'Venus & Adonis' at Shakespeare's Globe, London
Better critics than I can tell you about the amazing Isango Ensemble performance of Shakespeare's poem 'Venus & Adonis', performed in a mix of six languages and featuring magnificent singing and music. But one thing I particularly noted about the story was the reversal to our modern gender-based roles in a love story.
Modern music, TV and films are filled with the story of:
boy meets girl, girl isn't interested, boy keeps pestering and following girl (because surely she can't actually mean 'no', she's just playing hard-to-get), and eventually girl gives in - or rather realises the folly of her ways and boys true love.
But in Venus & Adonis these roles are reversed. It's Venus who keeps harrasing Adonis when he refuses her romantic advances. And, interestingly, it has a very difference result to our modern stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment