Can topicality be taken too far?

We are to do 'Importance' soon and our director has a few ideas to attract a younger audience. Will this drag you into our theatre?


Lady Bracknell. "Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ricket for this seaside resort find you?"


Jack (Gravely) "In a back-pack"


Ladt Bracknell. "A back-pack?"

Can topicality be taken too far?
You crack me up - and I'm very suspicious of people who crack me up. But never mind.





Yes, of course I'd come and see it. Maybe could also re-name Miss Prism "Miss Bling" - then I'd definitely come and see it.





But of course, as an English scholar I would have to agree with Stephen K.
Reply:Trying to change the brilliant language of Oscar Wilde will no attract a younger audience it will only serve to detract from the wit of his language. Wilde was very precise in th use of language and timing, to try and change that is only going to take one of the most brilliantly worded plays of all time and reducing it to a silly comedy.
Reply:Actually, I think that's very funny. But probably only in my head and it wouldn't work on stage.





If your director really is wanting to get younger audiences along then a handbag is the least of his worries - get him to do Disco Pigs instead.
Reply:no really you can use it which every way you like it
Reply:If your director is seriously thinking of doing things like that to the script, then tell him he's an idiot. What does he think, that people won't understand the word "handbag"?





Whatever next? Hamlet asking, "Is it nobler in the mind to suffer the grenades and rockets of outrageous fortune, or by opposing, end them?"?





Please. If he wants to put on a modern play, let him find a modern script. Don't rewrite the classics—they don't need it. That's what makes them classic.
Reply:What exactly do you mean by younger audience? Little kids? Teenagers?
Reply:I won't be coming along to watch.


Why do director's have to modernize things?


Surely a good play will stand the test of time