Bioshock VS Jacobean Theatre

I don’t often bother linking to theatre writing here for two reasons:

1) The limited number of people interested in such dross already know exactly where to find it.

2) Despite the fact that I enjoy it more than pretty much anything else I do, I feel a slight pang of shame every time I write anything about local theatre. I think it’s just about the most cliche, “bad/failed writer” activity possible.

That said, this article is interesting for reasons quite removed from the usual “intimacy of theatre” load, and quite in spite of my mediocre abilities. In it, Director Scott Roberts talks about his current mount of The Duchess of Malfi, where he draws aesthetic influences from comic books and–God’s teeth!–videogames. Beyond the nerd explosion that happened in my brain when I found out about the confluence of Jacobean theatre, Big Daddies and Frank Miller, I thought it was very cool that working artists–however small-time–saw no distinction between pop culture and the canon. Basically, their position is that it’s impossible for us to appreciate classic works as they were intended, because we’re so far removed from the original context. So rather than updating the work itself in a kitschy or banal way, they’ve opted to update the reference frame instead. This wouldn’t work for everything, obviously, but it’s still a refreshing perspective.