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Misanthropos - A Voice Recording Blog November 7th - 10th / 2021

It's hard to believe, sometimes, how long ago we started this journey together. Since our first lot of filming back in Nov 2019 in Portugal, it's been a goodly stretch since we few, we happy few were reunited (sorry, I had to). In addition, in the best possible way... it was like the last 18 months didn't happen. A reunion of old friends, and they all still make me laugh. It was just the loveliest experience.

Now the goal for these three days is to record all the audio for the various scenes we didn’t shoot in Portugal. It was a good opportunity to get us back to the core of our work, which is the voice. Shakespeare, without the language, is pointless; so getting back into a unified rhyme of speech and dialogue was very key. I don't know how others work when doing voice-recording (as physical performance is a moot point, in many ways) but I still had to act a lot of it out, to link myself to the role. Which made my final scene exhausting! I had to cry for ages! I must have looked a right mess.

Obviously, a lot has changed since 2019, and I was thrilled to see Emily has joined the cast. I met Emily (They/Them) on the set of "Last Chancers" back in 2018, and we bonded instantly over our love of Shakespeare.

PODCAST - David Sayers - Role: Apemantus - MISANTHROPOS.

PODCAST - James Reynard - Role: Timon of Athens - MISANTHROPOS.

PODCAST - Declan O'Connor - Role: Alcibiades - MISANTHROPOS.

Prof. Ladan Niayesh
Literary Advisor

What would you say is the overreaching difference between this adaptation and Shakespeare's original play? And how would you evaluate this evolution of script?

The first obvious difference is the change of medium. Shakespeare & Co wrote their play texts – or “scripts”, as you have spontaneously called them – at a time when cinema was not an option. Even if the circular form of an early modern stage offers more changes of perspectives than a frontal opera stage, we come nowhere near the multifocal options of a modern camera, its movements, the cuts, the angles, etc. The cinematic medium by essence invites successive takes and multiplicity of perspective, so the revised text might as well follow and adjust to that, with multiple hands and voices contributing tonal changes: some more philosophical and others more poetic, some ancient Greek, others early modern and others original and atemporal. Yet the ensemble keeps its thematic unity, orchestrated and led by the conductor that Maximianno is by training and background. Overall, I think this version works more in a dialogic, or even symphonic, way across periods and genres, which is a great way of revisiting multiple legacies, not just transposing them in awe and reverence, but writing back to them and continuing the conversations they started.

Do you think using texts and sonnets from Shakespeare's vast body of work is an effective way of adapting and evolving his plays into something even more modern and empowering?