In my own practice with Shakespeare, I originally embraced modern dress.  This was done for several reasons including budget.

Firstly as actual “original practice”, Shakespeare’s actors wore modern dress – they happened to be Elizabethan.  Shakespeare’s theatre was written for his modern audience.  Julius Caesar and Titus Andronicus where presented as a Rome much like modern Elizabethan and Jacobean London complete with reference to modern technology like cannons.  This was easily recognisable to his audience.

The second reason was audience clarity.  In order to give the audience a direct and immediate connection or recognition to the characters, we strived to present them in a recognizable way.  How would Julius Caesar and Brutus dress or behave in our world.  Who would they be if we looked around us?

The third reason was artistic.  If these plays are immortal, we have to prove it each time out.  By modernising the wardrobe and settings, we are in a position to directly challenge the belief of Shakespeare for all ages and through this challenge find the truths he has embedded in the text.

One has to be careful in modern dress.  There is a potential for limiting the play rather than supporting it.  A prime example is the recent Timon of Athens at the National Theatre.  Timon’s descent was wonderfully modern with him living homeless under a bridge (and a great performance!).  The poet, painter, merchant and Apemantus were based strongly on modern British celebrities.  Rather than helping lift the piece to us, however, this choice limited the scope.  The characters became to close to Stephen Fry and J K Rowling thus taking us out of the play to our now, rather than deepening our understanding of it.   The idea of Apemantus as an aging rocker is a good one and was extremly well played by the artist, but may have been more successful had it not been so precise to an individual in popular culture thereby allowing the character to exist to the plays needs him to, rather how our society needs him to, and allowing the audience make up their own minds.

In my own work, we had similar discussions around Julius Caesar done shortly after President Bush’s election and just before a provincial election.  Through modern dress and power suits we were able to respond to the modern world and explore the similarities the play and us.  Shakespeare’s Rome however is not my Ottawa or Victoria or my neighbors’ Washington.  They have similarities but also differences.  Putting Caesar in cowboy boots would have brought up the question of “how can the sky rain fire” in Washington rather than allowing the sky to rain fire in ancient Rome and allow the play to progress.

The worlds created in Shakespeare’s plays are not our own.  They have many similarities but also many differences.  In order to allow the difference such ritual murder in Titus Andronicus or the existence of fairies in a Midsummer Night’s Dream, an approach could be “this is similar to…” rather than “ This is…”.