Timeless Shakespeare Sets

PJ PAPARELLI: And I think nowadays—you know, there was this period of time where everyone was modernizing Shakespeare—and I think now, and I've found myself as a director creating a more timeless world now. One that feels half in the past, half in the present. And I think that's along the lines of more what Shakespeare was doing.

In Shakespeare's time, the costumes that were used, everything was contemporary, although the references were all in the past. So it's actually this sort of odd hybrid that's sort of coming out of modern Shakespeare now. For instance, Twelfth Night is set in a classical time that's inspired from the Renaissance, but you couldn't put your finger on what period it is. It just feels antiquated and I think that's good. I think that's great—it feels distant, it feels far away as sort of Elizabethans would have felt about Illyria. You know that Illyria was this sort of far-away place that most of them wouldn't have traveled to. And so trying to create in a way the original circumstances that sort of were on Shakespeare's mind as he was writing.

And I think that is something that is sort of permeating into theater now, and I think even more so, productions have gotten simpler. Just the base qualities are coming out more, just base things that you need to do a play. I mean there's a much more pared-down look to Shakespeare, I think, nowadays than say, even ten years ago. In fact, the Romeo and Juliet I just did at the Folger last year—we used no set, basically just some scaffolding around and really let the Elizabethan Theatre sort of exist, and as a way to kind of let the language sing in the space and do all the painting. So, I don't know, I kind of tend to think that there's this drive now to simplify it and hopefully let the language speak for itself.