Children of the Modernisation
by Haven Tso
I love going to the theatre. While films are cool, I always feel a closer sense of humanity when I am in the theatre watching the journey of the characters unfolding live on the stage in front of me. The theatre is also a place where you can see classical text being brought to life again in the most intimate manner. I just love the experience of the theatre.
However, I have noticed that in recent years there is a stronger and stronger tendency of productions re-inventing classical text. I personally have no grudge against that as people in different ages and times have different interpretation of events. We do that with historical events so why can’t we do the same with theatre? But one thing that starts to trouble me is that some productions are re-inventing for the sake of re-inventing, some of them without even attempting to understand the context of the work at all.
There are works that are not limited by time and space. For instance, Shakespeare’s Mid Summer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night, in my opinion can be presented in any manner that fits the vision of the director or the production company, as they are fictional and without specific restrictive references to time and space. They can be brilliant if done correctly and I had seen some great productions of these plays using different time and space. Over the years, we did also see Shakespeare’s historical pieces being produced on stage in a modernised manner. Some of them were ok and some of them were not. For those that I personally have issues with, they have nothing to do with modernisation but being the productions being over-stylised. But I will talk about that in another blog.
As I said, while modernisation of classical text is not an issue with me, I personally do think that when one modernises a piece of work they need to think about the context. Take the recent Sydney Theatre Company production of Les Liasions Dangereuses as an example. The setting of the play was brought to the “modern” times instead of the 18th century French setting. The play unfolds in a modern wealthy suburb kind of setting. The place references were kept but the time references were chucked out of the window. The end result? Despite being praised by some critics, I personally think that it had become a deformed production that sits oddly in the history of theatre. This is because there are certain things that were being done in the play that could not possibly be logically happening in the modern setting unnoticed by anyone, France or Australia. Take the scene about Valmont used the spare key to get into Cecile’s room and half forced his way into her. While this might have happened unscathed in 18th century France, in the modern world (or even maybe at that time period) it is rape or sexual assault which nobody will put up with at all, let alone went unnoticed. The “sex education” provided by Valmont to Cecile just made the whole thing more ridiculous, as it could not possibly happen in modern times when sex education started early on in secondary / high school. The constant reference to the convent made the setting even more awkward as who the hell will send their daughters to a convent in this age, when school education is compulsory? The kind of ignorance exhibited by the characters in the play just cannot be happening in a modern society when information is just flowing in from all directions.
Some people may think that I am too picky about the logistics and should just enjoy the production as it is, but as a trained dramaturg, this is something that should be addressed as plays are about the text, and especially for classical pieces like Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The kind of vengeance that Merteuil has on a recent lover, while it can exist in the modern society; her scheme is hardly possible in the modern world where ignorance of such magnitude is commonly being laughed at.
As I said, I personally have nothing against modernisation of classic work but they do need to work within the context and background of the work itself. For me, it just feels “dangereuse” that now because modernisation is such a trendy thing to do, everyone is just modernising every piece of what they considered as “museum work” so that they have their new finger prints on them, good or bad.
Haven Tso is an actor, writer, graphic designer and blogger.
