Pettigrew priggishly postulated ;

"Talk about mis-casting. Talk about lazy set, costume and lighting design."

Well, please do- but do so in the review section. I would be interested to read a considered piece on why you thought this was a travesty, and where you think it could have been improved.

Who knows; perhaps even the director and production team could learn from your comments. However what you've written above helps no-one and comes off sounding like a bleat.

I too have heard (from a source whose judgement I trust implicitly) that this production was very much a case of style over substance, but as I have not the time nor inclination to see the show myself I would like to read a less emotive response correctly placed in the right category.

Also, I don't think your comments should have been moderated down. This moderation lark is not productive.

Eliot McCann

Hi Bass Guy,

See my new review in the proper forum.

AW

I had no idea that art offered salvation from madness. I was of the opinion that most artists are, themselves, quite deranged.

Doug Wright, Quills

Bugger, struggling to post it via computer I'm currently on. Grr.

I had no idea that art offered salvation from madness. I was of the opinion that most artists are, themselves, quite deranged.

Doug Wright, Quills

Hee hee hee hee heee... I'm waitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.... ;-P

I had no idea that art offered salvation from madness. I was of the opinion that most artists are, themselves, quite deranged.

Doug Wright, Quills

Yes because Shakespeare would surely not have appreciated shock value in his plays. Its not like he meant for all those double entendres to accidentally slip themselves into his text, nor that he has plays in which children are served to their mothers in pie form. Nice that young people have decided they no longer need to read between the lines.

aha how many other lowbudget, non-school productions can you compare it too Ben? You can't be too harsh.

We suspect a school group, but if that is the case, then that only makes them more valid considering that there have been a couple of school groups see the play.

Disclaimer - I have not seen the play and am therefor not making a judgement on the production. I am simply clarifying the recent flood of posts to this thread.

Absit invidia (and DFT )

Jeff Watkins
SN Profile
Photographer
Community Spirit

yes we are a school group what are you meant to write on this page if it isn't meant to be about opinions? Don't listen to most of the kids though, they wrote that stuff to get laughs from their mates. If you were insulted, please don't be, I think we just got our expectations really high because we didn't know what to expect (I hope that makes sense) and when it wasn't like what they expected, it was all of a sudden "terrible"; when it really wasn't.

P.S. Some of the kids who wrote "reviews" didn't even see the performance.

I can confirm that posts have all the indications (behind the scenes) of coming from a number of workstations of a single school server.

Absit invidia (and DFT )

Jeff Watkins
SN Profile
Photographer
Community Spirit

Garreth, I really hope I didn't insult you. We're just a bunch of typical kids. My mates and I are a lot braver over the internet and a couple of us were a little too brave... but can you please explain the context behind your play, eg. the era or time setting, it would be much appreciated. Thanks a lot. I really enjoyed the night and it got me out of homework Hope to see bigger and better things from you in the future.

Not insulted at all Mr Stevens. I have a degree in education and am not so long out of high school myself, I know exactly what happens when people start jumping on band wagons to impress their mates.

Alot of your angst over the production seems to stem from the production not having a clearly defined "era". I can assure you that this ambivalance towards time setting is completely diliberate on my part. I would ask you why you feel it needed to have a specific time period, why can't it just be at an other place and at an other time?

I think you are right when you speculate that many of the people (adults included) who didn't like my production came to it with expectations and preconceptions.

I stand by all of my artistic decisions as being the right ones. If you go to the review section of this site and find the Macbeth thread (http://www.theatre.asn.au/theatre_reviews/macbeth_by_grads) you will also get to see some very different but very valid opinions about the show.

In short, Mr Steven, I think I managed to achieve exactly what I stated I wanted to achieve and that was to not produce a mediocre Macbeth. Whether you loved it or hated it, the most important thing is people walked away thinking about it having been affected by it.

There is alot of theory behind what I did and I was really experimenting with it, to see what would happen if...
I don't believe you need to know any of that theory as an audience member. The theory in practise should speak for itself, as Brecht liked to say "The proof of the pudding is in the eating".

However, seeing as you are a student and you seem to be reasonably interested in the decisions I have made, then I would point you in the direction of the following practitioners:

Bertolt Brecht
Howard Barker
Tadashi Suzuki
Michael Chekhov
Augusto Boal
Harold Pinter
David Mamet
Antonin Artaud

And then specifically on Shakespeare you should look at; any publication coming out of Shakespeare's globe; the work being done by David and Ben Crystal; Peter Hall's Exposed by the Mask; Mastering Shakespeare by Scott Kaiser and any other text on modern Shakespeare production you can find. Oh and any books by Patsy Rodenberg and Cecily Berry are brilliant.

I don't think any of this is necessary in order to understand my productions but it is necessary to get a really good insight into what I am thinking.

I guess what I am saying overall Mr Stevens is this; Since I was 15, I have been trained by people who have direct connections to the Berlinner Ensemble; others who have performed, studied and trained at the Globe; I have read voraciously all the theoretical books I can lay my hands on; through numerous productions as an actor at both professional and community level I have sort to put these theories into practice; as a director I have had the balls to experiment with and work my audiences and actors; I have with two colleagues created my own theatre company, who had the audacity to do something as wild as create free outdoor Shakespeare at ellenbrook amphitheatre, so that everyone can afford to come and see it and in spite of all this I still can't tell you how Shakespeare SHOULD be done. I have some theories, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. I'm 24 now and I figure I have a good 80 years worth of learning still to do. The one thing I have learnt for certain is, never walk into a production with any expectations. Allow the production to carry you and forget what you think you know about the form of theatre you are watching. In the words of a great man (or alien really) "You must unlearn what you have learned" only then can you allow your experience to be free of the dogmatic irritation of prior knowledge.

You are totally right mate, I feel silly for attending with "expectations" and although I have different attitudes towards setting as you, I am so glad that I can now understand your views 100% more than I did before, and they are extremely valid. Cheers!

I’ve read your post and I just want to say I think it's great you are experimenting with Macbeth. It’s really good especially as a young and aspiring director that you are experimenting with in this case the works of Shakespeare. I think that it's important that the new generation of actors and directors step away from stereotypical performances (that we often think we have to stick with) in order to create new and better ideas. Like you said your only 24 and you still need about 80 years of experience. It’s important that you grow, be creative and make mistakes in order to become great and one day make something brilliant. Unfortunately it’s hard when you work on something as popular as Macbeth because people are always going to have expectations of how they expect the play to be presented. I also have to agree that some aspects of the play weren’t done to the best of their ability. Although I do hope you continue experimenting and creating your own ideas and techniques in productions because, it’s those people who are different and who step over the lines that become great and become the well known artists. I would also like to say I like the list of practitioners you have made as they are all good examples of people who have tried to look at different aspects of theatre and acting. lastly I would just like to say thankyou. You have reminded me that it’s good to allow change and creativity and also to have an open mind when ever you plan to see a show. Thankyou.

Actually, most of us are from the same school... we got into drama the next day and a couple of us went a bit far as we tried to get cheap laughs from our mates...

Again, I wish to point out that I have not seen the show so cannot make any assessment. I am however able to vaguely identify the source of posts. Ben you are correct. This latest bout of posts are actually from (primarially) two sources only.

Absit invidia (and DFT )

Jeff Watkins
SN Profile
Photographer
Community Spirit

How do you guys trace these sources. And you probably don't need to be told that you are right, but you are. That's almost creepy ahaha but seriously, how do you do it?

It's not at all creepy. Labrug (and a few others here, including myself) have backend access to this site in order to maintain peace and order. As such those with backend access see the logs of all the posts made; logs include information such as time of day, etc and IP address. Every website in the world logs IP addresses and is a common way of understanding where visitors come from, how long they stay, what they view, and what they post. Comparing logs/IP addresses to the posts on this thread, Labrug was able to determine that the posts were commonly from a particular IP.

This is information though, not accessible to 99% of the users of this site, nor is the information shared with anyone other than those specifically given the task to view it.

We often use IP information to figure out if the site is being hit by a particular spammer or troll. Otherwise, the info just sits there to provide general info about the usage of the site for the webmaster's purposes and statistics.

Your source for handmade shadow puppets at
Puppets in Melbourne

Aha, I didn't mean creepy in a paedofile way if that is the way you saw it. I just reckon that's cool how you have omniscent (I think thats the right word, correct me if not) power on the website.

You both need to relax ok? I'm only a 15 year old kid and you probably care as much about what I have to say than you do about what the other has to say, but there is no need to start throwing insults at eachother, you sound like hormonal girls that I used to go to school with (thought I would throw that in just for irony ) But seriously, both of you need to mature-up a notch and accept EVERYONE'S opinion whether it's reliable or not.