In 2009 after Mad Duck’s Coriolanus, I put producing and directing Shakespeare aside in order to pursue other work in new practices including large theatre, new play and translation development and multi-disciplinary work. The remarkable discovery was that my work on Shakespeare had greatly prepared me for work in all these forms.

There is very little in modern playwriting that Shakespeare did not already engage in.  His work embraces a gritty realism (the murderers in Richard III and Macbeth, the soldiers around the camp fires in Henry V), absurdism (Comedy of Errors), flights of fantasy and magic (The Tempest), a non –realistic approach to Time/Space (Hamlet) and real time approach to time space (The Tempest), High Drama right next to Low Comedy (The Tempest again), poetic and emotional character perspectives (Lear), meta theatrics (pretty much all of them), social commentary (Coriolanus) and character perspectives.  In short, the sheer theatricality of his work engages in almost every theatrical devise with the possible exception of non-linear narrative.  As the Elizabethans still lived in a world of metaphor Shakespeare’s expressions of life and living takes many forms.As a director the material is suited to wonderful blend of realistic or method work and conceptual design work.  Like Opera, the poetry inspires large imagery that can be woven through the works without detracting from the text itself.

It is impossible as an artist to approach Shakespeare through any other lens but his or her own.  We don’t know enough about the Elizabethan/ Jacobean’s performance practices to do anything but make educated guesses.  As a result a certain amount of translation has already been done as we apply our own perspectives to the material (how far we wish to go in that direction is up to us as the artists).  It is similar to Translation where a piece will invariably be of the time of its translation simply because the translator is of that “now” and will be affected in their thinking by their current society and the events surrounding them no matter how faithful they are trying to be to the source.

Simply by telling a story, I am doing so in a modern Canadian voice. I am a Canadian.  I was born and raised in Canada. My perspectives, values, questions, fears, concerns, etc. are informed by the environment I was raised in and the world that surround me as are my inspirations.   As a result, no matter what I do, it will be in a Canadian voice and of the time I am working on it.  With Mad Duck our production of Julius Caesar was heavily influenced by the American election, Titus Andronicus by the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars and Coriolanus in an attempt to understand the right wing militaristic side of society and use of mob mentality in politics.  All these issues were constantly in the media, spoken about on the bus or in coffee shops and unavoidable in daily life.

When we think of teenagers in love we will automatically apply them to our teenage experiences and those of the young ones around us.  The same is true of all the relashonships.  Fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, lords and servants will all be understood through our own perspectives as we cannot actually see them any other way.In other words Shakespeare had his wars and politics but we have unfortunately have our inescapable own.  He has character relationships of his own society and we have ours. And, as we don’t live in isolation, they will affect our perspectives as designers, actors and directors even if we are attempting the most traditional of productions.

The original practises of the bare stage, the still evolving language of the period and the verse and poetry are unique in lending themselves to interpretation.  As a result, the director/ interpreter is potentially better able to address the issues of now immediately through the metaphor than an new work trapped in a several year development process or a play limited by specific setting, location and language that leave so many great plays as young as a few years restricted to a specific period of time.

Jack Paterson

PS: Don’t worry New Works – I will be defending you too soon!