Post-war British theatre: Finlay, Gaskill and British Black and Asian Shakespeare

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Sylvia Morris
Frank Finlay as Iago and Laurence Olivier as Othello

Frank Finlay as Iago and Laurence Olivier as Othello

Almost swamped by the understandable outpouring of tributes for the late Sir Terry Wogan, the death of the fine actor Frank Finlay at 89 has passed with little attention this week. Most people remember Finlay for his screen and TV work including Casanova on TV and The Three Musketeers on film. Among the obituaries is one from Michael Billington (another national treasure himself). This link is to Finlay’s own website,  And this to the Telegraph obituary.

Frank Finlay’s portrayal of Iago to Laurence Olivier’s Othello at the National Theatre in 1964 was his most famous Shakespeare role, not least because the production was filmed, going on release in 1965. One of his other Shakespeare parts was the Gravedigger in the first National Theatre production of Hamlet starring Peter O’Toole. According to Daniel Rosenthal, Finlay’s Iago was “excessively restrained, an unassuming chap whose matter-of fact tone suggests destroying Othello is a bit of a chore”. Olivier, by contrast, gave an “outsize, elaborate, overwhelming” performance: “When jealousy takes hold he roars and howls like a wild animal”. Olivier had himself played Iago and knew how powerful the role could be: as well as speaking directly to the audience Iago is a much larger role than Othello. Finlay was a successful foil to Olivier, remaining straight-faced even in close-up. The relationship between all four leads (Olivier as Othello, Finlay as Iago, Maggie Smith as Desdemona and Joyce Redman as Emilia) worked so well that when the film was released all four were nominated for Oscars.

Adrian Lester as Ira Aldridge in Red Velvet

Adrian Lester as Ira Aldridge in Red Velvet

Olivier blacked up to play Othello, a tradition going right back to Shakespeare’s day when Richard Burbage first played the role. Nowadays it is almost impossible for a white actor to play Othello: last year at the RSC Iago too was played by a black actor, but colourblind casting is a long way off. Red Velvet, Lolita Chakrabarti’s play about Ira Aldridge who was in 1833 the first black actor to play Othello, has recently opened at the Garrick Theatre in London’s West End and plays there until 27 February. It was originally produced at the Tricycle Theatre in 2012, again with Adrian Lester as Aldridge. Lester himself played Othello to acclaim at the National Theatre, among other successful Shakespeare roles. As well as charting the career of Aldridge, it examines changes in acting styles, where gesture told the story as much as words: “It’s a fascinating glimpse of a forgotten theatrical language, but when Aldridge imbues Othello with naturalistic, bone-rattling fervour, it’s electrifying: man discovering fire.” Perhaps most, though, it’s a play about racial politics. Aldridge was patronised and treated with appalling prejudice, and although he also played traditionally white parts such as King Lear the play is a reminder of how far there is still to go before we have equality in casting.

This too is the subject of the British Black and Asian Shakespeare project at Warwick University, which has now launched its database. This “was originally conceived as an historical record, acknowledging, documenting and celebrating the contribution of Black and Asian artists – especially performers – to the development of Shakespearean production in modern Britain”. It has “developed into an ongoing record of contemporary casting practices”, demonstrating how many (or how few) black and Asian actors have appeared in productions of Shakespeare plays in the UK from 1930 to 2015. The construction of the database has also “coincided with increasingly urgent calls for greater diversity within the entertainment industries” and will support the case for change. The database is organised around people, plays, companies and roles: there are valuable biographies, I particularly enjoyed searching for plays to see which roles are played most often by black and asian actors, and when. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many Romeos and Juliets are on the list as well as the obvious Aarons, Othellos and Princes of Morocco.

Director William (Bill) Gaskill

Director William (Bill) Gaskill

As I was preparing this post, news came in of the death of another person who changed post-war British theatre, director William (Bill) Gaskill. He had directed Olivier and Maggie Smith in The Recruiting Officer for the National Theatre at around the same time as Othello, and most importantly was responsible, while Artistic Director at the Royal Court, for the production of Edward Bond’s play Saved. This play, with its graphic presentation of the stoning to death of a baby, fell foul of the Lord Chamberlain and had to be put on as a private performance. The controversy surrounding the play was one of the leading factors that led to the abolition of censorship on the stage in 1968.

 

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The making of the First Folio

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Sylvia Morris

making of shakespeare folioI wrote a week or so ago about Emma Smith’s new book The Making of Shakespeare’s First Folio, published by Bodleian Library Publishing, and the stories relating to the Bodleian Library’s own copy. One of the books I inherited from my father is another book about the Folio, R Crompton Rhodes’ Shakespeare’s First Folio, published in 1923 as a tercentenary tribute. My copy is inscribed with the name of my grandfather, W F Tompkins, Stratford-upon-Avon, July 1923. He had not long started working as the Guide at Shakespeare’s Birthplace after over 20 years at Holy Trinity Church, where one of his responsibilities was, again, guiding visitors. At the Birthplace, one of the SBT’s treasures was a copy of the First Folio, so I guess he was keen to learn all he could. The two books would seem to cover the same ground, but it’s been interesting to see how much the approach to this enigmatic volume has changed in the past 90 years or so.

Rhodes approaches his subject with detective-like zeal, assessing evidence from a wide range of sources and coming up with a series of solutions. Studies of the First Folio were few, and copies of the original book were mostly still in private hands where they could not be accessed. In 1902 Sidney Lee had published a “reproduction in facsimile of the First Folio edition, 1623, from the Chatsworth copy in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire”, the same year he also published a Census of original copies. Emma Smith today knows that anyone with an internet connection can access several copies of the Folio online. Whereas Rhodes feels he must quote the whole of Heminges and Condell’s preface (well worth a read, incidentally), Smith can quote the highlights and leave her readers to look the rest up for themselves.

The Title page of the First Folio with the Droeshout engraving

The Title page of the First Folio with the Droeshout engraving

Rhodes transcribes other rare sources of information such as entries from the Stationer’s Registers and evidence from other writings of the period, valuable context for anyone interested in the period. In his judgements he exhibit a decisive confidence sometimes seen in the presenters of history documentaries on TV, but rarely employed by modern scholars. Writing about the authorship of Pericles, for instance, he states “Pericles was not Shakespeare’s”, giving a few reasons, and justifying its omission from the Folio. Smith, by contrast, reflects modern critical thinking by explaining the complexities of collaborative writing in the early modern theatre. She describes Pericles as a play “where Shakespeare’s part-authorship is not in doubt”. Where Rhodes presents us with evidence followed by definite conclusions, Smith poses questions. “Can we feel confident that Heminge and Condell actively excluded rather than mistakenly omitted Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen and perhaps other plays too, and if so what was their operative principle of selection?”. We obviously don’t know the answers, but being open to debate is no longer a sign of weakness.

I’m fond of Rhodes’ book, not least for the amount of raw information which he has gathered together and transcribed. Much of it must have been new for almost everyone coming to study Shakespeare’s plays. I enjoy his forthright opinions, and it’s fun to find he does occasionally admit defeat. Trying to work out whether the printers were working from Shakespeare’s own manuscripts or the theatre’s prompt books, is one such case. “The problem is, at least to me, insoluble”. Since Rhodes’ day many people have devoted years of their time to studying the differing texts of the Folio, and I’m sure there are still differences of opinion. Emma Smith is able to take advantage of this mass of modern academic research and, taking us by the hand guides us through conflicting evidence, letting us see how difficult it is to be as decisive now as Rhodes was. She’s not trying to find definitive answers, but, to quote the blurb, “telling the human, artistic, economic and technical stories of the birth of the First Folio”.

King John from Shakespeare's First folio

King John from Shakespeare’s First folio

One of the most enjoyable sections of Emma Smith’s book is the section on an area that Rhodes did not look at in detail: the actual printing process. Perhaps he thought of printing as a merely mechanical process, while he was trying to work out more intellectual questions: the complex relationships between the acting companies and the printers, the issues of who owned which copies and the right to print them. For us, used to printing at the press of a button, hand-printing and the work of a print shop are both completely foreign and fascinating. And without knowing how printing and book publishing worked it’s almost impossible to understand how many of the idiosyncrasies of the First Folio came about. Smith explains carefully and clearly the whole business of setting, proofing, printing and binding. She calls the publication of the Folio in November 1623 “the end of a protracted process, and of a period of considerable effort by its many makers. It is the product of a number of very specific social, cultural and commercial contexts, and of numerous individuals with different skills and different agendas.”

Many of the mysteries that perplexed Rhodes are still not completely solved, but Emma Smith’s admirable book provides us with many of the answers and guides us through the complex web of events and relationships that together created Shakespeare’s First Folio.

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Tibor Reich’s centenary

Posted on January 31, 2016 by Sylvia Morris
Tibor Reich in 1957

Tibor Reich in 1957

This year the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester is celebrating the centenary of one of the most influential textile designers of the post-war years, Tibor Reich. Reich was born in Budapest in 1916 of a Jewish weaving family, studying textile design in Vienna. Leaving an increasingly anti-Jewish continent, he moved to England where in 1937 he continued his studies at Leeds University.

Hungary and Austria’s loss was England’s gain: just after the war, in 1946, he moved to Clifford Mill, just outside Stratford-upon-Avon. His timing was perfect, experimenting with bright colours and new yarns that must have been refreshing after years of wartime drabness. He quickly gained an international reputation, contributing to the refurbishment of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and to the Festival of Britain in 1951.

Panel designed by Tibor Reich for the bicentenary of Garrick's Jubilee, 1969

Panel designed by Tibor Reich for the bicentenary of Garrick’s Jubilee, 1969

Although his Hungarian background influenced his work, in particular with its vibrant colours and bold use of graphics, he was also inspired by the natural world, and loved the Warwickshire countryside where he settled after his years in Yorkshire. He became very anglicised, and it’s noticable that he was often selected to work on projects that celebrated England’s achievements in a global setting, such as Concorde and the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral. The curator of Manchester’s exhibition, Frances Pritchard, mentions in her interview on Front Row Reich’s work at the Memorial Theatre, where he gave different fabrics the names of Shakespearean characters such as Macbeth and Cymbeline, sadly now long gone.

She does not, however, mention his work at the Shakespeare Centre, opened in 1964 as the headquarters and study centre for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Here he created carpets, curtains and hangings, many of which still survive. His relationship with the Trust was long-lasting. I remember him, during the 1980s, visiting the Library’s Reading Room with the then-director Levi Fox, and describing how he got the idea for the carpet that graced many of the rooms, including the Reading Room, from an aerial view of a local forest. The design was called “The Forest of Arden”, and its subtle medley of dots in green, brown, and black were perfectly matched against the Gordon Russell furniture and warm wooden panelling.

The Age of Kings panel

The Age of Kings panel

Elsewhere his love of bright colour came out: “The Age of Kings” in blue and green was used for curtains on the stage of the Stratford Room, and in 1969 he designed another zesty panel to celebrate the bicentenary of the Garrick Jubilee. In the Birthplace Trust’s shops his hangings and tea towels were sold to tourist for many years.

Tigo Ware

Tigo Ware

He also designed tapestry, and a panel of scenes from Shakespeare’s plays hung on the landing of the Shakespeare Centre next to the Conference Room. This included Romeo with Juliet on her balcony, Romeo’s swordfight with Tybalt, Hamlet with Yorick’s skull and several others. His interests were wide-ranging. Not content with designing fabrics, he created a range of striking black and white pottery, Tigoware, which was manufactured by Denby, and designed many Royal Mail First Day Covers. I’m indebted to my husband for remembering that he exhibited his collections of stamps and miniature cars at the Tiatsa Gallery in Ely Street.

Tibor Reich tea towel of the Birthplace

Tibor Reich tea towel of the Birthplace

The exhibition of his work in Manchester is timely. Archives of his work are easily available to study at the International Textiles Archive at Leeds University. His grandson Sam, still at Clifford Mill, is hoping to revive the Tibor brand, employing modern designers to be as inventive and innovative as his grandfather was. Following years of being unfashionable, his work is now highly collectable, and much of it looks extremely modern. A search on Ebay shows that even the humble linen tea towels are prized, and maybe it won’t be too long before they’re back on sale again to visitors to Stratford-upon-Avon.

The exhibition at the Whitworth in Manchester will be on until August 2016, and further information about Reich, and photographs of his work in the Shakespeare Centre, can be found on two posts by Rosalyn Sklar on the Finding Shakespeare blog, here and here, and in this obituary from the Independent. I’m also grateful for many details to the late Marian Pringle, who wrote an article about Tibor Reich’s fabric designs for the Shakespeare Centre in the magazine Shakespeare at the Centre.

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Another immigrant’s tale

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Sylvia Morris

I’ve just heard about a case in which an American Shakespeare academic hoping to remain in this country has been arrested and remains in custody.

Dr Paul Hamilton received his PhD from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford in 2015 and remains a local resident, applying for funding to continue his research, and assisting in running conferences for Kingston Shakespeare Seminar in Kingston-upon-Thames. His application to remain here was turned down before Christmas, though it appears he was not told of this fact, and he is due to be removed from this country on 1 February. He was arrested on 17 January in Stratford and is being held at an Immigration Removal Centre near Lincoln until his deportation. The authorities took this action because they judged that, without close family ties, he was likely to disappear.

I do not know Dr Hamilton, but his treatment strikes me as shameful given the fact that he has contributed significantly to the cultural life of this country during his 10-year stay and has done nothing to deserve being treated like a criminal. In this year above all we are celebrating Shakespeare’s worldwide status, and showing off our Shakespeare assets such as theatre companies, museum collections and educational establishments. This treatment can do nothing but harm to our reputation as a civilized country in which to come and study.

A fuller version is told by Timo Uotinen in this blog, and in the piece being published in Times Higher Education on Thursday 28 January 2016. See the online version here.

If you wish to support Dr Hamilton’s case you can add your name to the list at the end of Timo’s blog, or you might like to write to your MP, or put something on Facebook or Twitter.

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His most potent art: the library of John Dee

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Sylvia Morris
Portrait of John Dee, at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford

Portrait of John Dee, at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford

A new exhibition has just opened in London that explains more about one of the most intriguing people in Elizabethan London, John Dee. The Royal College of Physicians in Regents Park is hosting Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee, until 29 July 2016. To quote their site, he was “a Renaissance polymath, with interests in almost all branches of learning. He served Elizabeth I at court, advised navigators on trade routes to the ‘New World’, travelled throughout Europe and studied ancient history, astronomy, cryptography and mathematics. He is also known for his passion for mystical subjects, including astrology, alchemy and the world of angels.” This film is designed to accompany the exhibition.

This extraordinary man was also obsessed by books. He claimed to own 3000 of them, and 1000 manuscripts, making his one of the largest libraries in the country, larger than those owned by either Oxford or Cambridge Universities. Dee’s hunger for foreign travel where he met scientists from mainland Europe such as the geographer Mercator also proved the downfall for this great collection. While away, others plundered his library, and he never got the books back. Over 100 of his books eventually found their way to the Royal College of Physicians. Many others have been found in other collections including the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the British Library, the National Library of Wales and that of Trinity College Dublin, but the RPS has the largest collection of his books in one location. They include books on many of the subjects in which he was interested, including mathematical, astronomical and alchemical texts.

One of John Dee's annotations showing a ship

One of John Dee’s annotations showing a ship

His books can be identified because he annotated them so distinctively, and this video by the RCP’s Rare Books Librarian Katie Birkwood demonstrates some of his methods.

The exhibition is very much about the books Dee owned, and here is a film showing Peter Forshaw of the Ritman Library, Amsterdam, talking about Dee’s life and the books he actually wrote rather than those he read.

It’s often been suggested, and the idea is repeated by Peter Forshaw, that Dee was in some way the inspiration for Prospero in The Tempest. Both men certainly loved their books and studied them intensively. When Prospero recounts to Miranda the story of their exile from Milan he particularly mentions that Gonzalo,
Knowing I lov’d my books, he furnish’d me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.

Dee’s reputation as a magician and astrologer made him famous in his own time, and his name is still well known. In 2011 a musical, also called a folk opera, was written and performed that focused on Dee as magician. It was described as an attempt to connect with “haunted, magical England”.

John Dee performing an experiment before Queen Elizabeth I. Oil painting by Henry Gillard Glindoni; Wellcome Library no. 47369i

John Dee performing an experiment before Queen Elizabeth I. Oil painting by Henry Gillard Glindoni; Wellcome Library no. 47369i

He was however a serious scientist, originally studying mathematics, which he at first taught along with navigation. He instructed some of the most famous explorers of the time including Frobisher and was involved in the search for navigable North-East and North-West passages that, had they been found, would have had a profound effect on trade and travel. Astrology was another of his specialities: in 1555 he was imprisoned for working out Queen Mary’s horoscope (presumably because it might have foretold her death). Later on Queen Elizabeth valued his skill enough to ask him to choose the most auspicious day for her coronation and in 1579 consulted him about the matter of her possible marriage. She became his patron, supporting him intellectually if not financially. He dabbled in the occult, running séances. Later he became obsessed with the idea of conversing with angels and spirits, another link with Shakespeare’s Prospero.

William Hamilton's painting of Prospero and Ariel

William Hamilton’s painting of Prospero and Ariel

Dee has also been suggested as the inspiration for Marlowe’s Dr Faustus and Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist, and if this is the case it’s interesting how different authors interpreted the man and his achievements. Dr Faustus is a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for earthly knowledge and pleasure, while in The Alchemist the con men Subtle and Face cynically exploit greedy and gullible people who are willing to believe in alchemy and the philosopher’s stone that could turn metal into gold. Prospero’s magic powers have been honed, and are used, to right a wrong: “with my At least two societies exist to promote John Dee’s memory. The John Dee Society is primarily interested in his scientific and philosophical work, and creating resources to promote its serious study. The John Dee of Mortlake Society was formed to begin celebrating Dee’s connections with Mortlake beginning with the four-hundredth anniversary of his death in 2009. They continue to promote these connections, placing a plaque in his memory in St Mary’s Church where he was buried.

Towards the end of his life Dee dropped out of view and died in poverty and obscurity, and his remaining book collection seems to have been split up. This free exhibition is the first occasion on which many of his books have been put on display, an opportunity not to be missed.

 

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Looking at the First Folio in 2016

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Sylvia Morris

first-folio-the book that gave us shakespeareIt’s still seven years until the four hundredth anniversary of the publication of the First Folio, arguably the most important book in the English language. But this year, when Shakespeare’s achievement is being celebrated, the first collected edition of his plays, known as the First Folio, is also getting a fair share of attention. Without it, we would have only around half his output, and we wouldn’t have lines like “If music be the food of love, play on”(Twelfth Night), “Is this a dagger that I see before me” (Macbeth), “We are such stuff as dreams are made on” (The Tempest) or even “All the world’s a stage” (As You Like It).

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, have certainly embraced the idea of sharing the First Folio as widely as possible with their project First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare. Of the roughly 240 copies of the Folio still in existence, the Folger contains 82, and this national travelling exhibition will bring an original copy to each of the 50 states, plus Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, for around a month each. There’s more information about the tour here, and a digitised version of one of the Folger’s folios here.

smith making of first folioIn the UK, Emma Smith’s new book The Making of Shakespeare’s First Folio, has been published by Bodleian Library Publishing, aiming to tell “the human, artistic, economic and technical aspects of the birth of the First Folio”. She looks in detail at how the book itself, rather than the plays it contains, came into being. One of the most charming stories relating to the Folio is that of the Bodleian’s copy which had been acquired in 1624 shortly after publication. It contained the first plays ever added to the library: Sir Thomas Bodley had ordered in 1612 that no plays and other “riffraff” should be acquired. It’s interesting that Shakespeare’s plays (not Ben Jonson’s) were the first to be recognised as having literary merit.

At some point it in the 1660s, faced with the brand new third edition that included several additional plays, the then-librarian made the choice often made by librarians to get rid of the redundant first edition. Needless to say, in the centuries that followed the Library regretted this decision, but the book’s location was not known. It was only in 1905 that the copy was discovered and bought back by the Library with the help of many subscribers. The book’s original binding, by Oxford man William Wildgoose, helped in its identification. You can still see the hole in the binding where the book was once chained in Duke Humfrey’s Library. Emma Smith tells the story, and shows off the book, in a delightful video on this page.

The spur for Smith’s book was the 2012 campaign to digitise the Bodleian First Folio, called “Sprint for Shakespeare”. Like the drive to buy the book back, this was achieved through public contributions, and the result is that the book is now available online here.

Writing about the book, Smith notes that the First Folio has acquired the status of a relic to be shown to devout cultural pilgrims, and “it’s in the nature of a relic that the circumstances of its production tend to be obscured”.

One of the panels in the Folger's Exhibition

One of the panels in the Folger’s Exhibition

I’ll be looking again at Smith’s book, but that idea of the Folio as a semi-religious relic brings me back to the Folger’s travelling exhibition. I’m indebted to Dr Miriam Gilbert for sharing with me information about the event at the University of Iowa where she has taught for several decades. The Folger supplies the book and accompanying exhibition panels, but then it’s over to the venue to arrange events and complementary exhibits. All the venues are aiming to bring in as many people as possible, in particular children. And they’ve really embraced the idea: in New Mexico among many options there will be a staged reading Enter the Twain: Shakespeare in Mark Twain’s America. There will be an exhibition Shakespeare Comes to Hawaii in, of course, Hawaii, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival will perform both Folio and Quarto versions of the first scene of King Lear, followed by a discussion. Between 29 August and 25 September The University of Iowa will receive its copy, particularly appropriate since Iowa City is the only UNESCO City of Literature in the United States. The University also boasts The Center for the Book, that merges research into the history of the book with.training in the techniques of bookmaking, and their exhibition will concentrate on these areas. Greg Prickman, Head of Special Collections, commented “In addition to showcasing the First Folio, the Libraries will be highlighting other examples of English early printed materials in an expansive exhibition. An understanding of hand-printing, binding and the book trade are all essential if one is to understand how the First Folio came into existence. These subjects are also covered in Emma Smith’s book, and I’ll be returning to it in another post soon.

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Royal Shakespeare Company’s plans for 2016

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Sylvia Morris
Gregory Doran and David Tennant on the Andrew Marr Show

Gregory Doran and David Tennant on the Andrew Marr Show

All the large Shakespeare organisations are celebrating the four-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in 2016 with events to show that Shakespeare is universal, appealing to people of all ages and backgrounds. As befits the best-funded Shakespeare company in the UK the Royal Shakespeare Company have big plans for the year in which, Artistic Director Gregory Doran has said there will be “something for everyone”.

In fact the RSC has already begun: Shakespeare on Screen, highlighting films of RSC staged productions, or films re-conceived for film or TV, has been running at the Barbican since 9 January. The season is curated by John Wyver who masterminds the RSC’s Live from Stratford-upon-Avon relays. Sunday’s showing of the 1990 Othello with Willard White, Ian McKellen, Imogen Stubbs and Zoe Wanamaker, directed by Trevor Nunn, was sold out. The season of showings continue until 31 January, and still to come is As You Like It, originally directed by Michael Elliot in 1961, with Vanessa Redgrave, Max Adrian and Ian Bannen. The production, coming in the same year as the Company was renamed under its new Artistic Director Peter Hall, was enormously important in establishing the new Company. The film is being shown on Tuesday 19 January, and will be introduced by Vanessa Redgrave herself, whose radiant Rosalind captivated theatregoers over 50 years ago.

Poster for the RSC's film of A Midsummer Night's Dream

Poster for the RSC’s film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

On Saturday 23 January at 3pm the 1971 film of Peter Brook’s King Lear will be shown. Based on the 1962 production in Stratford, filmed on location in a grim black and white landscape, it features a towering performance in the title role by Paul Scofield. Adrian Noble’s 1994 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was reimagined for the screen in 1996, and retained much of the feel of the original stage production, seen as the dream of a young boy. It is being screened on Sunday 24 January at 3pm. Finally on Sunday 31 January at 2pm Gregory Doran’s film of his production of Hamlet is being shown complete with its original distinguished cast including David Tennant, Patrick Stewart, Penny Downie, Oliver Ford Davies and Mariah Gale.

The season is designed to complement the RSC’s cycle of History Plays currently running at the Barbican under the title King and Country. The plays that make up the cycle are Richard II with David Tennant as the King, Henry IV parts 1 and 2, with Antony Sher as Falstaff and Henry V with Alex Hassell in the title role. The final performances of the cycle are over the weekend of 22-24 January and are, not surprisingly, sold out.

But back to the RSC’s 2016 announcements: Gregory Doran and David Tennant appeared on the Andrew Marr TV show on 10 January to talk about their plans.

Further details of the summer season have been announced in a very full press release.

The main Shakespeare season has an unconventional look, beginning with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, subtitled A Play for the Nation. This is being performed in collaboration with fourteen amateur companies, who will provide the mechanicals and schools who will supply Titania’s fairy train in what director Erica Whyman has called Shakespeare’s “love letter to amateur theatre”. Schools up and down the country are being encouraged to take part in a “nationwide celebration of the play”. There will be a “searing” new production of Hamlet with Paapa Essiedu, a Cymbeline with a female Cymbeline (Gillian Bevan) and many other male characters played by women. Later in the summer Antony Sher will play King Lear, supported by RSC veterans David Troughton as Gloucester and Antony Byrne as Kent.

Simon Russell Beale as Ariel, Alec McCowen as Prospero, RSC 1993

Simon Russell Beale as Ariel, Alec McCowen as Prospero, RSC 1993

Then the grand finale of this year will be an “extraordinary and innovative” production of The Tempest in which “you will see the ship sink, Ariel fly, Juno in the masque arrive in her chariot drawn with peacocks”. The aim is to use the most cutting-edge 21st technology to produce the spectacular effects which Shakespeare describes in the play. The production will see the return, after over 20 years, of Simon Russell Beale as Prospero. Ironically Sam Mendes’ production of The Tempest, with Beale as an earthbound Ariel, was one of the last in which he appeared in Stratford-upon-Avon. With the company Imaginarium providing the CGI effects this will be performed as the RSC’s winter production, and will provide a perfect introduction to Shakespeare for families. There is more on the whole winter season in a second press release, here.

Over at the Swan Theatre there will be new productions of Christopher Marlowe’s great play Dr Faustus and with 1616 also the publication date of Ben Jonson’s First Folio, The Alchemist. Remembering Cervantes’ death in the same year as Shakespeare’s, there will also be a new adaptation of Don Quixote. There is more about productions towards the end of the year in the winter season press release.

There is much more happening in 2016, from the re-opening of the Swan Wing with a new exhibition The Play’s the Thing, to a season at The Other Place, an educational symposium, The Shakespeare Show on 23rd April, and tours to China and the USA. As Gregory Doran has said, “If you’ve never been to his home town in Stratford-upon-Avon, or seen his work on stage, this surely must be the time to do so.”

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Memories of Alan Rickman

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Sylvia Morris

alan rickmanAnother day, another hero gone. On Thursday 14 January 2016 it was announced that actor Alan Rickman had died, just a few days after David Bowie. Both died of cancer, and both were 69.

Unlike Bowie, Rickman took some years to decide what direction his life would take. He was a comparatively mature student at RADA and became a professional actor only in his late twenties. His talent was quickly spotted though (thanks to Richard Moore who recalls seeing him as Sherlock Holmes at Birmingham Rep in 1976), and he made his debut with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1978. It was a mixed year in which many actors new to the company appeared: Jonathan Pryce, Paola Dionisotti, Ruby Wax, Juliet Stevenson. Rickman worked with all of them in different productions, and was directed by Peter Brook in his Antony and Cleopatra which starred the established actors Alan Howard and Glenda Jackson, as well as Patrick Stewart and David Suchet. He played minor roles in the play, as well as Boyet in Love’s Labour’s Lost, a role in Captain Swing at The Other Place, and, his largest role, Ferdinand in The Tempest. On the BBC’s Front Row on 14 January Juliet Stevenson, who became a lifelong friend, recalled working in this production. The production was not a great success but it’s clear that during this year Rickman made friendships that would endure throughout his life.

Between this and his next appearance at the RSC Rickman was cast by the BBC in their series Barchester Chronicles as the oily Obadiah Slope. In a wonderful cast of distinguished actors Rickman shone as perhaps the first of the unpleasant but compelling characters for which he became known.

Alan Rickman as Jaques in As You Like It, RSC 1985

Alan Rickman as Jaques in As You Like It, RSC 1985

Back at the RSC in 1985 Rickman was cast in leading roles: Jaques in As You Like It with Juliet Stevenson as Rosalind, Achilles in Troilus and Cressida with Stevenson and Anton Lesser, and most notably as the Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, again with Stevenson and Lindsay Duncan. This production became a major hit, not least for Rickman’s charismatic and irresistible sexual predator suffering from melancholic self-awareness that made him finally almost tragic.

In films he showed many different sides to his acting: he was romantic in Anthony Minghella film Truly, Madly, Deeply, upright and loyal in Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility, and wildly comic in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in which he stole every scene from Kevin Costner. He appeared in all of the Harry Potter films as one of the most important of the teachers at Hogwart’s, Severus Snape.

There were other appearances on stage in Shakespeare: a Hamlet, and Antony to Helen Mirren’s Cleopatra. This Guardian piece includes a link to an interview with him about Shakespeare, including his reminiscences of working with Peter Brook 1978, when Brook told his cast that they would never be as good as the play: something of a relief to the actors who felt the production was not going as well as they wished. Shakespeare remained important to him: here is a clip of him performing Sonnet 130.

 

His voice, rich and slightly nasal, was used with great subtlety, and quite unmistakeable. Peter Bradshaw’s obituary explains the qualities that made him so successful:

His aquiline face, with all its magnificent hauteur made him a star: something between an eagle and a big cat. And that rich, resonant voice exerted a hypnotic hold on audiences, a bass rumble which could sound like a creak or a groan or a beckoningly sensual purr. It came from between lips which were kept mysteriously almost closed, like a ventriloquist’s. Alan Rickman morphed from being a Shakespearian leading man to being a character actor of enormous flair — via a wonderful period of being a wildly charismatic bad guy in the movies.

Rickman’s career was still developing, particularly as a director, and it’s clear from interviews recorded today that he was much loved. He will be greatly missed.

While posting this blog, I’ve heard about the death of another Shakespearian actor and director. On Wednesday 13 January Brian Bedford died aged 80, also of cancer. Bedford was born and worked in England, performing in 1957 at Stratford, playing among other roles Ariel to John Gielgud’s Prospero in The Tempest. He later moved across the Atlantic and took a leading part in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada where he completed more than 27 seasons of acting and/or directing. His death won’t hit the headlines as Alan Rickman’s has but his achievements were great and he too will be missed.

 

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We can be heroes [not] just for one day

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Sylvia Morris
David Bowie

David Bowie

The first news I heard on Monday morning, 11 January 2016, was the death of rock star David Bowie. Like most of us, I’ve lived with his songs through my adult life. All day I’ve been hearing his music, people talking about their memories of him, or of his significance, or  recorded interviews with him. The words genius and legend have been used over and over again. It’s too soon to talk about his long-term significance, but he has already influenced younger musicians through whom his work will live on.

It’s certainly to be hoped that this well-liked man and his amazing creative output will be remembered for many years. Interviewed on TV, Will Gomperz and Lauren Laverne concentrated on how Bowie guided us through the changing problems of living in the last decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, but Gomperz called him “The Picasso of Pop”, suggesting his influence will be much longer-lasting. Just a few years after Shakespeare’s death Ben Jonson already recognised that there was something about Shakespeare that was universal, “not of an age, but for all time”. Like Shakespeare, Bowie was in the right place at the right time, and a man of immense talent.

On BBC Radio 4’s Front Row someone commented that as an artist, Bowie was always thinking about the future of his own work. Even his exit from the world seems to have happened in a deliberate way: his last album, Blackstar, was released on his 69th birthday just a couple of days before he died. The themes of the album are loss, death and resurrection, just the same subjects that Shakespeare wrote about in his last plays. The Tempest, in which the magician symbolically breaks his magic staff, is still often thought of as Shakespeare’s farewell to his creative  writing power:

Prospero

Prospero

                         But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.

During the day interviews have also emphasised how Bowie worked in collaboration with other musicians throughout his career. There’s no suggestion that working in partnership with other talented people might negate Bowie’s talent or achievement in any way. How strange then that for many years Shakespeare scholars were shy of embracing the idea that Shakespeare was not a solitary genius, shut away from other influences. Working with other people surely enriched the writing of both men.

In the four hundred years since Shakespeare died his work has delighted and inspired generations around the world. 2016 will also be remembered for the death of David Bowie, who in his own unique way has done the same for people alive today. Here are some of the lines of Lazarus, from Blackstar.
Look up here, I’m in heaven
I’ve got scars that can’t be seen.
I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen
Everybody knows me now.

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Shakespeare online for 2016

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Sylvia Morris
One of the images illustrating the British Council's new course

One of the images illustrating the British Council’s new course

Into the new year it’s time for starting something afresh. With this being such a big year for Shakespeare, there are several online courses beginning soon that aim to increase participants’ interest in and knowledge of Shakespeare, and I’ve picked a few to look at.

First of all, because it begins on Monday 11 January, is FutureLearn’s new course Exploring English: Shakespeare and run by the British Council, in association with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.  Unlike other MOOCs, this one is aimed at helping to improve English language skills using Shakespeare’s works.

It will “look at the life and works of William Shakespeare and take you from his Birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon to the Globe Theatre in London, from where he secured his central place in English literature.

“We will look at five of Shakespeare’s plays with the help of actors and experts from around the world. They will explain and explore the universal themes Shakespeare addressed in his work. The plays are: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest and Macbeth. “

The tutor, Anthony Cosgrove, will look at some of the words and expressions that were coined by Shakespeare, which have since become part of the language. The FutureLearn page suggests that the course “is for people who are learning English and interested in the language and legacy of William Shakespeare. The material is designed for non-native English speakers who have studied English to around intermediate level” But don’t be put off if you are a native English speaker: the video on the homepage shows that it’s not just for those learning English, but for anyone who wants to learn more: as the introductory video says:“Shakespeare lives in language”.

Hugh Quarshie as Othello and Lucien Msamati and Iago, RSC 2015

Hugh Quarshie as Othello and Lucien Msamati and Iago, RSC 2015

It’s still a little way off, but the University of Birmingham/RSC collaboration coming up on 22 February is going to be essential viewing. Othello: in Performance is another FutureLearn course running over four-weeks in which “you will discover how the performances and interpretations of Othello have evolved from its first performance in 1604 to the present day. You will find out what influenced performance choices then and now, and how specific themes within the text have been addressed at different moments in history.” It will begin by looking at the play as a whole then focus on three big issues: the significance of race, the role of women, and tragedy as a form. The course will focus on the RSC’s 2015 production of Othello, examining several scenes from that production. The MOOC is designed for A-level learners, but as with many online courses, it will be just as interesting for those who are not in full-time education.

It’s a great privilege to have access to a whole range of educators from the RSC, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute who will talk about different aspects of the play and guide learners through the material.

Image for Shakespeare and his World

Image for Shakespeare and his World

Incidentally, you can still register your interest in past FutureLearn courses: presumably they will re-run them if it’s going to be popular enough. One of these is the Shakespeare and his World MOOC run by Professor Jonathan Bate of the University of Warwick in collaboration with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. I thought this was a terrific course and if you’d like to try it register here.

This last one is a bit different, planned by Allston James of Monterey Peninsula College. It’s a wholly online course that is available for anyone to join regardless of educational status, and launches in early spring. Unlike offerings through FutureLearn, potential students have to register through the college proper, and charges apply. International students also might have problems with the live streaming of video, but this blog gets enough North American readers to make it worth mentioning.

So what’s it about? The aim is to stream three film adaptations of Shakespeare plays and discuss them in an online forum. They’re particularly hoping to pick up people who have already studied Shakespeare and not enjoyed it. As they put it “the fault was not yours. Most teachers have no idea how to teach Shakespeare”. Here’s a summary from the website:

“Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear are three of the world’s great masterpieces. What do they have in common? For one thing, they each center on family issues (to say the least). Also, the plays all involve deep romantic passion, out-of-control violence, and timeless moral lessons. What’s not to like?”

If you want to follow it up the official title is Shakespeare Visions (Shakespeare on Film) and the course identifier is ENGL 16 (0257). Registration is open at Monterey Peninsula College . Allston James has taught Shakespeare for many years and as a playwright is winner of the 2015 British Theatre Challenge in London.

Plenty to keep anyone interested in Shakespeare occupied for a while: I’m going to be featuring lots of Shakespeare-related events over the next few months.

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