International Theatre Conference: Directing and Authorship in Western Drama

Panel Three
Friday, October 24th, 2-3:45pm

Dr. John Lingard, U of Cape Breton
Abstract: Travesty or Interpretation: Some Thoughts on Shakespeare and Ibsen Productions by Ingmar Bergman, Svein Sturla Hungnes, and Robert Lepage

At what point does a director's interpretation become a travesty? This paper three late 20th c. productions that, in my opinion, offered the audience travestied, distorted version of classic plays: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Robert Lepage), The Woman from the Sea (Svein Sturla Hungnes), and Hamelt (Ingmar Bergman). My focus will be on the foregrounding of visual stage effect at the expense of the text, and the imposition of a nihilist or absurdist vision on the clearly redempive vision of the dramatists. I would like to conclude my paper with a brief description of a New Zealand production of Hedda Gabler (Ingmar Bergman)where interpretation illuminated the play instead of distorting it.