Davd Farr vs Michael Billington
David Farr replies to Billington.
In the Guardian on September 8, Michael Billington Re: David Farr’s Julius Caesar, at the Lyric Hammersmith (where he is now artistic director)felt that the use of modern dress ignored “the play’s roots in Elizabethan politics”, and that comparing Caesar’s world to that of an ex-Soviet republic was a “shaky parallel”.
He has a nice riposte:
“…In approaching a Shakespeare play I immerse myself in its language, and move towards an imaginative world that might best express my interpretation of that story. I have set Shakespeare in 1950s America, Samurai Japan, a crumbling English country house and now in an ex-Soviet republic. The aim, in each case, is to illuminate the play, to render it clear, urgent and exciting.
Billington finds a director’s obsession with using the modern world tiresome. For me, by contrast, the really cliched safety zone of Shakespearean production is that which sets the play somewhere in the early 20th century, preferably in England with vaguely “period” costumes. This type of production lacks specificity, encourages woolly acting and smacks of what I can only call “theatrey-ness”. It instils in me a quiet longing for death…”
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About me
I'm a playwright and investment analyst. I have a broad range of interests: food, gardening, innovation & intellectual property, sustainability, architecture & design, writing and the arts. I sit on the board of Talawa Theatre Company and advise a CIS investment trust on socially responsible investments.
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Recent Work
Recent plays include, for theatre: Nakamitsu, Yellow Gentlemen, Lost in Peru, Lemon Love. For radio: Places in Between (R4), Patent Breaking Life Saving (WS).
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Nakamitsu
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Yellow Gentlemen
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