THE HISTORY OF SHAKESPEARE PRODUCTIONS

In order to understand the aesthetic stakes of screen adaptation, this book first examines the theatrical presentation of Shakespeare's plays from the Renaissance to the present. Over the centuries, theatre progressively introduced elements and techniques that foreshadowed (or were appropriated by) cinematic devices. Pictorial elements established a separation between the actors and the audience, and used focusing processes that had certain similarities to film narrative techniques. Several stages, both historical and in terms of aesthetics, took place in the transition between the plays performed on the Elizabethan stage and their screen adaptations. The Restoration marked the beginning of this slow transition by introducing the first pictorial elements into Shakespeare's plays. Then, the eighteenth-century stage not only introduced the aesthetic of spectacle and ‘tableau’, but also established a physical separation between actors and spectators. Finally, performances in the nineteenth century put extreme realism on the stage and developed the processes of focus and fast changes between different concomitant plots.

It is important to define what we mean by ‘realism’ before moving any further. In literature, theatre and cinema, two meanings of realism co-exist. One concerns the content of the work, i.e. the subject matter. In this case, the realist play, film or text aims at reconstructing a certain social background by emphasizing its everyday aspects and banishing any idealist fairy-tale extravaganza.