brick wall #723

Well, at least the show nights for this week begin today. Much, much, much looking forward to The Revenger's Tragedy at Olivier/ National tonight.

Really glad I started early last week - in between other parts of research - to search and inquire about Gielgud and Olivier scripts; found out that much sooner that - as far as most productions and especially most Shakespeare productions - almost none survive, or at least are here. (No Gielgud, two Olivier - though, as near as I can tell, neither a 'major' production.) There are his three 'big' Shakespeare film scripts, but what I've been trying to focus on is stage productions, and film would likely open my project to a perhaps unmanageable scope.

Also, running across information that there were a lot of Shakespeare burlesque productions in the 1800s, and am not sure what this does for the Irving studies part of my project; don't really have time now to go back and research that new piece of info.

Major problem is I wanted to look for what was the continuity or through-line, and Irving/ Gielgud & Olivier/ Now might've provided it. To the best of my knowledge there was no other major period of staging between Irving and the next - Gielgud came quickly following anyway - as far as major actors/ actor-manager producer-directors are concerned. It seems that an entirely different system came to being during the last third to half of Olivier's career as far as this field goes - even the RSC, perhaps the most influential venue worldwide, though having its star directors and star stars, seems largely more a corporate project.

Going to read some articles and such on how humor functions in Shakespeare tomorrow (which I need to do) while thinking/ fretting about what to do next. Obviously should - or at least must - come up with something + should be receiving some advice soon.

Anyway!

Figuring out all the bells and whistles of my camera finally. B&W shots, widescreen, color enhancements - perhaps I'll get some better photos!