New York Neo-Classical Ensemble - Rant - Redundancy Edition

Hi, we're the New York Neo-Classical Ensemble.

We're a theatre company in New York City.

Want to contact us? Have Questions?
E-Mail info@newyorkneo.org.

We're just beginning production on our 2010 season: AS YOU LIKE IT and ROMEO AND JULIET/IMPROVISED.

We hope you'll come out and see our work!

Our other website is newyorkneo.org

This site is generally updated by Stephen Stout, Artistic Director of NYNEO. Other people contribute as well, they'll typically sign their post with their name.

"Positive action means that the actor/character focuses on the success of the enterprise rather than allowing the fear of failure to enter the mind or consciousness – every character plays to win at every moment....

The inclination of creativity – both on stage and in life – is to celebrate and to praise life and existence.....

With positive action, the characters hang on not only to the hope but also to the belief that they will get what they want. When they fail to achieve their goals, the effect will be psychologically and emotionally devastating; when they achieve their goals, the effect will be miraculous, exhilarating, and transporting."

- Louis Scheeder, Neo-Classical Training, Training of the American Actor.

Rant - Redundancy Edition - Shakespeare’s “Dark” Comedies

A few years ago, James Urbaniak wrote on his blog about how he was sick of reading how Cymbeline was “rarely produced” in every review of every Cymbeline production. That at one point the play wasn’t performed regularly, but now it has entered into the common repertory. (Off the top of my head I figure Henry VIII, Merry Wives, Troilus and Cressida, and Timon of Athens would ACTUALLY be rarely produced).

I am similarly siiiiick of reading about how a director has bravely brought out the “icy depths” or “darkness” in the Comedies. ALL OF THE COMEDIES (except for Comedy of Errors which I defy you to laugh at sans elaborate physical business) HAVE DARKNESS WRITTEN INTO THEM. It’s there. It’s so painfully obvious that the darkness is an essential, irrefutable ASPECT of each of the texts. Just because the amateur and educational performance tradition of the comedies is to strip or play down all of the sharper/darker edges doesn’t mean that Shakespeare didn’t write them in in a plainly obvious fashion. A director isn’t innovative simply by allowing the darker aspects to have a prominent place in the production. All good comedy has serious stakes and underpinnings. Acknowledging and utilizing them is essential to properly performing the plays.

In fact, it has become accepted that the comedies are more psychologically and emotionally complex to such a degree that I’m more surprised when I see a high-profile production that DOESN’T acknowledge the darkness a la last summer’s Twelfth Night in Central Park.

ANNNNND breathe.

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