long story short: we finally saw it! after waiting in line for 21 hours we got in and had awesome seats (second row!). it was great. al pacino definitely stole the show. he played his role really well. the other actors/actresses were good too.
now the argument: i've never read the play before and arjun has all the lines memorized but he's never seen it performed. i thought the ending was sad and everyone was unhappy with their situation. the acting and body language and the lighting of the stage -- all of it made the ending seem dark. when the women forgave their men and returned their tokens of love (the rings) it did not seem like they were very happy at all to take the men back. everyone slowly walks off the stage one by one, leaving just jessica to cry over her father. how am i supposed to think only jessica and shylock were the unhappy ones at the end? now if i had read the play beforehand, i should think this is a happy ending. so here is where we argue... i think the ending is sad and he thinks the ending is happy. there is nothing wrong with reading into the body language of the actors and the stage props and the lighting to add to the experience. it didn't FEEL happy. i think because he's read the play so many times before that no matter what i say he's stuck on his preconceived notions. everyone perceives things differently and it's just so frustrating that he won't even try to understand it from my POV. i feel like i have to stubbornly defend my position; i'm completely open to seeing how it could be a happy ending, but there's nothing WRONG with taking into account how the players portrayed it. did we even see the same play last night??
I believe Shakespeare can be interpreted in many ways, and each actor's interpretation can be different. So although I wasn't there, I believe it could have been a sad ending, because as you said, emotion runs beyond the scope of the story, but penetrates into the ambiance, the atmosphere, the aura so to speak surrounding the actors, the stage, and even the audience. I think in some ways you had a more complete theater experience, because you didn't just get a story, you got an emotion. And that is something that is best portrayed live, and something that is interpreted, and therefore different in every encounter. The story is the same, and when read in text always ends the same. But people change. And the same actor's next performance may very well seem happy at the end. The funny thing is that in many ways, you two did NOT see the same play last night.
ReplyDeletethanks for the support, allan. you're probably right. we really didn't see the same play.
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