical. Who's the producer,Max Bialystock ?
Who's the producer,Max Bialystock ?
Excellent reference. At a recent family dinner (my wife's family, who are all artsy-fartsy Broadway snobs), I mentioned "The Producers" to which one my wife's sisters sniffed and bet that I couldn't recall even one song. I boisterously launched into the chorus from, "Keep It Gay".
I thought it went over well. So did everyone else that's married into the family...
Shakespeare had to deal with audiences that were in your face. The audiences were rowdy, noisy, spoke to the actors on stage, stood during much of the play, etc. He had to walk the streets of London and have face to face contact with his critics daily. Shakespeare would have been appalled by this whiny butt crybaby.
Yes, yes and yes again.
Shakespear was out to move people and entertain them, and would move heaven and earth to ensure he did.
This woman is out for people to tell her how wonderful she is for each little poopy she excretes. Infantile.
To produce, or not to produce, that is Traymor's question:
Whether 'tis nobler in her mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of focus groups,
Or to take arms against a sea of critical tweets,
And by opposing end them?
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