Abstract

After the Restoration, productions of Shakespearean plays have changed dramatically due to the shift of theatrical convention. Owing greatly to the newly introduced stage mechanics and devices, the dramas came to be presented on stage as visual performance and there appeared the necessity of visualization of Shakespearean plays, which had been of little concern in Elizabethan age. But throughout the 18th and the 19th centuries, priorities were given to the demands of the production sides, not to the Shakespearean texts themselves. Texts were cut and reduced so that the spectacular device would look beautiful. And also they were adapted arbitrarily so that the leading actor-managers could show off their talent. Until the 20th century, exploration and realization of Shakespearean performance as a visual representation of texts did not occur, except for few. Under such conditions, the production of Hamlet by Moscow Art Theatre was remarkable, because it was one of the earliest attempt to visualize the Shakespearean text itself. Co-director and designer Gordon Craig thought that, in simplifying the design, the collision of the visual images with the verbal images of Shakespearean text, which was common in the previous period, could be avoided. The production itself is said to be a failure from the artistic point of view because of the limitation of the stage technologies of the age. But credit should be given to this production as the earliest innovative experiment of modernizing the Shakespearean productions