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December 12th, 2010
11:38 pm - Macbeth
I just saw Patrick Stewart as Macbeth on BBC4. I came online to urge you to watch it on the BBC website, but it doesn't seem to be available. I almost missed it myself. 7.30 on a Sunday evening? I only just got back from walking in the Peaks, and flicked the telly on and it was just starting.
Shot on location in the mysterious underground world of Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, the film is set in an undefined and threatening central European world. Immediate and visceral, this is a contemporary presentation of Shakespeare's intense, claustrophobic and bloody drama. Patrick Stewart won Best Actor and Rupert Goold Best Director in the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for the stage production and both Stewart and Fleetwood were nominated for Tony Awards for their performances.
I thought it was really frightening. The most horror-like Macbeth I have ever seen. Very scary and oppressive. This horrible insane fascist curse. Recommended if you get the chance to see it.
I was talking to my sister about Shakespeare today. We know several people who have learning disabilities, who really enjoy Shakespeare. My nephew went to see John Simm's Hamlet with me, and he loved it. One of my sister's friends has a son with Downs who went to see the Tennant Hamlet, and apparently he loved it as much as I did.
So I think virtually any person could enjoy Shakespeare, and poetry in general, if there wasn't such an oppressive expectation that it's worthy, or almost a test, no wonder people hate that. I think people with learning disability could be more free than most to relax and enjoy the play, because they aren't as oppressed by other people's expectations. I know learning disability is a very broad category, but I think you know what I am saying.
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I think your instinct about overgeneralizing may have been the right one, though. :) I'd say, as you did allude to, that there are myriad types of learning disabilities, some of which may involve other cognitive issues and most if not all of which affect each individual slightly differently. I'd also suggest that people with disabilities, learning or otherwise, continually receive both textual and subtextual messages from all kinds of media and persons that they shouldn't attempt X thing because it would be too challenging or somehow just not enjoyable for them--challenging/not enjoyable according to what a non-disabled person assumes about their lived experience.
And then by the same token, assumptions are continually being made about the likes and dislikes of PWD in general. It feels akin to a white person saying something like, "Oh, people of color would enjoy/not enjoy that kind of movie." Or (because those race-ability analogies always make me feel a little squicky) a sighted person saying, "Blind people would likely not enjoy a baseball game/would enjoy a music concert." I think the only way to know if/how a person with a disability enjoys something is to ask him or her; beyond that, you'd need to do a more formal, community-wide survey, like you would to discover the likes or dislikes of any population. OK, well i take on board what you say |
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