Yes, the Wooster Group did things differently 30 years ago. But their recent productions of Williams and Pinter (and O'Neill directed by Richard Maxwell) used the texts uncut and unaltered. Pinter's estate did not allow them to do additional runs of The Room, but they could not shut it down because it was faithful to the text.
Bogart has been using whole texts since the 80s. South Pacific, The Women, Miss Julie, Private Lives, all used full texts.
Shelton though is not even fishing in this pond. His work is not investigating the original. The cuts are not for meaning (like the Wooster Group shows of the 70s) but rather convenience. And he tried to trade off the name recognition of the playwright and play. When the Wooster Group did sample existing works, they never represented to the public that they were doing the play. i.e. audiences were buying tickets to LSD Part 1 not to The Crucible. (Though it is still by far the best production of The Crucible that I have ever seen.) |
