Modern dress is a term used in theatre and film to refer to productions of plays from the past in which the setting is updated to the present day (or at least to a more recent time period), but the text is left relatively unchanged. For example, Baz Luhrmann's film Romeo and Juliet uses a relatively unaltered text of Shakespeare's play but updates the setting to contemporary America.
Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or dress:
“Tried by a New England eye, or the more practical wisdom of modern times, they are the oracles of a race already in its dotage; but held up to the sky, which is the only impartial and incorruptible ordeal, they are of a piece with its depth and serenity, and I am assured that they will have a place and significance as long as there is a sky to test them by.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Borrow a child and get on welfare.
Borrow a child and stay in the house all day with the child,
or go to the public park with the child, and take the child
to the welfare office and cry and say your man left you and
be humble and wear your dress and your smile, and don’t talk
back ...”
—Susan Griffin (b. 1943)