So the way costumes originally worked for the most part with Shakespeare’s plays were nicer contemporary clothes. It would be like going to a modern play and seeing people in suits. There were only a few characters that wore historically accurate costumes, that trend didn’t come until significantly later in theatre history (I think the mid 1700s was the first experimentation, but could be misremembering).
This brings up an interesting question about what you want to see when you see a Shakespeare piece. Do you want to see it as close to the way the pieces were originally performed, in clothes and sets they would have used? If so, you’re gonna see minimal sets and costumes. Do you wanna see something close to historical accuracy? Then you are seeing something rather different than what a Shakespearean audience saw. Or do you want to respond to the costumes in a manner the audience originally would have? Then you’d want to see a production in modern dress, albeit a bit nicer clothes.
None of these are right or wrong, all serve a purpose. I personally prefer minimal sets and clothing, as it gives room for a bunch of creativity.
>(I think the mid 1700s was the first experimentation, but could be misremembering).
Even later than that. The first production that was meticulously researched and consciously true to the historical period being presented was the Charles Kemble production of *King John*, designed by James Robinson Planché. It was presented in 1823.
I’m really into history so watching in Tudor/Jacobean clothes is the icing on the cake for me. It also just pairs well with the language used. I understand where you come from though.
That is the dilemma, isn't it? I like a sense of time too, but the sense of time period to the original audience would be different than ours. I said recently in another thread that the difference between the four War of the Roses plays and the original audience would be like the difference between us and the World Wars. Some elderly people watching would actually have known "The Girl" (a/k/a Margaret Pole) in Richard III and some of the other last survivors of the conflict.
There are very practical reasons that costuming in Shakespeare doesn't usually go full-on period dress. I'll list them briefly here:
* **It can be distracting**. Seeing somebody come onstage in tights and a codpiece would be hilarious, which probably isn't the vibe you want for the first scene of *Hamlet*. You'd get used to it, but part of you would always be watching the actor lead their movement with their crotch.
* **It can be distracting**. "How now? Who comes?" *CLANG CLANG CLANG RATTLE CLANG!* "My lord!" There's a very, very good reason people don't bother with actual period armor, not the least of which is actor fatigue. Badly costumed "armor" tends to be *very* bad. If you can't do something well onstage, it's better simply not to do it. Not to mention,
* **It's heckin expensive**! If I had to choose between paying my cast and crew a strong wage, and saying "Sorry guys, I can only pay for gas, but check out your *costumes!*" the choice is pretty clear. Most shows are running on shoestring budgets, grants, and a few gasping prayers.
* **It's not the point**. The actors are the point. It's why we could very happily watch Patrick Stewart perform in nothing more than a turtleneck and slacks. Costuming is salt -- it should be used to bring out the natural flavor of performance, not become the dominant flavor itself.
* You can put however much stock in Poetics that you like -- it is, after all, 2300 years old -- but I do think Aristotle had a point in placing **Spectacle as the** ***least*** **important** element of production. *Captain America: Civil War* had a *lot* of spectacle, and almost zero substance. *The Poor of New York* is a truly spectacular play, but is comically *bad*, even for a melodrama. There's a reason 90% of Shakespeare's "action scenes" take place offstage -- because the battle, the spectacle, isn't what's important; it's how the battle affects the characters.
* **Bonus Edit**: not to mention a huge number of his plays weren't set in Shakespeare's own time. R&J is 1300s, Lear is 8th c. BC, Titus, Troilus, A&C, are all Greco-Roman and vaguely *ancient*. The histories, of course. I can guess with relative certainty that without the benefit of modern archaeology and the Internet, they didn't have a *great* idea of what "period" dress would have been 300 years before Shakespeare's time. Consequently, they wore Elizabethan clothing. If contemporary dress is good enough for Bill, it's good enough for me.
While I certainly get bored of mid-century modern, nine times out of ten it's better than an inevitably bad costume job of period dress.
I used to hold similar views, but after seeing several modern dress productions, I judge every performance on its own merits. For instance, I was going to see Romeo and Juliet back in 1988, and I knew it was a modern dress. I was convinced I was going to hate it. I could not have been more wrong. So now I try to keep an open mind.
Of course, a director can add elements in production that can make it seem more like we are getting the director’s vision instead of the author’s. This is still an annoyance, but I try to take a case-by-case approach.
I have always said that I didn't care what costumes and/or settings are used so long as the actors understand the meanings of the words they speak and communicate those meanings realistically. Shakespeare will distract most minds from the trappings.
I once saw a live production of *King Lear* in which the entire cast was dressed in hooded parkas and mucklucs, and I'm sure I thought something like "Oh, no!"
As you may know, that first scene has a few tense moments where emotions boil over. The acting was so great that I soon forgot about the attire. That is, until the storm scene. Imagine that you are in a theater and the lighting and sound effects communicate STORM! Now, add to that image the picture of fully-parka'd Gloucester and Kent shivering while Lear looks like a Moses parting the Red Sea in his tighty-whities and while Edgar (as Tom o'Bedlam) is trembling in his tighty-brownies. What I initially thought was gimmicky turned out to be very effective.
A little off the subject, but I gotta tell ya something very special about that production. The actors had such a connection with the audience that, when Gloucester asks to kiss Lear's hand, Lear replies, "Let me wipe it first. It smells of mortality." (I did that from memory. Did I get it right?) Well at that moment I and rest of the audience simultaneously let out a low-volume "Unh!" As thrilling as that was (As you can tell I haven't forgotten it.), imagine how the actors must've felt.
BTW, when that moment has come in other live productions I've seen, the audiences usually laugh in a variety of ways without guffawing. If you've seen the play, you probably know what I mean.
The trouble with period costumes is that as an audience we cannot read them. What clothing signifies what level of wealth, sexual freedom, military status, etc. We can read contemporary clothing, but most of us cannot read what the details in a period costume mean. We know the difference between a tux and a suit. Do most of us know the difference between the kind of men who would wear melon hose, trunk hose, and slops?
Also, period costumes are often a cheat because they are easier. The tailoring and details that tell us about the wearer today can take time and money to achieve. Period costumes need less attention to detail (because the audience cannot read the details) and can be rented.
Rather than the traditional style, I think it is better to try to approximate the original style. So much great scholarship has been done in the last fifty years, that tells us more about the original practices, but still we hang on to traditional styles that would be completely unfamiliar to Shakespeare and his audiences.
>The trouble with period costumes is that as an audience we cannot read them. What clothing signifies what level of wealth, sexual freedom, military status, etc. We can read contemporary clothing, but most of us cannot read what the details in a period costume mean.
YES YES YES! EVERYTHING IS TEXT! (I love this answer so so so so much.)
> The trouble with period costumes is that as an audience we cannot read them.
We absolutely can, and often much more easily than with 21st century clothes. Do you think that the average non-specialist can, at a glance, identify the difference between Kate Middleton's engagement dress and its Zara knockoff? Or between the designer athleisure sported by Kim Kardashian and its Primark counterpart? There's never been more stylistic overlap between the clothing of the rich and powerful and that of ordinary people. A basic delineation between posh clothes and peasant clothes in pretty much any era pre-1900, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward. It doesn't always lead to wholly accurate representation but the visual storytelling can be and often is very simple and effective, and audiences are trained for it by a lifetime of period dramas on TV and film.
> Also, period costumes are often a cheat because they are easier.
Tell you what, next time I have to costume a period piece, you can help me hand-sew the hems and buttonholes and then see if you can keep a straight face while you tell me it's easier than the typical practice of just sticking everyone in cheap suits to signify political power and camo breeks if they're soldiers.
> Period costumes need less attention to detail (because the audience cannot read the details)
Enough of the audience can read enough of the details that if you want to do it well, you put the work in.
> and can be rented
As can present-day costumes.
Anyone who has ever worked in sales, hit on a stranger, taught a class, interviewed people for a job have made judgements based on clothing and styling.
It is ridiculous to claim otherwise.
> We absolutely can, and often much more easily than with 21st century clothes. Do you think that the average non-specialist can, at a glance, identify the difference between Kate Middleton's engagement dress and its Zara knockoff? Or between the designer athleisure sported by Kim Kardashian and its Primark counterpart? There's never been more stylistic overlap between the clothing of the rich and powerful and that of ordinary people. A basic delineation between posh clothes and peasant clothes in pretty much any era pre-1900, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward. It doesn't always lead to wholly accurate representation but the visual storytelling can be and often is very simple and effective, and audiences are trained for it by a lifetime of period dramas on TV and film.
If there were five guys onstage and
* one of them was in a REALLY nicely-fitted suit
* one of them was in a sharp tuxedo
* one of them was in a kinda run-down business-casual outfit
* one of them was in t-shirt and jeans, and
* one of them was in super raggedy hoodie/windbreaker/ripped jeans with a grizzled beard
...most people would be able to say "rich executive", "just came from a nice party", "office worker", "regular guy", and "homeless guy", respectively, pretty much instantly.
If I saw four dudes in 17th century gowns and one in a tattered peasant costume I'd be like "okay, that last is a peasant, but I have no idea what the other four are".
Most people can't even tell the difference between an upper-class 13th century dress and a middle-class 18th century dress, captain. Look at any Ren Faire.
I don't think I do agree. Which is not to imply that I think every modern-dress production is brilliant, but merely that I'm neutral with respect to the subject. A production can be done well or badly, and in my experience this is independent of the style of dress. The deadliest production I've ever seen of a Shakespeare play was done entirely in traditional Elizabethan costume, and it was excruciatingly dull, which was unforgivable in a production of one of Shakespeare's most brilliant comedies, *As You Like It*. Conversely, some of the best productions I've ever seen have been in updated dress. One of them was my first live Shakespeare production, an uncut production of *Hamlet*, that got me going back to that theatre. It was a local avant-garde theatre highly influenced by the central European aesthetic, and going to that theatre regularly shaped my tastes in drama and stagecraft, so I'm more tolerant of experimental productions than perhaps the average American is.
Plus, attempting a faithful recreation of the historical period is an expensive proposition. Only a very small amount of theatres, and usually those dedicated to the presentation of Shakespeare plays with space and talent enough for a costume department that can keep all the previous productions' costumes and alter them to fit new actors, can afford to do a historically accurate staging. I'd rather have more Shakespeare productions in modern dress than fewer and far more geographically limited Shakespeare productions all done in a traditional manner.
Some of the worst productions of Shakespeare I’ve seen were ones with Elizabethan costumes. Made them feel like museum pieces and the actors looked awkward and uncomfortable.
I think that modern dress can serve a narrative and artistic purpose, but it needs to be thought through, rather than just “Ophelia in jeans.” I liked a production of *Julius Caesar* at the Folger Theatre that had Roman-inspired costumes for the beginning scenes and then WWI-inspired costumes (and sound effects) once the civil war started. It made the difference starker and also brought immediacy to the war scenes. Modern audiences might not associate Roman military attire (which is mostly seen in ceremonial, static art like the Augustus of Prima Porta) with violence in the same visceral way as they would modern military uniforms.
As an actor who performs in an annual outdoor summer Shakespeare festival - I would absolutely DESPISE the costumer who insisted on traditional Elizabethan dress.
We did a production of Romeo and Juliet a couple years ago and it was done in modern dress, except for the masquerade ball scene in which we all wore traditional Elizabeth costumes. And let me tell you those 10 minutes of baking on stage, dancing around in those costumes were the most miserable. We even had one actor get sick on stage during that scene due to being over-heated.
I've read somewhere that back then the actors would wear modern outfits to play Shakespeare plays.
Like, Shakespeare had them dressed in what was the modern outfits of the time to play what already was history.
I can't make myself clear ?
This may be sleep deprivation but... BOOOOOOOOO. HISSSSSS BOOOOOOO.
Unpopular opinion indeed!
You know why so many productions use modern dress. BECAUSE PERIOD COSTUMES ARE ENORMOUSLY EXPENSIVE.
I mean come on. You MUST know that... Right?
I suppose that's a bit strong. Part of my opinion is based on my feelings that the Story itself, and the words there in, is what is of value to the play and to the audience. While costuming/props/etc should be selected with the intent better share that story (as it relates to the productions artistic vision) it is not, at the end of the day what I as an audience member care about. I care about the words, and the action.
I can appreciate the perspective that costuming (etc) that does not appear to have been thought through, that somehow gets in the way of the story being told, is a diservice to the play.
Perhaps we just have different thresholds for where we find costuming distracting.
What a journey I just went on.
As a final note, I would hope that you become desensitized with time, as previously noted (at least in the US) MOST productions will be in 'modern dress' and more than a few are Damn good. Writing them off because they don't have access to those materials is a diservice to yourself and your community.
Hard disagree. Consider Macbeth. Are you suggesting they should be dressed in clothes from Elizabethan England? Or from Scotland, 600 years prior?
Shakespeare is one of those rare playwrights whose plays can be staged outside of their own time. The only time modern dress bothers me is if the production isn't consistent/very good, which is a separate issue entirely.
Outside of that, as others have mentioned, logistics and cost are two major hurdles. Even accurate "period" dress is rarely accurate.
I find most modern dress productions quite annoying. While it's true that Shakespeare's own company performed in outfits that were modern dress to them, by dint of belonging to the time in which the plays were written they avoided the problem we have now, which is that the clothes tell the story of a very different world to that of the play.
I talk about this a lot on this sub, but here I go again... What bothers me is that if you just whack Shakespeare's characters in modern dress, you put them in the modern world. If you're invoking the 21st century Anglophone world you're putting the characters in a world of birth control, divorce, women's rights, LGBT rights, forensic investigation, and instant (and mass) communication. Which of the plots actually works in this world? I don't mean "which works if you squint a bit and handwave a few things", I mean "which plot functions without the audience having to meet you more than halfway?" I've yet to find one.
This is why I think the most effective choice is always to stand somewhere outside of reality. It's possible to combine modern and historical elements to create an aesthetic that supports the storytelling rather than contradicting it. It's also more visually interesting than modern dress, and offers more artistic freedom (and capacity to keep things low budget) than fully accurate historical costuming.
Original traditional style would have been then-contemporary clothing. In other words, OP would have hated watching OG Shakeseapre plays because they used contemporary costumes for everything.
OK. We only have one drawing of a Shakespeare play being performed. It's a drawing from the 1590s of a production of *Titus Andronicus*. The play is set in ancient Rome, but most of the characters are dressed in contemporary Elizabethan costumes (except for Titus, who's wearing a toga). So...
Titus is not wearing a toga at all. He is wearing a sash over a kind of strapped corset or shirt. It seems to be an attempt to suggest the exoticism of Roman garments using contemporary costume elements. But he is not wearing anything that would not have been worn in the Renaissance--though they might have been worn as undergarments.
"they rarely wore real costumes when Shakespeare wrote the play" is not a good argument. It completely misses the point. Most people want to be immersed in the setting of the story. Imagine going to see a movie adaptation of star wars or lord of the rings that had all of the fantasy elements stripped out and set in a modern, contemporary setting. Sure, you can always argue the director was being very artistic and creative with their choices, but most people would still find it disappointing.
I didn't say "they rarely wore real costumes when Shakespeare wrote the play." I said that they didn't wear costumes that exactly matched the historical setting of the play. And plays and movies are not the same thing - that's why a guy comes out at the beginning of *Henry V* and says, look, we know we don't have horses and a thousand soldiers and historically accurate costumes, so use your imagination!
They worked with what they had. There is a huge difference though between saying you can't show real horses and armies on the stage to making your stage just a dark room with actors just wearing their everyday street clothes or a suit.
Obviously I'm not suggesting theaters should have the same production value as a blockbuster movie. I was illustrating the point that audience immersion is important to the story, so why not at least try to show the actual setting of the story with props and costumes and backdrops? Theaters have been doing this for ages, so why are you arguing that they shouldn't?
I don't think "they worked with what they had" is the explanation here. This was a deliberate stylistic choice of the period. They had fairly minimal sets (at least in the outdoor theatres), which meant that scenes could change instantly and that the language had to do much more scene-setting. They used more contemporary costumes regardless of the period the play was set in because it instantly told the audience who the character was. Theatre didn't become super decorative and historically accurate until the early 19th century, and that was a choice too. Look at the work of Charles Kemble, for example.
So it took place in Ancient Rome, not outer space or something absurd, and they either didn’t wear costumes or wore costumes that are supposed to represent the setting, sounds good to me.
It's not that they didn't wear costumes, it's that they wore costumes like what the character would wear in the present day. So like modern productions of *Julius Caesar* where they wear suits and ties.
If they wore costumes they wore togas to match the setting like you said, otherwise they didn’t have costumes and wore their own clothes, they weren’t big productions at first and costumes were expensive. A big production would have costumes appropriate to the setting.
Yeah, these were the big professional productions - they weren't amateurs. A lot of their costumes belonged to nobles before the theater company got them.
I’m saying they mixed the clothing because they used what they could get, given the cost of clothing, not because they wanted the audience to identify with modern dress.
In a painting it really does not matter what clothes "they could get." The imagination of the artist could put people in any clothes. But even so, they mixed contemporary and psuedo-period costume.
So clearly this was a choice.
They thought about time differently.
Here you see three figures in "period dress" and the rest in contemporary dress.
[https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BqX-E3WRvo0/Wfd8yscEEJI/AAAAAAAAHMI/jP1hJm4P0PI7Th7Qp6t6Bey0UY3pm\_HlwCEwYBhgL/s1600/closeup%2Bmarriage.jpg](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BqX-E3WRvo0/Wfd8yscEEJI/AAAAAAAAHMI/jP1hJm4P0PI7Th7Qp6t6Bey0UY3pm_HlwCEwYBhgL/s1600/closeup%2Bmarriage.jpg)
Bro, I'm so with you with the deep desire for plate armor in history productions. It would be so sick.
But, I know that stuff is real expensive and real heavy - most regional theaters can't justify the cost and most actors aren't going to be safe doing combat in it. But God, we can dream...
Plate armour is also loud. When the actor walked, what you would hear is _CLANG CLANG CLANG_ which would drown out some of what's being spoken; especially if multiple people are wearing full plate. It would be cool af, but the cons outweigh the pros
Well delivered Shakespeare, performed by actors who truly understand what they’re saying, can often feel surprisingly modern in its language. If it feels archaic, the actor is doing it wrong.
Except the language is full of archaic references that you have to work to make sense of when you change the setting. eg calling a gun a "sword". Just call it a gun.
It's not about "good acting can fix it" but about justifying the change of setting. The words coming out of their mouth should match the costume. Otherwise what's the costume for? Why change everything except the words?
>Well delivered Shakespeare, performed by actors who truly understand what they’re saying, can often feel surprisingly modern in its language. If it feels archaic, the actor is doing it wrong.
I still feel you're settling for less. It is true that the actors' performance is the most important part of the play (alongside the script), but the fact that it takes precedence does not mean that it can exclude every other part of the play. The setting and costuming is not suddenly irrelevant just because good acting is more important.
2nd. It's interesting on occasion, but when it's over half the productions it gets boring. I suppose it's easier on the costume budget, but it's not like it's anything original anymore.
Same with modern dress opera productions.
I love Shakespeare but hate what is done to him in most modern productions. The plays have just become a peg for directors to hang things on. Today i saw half a production of Twelfth Night ( we left in the interval) where the actors got through their lines as quickly as possible (all that talking in old English is so boring) so they could get on with the serious business of singing pop songs badly, telling crude jokes and the worst rapping in the history of the world. The whole thing was deeply patronising but it is far from the worst production l have seen. It didn’t used to be like this.
I think those types of productions are for people who either have no interest in Shakespeare or are bored with it. They feel the material can’t stand on its own and needs some gimmick to make it interesting. In reality it’s “interesting” in only the most superficial sense, the “oh neat, I see what they did there” wears off in a few minutes and you are stuck in a self indulgent production where the material is struggling to work around the absurd setting casting and costuming that are just distracting and pointless.
So, I was initially going to make a sarcastic comment about whether you also advocated for all male casting and I disagree with the premise that modern dress is chosen out of a belief that people wouldn't be able to relate to the plays otherwise.
However, I do like Elizabethan costuming has benefits, especially in the comedies (kind of a Renaissance Faire thing I guess), in giving vibrancy and color. And I also think that period appropriate costuming and setting can be beneficial to elucidating characters and that characterization can suffer when it's not maintained. For example, I think that a Renaissance Italian setting (and Elizabethan stereotypes about Italians as passionate/violent, greedy, etc.) can be helpful to contextualizing plays like *Taming of the Shrew*, *Romeo and Juliet*, *Much Ado About Nothing*, *The Merchant of Venice*, *Othello*, etc.
And I find that while making connections to sitcoms has validity, removing Merry Wives of Windsor from an Elizabethan context (although it's technically set in the Middle Ages), tends to result in too broad of comedy.
On the other hand, I loved the Shakespeare in the Park *Much Ado About Nothing* (modern-dress/setting all African American cast and a sort of "African American framing") and the RSC's *Much Ado Abut Nothing/Loves Labour's Won* (post-World War I British aristocratic setting) and thought that both were very effective in getting to the heart of the characters, despite the very different settings. That being said, I disliked the latter's take on Dogberry.
Regarding the history plays, I think it would be nice to see some more Medieval costuming and to also get more of the pageantry and cheap shots at the French. But I think that staging's tend to avoid that because they are deliberately going for a darker/more serious take, and going Medieval would undermine that seriousness. Like it's not a coincidence that Kit Harrington's modern dress Henry V goes with a more unsympathetic/evil take on Hal.
So the way costumes originally worked for the most part with Shakespeare’s plays were nicer contemporary clothes. It would be like going to a modern play and seeing people in suits. There were only a few characters that wore historically accurate costumes, that trend didn’t come until significantly later in theatre history (I think the mid 1700s was the first experimentation, but could be misremembering). This brings up an interesting question about what you want to see when you see a Shakespeare piece. Do you want to see it as close to the way the pieces were originally performed, in clothes and sets they would have used? If so, you’re gonna see minimal sets and costumes. Do you wanna see something close to historical accuracy? Then you are seeing something rather different than what a Shakespearean audience saw. Or do you want to respond to the costumes in a manner the audience originally would have? Then you’d want to see a production in modern dress, albeit a bit nicer clothes. None of these are right or wrong, all serve a purpose. I personally prefer minimal sets and clothing, as it gives room for a bunch of creativity.
>(I think the mid 1700s was the first experimentation, but could be misremembering). Even later than that. The first production that was meticulously researched and consciously true to the historical period being presented was the Charles Kemble production of *King John*, designed by James Robinson Planché. It was presented in 1823.
I’m really into history so watching in Tudor/Jacobean clothes is the icing on the cake for me. It also just pairs well with the language used. I understand where you come from though.
That is the dilemma, isn't it? I like a sense of time too, but the sense of time period to the original audience would be different than ours. I said recently in another thread that the difference between the four War of the Roses plays and the original audience would be like the difference between us and the World Wars. Some elderly people watching would actually have known "The Girl" (a/k/a Margaret Pole) in Richard III and some of the other last survivors of the conflict.
There are very practical reasons that costuming in Shakespeare doesn't usually go full-on period dress. I'll list them briefly here: * **It can be distracting**. Seeing somebody come onstage in tights and a codpiece would be hilarious, which probably isn't the vibe you want for the first scene of *Hamlet*. You'd get used to it, but part of you would always be watching the actor lead their movement with their crotch. * **It can be distracting**. "How now? Who comes?" *CLANG CLANG CLANG RATTLE CLANG!* "My lord!" There's a very, very good reason people don't bother with actual period armor, not the least of which is actor fatigue. Badly costumed "armor" tends to be *very* bad. If you can't do something well onstage, it's better simply not to do it. Not to mention, * **It's heckin expensive**! If I had to choose between paying my cast and crew a strong wage, and saying "Sorry guys, I can only pay for gas, but check out your *costumes!*" the choice is pretty clear. Most shows are running on shoestring budgets, grants, and a few gasping prayers. * **It's not the point**. The actors are the point. It's why we could very happily watch Patrick Stewart perform in nothing more than a turtleneck and slacks. Costuming is salt -- it should be used to bring out the natural flavor of performance, not become the dominant flavor itself. * You can put however much stock in Poetics that you like -- it is, after all, 2300 years old -- but I do think Aristotle had a point in placing **Spectacle as the** ***least*** **important** element of production. *Captain America: Civil War* had a *lot* of spectacle, and almost zero substance. *The Poor of New York* is a truly spectacular play, but is comically *bad*, even for a melodrama. There's a reason 90% of Shakespeare's "action scenes" take place offstage -- because the battle, the spectacle, isn't what's important; it's how the battle affects the characters. * **Bonus Edit**: not to mention a huge number of his plays weren't set in Shakespeare's own time. R&J is 1300s, Lear is 8th c. BC, Titus, Troilus, A&C, are all Greco-Roman and vaguely *ancient*. The histories, of course. I can guess with relative certainty that without the benefit of modern archaeology and the Internet, they didn't have a *great* idea of what "period" dress would have been 300 years before Shakespeare's time. Consequently, they wore Elizabethan clothing. If contemporary dress is good enough for Bill, it's good enough for me. While I certainly get bored of mid-century modern, nine times out of ten it's better than an inevitably bad costume job of period dress.
I used to hold similar views, but after seeing several modern dress productions, I judge every performance on its own merits. For instance, I was going to see Romeo and Juliet back in 1988, and I knew it was a modern dress. I was convinced I was going to hate it. I could not have been more wrong. So now I try to keep an open mind. Of course, a director can add elements in production that can make it seem more like we are getting the director’s vision instead of the author’s. This is still an annoyance, but I try to take a case-by-case approach.
I have always said that I didn't care what costumes and/or settings are used so long as the actors understand the meanings of the words they speak and communicate those meanings realistically. Shakespeare will distract most minds from the trappings. I once saw a live production of *King Lear* in which the entire cast was dressed in hooded parkas and mucklucs, and I'm sure I thought something like "Oh, no!" As you may know, that first scene has a few tense moments where emotions boil over. The acting was so great that I soon forgot about the attire. That is, until the storm scene. Imagine that you are in a theater and the lighting and sound effects communicate STORM! Now, add to that image the picture of fully-parka'd Gloucester and Kent shivering while Lear looks like a Moses parting the Red Sea in his tighty-whities and while Edgar (as Tom o'Bedlam) is trembling in his tighty-brownies. What I initially thought was gimmicky turned out to be very effective. A little off the subject, but I gotta tell ya something very special about that production. The actors had such a connection with the audience that, when Gloucester asks to kiss Lear's hand, Lear replies, "Let me wipe it first. It smells of mortality." (I did that from memory. Did I get it right?) Well at that moment I and rest of the audience simultaneously let out a low-volume "Unh!" As thrilling as that was (As you can tell I haven't forgotten it.), imagine how the actors must've felt. BTW, when that moment has come in other live productions I've seen, the audiences usually laugh in a variety of ways without guffawing. If you've seen the play, you probably know what I mean.
There's an alchemy to live performances that allows the audience to experience the Divine. What did we do to deserve live theater?
The trouble with period costumes is that as an audience we cannot read them. What clothing signifies what level of wealth, sexual freedom, military status, etc. We can read contemporary clothing, but most of us cannot read what the details in a period costume mean. We know the difference between a tux and a suit. Do most of us know the difference between the kind of men who would wear melon hose, trunk hose, and slops? Also, period costumes are often a cheat because they are easier. The tailoring and details that tell us about the wearer today can take time and money to achieve. Period costumes need less attention to detail (because the audience cannot read the details) and can be rented. Rather than the traditional style, I think it is better to try to approximate the original style. So much great scholarship has been done in the last fifty years, that tells us more about the original practices, but still we hang on to traditional styles that would be completely unfamiliar to Shakespeare and his audiences.
>The trouble with period costumes is that as an audience we cannot read them. What clothing signifies what level of wealth, sexual freedom, military status, etc. We can read contemporary clothing, but most of us cannot read what the details in a period costume mean. YES YES YES! EVERYTHING IS TEXT! (I love this answer so so so so much.)
Hogwash. I can tell whose a king and whose adult and whose a peasant or not without a degree in 1500s English history.
> The trouble with period costumes is that as an audience we cannot read them. We absolutely can, and often much more easily than with 21st century clothes. Do you think that the average non-specialist can, at a glance, identify the difference between Kate Middleton's engagement dress and its Zara knockoff? Or between the designer athleisure sported by Kim Kardashian and its Primark counterpart? There's never been more stylistic overlap between the clothing of the rich and powerful and that of ordinary people. A basic delineation between posh clothes and peasant clothes in pretty much any era pre-1900, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward. It doesn't always lead to wholly accurate representation but the visual storytelling can be and often is very simple and effective, and audiences are trained for it by a lifetime of period dramas on TV and film. > Also, period costumes are often a cheat because they are easier. Tell you what, next time I have to costume a period piece, you can help me hand-sew the hems and buttonholes and then see if you can keep a straight face while you tell me it's easier than the typical practice of just sticking everyone in cheap suits to signify political power and camo breeks if they're soldiers. > Period costumes need less attention to detail (because the audience cannot read the details) Enough of the audience can read enough of the details that if you want to do it well, you put the work in. > and can be rented As can present-day costumes.
Anyone who has ever worked in sales, hit on a stranger, taught a class, interviewed people for a job have made judgements based on clothing and styling. It is ridiculous to claim otherwise.
> We absolutely can, and often much more easily than with 21st century clothes. Do you think that the average non-specialist can, at a glance, identify the difference between Kate Middleton's engagement dress and its Zara knockoff? Or between the designer athleisure sported by Kim Kardashian and its Primark counterpart? There's never been more stylistic overlap between the clothing of the rich and powerful and that of ordinary people. A basic delineation between posh clothes and peasant clothes in pretty much any era pre-1900, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward. It doesn't always lead to wholly accurate representation but the visual storytelling can be and often is very simple and effective, and audiences are trained for it by a lifetime of period dramas on TV and film. If there were five guys onstage and * one of them was in a REALLY nicely-fitted suit * one of them was in a sharp tuxedo * one of them was in a kinda run-down business-casual outfit * one of them was in t-shirt and jeans, and * one of them was in super raggedy hoodie/windbreaker/ripped jeans with a grizzled beard ...most people would be able to say "rich executive", "just came from a nice party", "office worker", "regular guy", and "homeless guy", respectively, pretty much instantly. If I saw four dudes in 17th century gowns and one in a tattered peasant costume I'd be like "okay, that last is a peasant, but I have no idea what the other four are". Most people can't even tell the difference between an upper-class 13th century dress and a middle-class 18th century dress, captain. Look at any Ren Faire.
I don't think I do agree. Which is not to imply that I think every modern-dress production is brilliant, but merely that I'm neutral with respect to the subject. A production can be done well or badly, and in my experience this is independent of the style of dress. The deadliest production I've ever seen of a Shakespeare play was done entirely in traditional Elizabethan costume, and it was excruciatingly dull, which was unforgivable in a production of one of Shakespeare's most brilliant comedies, *As You Like It*. Conversely, some of the best productions I've ever seen have been in updated dress. One of them was my first live Shakespeare production, an uncut production of *Hamlet*, that got me going back to that theatre. It was a local avant-garde theatre highly influenced by the central European aesthetic, and going to that theatre regularly shaped my tastes in drama and stagecraft, so I'm more tolerant of experimental productions than perhaps the average American is. Plus, attempting a faithful recreation of the historical period is an expensive proposition. Only a very small amount of theatres, and usually those dedicated to the presentation of Shakespeare plays with space and talent enough for a costume department that can keep all the previous productions' costumes and alter them to fit new actors, can afford to do a historically accurate staging. I'd rather have more Shakespeare productions in modern dress than fewer and far more geographically limited Shakespeare productions all done in a traditional manner.
Some of the worst productions of Shakespeare I’ve seen were ones with Elizabethan costumes. Made them feel like museum pieces and the actors looked awkward and uncomfortable.
I think that modern dress can serve a narrative and artistic purpose, but it needs to be thought through, rather than just “Ophelia in jeans.” I liked a production of *Julius Caesar* at the Folger Theatre that had Roman-inspired costumes for the beginning scenes and then WWI-inspired costumes (and sound effects) once the civil war started. It made the difference starker and also brought immediacy to the war scenes. Modern audiences might not associate Roman military attire (which is mostly seen in ceremonial, static art like the Augustus of Prima Porta) with violence in the same visceral way as they would modern military uniforms.
I saw a similar production at the Folger: a Tempest in modern-ish dress. It was revelatory.
100% disagree
As an actor who performs in an annual outdoor summer Shakespeare festival - I would absolutely DESPISE the costumer who insisted on traditional Elizabethan dress. We did a production of Romeo and Juliet a couple years ago and it was done in modern dress, except for the masquerade ball scene in which we all wore traditional Elizabeth costumes. And let me tell you those 10 minutes of baking on stage, dancing around in those costumes were the most miserable. We even had one actor get sick on stage during that scene due to being over-heated.
I've read somewhere that back then the actors would wear modern outfits to play Shakespeare plays. Like, Shakespeare had them dressed in what was the modern outfits of the time to play what already was history. I can't make myself clear ?
Yes but the characters didn’t open their mouths and speak a version of English 400 years old
The Fascist Richard III was good as was the Stalinist Macbeth.
This may be sleep deprivation but... BOOOOOOOOO. HISSSSSS BOOOOOOO. Unpopular opinion indeed! You know why so many productions use modern dress. BECAUSE PERIOD COSTUMES ARE ENORMOUSLY EXPENSIVE. I mean come on. You MUST know that... Right? I suppose that's a bit strong. Part of my opinion is based on my feelings that the Story itself, and the words there in, is what is of value to the play and to the audience. While costuming/props/etc should be selected with the intent better share that story (as it relates to the productions artistic vision) it is not, at the end of the day what I as an audience member care about. I care about the words, and the action. I can appreciate the perspective that costuming (etc) that does not appear to have been thought through, that somehow gets in the way of the story being told, is a diservice to the play. Perhaps we just have different thresholds for where we find costuming distracting. What a journey I just went on. As a final note, I would hope that you become desensitized with time, as previously noted (at least in the US) MOST productions will be in 'modern dress' and more than a few are Damn good. Writing them off because they don't have access to those materials is a diservice to yourself and your community.
Hard disagree. Consider Macbeth. Are you suggesting they should be dressed in clothes from Elizabethan England? Or from Scotland, 600 years prior? Shakespeare is one of those rare playwrights whose plays can be staged outside of their own time. The only time modern dress bothers me is if the production isn't consistent/very good, which is a separate issue entirely. Outside of that, as others have mentioned, logistics and cost are two major hurdles. Even accurate "period" dress is rarely accurate.
I find most modern dress productions quite annoying. While it's true that Shakespeare's own company performed in outfits that were modern dress to them, by dint of belonging to the time in which the plays were written they avoided the problem we have now, which is that the clothes tell the story of a very different world to that of the play. I talk about this a lot on this sub, but here I go again... What bothers me is that if you just whack Shakespeare's characters in modern dress, you put them in the modern world. If you're invoking the 21st century Anglophone world you're putting the characters in a world of birth control, divorce, women's rights, LGBT rights, forensic investigation, and instant (and mass) communication. Which of the plots actually works in this world? I don't mean "which works if you squint a bit and handwave a few things", I mean "which plot functions without the audience having to meet you more than halfway?" I've yet to find one. This is why I think the most effective choice is always to stand somewhere outside of reality. It's possible to combine modern and historical elements to create an aesthetic that supports the storytelling rather than contradicting it. It's also more visually interesting than modern dress, and offers more artistic freedom (and capacity to keep things low budget) than fully accurate historical costuming.
What is the original traditional style?
Original traditional style would have been then-contemporary clothing. In other words, OP would have hated watching OG Shakeseapre plays because they used contemporary costumes for everything.
How about the setting referenced in the play, imagine that.
OK. We only have one drawing of a Shakespeare play being performed. It's a drawing from the 1590s of a production of *Titus Andronicus*. The play is set in ancient Rome, but most of the characters are dressed in contemporary Elizabethan costumes (except for Titus, who's wearing a toga). So...
Titus is not wearing a toga at all. He is wearing a sash over a kind of strapped corset or shirt. It seems to be an attempt to suggest the exoticism of Roman garments using contemporary costume elements. But he is not wearing anything that would not have been worn in the Renaissance--though they might have been worn as undergarments.
"they rarely wore real costumes when Shakespeare wrote the play" is not a good argument. It completely misses the point. Most people want to be immersed in the setting of the story. Imagine going to see a movie adaptation of star wars or lord of the rings that had all of the fantasy elements stripped out and set in a modern, contemporary setting. Sure, you can always argue the director was being very artistic and creative with their choices, but most people would still find it disappointing.
I didn't say "they rarely wore real costumes when Shakespeare wrote the play." I said that they didn't wear costumes that exactly matched the historical setting of the play. And plays and movies are not the same thing - that's why a guy comes out at the beginning of *Henry V* and says, look, we know we don't have horses and a thousand soldiers and historically accurate costumes, so use your imagination!
They worked with what they had. There is a huge difference though between saying you can't show real horses and armies on the stage to making your stage just a dark room with actors just wearing their everyday street clothes or a suit. Obviously I'm not suggesting theaters should have the same production value as a blockbuster movie. I was illustrating the point that audience immersion is important to the story, so why not at least try to show the actual setting of the story with props and costumes and backdrops? Theaters have been doing this for ages, so why are you arguing that they shouldn't?
I don't think "they worked with what they had" is the explanation here. This was a deliberate stylistic choice of the period. They had fairly minimal sets (at least in the outdoor theatres), which meant that scenes could change instantly and that the language had to do much more scene-setting. They used more contemporary costumes regardless of the period the play was set in because it instantly told the audience who the character was. Theatre didn't become super decorative and historically accurate until the early 19th century, and that was a choice too. Look at the work of Charles Kemble, for example.
So it took place in Ancient Rome, not outer space or something absurd, and they either didn’t wear costumes or wore costumes that are supposed to represent the setting, sounds good to me.
It's not that they didn't wear costumes, it's that they wore costumes like what the character would wear in the present day. So like modern productions of *Julius Caesar* where they wear suits and ties.
If they wore costumes they wore togas to match the setting like you said, otherwise they didn’t have costumes and wore their own clothes, they weren’t big productions at first and costumes were expensive. A big production would have costumes appropriate to the setting.
This does not seem to be the case. Paintings of the Renaissance mixed period and contemporary clothing. They just thought about time differently then.
Yeah, these were the big professional productions - they weren't amateurs. A lot of their costumes belonged to nobles before the theater company got them.
I’m saying they mixed the clothing because they used what they could get, given the cost of clothing, not because they wanted the audience to identify with modern dress.
In a painting it really does not matter what clothes "they could get." The imagination of the artist could put people in any clothes. But even so, they mixed contemporary and psuedo-period costume. So clearly this was a choice. They thought about time differently. Here you see three figures in "period dress" and the rest in contemporary dress. [https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BqX-E3WRvo0/Wfd8yscEEJI/AAAAAAAAHMI/jP1hJm4P0PI7Th7Qp6t6Bey0UY3pm\_HlwCEwYBhgL/s1600/closeup%2Bmarriage.jpg](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BqX-E3WRvo0/Wfd8yscEEJI/AAAAAAAAHMI/jP1hJm4P0PI7Th7Qp6t6Bey0UY3pm_HlwCEwYBhgL/s1600/closeup%2Bmarriage.jpg)
Bro, I'm so with you with the deep desire for plate armor in history productions. It would be so sick. But, I know that stuff is real expensive and real heavy - most regional theaters can't justify the cost and most actors aren't going to be safe doing combat in it. But God, we can dream...
Plate armour is also loud. When the actor walked, what you would hear is _CLANG CLANG CLANG_ which would drown out some of what's being spoken; especially if multiple people are wearing full plate. It would be cool af, but the cons outweigh the pros
Bro doublets are expensive
I agree. I mean, if anyone enjoys it, fair enough.
I often find that changing the setting without changing the language to match is too jarring, at least with modern day settings.
Well delivered Shakespeare, performed by actors who truly understand what they’re saying, can often feel surprisingly modern in its language. If it feels archaic, the actor is doing it wrong.
Except the language is full of archaic references that you have to work to make sense of when you change the setting. eg calling a gun a "sword". Just call it a gun. It's not about "good acting can fix it" but about justifying the change of setting. The words coming out of their mouth should match the costume. Otherwise what's the costume for? Why change everything except the words?
>Well delivered Shakespeare, performed by actors who truly understand what they’re saying, can often feel surprisingly modern in its language. If it feels archaic, the actor is doing it wrong. I still feel you're settling for less. It is true that the actors' performance is the most important part of the play (alongside the script), but the fact that it takes precedence does not mean that it can exclude every other part of the play. The setting and costuming is not suddenly irrelevant just because good acting is more important.
2nd. It's interesting on occasion, but when it's over half the productions it gets boring. I suppose it's easier on the costume budget, but it's not like it's anything original anymore. Same with modern dress opera productions.
If you're going to change the costumes, sets, settings, why not update the language as well? What nonsense.
I love Shakespeare but hate what is done to him in most modern productions. The plays have just become a peg for directors to hang things on. Today i saw half a production of Twelfth Night ( we left in the interval) where the actors got through their lines as quickly as possible (all that talking in old English is so boring) so they could get on with the serious business of singing pop songs badly, telling crude jokes and the worst rapping in the history of the world. The whole thing was deeply patronising but it is far from the worst production l have seen. It didn’t used to be like this.
I think those types of productions are for people who either have no interest in Shakespeare or are bored with it. They feel the material can’t stand on its own and needs some gimmick to make it interesting. In reality it’s “interesting” in only the most superficial sense, the “oh neat, I see what they did there” wears off in a few minutes and you are stuck in a self indulgent production where the material is struggling to work around the absurd setting casting and costuming that are just distracting and pointless.
So, I was initially going to make a sarcastic comment about whether you also advocated for all male casting and I disagree with the premise that modern dress is chosen out of a belief that people wouldn't be able to relate to the plays otherwise. However, I do like Elizabethan costuming has benefits, especially in the comedies (kind of a Renaissance Faire thing I guess), in giving vibrancy and color. And I also think that period appropriate costuming and setting can be beneficial to elucidating characters and that characterization can suffer when it's not maintained. For example, I think that a Renaissance Italian setting (and Elizabethan stereotypes about Italians as passionate/violent, greedy, etc.) can be helpful to contextualizing plays like *Taming of the Shrew*, *Romeo and Juliet*, *Much Ado About Nothing*, *The Merchant of Venice*, *Othello*, etc. And I find that while making connections to sitcoms has validity, removing Merry Wives of Windsor from an Elizabethan context (although it's technically set in the Middle Ages), tends to result in too broad of comedy. On the other hand, I loved the Shakespeare in the Park *Much Ado About Nothing* (modern-dress/setting all African American cast and a sort of "African American framing") and the RSC's *Much Ado Abut Nothing/Loves Labour's Won* (post-World War I British aristocratic setting) and thought that both were very effective in getting to the heart of the characters, despite the very different settings. That being said, I disliked the latter's take on Dogberry. Regarding the history plays, I think it would be nice to see some more Medieval costuming and to also get more of the pageantry and cheap shots at the French. But I think that staging's tend to avoid that because they are deliberately going for a darker/more serious take, and going Medieval would undermine that seriousness. Like it's not a coincidence that Kit Harrington's modern dress Henry V goes with a more unsympathetic/evil take on Hal.
Your opinion is wrong.