Saturday, February 5, 2011

Measure for Measure with Action Figures

Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Dir. Vindwyn. Perf. Vindwyn and Vindwyn's Husband. 2008. Web. 26 January 2010.
While we're on the subject of Measure for Measure, I simply must call your attention to this truly remarkable derivative version created using action figures (a.k.a. Barbie™ and Ken™ figures).

It's a derivative, according to Kenneth Rothwell's magnificent terminology (for which, q.v.), because it abandons most of Shakespeare's language while retaining the plot. Observe the equivalent scene to the one covered in a recent post:


That is quite wonderful (though it does simplify Isabella's motivation to such a degree that it may lead to misinterpretation of the play as a whole)—and so is the rest of the film. The entire video is about twenty minutes long, and it serves as a marvelous (and marvelously-humorous) introduction to the plot of the play. Thanks so much, Vindwyn and Vindwyn's Husband!
Links: The Complete Video at YouTube (also embedded below).

2 comments:

Sherry K said...

I'm glad you liked my video. I did it while in a graduate Shakespeare class at WKU. It was fun to do, but very time consuming. We've thought about doing more of the videos, but we've both been very busy.

kj said...

Marvelous! Yes, I imagine that takes an enormous amount of time. But rest assured that the payoff was much appreciated.

Thank you very much! It's nice to be able to say that directly to the creator of the Measure for Measure with action figures!

Take care!

kj

Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

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