Wednesday, May 12, 2010

the Beatles perform Shakespeare, in colour



How great is this?! This clip is The Beatles performing the skit from "Midsummer Night's Dream". I love this clip, I think they do a great job of being goofy and funny and bringing Shakespeare to life in an accessible way. The sound quality is a little lacking, which makes the crowd sometimes too loud to hear the play, but this version of it has been digitally restored so it's cleaner sounding than some of the others.

Some questions I have: Do you think the Beatles do a fair job of bringing this part of the play to life? Compared to some more traditional versions, does this one do Shakespeare justice? What is the effect of the audience's participation? By reacting to the crowd, they do occassionally deviate from Shakespearean text, does that lessen the effect? Also, Shakespeare's plays always had men performing as female characters. Does John Lennon do a good Thisbe? Is it too silly?

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