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Linux Enhances Shakespeare

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up dept.

marXian writes "Opening in Norwich UK this week and subsequently visiting Cambridge is makb3th from theatre company pirateutopia.org. The show is very much Linux-powered using aalib, XDirectFB, VLC and more to set the piece (an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth) on an off-shore data haven." Allright, pick your jaw up off the floor ;)

5 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Public domain? by GQuon · · Score: 2, Informative

    No way!
    Public domain!

    non?

    --
    Irene KHAAAAAAN!
  2. MacBeth, not Hamlet by Jan-Pascal · · Score: 5, Informative

    Go re-read your Shakespeare. The "to be or not to be" quote is from Hamlet, not from MacBeth.

  3. Re:Public Domain by Mr.+Bad+Example · · Score: 4, Informative

    I imagine the content would stay truer to the originals

    The problem there is that there really aren't any definitive versions of the originals--playwrights back in the day used to give their work over to professional copyists who would introduce their own errors, for one thing. For another, a lot of the plays weren't actually published until after Shakespeare's death, and a lot of those were taken from different performing copies. Ask just about any English literature major about the various quartos and folios and so on.

    I know, I know...a Shakespeare geek is me.

  4. On a related note... by Mr.+Bad+Example · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've always liked to quote the following when people ask me what software development is like:

    "...we but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague the inventor..."

    --Macbeth, Act I, Scene VII

  5. [Flash] should have died hereafter... by dr00g911 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Looks ambitious, and is a great context for adapting Macbeth.

    That said, Macbeth is my most favorite of the Bard's plays, and also the play of his that I've acted in 3 productions of... I know the material rather well, you could say.

    One of the charms of The Scottish Play is its inherent level of accessibility to just about anyone. The Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll (well, witchy, at any rate) factor. The core characters are tragically flawed at a very base level -- human nature: pride, jealousy, lust, ambition, greed and trust. If acted and directed well, the language acts as less of a barrier for entry to this play than many of Shakespeare's works.

    Judging by the creative direction choices made in the *cough* "trailer*, production sketches, etc. -- it seems that they're purposefully trying to make it as 1337 and "insider" as possible. Problem is, they really don't seem to get the 1337 part. So, you have a bit of a catch-22. The viewer has to be both 1) very familiar with Macbeth to get the in-joke and 2) a 31337 h4x0r to get the context. Or completely fucked up.

    The short of it: if the same creative team is responsible for the production as was responsible for the most abhorrent piece of flash drivel I've seen in a year, I'd sooner volunteer for a full upper GI exploratory than sit through 2 hours of that kind of pain.

    That's not to say that tech and Shakespeare can't mate well. Apple has a feature about another version of Macbeth done in the same spirit -- but much less... well... full of itself?

    Definitely worth a look if the fusion of tech and theatre intrigues you.