So Much Funnier If You Understand It
I went to go see HP’s production of The Comedy of Errors tonight, a play that I actually saw last fall here at UTD as a requirement for my Exploration of the Arts class. As strange and weird as the UTD version was, I definitely understood the story from it, so that helped going into seeing the one at HP. Last year when I went to go see The Tempest, I had a similar preexisting knowledge of the play (we had to read the play in my Humanities class the previous fall), and two years before that when I was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I had read the play all of 4 years before in 8th grade. My Shakespeare knowledge manages to just keep up with where it needs to be.
Anyway, jumping back to last year again, while I enjoyed The Tempest at HP, most of what I understood came from remembering the play, not understand what they were actually saying on stage. I went into tonight feeling like the same thing was probably going to happen (although with the UTD version, I had no clue how “canon” that one was), but it surprisingly wasn’t that noticeable. Sure, there were a few places where I didn’t really follow what they said, but I understood the entire play fine. There were even a couple scenes that should have gotten a much bigger response out of the audience because if you understand what’s going on, it’s hilarious. I guess that shows most of the people there didn’t were in the same boat as me last year where you (hopefully) enjoy it for the story that you already know, but you never really understand what it is that they’re saying on the stage.