We hope to do the Spanish Tragedy based on the play by Thomas Kyd.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Tragedy is a great storytelling form. It worked extremely well for Shakespeare. It worked extremely well for Jim Cameron with 'Titanic.'
Tragedy takes us to the very state of consciousness which, were we to hold to it, would go far toward preventing further tragedies.
A Shakespearean tragedy as so far considered may be called a story of exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man in high estate. But it is clearly much more than this, and we have now to regard it from another side.
Shakespeare is the outstanding example of how that can be done. In all of Shakespeare's plays, no matter what tragic events occur, no matter what rises and falls, we return to stability in the end.
What then is tragedy? In the Elizabethan period it was assumed that a play ending in death was a tragedy, but in recent years we have come to understand that to live on is sometimes far more tragic than death.
I'm obviously very keen on the theater and I think it's inevitable that some of the orchestral and chamber pieces have got dramatic elements which might even suggest an unspecified dramatic plot of some kind or other, even though it's not in my mind at the time.
When the drama attains a characterization which makes the play a revelation of human conduct and a dialogue which characterizes yet pleases for itself, we reach dramatic literature.
I'd love to do another film version of 'Romeo & Juliet.' I'm not too picky as long as it's a good story.
There's a movie called 'Elizabeth: The Golden Age,' where I'm playing the King of Spain. It's a small role, but it's really, really interesting, the way I constructed it.
An American tragedy in which we all have played a part.