Word: playing
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Without the energy with which this play was invested it could never have survived for three hours. It has often been noted, that it is very hard to swallow Falstaff's incredible obtuseness. In part we are meant to lay it up to lust; for this he is burnt by candles in the final scene...
...takes as a starting point the serious theme of purgation, and it is Shakespeare's fault that this is some what out of tune with the rest of the play. On the page it is a simple singing: Faistaff is lying on the ground, the fairies "put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts." Terry Hands amplified it. Falstaff fled up a tree and looked down in horror at the invasion of fairies below him. A torch was set in the tree beneath him, and an ensuing, very loud explosion threw him from the tree ten feet...
...final note on interaction of character. Falstaff's mere presence is a danger and Hands's Ford was largely successful in averting it by drawing the play's energy into his transformation. Before he changes he can be quite funny; his interviews with Falstaff were particularly well done. One saw the carefully composed Mr. Brooke (Ford) presenting a nicely Falstaffian proposition; meanwhile, Falstaff relished his possibilities and promising success, while Ford inwardly rebelled and very nearly lost his composure...
...this play is anchored in English manners and the English countryside, and if it is best rendered in this context, then The Winter's Tale is almost at an opposite pole. At least it was so produced by Trevor Nunn...
...production of a play, particularly a play by Shakespeare, goes out on a limb. It offers one interpretation of an entity capable of an infinity of interpretations. T. S. Eliot thought this was bad, because it forced him to observe a rendering which was very likely different from his own. But it is good, too, because it brings the play closer to the audience and forces them, even if by its aberrations, to consider nuances and ramifications which often do not arise spontaneously from the text. Having mentioned this, one can consider the play...