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PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. By William Shakespeare. Directed by Kathryn Hunter. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. London. 13 August 2005.
CHILDREN OF THE SEA. By Toby Gough. Directed by Toby Gough. Theatrum Botanicum at the Royal Botanical Gardens. Edinburgh. 25 August 2005.
Shakespearean productions in modern times often are transported to recent periods and contemporary locations in order to relate to current events, conditions, attitudes, problems, and values. Some of these productions succeed in establishing relevance for a modern audience who may feel distanced from the sixteenth-century playwright. However, the risk in this style of presentation is that it limits interpretation and assumes the audience cannot make connections independently.
In program notes for the Globe Theatre's production of Richard II (performed in 2003), Tim Carroll addressed this problem as he discussed the modern relevance of Shakespeare's work and the interpretive role of the audience:
I know from past seasons that people make all sorts of fascinating connections-and are all the more excited for having discovered them for themselves. Don't get me wrong: I've done lots of modern dress Shakespeare and will again, but never, I hope, in order to establish his "relevance." Does anyone really think he needs that?
Contrary to the aforementioned tradition of updating Shakespeare to modern times, Carroll describes another tradition in Shakespearean production-depicting his works as transcending particular historical areas.
Two productions in 2005 showcased these two contrasting traditions. The Globe Theatre produced Shakespeare's Pericles in London, and Theatrum Botanicum staged Children of the Sea, a retelling of Pericles, at the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe. Like the biblical story of Job, Shakespeare's Pericles tells the story of a man who is punished as he survives hardship after hardship, mostly at the hands of the sea. At the time of the Globe and Theatrum Botanicum's productions, Pericles had become a story relevant to modern audiences. As both the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Globe season were packing in spectators from around the world, Hurricane Katrina devastated over 90,000 square miles of the southern United States. Less than a month later, Hurricane Rita struck this region again. In 2004, a tsunami with walls of water over thirty-five feet high, moving at five hundred miles per hour, pummeled South Asia on 26 December: 283,000 people died....