Michael Bogdanov (1938–2017)

A good, if bewildering book. Bogdanov is something of a legendary director, and his insights into the plays were eagerly sought out by me. He has been a vocal proponent of reinvigorating Shakespeare, of creating theatre that engages and challenges, rather than allowing the Bard to become merely a national icon, like the Eastern European folk dancers one sees at street carnivals, who are all of 15 and are the grandchildren of immigrants, speaking English their whole life, yet reenacting rituals without any context. As early as the '70s, Bodganov was making a name for himself as an iconoclast, vocally opposing the classical ideals of the BBC Shakespeare series in favour of his own theatrical explorations on rival channels.

There is much good about this book. In each chapter, Bogdanov suggests - often in as little as half a sentence - ways in which we can view the plays as relevant to the 20th and 21st centuries, even if it's just a fleeting suggestion of a different but relevant environment in which to set it. These ideas show how much can be taken from these works, although - as always - one must remember you can only set a classical play in, say, an airport waiting lounge, if you are willing to completely commit to the concept, and figure out how it is going to be pointful. Bogdanov also engages with the characters in a way that we sometimes forget when we read the plays in classrooms, focusing on what we see with our 21st century eyes as literary ideas, metaphor, simile, etc. Instead, he asks how these people were seen by Shakespeare and how they can be seen by us, and he seems to expect - wonderfully! - that we will have an easy time reading Shakespeare's text, which he quotes recklessly throughout.

This probably leads to one of my biggest issues with the book is that it doesn't seem to have a target audience in mind. This is, perhaps, fair. Bogdanov has some very leftist leanings and perhaps he is frustrated by more typical academic writings. In this sense, he has written a book that is at times even playful in its use of slang, even though I ultimately find this a letdown. Like so many opinion pieces online, the slang quickly dates and the communicative tone - that would make sense in speech - can be challenging to read on the page, which is why we tend to use more formal words and proper punctuation in text form! Not to mention that, as a twentysomething Australian, I often find his references or turns of phrase absolutely perplexing. This in itself is not cause for complaint, of course (I'm sure a book written in Nigeria would also use references I don't understand - that's my issue, not the Nigerians'), but this is combined with a sense that the book is both for neophytes and old-hands. Some chapters, particularly those on Shakespeare's tragedies, amount to little more than annotated plot synopses, reflections on the plays couched in cod-psychological analyses. Yet Bogdanov will then compare a character in one sentence to three other Shakespearean characters, without citing the plays in which they appear or how they fit. Again, it's his British-educated mind assuming that people have a widespread knowledge of the Bard. Luckily, I do, but I'm not sure the average reader can tell you from whence Alcibides or Richmond comes. (The grossest perpetrator of this is the - admittedly beautiful - chapter on "The Winter's Tale", which tells the plot of the play and asks a lot of questions about motivation, but provides few suggested answers.)

Bogdanov is at his best, unsurprisingly, in the chapters on the Histories. With Michael Pennington, he created the mammoth 24-hour performance of the Histories that can now be seen on DVD. He is suitably self-critical but also fascinated by these stories, and the ways we (or, rather, British subjects) can engage with them hundreds of years on. Again, this subject spends too much time excoriating reviewers for the sins of thirty years past, but what can you do?

Shakespeare's work is the pinnacle of world drama and thought, and Bogdanov is another Bardolater like the rest of us. His unique point-of-view is greatly appreciated, as is his willingness to remain outspoken. At the same time, this is not the book it could have been.… (más)

(Quelle horreur! I thought I had previously reviewed this... how remiss of me.)

A lot of bad things happened to the arts in the 1980s. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, gutted systems of education, the rise of television and what the UK called "video nasties", and - if you were director Michael Bogdanov - a belief that the great works of art such as Shakespeare were stagnating, in no small part due to the recently completed BBC Complete Works of Shakespeare, that he saw as being "the greatest disservice to Shakespeare in the last twenty-five years". (My opinions on that matter are more complicated, as I think there was a great need for traditional productions also - and many of those TV films are lovely - but that's not relevant.) Meanwhile, highly regarded actor Michael Pennington was bursting with ideas on interpreting the Bard's work, and facing some of the barriers we still face in the English-speaking world today. Major companies such as the (justifiably fêted) RSC had almost a monopoly on government grants and marketing shares, and the urban focus of the arts had essentially demolished the touring repertory companies that used to crawl across countries like the USA and UK in previous generations.

Bogdanov and Pennington combined to form a new concern - the English Shakespeare Company - that would ultimately produce a number of WS' histories, comedies, and tragedies. But it was the histories that were truly groundbreaking. Their original plan grew and grew, until the company was producing all eight of Shakespeare's prominent history plays - from Richard II to Richard III - in an ongoing cycle with a repertory cast and a beguiling conceit that moved the characters through England's history while commenting, sometimes subtly, sometimes not, on the nature of power and war. The complete production would be staged in parts (i.e. the audience returning to the theatre over several nights) and then in marathon productions. The "Wars of the Roses" would echo the similarly groundbreaking 1960s John Barton production but in a completely different way.

In this book - published soon after the English Shakespeare Company wound to an end - Pennington and Bogdanov share their diaries from the day they first conceived the idea, through the entire audacious experience. Their unfiltered thoughts are here on the process of applying for government grants, wooing investors, doing battle with producers and the media, auditions, rehearsals, spats among the theatre community in the UK, audience responses ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, and the vicissitudes of touring around the country and ultimately the world.

The book is fascinating for people like myself who have grown up in the theatre industry, but no doubt will appeal to many people with a love of Shakespeare and hopefully those with an interest in the arts in previous decades at all. Much of the details have changed but the arduous process of setting up a production still remains as arduous. Bogdanov and Pennington take no prisoners in their approach: the former having to navigate the complexities of wanting to stage a political production on your own merits while having to make sacrifices and sweet-talk the money; the latter treading the murky ground between being lead actor representing a troupe and also their boss at the same time. Awkward situations include a pay dispute that hits right when the company are the farthest from home, actors who unexpectedly don't show up when they're supposed to, the difficulties of obtaining culture-appropriate props while in other countries, and the intricacies of cast changes (once the show is renewed for another year and, inevitably, some cast members don't renew their contracts) - what do you do when a loyal and beloved actor wants a bigger role, but you would rather bring in an outsider, all while retaining the familial bond of a show?

Particularly affecting to me was the section on touring in Australia, as the artists visited my theatre (albeit long before I worked there) and no doubt liaised with performers and arts staff that I know, so it was touching to almost feel the connection through time. And the final week of production, during which an unexpected opportunity threw everything into chaos, is engaging and earnest, as the cast and crew deal in their own ways with letting go of something that has been such a part of their lives. (The reality in theatre, of course, is that you have to let go - and you're often happy to do so!) There are many theatre-makers who would still commit their lives to a work, but I increasingly encounter those my age who would not. "The show must go on" now includes a disclaimer "except for my honeymoon, grandmother's funeral, mild cold, etc", which shows how far we have come - sadly? I think so - from the days of the travelling players who knew the theatre was a calling, not simply a career. But many of the old guard remain in this story.

These fantastic productions are available on DVD, in a usually expensive box set that also contains some other performances and documentaries, and I recommend seeking it out. You'll get something like 21 hours of the history plays as well as the extras on top. There are quirks, particularly due to the nature of the filming situation (read the book!) which meant some actors were performing for the stage and others for the screen, but it's a moving and important work even thirty years on. (And incidentally, another Bogdanov work - [b:Shakespeare, The Director's Cut|21375382|Shakespeare, The Director's Cut|Michael Bogdanov|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1394326288s/21375382.jpg|15354356] - is worth checking out, my review is here.)

As with any book out of its time and place, this will play better to people in the arts who understand all of the references and struggles, but if you have an interest, I highly recommend. Is it flawed?
Well, perhaps inevitably. It would've been cool to hear more snippets from other people involved, since one suspects that there were more sides to some of the issues than we are told. But that's a minor development; Bogdanov in particular gets his point across, and fiercely! More than anything, it's a story of theatrical bravery and luck. In 2017, epic productions touring the world are more frequent, of course, although in my experience they often take on a somewhat rote nature after months on the road. Still, this tooth-and-nail narrative shows us the commitments artists are supposed to make for their work, and of how audiences came to appreciate and even perhaps love this complicated and challenging piece of theatre.… (más)

In the mid-eighties, leading stage actor Pennington and stage director Bogdanov came up with the idea of touring the U.K. performing Shakespeare's historical "Henry" plays, also known as "The War of the Roses" in consecutive order. It was an ambitious idea, especially as the two were not aligning themselves with either of the two major Shakespearean theatre companies that received the big grants, publicity and audiences. The two formed a theatre company one person at a time, wooing investors and actors to join.
For the next three years the company traveled the world performing in everything from tiny village theatres to the Old Vic to the Tokyo Globe to communist East Berlin. In this book, Pennington and Bogdanov take turns with the story of how they started the company, the contracts, the fights among actors, discovering new talent and all the hassles that went into moving forty people and their stage sets from country to country as they expanded their performances to include Richard III.… (más)