I’m taking my Elizabethan Shakespeare students (E. 3140) to the Brooklyn Academy of Music next week to see a play with a strange relationship to Elizabethan England. Akira Kurosawa, the great post-war Japanese film-maker, made the film “Throne of Blood” in 1957, by transposing Shakespeare’s plot to medieval Japan. It’s a brilliant, stark, beautiful , haunting film, supposedly a favorite of T. S. Eliot’s.
Link to IMDB entry on Throne of Blood (the film)
The stage play we’ll see next week has a more recent history: it’s based on the film, not directly on Shakespeare’s play, and debuted last summer at the Oregon Shakespeare festival in Ashland (which is a great West-Coast Shakespeare festival). It’s traveling to Brooklyn for next weekend only.
Link to BAM entry on Throne of Blood (the play)
If anyone wants to join us, let me know & I’ll see if I have an extra ticket. Or I think there are some seats still available!
I saw “Throne of Blood” in a Shakespeare on Film course in college. It was really interesting to see “Macbeth” recast in medieval Japan and how the culture influences the story. The subtitles could be a bit distracting, but it was a cool film. I think it would be amazing on stage. I definitely think your students are in for a treat.
A few friends of mine saw it in Ashland and didn’t love it. (Not sure why — I only caught it on a Facebook status.) But I’d love to see for myself. Let me know if you have an extra ticket!