I will firstly be talking about the society in the two plays. More Grimm Tales are directly aimed to fulfil the entertainment of young children and families. The plays are full of fictitious characters such as kings, queens, dwarfs, witches and mystical creatures. The characters alone are used to show us that the plays are set in fictitious and make believe worlds. The idea of all this make believe is to help enhance young children’s minds and broaden their imagination it also helps make them aware of make believe characters. This is also very similar to “The complete works of William Shakespeare”, it too contains kings, queens and witches, but the characters are no make believe they are preformed as real human beings, which is how they can turn the entertainment of the play into comedy.
The play More Grimm Tales is a European folklore; the plays have been moved and set all around the world, to discover different traditions. During the period More Grimm Tales was written romanticism was very popular which gave the plays the name “European Romanticism”. To enhance the plays modernised them and incorporated cultural influences into their work, for example accents, props and costumes. Whereas although “The complete works of William Shakespeare” is too a European tradition making them well know in many different countries and traditions. They incorporate different cultural influences into their plays for example they use rap to tell an entire play produced by William Shakespeare, they also use cultural influences like voice, race and costumes which were used to help modernise the play.
Grimm Tales is written as “Story telling theatre” which will always contain a narrator, meaning the audience is constantly being addressed, not only from the narrator but various other characters within the play. The idea of story telling theatre is to interact more with the audience, to help them feel more connected with the play and what is going on around them, it helps them understand and puts them in the shoes of the characters. Even though “The complete works of William Shakespeare” isn’t story telling theatre they to interact a lot with the audience, they use different techniques like pantomime, which helps the actors step out of their role to directly talk to the audience and involve them in the play.
The characters in More Grimm Tales are commonly princesses, princes, kings and queens, they also have a lot of mystical creatures, talking animals and witches which is which is what helps to make the plays fictitious. While in “The complete works of William Shakespeare” although it too contains a lot of royalty the difference is that characters are male or female, more realistic and human not fictional.
The plot/story of More Grimm Tales has a beginning, middle and an ending; most of the plays are based on good vs. evil. The ending in the plays are often known as a “happy ending” as at the end of them things always turn out for the better good. More Grimm Tales revolve their plays around different timeless issues, which are what the story of the play is based on, for example “Snow White” concentrates on jealously and envy, “Rumpelstiltskin” concentrates on greed and lies. But in “The complete works of William Shakespeare” there are a range of stories throughout the play so they have not been built with a beginning, middle and end, instead they were summarized to shortened versions of each play, and were acted out emphasising every significant part of each play. But the similarity that “The complete works of William Shakespeare” had to More Grimm Tales is that some of Shakespeare’s stories too had a “happy ending”. They too also included timeless issues into their work, for example “Romeo and Juliet” involves love and conflict and “Macbeth” creates envy and evil.
Each play contains its own theme/ideas but More Grimm tales and “The complete works of William Shakespeare” seem to have a lot in common in terms of this. More Grimm Tales have built their plays with a moral. The idea of this is to set a good example and show young children and families what’s right and wrong. They base their stores on the idea that good always conquers evil and that the bad guy always dies and the goody always wins. For example the moral of “Snow White” would be to never open the door to strangers. This is similar to “The Complete works of William Shakespeare” as they base their stories on right and wrong” and tragedy heroes, so they too create a contrast between good and bad jus like More Grimm Tales.
The designs of both plays are minimal set which means both plays require very little set, this helps the audience concentrate fully on the performance of the actors. It also helps strive the actors to perform better, putting them in the spot light all the time. The use of extravagant and distinct costumes helps the performance along. “The complete works of William Shakespeare” too also uses minimal set; they want the audience to pay great attention to the performance of the actors and their sufficient acting techniques. Meaning neither play would need an extravagant set.
I have enjoyed working on More Grimm Tales and being able to show what contrasts and differences it has to “The complete works of William Shakespeare”. I’ve had fun doing More Grimm Tales as me and my group have been able to adapt it and make it our own, we’ve been able to turn the script into our own personal style. It’s been good to look at the differences as it’s helped to broaden our minds and give us a range of ideas for the future. I have learnt how to use story telling theatre and how I can interact and address the audience more. It’s helped me to push myself to my limits and perform at the best of my ability.
