Umesh Shanker
ok..this is my first blog...btw i was supposed 2 post this up 3 weeks ago, but unfortunately i couldn't..sorry uncle ket. so anyway...3 weeks ago...i was watching 'the taming of the shrew' on the halkmark channel. even uncle ket and hari watched it. the whole story was not exactly the same as what we did and what i read a little in swathi's book ''Illustrated tales from Shakespeare''. it has the stories of 15 of his plays - just the story and only few dialogues. wel,l the theme there WAS 'taming of d shrew'...petruchio was taming katherine...but in a different way. in that adaptation, petruchio was looking for a rich wife... and was introduced to kat by a friend. at first, after knowing about her, he was hesitating a bit... but then later, he actually loved kat... and in return kat also loved him. here kat is a very high ranking politician.
on the weding day, the groom got drunk and crashed the wedding in his boxers and suit top. but still she decided to go on with d marriage in that condition. only god knows why...but she is also pissed off with him at the same time. and then they went on their honeymoon (i forgot the place) and there he hid her suitcase and forced her to spend one whole day in her big wedding gown (oh ya.. they went on ther honeymoon straight after their marriage from the church). he bullied her in so many ways that i cant remember now.. hehe ...ok and then at night, he brought the suitcase, and threw it in the swimming pool. and 1 more thing... he invited that friend who introduced them to the place they were having their honeymoon but he came a bit later lah... so he did all this to teach kat a lesson..taming the shrew..and managed to tame her. then they just lived together and eventually her anger went down and the whole thing went on.....
what i am trying to say here is that drama is a never ending way of doing or expressing somethin...you can take 1 play...any play and you can do a million adaptations of it... then you can also do misadaptations! and like that you can create a million plays from just one original piece. one can adapt a drama in any way he or she wants according to her mood. or maybe based on his/her own life or based on his/her observations of other people's life... all using the same characters or also if you want to change the characters according to the story line. and i find drama can be a way of expressing your feelings. if we cant express them in reality, we can use those emotions in drama.
drama has also helped me become a better actor...haha. in school we are given something to act out, and being a part of this theater group has helped me to identify the right moods or tones to be used in telling a dialogue... not only that, it has taught me how to throw my voice without shouting... which helps me in my prefect life in school...funny huh...
so basically, drama has helped me in sooo many different ways and has helped me realise things now. thanks to uncle ket and this whole PET group, i have begun to appreciate literature and shakespeare's works. i really love being part of this group and part of TFA. if i had not come 2 tfa, i definitely wont be part of this incredible group. and to have such a great drama teacher, uncle ket 2 teach me loads of new stuff... and i feel lucky to be able to take part in 3 pieces...
my first ever ''the crow, the mole and the tortoise'', then ''malaysian merchant of venice'' and finally ''kadalin shakti''. i wish we will have more full length plays to come and i can be a part of it.
oh ya uncle ket... i was just reading the play "much ado about nothing" from swathi's book and i found it quite interesting. i think it will be a great play, if we can do it...so that's all!
1 comment:
umesh, i am glad you caught the movie on hallmark channel. i enjoyed it tremendously myself. one thing about these modern day adaptations, i am very curious and intrigued by the amount of thinking the screenwriters do to make the adaptation so relevant and contemporary for today's audience. the idea of adaptation is in fact to make the play more accessible, more relevant to a new audience. now we have seen the play "taming of the shrew" relocated to modern day london. the original is set in verona, italy, a few hundred years ago, with different ideas of how men and women behaved and the relationship between husband and wife.
apart from this adaptation being very funny and have kept quite closely to the original in terms of plot, for me there were some issues with regards to control and power play between the sexes which were not entirely well rounded off at the end. in the original, in that setting, it was believed and accepted by society that the woman be subservient to her husband, though she may be a control freak. the pleasure of the play's ending comes from the fact that petruchio succeeds in making katherine realise and reconcile her inner conflict about herself.
in this adaptation on hallmark, the resolution of katherine's conflict seemed a little awkward especially because women nowadays really do not see themselves being subservient to men - not in london anyway. but still... if you could watch it again the next time it comes, you will find more things to think about.
i am happy you are reading "much ado about nothing". the simplified story version is a good start. one day, you should tackle the play itself. if you like, we could organise a play reading group so that we can ask each other questions, mull over things. see if you can get a group for this, umesh.
Post a Comment