Starting this week, the Weitz Cinema will begin screenings of the Theater on Screen series, broadcasts of National Theater Live and other theatrical performances from London. English professor Pierre Hecker, coordinator of these screenings, hopes that they will mitigate Carleton’s limited access to live theater and bring the campus and the general public closer to both the wider world of theater performance and classic literature. The conditions for the show selections primarily revolve around curricular tie-ins and predicted community interest.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses, for example, is a perfect fit with the Banned Books course being taught this term by French and Francophone Studies. Choderlos de Laclos’ novel and its exploration of corruption and morality have been controversial for two centuries, and the Christopher Hampton adaptation is a celebrated one. The Donmar Warehouse performance being screened will bring the story new immediacy and give students broader insight on the intersection of modern performance with the literature they study. Other department to Theater on Screen pairings include Asian Studies with Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Classics with Medea, and English and Medieval and Renaissance studies with Hamlet and The Winter’s Tale.
Theater on Screen, through its combination of literary, theatrical, and cinematic elements, is not only a means of curricular enrichment, but also of bringing globally ranked theater performances of classic stories to the small town of Northfield. So why come to these screenings? In Professor Hecker’s words, “If you want to see Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench acting together in The Winter’s Tale, you have two options: 1) Fly to London and see if you can find a scalper who’ll sell you tickets to the sold-out run. 2) Come to the Weitz Cinema.”