The Shakespeare blog

Shakespeare and graffiti

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Sylvia Morris

Patrick Stewart as Shakespeare and Richard McCabe as Ben Jonson in Edward Bond’s play Bingo

Stories that portray Shakespeare as a real person, particularly one who didn’t always behave impeccably, are always appealing, whether or not they are true. One of the earliest and most persistent of legends relating to Shakespeare’s life is the deer-poaching episode supposed to have taken place at Charlecote when he was a young man. Another is the lovely story of how Shakespeare and Richard Burbage competed for the favours of a female playgoer, and how Shakespeare got in first, sending Burbage the witty message that “William the Conqueror came before Richard III”. And don’t we all rather like the fact that Anne Hathaway was several months pregnant when she and Will were married?

Last week I spotted a new post in the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Shakespeare Unlimited podcasts on the subject Shakespeare and the Tabard Inn. It’s presented by Martha Carlin who has discovered, among papers at the University of Edinburgh, a reference to Shakespeare and his friends carving their names into the wooden panelling of the Tabard Inn in Southwark, from which Geoffrey Chaucer’s pilgrims began their journey in The Canterbury Tales. She tells the full story in the podcast, but it was also published in 2014 by the Times Literary Supplement.

The reconstructed Tabard Inn during the 1800s

An anonymous antiquary, writing around 1643, described the borough of Southwark, in his “Some notes for my Perambulation in and round ye Citye of London for six miles and Remnants of divers worthie things and men”. The twenty-seven pages of manuscript are now kept at Edinburgh University Library (MS La. II 422/211). The author mentions “those Stews so long a source of profitt to ye Maiers of London and Bishopps of Winchester ye Bear Gardens and Playes”. At the time he was writing The Tabard was a respectable inn, frequented by the Mayor, Sherriffs and Aldermen of the City when on official business, and he writes “The Tabard I find to have been the resort Mastere Will Shakspear Sir Sander Duncombe Lawrence Fletcher Richard Burbage Ben Jonson and the rest of their roystering associates in King Jameses time as in the lange room they have cut their names on the Pannels.”

John Faed’s Shakespeare and his Contemporaries, 1851

This certainly sounds plausible, though history is littered with forged Shakespeare documents and caution is always needed. The subject is a familiar one: John Faed, in 1851, painted a fanciful group portrait of Shakespeare and his contemporaries at the Mermaid Inn, another popular drinking place. The rather proper group could hardly be called “roystering”, nor do they look as if they might have been carving graffiti on the panelling, but actors and other theatrical people have always gathered sociably in bars after performances. The Tabard Inn suffered the same fate as many of London’s buildings, burning down in 1676 when Southwark had its own fire just ten years after the Great Fire of London. Although subsequently rebuilt the panelling did not survive.

For now, Martha Carlin is clearly on the trail of the mysterious antiquary who wrote the manuscript. Who was he, and why was it never completed? There’s no explanation of how it came to be at Edinburgh University Library, but as the obvious resources have been exhausted documents that mention Shakespeare are occasionally turning up elsewhere, found by people who are looking for something else. This was the case with this one.

The manuscript featured in this podcast episode will be exhibited January 20 – March 27, 2016, at the Folger Shakespeare Library, as part of Shakespeare, Life of an Icon.

And if you haven’t come across them yet, do take a look at the Shakespeare Unlimited podcasts. They’ve been appearing for about a year, and cover a wide range of subjects, discussed by a variety of academics and Folger Shakespeare Library staff. These include Shakespeare and Punk Rock, The Shakespeare Moons of Uranus, Shakespeare’s Street Fighting and Shakespeare’s France and Italy.

Posted in Legacy | Tagged Bingo, Canterbury Tales, Edward Bond, Folger Shakespeare Library, John Faed, legends | Comments Off

Archaeology: uncovering Shakespeare’s England

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Sylvia Morris

An archaeologist at work on the Bedlam graveyard

I always used to think of archaeologists as people who dug up the remains of Roman settlements and prehistoric burial chambers, but in the last few years they seem to have been examining a much wider range of sites, working with specialists from other disciplines to tell us much more about the relatively recent past. In so doing they are explaining not just the progress of invaders, or the rich and powerful, but about ordinary people.

I’ve been fascinated by the work done by Museum of London Archaeology to find the remains of the playhouses of Shakespeare’s London, and even evidence of the activities of the audiences. These have been outlined by Julian Bowsher in his book Shakespeare’s London Theatreland. At least partial remains of the Rose, the Globe, the Theatre, the Curtain and the Hope have all been found as well as bear-baiting rings. These provided entertainment of a different kind, though the fact that they existed in close proximity is a reminder of the options available to Elizabethans in exchange for their pennies.

London’s lost graveyard

Now archaeologists from Museum of London Archaeology have been at work on a different sort of project that is revealing much more about the lives, illnesses and deaths of Londoners from 1569 onwards. At 8pm on Sunday 19 July Channel 4 will screen the documentary London’s Lost Graveyard: the Crossrail Discovery. The huge excavations for the Crossrail project has uncovered the Bethlem Burial Ground, thought to be lost forever, beneath Liverpool Street Station. The burial ground itself may have been known by Shakespeare: it seems likely that he visited Bedlam, the asylum for the mentally ill, as Edgar in King Lear describes how he will disguise himself:
My face I’ll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots,
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity.

This page contains a link to the trailer and here’s the account in the Daily Mail.

The burial ground’s main function was to bury plague victims. Plague nowadays makes us think of the medieval Black Death and the 1665 Great Plague in London, but there were sporadic outbreaks for centuries. There was one in Stratford-upon-Avon in the year Shakespeare was born, and in Romeo and Juliet it is an outbreak of plague that prevents Friar Laurence’s letter to Romeo getting through. Audiences would have recognised what happened:
The searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal’d up the doors and would not let us forth.

The 1665 Great Plague killed 75000, around a quarter of London’s population, and they have excavated a staggering 3000 of the 20000 skeletons thought to have been buried at Bethlem. It’s been described as “a vast poor man’s graveyard from the era when modern multi-cultural Britain was born”. Archaeologists have been working with microbiologists and palaeontologists to analyse the bones and test DNA, comparing results with the historical parish records to reveal the names and life stories of some of the victims. Matthew Symonds explained “Historical records will be from the more educated and better-off sections, but this is something that tells us how everyday people lived their lives.” Reassuringly for my preconceptions, the archaeologists have also found the remains of a Roman road.

Excavations at Coventry

Also in the news this week has been the discovery of archaeological finds during restoration work at Coventry Cathedral. Stonework from a thirteenth century chapel has been found, and rubble dating from after the destruction of the Cathedral in 1940 when the whole city was subject to ferocious bombing. Masonry has been uncovered, and to quote the Coventry Observer, “For the first time in 75 years, the original stone floor of the medieval Cathedral – made up of memorial stones dating back to the 18th century – can be seen alongside the burnt wooden base of the Rood Screen which was destroyed in the fire following the 1940 bombing.”

Their Facebook page also contains additional information, and the excavation will remain open until 23 July.

Coventry was the nearest place of any size to Stratford and was an important city, enjoying a measure of self-government. We can’t be sure that Shakespeare ever visited Coventry himself but he was certainly aware of its history, as he refers several times to events that happened there. Act 1 Scene 3 of Richard II, the great formal scene where the court assembles to witness the fight to the death of Bolingbroke and Mowbray, is a dramatisation of a real event that took place in Coventry in 1398. Parliament met in Coventry on a number of occasions from the reign of Henry IV to Henry VI making the city the temporary seat of government, in particular during the Wars of the Roses. During Shakespeare’s lifetime Queen Elizabeth herself stayed in the city.

The discoveries being made by archaeologists are reminding people of Coventry’s distinguished past, as well as the no less interesting, lives of Londoners from Shakespeare’s period and beyond.

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare's World | Tagged archaeology, Bedlam, Bethlem, Coventry Cathedral, Julian Bowsher, King Lear, Museum of London archaeology, Richard II | 2 Comments

News about Shakespeare’s School

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Sylvia Morris

The Schoolroom, King Edward VI School, Stratford

Last week the news broke that Stratford’s King Edward VI School (Shakespeare’s School) has won its bid for £1.4 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund. This is excellent news: this money will enable the school to carry out much-needed conservation work as well as opening the building up for visitors to the town to enjoy, and developing activities for schoolchildren.

The upstairs room was used as a schoolroom during Shakespeare’s day so is where Shakespeare would have learned his Latin as well as becoming acquainted with the classics including Virgil and Ovid, and learning the art of rhetoric which he would put to good use later. The downstairs room was where the Town Council met, including, for most of Shakespeare’s childhood, his own father, and it was in the Guild Hall where professional players performed. This is, then, almost certainly where Shakespeare saw his first plays. There’s a real sense of history in these rooms and the schoolroom is to me the most impressive of Stratford’s half-timbered spaces. It never fails to impress, but until now it’s only been able to open it occasionally, and there must be many regular visitors to Stratford who have never had the chance to go inside. I’ve been told that the schoolroom can claim to be the oldest room in continuous educational use anywhere in England. Indeed, it has been little altered since it was build around 1420, though the wooden desks are considerably more modern.

The Guild Hall, Stratford

King Edward VI School has more to be proud of than its Shakespeare claims. The connection between that room, the downstairs Guild Hall, the Guild Chapel and the Alms Houses demonstrate the priorities of the medieval town to govern itself, to respect religion, to educate the young and to care for the elderly, all within one small area.

Primary school children from the area will learn about the school and its history through hands-on educational visits and there will be interactive displays to explain the use of the rooms at different times. As well as conserving the timber structure, conservation work will be carried out on some wall frescoes that have been only recently fully uncovered. Here’s the link to the press release. The project is due for completion to mark the four-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in April 1616.

Edward’s Boys in Dido, Queen of Carthage

Importantly, the school room remains in use, and KES continues promotes a wide range of activities. In Shakespeare’s day, most lessons were completely different from today, with much learning by rote, and there are several scenes in Shakespeare’s plays that refer back to his schooldays, especially one scene in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the portrayal of a schoolmaster in Love’s Labour’s Lost. However like other grammar schools pupils would have put on plays, and today the drama group Edward’s Boys present the repertoire of the boy players of Shakespeare’s time. They have built a fine reputation, and this year’s production of John Ford’s The Lady’s Trial is to be performed at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe on 26 and 27 September. The group performs challenging plays, some of which, like The Lady’s Trial, have been neglected since the 1630s. The founder and director of Edward’s Boys, Perry Mills, explains the background to the play in this newly-released trailer, which also features clips of the cast delivering lines from the play.

Posted in Shakespeare's World, Stratford-upon-Avon | Tagged Edwards' Boys, King Edward VI School, Perry Mills | Comments Off

Roger Rees: good night, sweet prince

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Sylvia Morris

Roger Rees and Michael Williams in The Comedy of Errors, 1976

On Saturday 11 July 2015 it was announced that the actor and director Roger Rees had died aged 71. Better known for his more recent TV and film work in the USA, he spent many years in his early career with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I first saw him play Malcolm in the RSC’s Macbeth, then Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet at the Aldwych in 1977, but it was Trevor Nunn’s The Comedy of Errors a few weeks later that made me a real RSC convert. Roger Rees took the leading role of Antipholus of Syracuse, a performance that in his contribution to the Guardian obituary, David Edgar described as “unmatchably brilliant”.

A few years later Edgar was invited to adapt Nicholas Nickleby and Rees was cast in the leading role. After a slow start, the production became a triumphant success. It remains a high point in the history of the RSC, not least because of his “electrifying” performance.

In between, though, Rees had impressed in both Shakespeare and other plays. In 1979 he had played Posthumus in Cymbeline, Semyon in Erdman’s farcical satire on Stalineque bureaucracy The Suicide and Tusenbach in Chekhov’s Three Sisters. His versatility was apparent: Michael Billington described his Posthumus as “not the usual romantic stick but a knotted junior Leontes, driven into a lather of sexual frenzy by the thought that Imogen had been false to him”, whereas in the Erdman play he was “Chaplinesque” and a “Hamlet-like ditherer in outsize jacket and Buster Keaton hat.” Then his awkward, doomed Tusenbach, hopelessly in love with Emily Richard’s Irina.

David Threlfall as Smike, Roger Rees as Nicholas, Nicholas Nickleby 1980

Rees could always be charming, engaging and witty in performance, but these roles increased his emotional range, and demonstrated a growing interest in psychology. Later the same year he took part in the unconventional rehearsal process for Nicholas Nickleby, an experience which affected his view of acting as collaboration. In the RSC’s 1980-81 Yearbook he described how “We started to recognise and make friends with compromise, and to understand it as a strengthening and forceful arbiter in our work.”

Edgar’s adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby allowed Rees “to chart the growth of an angry young man into a moral hero”, rescuing the part from the priggishness which Dickens’ Nicholas has been accused of. He also wrote the play with the idea that ” the actors would shift effortlessly from narrating the story to commenting on their character to playing it”. Rees proved adept at these shifts, allowing him to be both the leading actor in the play and to step outside it, addressing the audience with Dickens’ own comments. Edgar notes that Rees used this to great comic effect. In his review, James Fenton noted ” It was a good move to cast such an engaging actor in the part of young Nickleby, not because his personality closely resembles that of the Dickens hero, but because a striking character was required to add savour to the original”.

It’s hard to define Roger Rees’s on-stage personality, but those who have tried agreed on the energy of his performances. Michael Coveney, in his Obituary, calls it “vibrancy and emotional fizz”, Irving Wardle said he was “feverishly restless”, and Ros Asquith said he had “towering nervous energy”. This sounds exhausting, but Rees’s performances were also emotionally rich. James Fenton again “The nervous activity of face and limbs is evidence of an extreme attentiveness to whatever may be happening around him. Experience has taught him that all is not going to be well. Indeed, I can think of few actors who are better of conveying, through facial expressions alone, a frank acquaintance with grief.”, and Coveney defined it as “a quickness and charm that could move an audience to tears or laughter, often both, at the speed of light”.

This serious connection with the audience was used most effectively at the end of Nicholas Nickleby. The death of Smike was the heartbreaking climax of the play, but in the final moments of the production Rees encountered the curled-up body of another abandoned boy. He stooped and picked him up, and fixing the audience with a sternly challenging stare.

Programme image of Roger Rees as Hamlet, 1984

Rees’s last season with the RSC was 1984-5, when he played Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost and Hamlet. While making the most of the comic opportunities of Berowne, it was noted by Irving Wardle that “nothing is more memorable in the show than the sight of …Roger Rees… coming to rest among his silent companions and launching with sober passion into the great speeches on the inspiration of women, and the renunciation of artificial language”. The Hamlet was not a star vehicle but a study of troubled families. Frances Barber as Ophelia, Kenneth Branagh as Laertes and Nicholas Farrell as Horatio, each had their own weight. Meanwhile Rees gave a study in psychology: “A Hamlet who plausibly enough was in retreat from strong emotion as well as a Hamlet possessed of this actor’s air of boyish, fretful bafflement… he also brings intelligence and profound melancholy to the part” plus “mercurial quickness and sweet-souled delicacy”. “Good night, sweet prince”, indeed.

Posted in Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged David Edgar, Nicholas Nickleby, Roger Rees | Comments Off

Hugh Quarshie looking for the Moor

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Sylvia Morris

Hugh Quarshie as Othello

I wrote last October about the news that the distinguished actor Hugh Quarshie was to take on the role of Othello, with another black actor, Lucian Msamati, playing Iago. The story is that in an essay Quarshie wrote some years ago, he seemed to count himself out of playing the role, but was eventually persuaded by the Artistic Director of the RSC, Gregory Doran, who suggested that this was the right time for him.

The reviews of Iqbal Khan’s much-awaited production are now out and are universally favourable. Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph called the production “electrifying” and remarked: “it feels as though history is being made. A blow is struck for diversity without at all diluting the play’s perturbing power. The concept burns with molten intensity into the flesh of the evening. At a stroke we move beyond black-and-white ideas of racism as a motivator for Iago, and racial difference as the reason for Othello’s ruinous suggestibility. In this version, they’re both outsiders and that makes for a fascinating psychological dynamic. ”

Hugh Quarshie and Lucian Msamati in Othello, RSC 2015

With a black Iago as well as a black Othello, the production seems to be making the play less about racism and more about psychology. In an interview with the Stratford Herald Quarshie suggested that audiences come to hear “the Othello music”, ” They are less concerned with the psychology than the magnificence of the emotion.” For Quarshie, though, “the problem for any actor playing Othello is marrying the two halves – in the first half he is mellow, astute and assured, but in the second half he becomes obsessive, insecure, riddled with jealousy and violent – this massive switch occurs in just one scene.” This production tries to find a reason for this sudden change other than the usual explanation that relates to Othello’s genes.

On 12 July 2015, that’s this weekend, Radio 3’s Sunday Feature at 6.45pm is entitled Looking for the Moor. It’ll be available on IPlayer after broadcast. This is the description from the Radio Times:
The actor Hugh Quarshie read Shakespeare’s Othello at secondary school. He was delighted to have a black man at the centre of the drama when he began the play, but felt that Othello was debased, a caricature of a “typical” black man – unpredictable and violent – by the end. Quarshie has enjoyed a successful acting career but has always turned down the role of the Moor, until now, agreeing to play it for the first time for the RSC. This highly personal feature has Quarshie ask other black actors, including Lenny Henry, Adrian Lester and James Earl Jones, how they square Othello’s sudden transformation from admirable hero to murderous wretch. They have all found a way. It’s a tragedy about a man – his ethnicity is immaterial.

In an interview with the Guardian, Quarshie suggested that “the play’s history on stage uncovers as much about the societies in which it appears as the play itself. “What we make of it tells us more about ourselves than it does about Shakespeare,” says Quarshie. He laughs: “I’m sure our production will be no different.”

Lucian Msamati as Iago, RST 2015

There’s a further interview with him on the Afridiziak website. Most of the media interest has been in Quarshie, but this production sees both Othello and Iago as outsiders, so here’s a link to one of the few interviews with Lucian Msamati, incidentally the first black Iago for the RSC.

At the RST on Sunday 9 August from 11-12.30 a debate is being held asking “Is Othello a racist play?”, which given the current production should be a terrific discussion.

The production is on until the end of August and will be broadcast Live from Stratford-upon-Avon to cinemas on 26 August 2015. Don’t miss it!

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged Hugh Quarshie, Iqbal Khan, Lucian Msamati, Othello | 1 Comment

The Wars of the Roses at the Rose, Kingston

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Sylvia Morris

Trevor Nunn

In an interview published in February 2014 Trevor Nunn explained that it was his aim to direct all of Shakespeare’s plays “before I hang up my boots”, with only seven left to go. “I’m very keen to do a particular production of King John but what I’ve got to try and do is set up the War of the Roses sequence.” Since then he has ticked The Two Gentlemen of Verona off his list with a student production, and later this year will be working on Pericles with Theatre for a New Audience. And that Wars of the Roses sequence is on track for later on this year with a run at the Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames. Previews begin on 16 September and the productions will run until 31 October.

Casting is just being announced: Joely Richardson will play Queen Margaret, and others in the case include Rufus Hound (Bedford, Bolingbroke, Cade and Rivers), Robert Sheehan (Richard III), Kare Conradi(Edward IV), Oliver Cotton (Winchester, Clifford and Hastings), Laurence Spellman (Young Clifford and Richmond), Alex Waldmann (Henry VI and Tyrrell) and Susan Tracy (Margery Jourdain and Duchess of York). As well as over 20 professional actors, a local community chorus will complete the ensemble. It will be the largest company to perform at the Rose since it opened in 2008.

The Wars of the Roses consists of a conflation of the three Henry VI plays into two parts, plus Richard III, so if one was to be pedantic it could be claimed that they are not “proper” Shakespeare plays, but there are other reasons why it is so appropriate for Nunn to revisit this trilogy. It will reunite Nunn with designer John Napier, with whom he worked on many of his most successful productions including Nicholas Nickleby. Their design will “transform the Rose’s auditorium”. It’s also a way of paying homage to those who created the original production. In a recent interview about this project he talked about what this particular production will mean to him: “doing a revival of that text, of that adaptation, is one way that I can celebrate the astonishing careers of Peter Hall and John Barton… I hugely admire both of them and their achievements and I was lucky enough to have them both as mentors.”

It’s also appropriate because of the connection between Peter Hall and the Rose Theatre in Kingston: “He was its founding father – it was his last artistic directorship before he retired. I remember visiting the venue with him when it was still a building site, and several times since then, so it’s a very emotional place for me. And it’s modelled on the original Rose on the south bank, which is where the Henry VI plays and Richard III were first performed. So they’re coming home. ”

Poster for The Plantagenets, 1988

The Wars of the Roses, first staged in 1963 and revived in 1964, was the first major success of the newly-formed Royal Shakespeare Company founded by Peter Hall, and began the RSC’s close association with these plays. In 1977 Terry Hands proved that it was possible to stage all three parts of Henry VI in a cycle starring the great Shakespearian actor Alan Howard, with his favourite designer Farrah. The English Shakespeare Company (founded by long-term RSC stalwarts Michael Pennington and Michael Bogdanov) produced The Wars of the Roses in the late 1980s, comprising all the history plays from Richard II to Richard III, with the Henry VI plays edited into two with the titles King Henry VI – House of Lancaster and House of York and Adrian Noble’s 1988 Plantagenets was also based on the Hall/Barton cycle.

Katy Stephens as Joan la Pucelle, 2006

Most recently for the RSC Michael Boyd directed all three Henry VI plays at the Swan Theatre in 2000, then revived them as part of the whole history cycle at the Courtyard Theatre in 2006-7, with Tom Piper who is now RSC Associate Designer. It’s notable how often directors and designers forge long-lasting collaborations during the creation of these challenging history cycles.

In his programme note to The Plantagenets, Alan Sinfield noted that each of these cycles took a slightly different view of history and the “innate destructiveness in human affairs”. In 1963 “Hall invoked the Tudor idea of order….[and] drew upon fashionable attempts to understand human behaviour by comparing it with that of animals, suggesting than man has an instinctive will to dominate”. In 1977 the programme notes suggested “that people are innately aggressive,…the implacable roller of history crushing everyone and everything. The idea…encourages us to put up with things the way they are otherwise it will all get out of hand again”. The Plantagenets had a much less political message, showing “a specific moment in the disintegration of feudal chivalry, as a precarious social arrangement succumbs to contradictions in its structure”. For Nunn, “The reason is that they remain urgent and relevant and capable of making us think ‘oh god, we’re still doing the same things, we’re still resorting to battle and bloodshed’. The plays really investigate that instinct of why we resort to war.”

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged John Barton, Peter Hall, Rose Theatre Kingston, Trevor Nunn | Comments Off

All for your delight: Shakespearian summer treats

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Sylvia Morris

Table top Shakespeare

Now July has arrived, and some summer weather, it’s time for a round-up.

Already well under way is the Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare project being run by Forced Entertainment, a theatre company based in Sheffield, UK. Over 9 days at the Foreign Affairs Festival, Berlin, Forced Entertainment performers will retell Shakespeare’s complete canon, making their way through a series of 36 forty minute works played out on the one meter stage of a table top. This comical and intimately retold Shakespeare season presents the works as hand-made miniatures using a collection of everyday unextraordinary objects as stand-ins for characters. Each play will be live streamed, for free, on our website – inviting audiences around the world to tune in and watch from a distance each evening (GMT), starting June 25 through to July 4. More information can be found here.

Also touring in the UK and indeed as far away as the Netherlands and Norway is the well-established Festival Players Theatre Company. They are celebrating thirty years of professional touring with a summer programme of As You Like It and Henry IV (a conflation of both parts), directed by Michael Dyer. They are performing at a huge number of impressive venues that will see them going right through until September.

Shakespeare enthusiasts looking for summer reading might enjoy a new book that’s to be published by Publicious in paperbook and ebook on 4 August, My Stratford Friend by Dominick Reyntiens.

It’s the story of Shakespeare’s childhood told through his fictional friend Tom Wickham, a stable boy and son of a livery steward. It weaves known facts about Shakespeare with speculation such as the possibility he worked as a tutor in Lancashire in a “radical and entertaining interpretation of Shakespeare’s adolescence”. “The boys embark on a riotous and decadent, journey of self-discovery. At once My Stratford Friend presents a new side to Shakespeare the man and also reveals our shared need for enduring friendship, nostalgia, and good old-fashioned fun.” Dominic Reyntiens will be presenting the book at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 8 August. The author will be presenting a performance version at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Handlebards

Also at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, as part of their UK tour, HandleBards are off again. Their tour began on 24 June.
They’re an eccentric cycling Shakespeare troupe, praised by Sir Ian McKellen as ‘outrageous’ and ‘uproariously funny’, and they’ve got something a little bit different to offer at this year’s Fringe. They’ll perform a limited run of secret shows (18, 19, 25, 26 August) in secret locations across Edinburgh. Meeting their audience at Bedlam Theatre, they’ll provide each and every one of them with a bicycle, and together actors and audience alike will pedal off on a spectacular adventure “over hill, over dale, thorough bush, thorough brier”. They’re also performing Hamlet (21, 23, 28, 30 August) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (20, 22, 27, 29 August) in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, where last year they won the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award.

Over in the USA there is as usual a crop of outdoor Shakespeare. Just to draw attention to a small selection: the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory will be performing both As You Like It and an all-female production of Henry IV part 1. Performances take place outdoors at the Evergreen Museum and Library.
As You Like It begins performances on July 17, 2015. Chris Cotterman, who recently played Bassanio in BSF’s critically acclaimed production of The Merchant of Venice in original pronunciation, will direct. BSF continues to break ground with an all-female cast in Henry IV, Part I. Performances begin on July 31 and run until August 23. It will be directed by Founding Artistic Director, Tom Delise.

The Manhattan Shakespeare Project’s all-female production of The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Kate Holland is already under way, and playing from 9-26 July in Morningside Park, Manhattan. Performances are free and the running time is 75 minutes. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW uses the company’s unique “reverse-theatre-in-the-round” staging and a surprise framing device. Fun and engaging for all audiences and pets alike, the all-female cast takes on the questions of gender voice, rights, and duty. And with a talk back after each performance everyone is part of the conversation.

In Chicago, First Folio Theatre is producing The Winter’s Tale as this year’s play in its outdoor Shakespeare Under the Stars series from 8 July to 19 August. The production will be “filled with wonder, magic and mystery”, and directed by First Folio theatre’s Artistic Director Alison C Vesely. This will be the 19th Annual production.

First Folio Theatre is concluding its 19^th season of bringing high-quality performances of Shakespeare and other classics to the stage. During that time, the theater has expanded from an annual summer production to a year-round operation with three separate and distinct stages at the historic Mayslake Peabody Estate. The Chicago Tribune raved that their Shakespeare Under the Stars summer series “offers something Navy Pier can’t…plenty of greenery, gentle breezes and the chance to stretch out on a blanket with family and friends while being transported to Shakespeare’s otherworldly romance.” 

Here’s hoping your summer will be full of Shakespeare treats.

Posted in Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged Baltimore Shakespeare Factory, Festival Players Theatre Company, First Folio Theatre, Handlebards, Manhattan Shakespeare Project, My Stratford Friend, Outdoor Shakespeare, Tabletop Shakespeare | Comments Off

When Parliament almost came to Stratford-upon-Avon

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Sylvia Morris

The Palace of Westminster

On 18 June 2015 a report was published concerning the need for major restoration on the Houses of Parliament in London. It outlines a number of possible options for the work and for what might happen to Parliament in the mean time.

This piece suggests possible alternative venues and while most of them involve staying in London the possibility of moving the centre of government to the midlands or north of England has been raised: both the new Library of Birmingham and Manchester’s Town Hall have been suggested, not entirely seriously. This isn’t the first time it has been proposed that Parliament might move out of London, and Shakespeare was involved.

Shakespeare Memorial Theatre nearing completion, Stratford-upon-Avon

At the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939 it was possible that the capital would be bombed and large parts of London would be destroyed. Contingency plans were accelerated for Parliament to move elsewhere, and the chosen venue was the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. The SMT was a new building: the auditorium could seat around 1200, and adjoining it was the first theatre, known as the Conference Hall (now the site of the Swan Theatre). Stratford offered both these and a reasonable amount of accommodation for Lords and Members of Parliament in an area that was unlikely to be a target for bombs. Planning proceeded swiftly, and on 12 June 1940 Sir Victor Goodman, the Clerk to Parliament, completed a document on Billeting at HK (the code name for Stratford-upon-Avon). A copy of this is in the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive, ordered from the House of Commons Library by Marian Pringle while researching her book The Theatres of Stratford-upon-Avon 1875-1992. In this document Goodman refers to several additional reports he has prepared, and it’s clear that this plan was based on detailed investigations. The Theatre would become the House of Commons, the Conference Hall the Lords. The whole building would be commandeered and dressing rooms, the Museum and Library would become into offices. The theatre staff would be kept on: technicians, porters and cleaners would be needed, and staff from the House of Commons kitchens would take over the facilities at the theatre. The Shakespeare Hotel had already been commandeered and was to be used by the Parliament Office and the Lord Chancellor’s Department, and would provide rooms for ministers, shorthand writers and a teleprinter. New telephone lines had been installed and appropriate furniture brought in. Peers were to be billeted at the Falcon Hotel, and three large private houses some five miles away “should be reserved for special individuals”. Other staff were to be billeted in boarding and private houses graded A, B and C depending on their comfort and distance from the Theatre.

In his blog, volunteer at the SCLA Phil Spinks ponders whether these plans were such an open secret that the whole thing might have been an elaborate hoax, but there have been a number of articles written on the subject and no alternative plan has been revealed. A few years later when a German invasion was no longer a threat, the Manchester Guardian (26 April 1945) reported on the plans for moving Parliament in the days of the blitz. “Now it can be told that arrangements were made to transfer the two houses together with the Parliamentary journalists, to Stratford-on-Avon, where the Memorial Theatre was to furnish the necessary accommodation for the two chambers”.

The aftermath of the bombing of Parliament May 1941

Goodman’s document was written three months before the start of the London blitz , that continued for 57 consecutive days, then intermittently until May 1941. The Guardian piece explains why the plans came to nothing. In September 1940 the “dreadful bombing …never reached the level anticipated and after then the plans were dropped”. Parliament was damaged during a number of raids, and ironically on the last day of the Blitz on 10 May 1941 the Commons Chamber was completely destroyed. The war continued to rage until 1945 and it was just five years afterwards, in October 1950, that the new chamber was officially opened.

In this piece Steve Fox outlines how plans for evacuating the government and civil service had been under consideration since 1936. This site considers the discussions about moving parliament before the war and the bombing raid in May 1941, and here the damage to the Palace of Westminster during the war is explored.

It’s interesting to contrast the work in the late 1930s with current procedures. A report was commissioned into the need for refurbishing Parliament in 2012 and as a result of this the Independent Options Appraisal was carried out by an independent consortium from December 2013. Now a joint select committee will be formed to decide which of the options is to be recommended before the question comes under further discussion in Spring 2016. Rebuilding is unlikely to start before 2020. If Parliament moves completely out of the Palace of Westminster the work will take 6 years, and cost £3.5-£3.9 billion. If they take a halfway-house option, moving out in stages it will take 11 years and cost £4.4 billion. And if they don’t move out, it will take 32 years and cost £5.7 billion.

And what would Stratford have become like if the planned relocation of Parliament had taken place? With the theatre closed for years, and all the accommodation in the town taken over by the government, would tourism in Stratford have ever recovered? In fact during the war the theatre continued to put on performances, entertaining among others many American GIs stationed in the area, and ensuring that Shakespeare’s work was firmly linked to the struggle for the future of Britain.

Posted in Legacy, Stratford-upon-Avon | Tagged Houses of Parliament, Palace of Westminster, relocation, Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, World War 2 | 1 Comment

Is King John Shakespeare’s most unloved play?

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Sylvia Morris

Jo Stone-Fewings as King John (Shakespeare’s Globe, 2015)

This weekend the Globe’s production of King John (co-produced with Royal & Derngate, Northampton, directed by James Dacre), closes. It’s the very last play in the canon to be produced by the Globe (though it has been staged there). This article suggests “There’s a reason why the past four centuries have ignored King John”.

But is that fair? In this article Michael Billington asks “What’s your favourite King John?, and although he didn’t get many responses the play clearly does have its fans. It was recently enthusiastically reviewed in the Financial Times and the Independent and in this blog by Michael Gray.

Alex Waldmann as King John, RSC 2012

Nothing is known about the reaction to the play in Shakespeare’s day, But Marc Morris’s article in History Today (based on his new book King John: Treachery, Tyranny and the Road to Magna Carta) notes that Shakespeare’s initially sympathetic treatment of John might have owed something to Thomas Cromwell’s attempt during the reign of Henry VIII to transform John’s reputation : “John was an English king who had stood up to the pope”. Around 1536 “John Bale penned a play called Kynge Johan and thereafter performed it around the country… The first play to present an English king on stage, …the righteous King John defends England against the machinations of the pope and the king of France.” The Kynge Johan “travesty” did not replace John’s reputation as a bad king, and after the first few scenes Shakespeare’s king shows himself to be an out and out villain.

This play became popular around two hundred years ago. J P Kemble’s production coincided with the wars with France: this week is the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo at which Napoleon was defeated. In his production Constance, the grieving mother of Prince Arthur was played by the leading tragic actress of the day, Sarah Siddons. The introduction in the RSC Edition of the plays notes that in 1811 Jane Austen surprisingly complained in a letter that the performance of King John which she had hoped to see was replaced by Hamlet.

King John playbill 1823 promising “Habit of the period”

In 1823 Charles Kemble planned a production of the play in collaboration with antiquary James Planche who designed historically accurate costumes and sets. In his Recollections and Reflections Planche wrote “When the curtain rose, and discovered King John dressed as his effigy appears in Worcester Cathedral, surrounded by his barons sheathed in mail, with cylindrical helmets and correct armorial shields, and his couriers in the long tunics and mantles of the thirteenth century, there was a roar of approbation, accompanied by four distinct rounds of applause, so general and so hearty, that the actors were astonished.” Thus began the fashion for splendidly ornate productions that could become a series of magnificent tableaux rather than dramas. These included those by Macready in 1842, Kean in 1852 and Herbert Beerbohm Tree in 1899, after which the play declined in popularity. There’s a full performance history here.

There’s been a distinct increase in the play’s popularity over the last 20 years or so. It’s strong on the observation of politicians and others in power, and through the character of The Bastard it pokes fun at the pretensions of those who govern us. And the Bastard is honest enough to admit that he is as corruptible as anyone else. His famous speech is about “commodity”, what we would call self-interest or greed.
And why rail I on this Commodity?
But for because he hath not woo’d me yet:
Not that I have the power to clutch my hand,
When his fair angels would salute my palm;
But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary.

James Dacre is interested in the way the play explores how power works, in private and in public. The production aims to “say something meaningful about the relationship of politicians to the public, and the difference between the conversations politicians have with the electorate and the conversations politicians have behind closed doors”. (The Independent).

Charles Kemble as the Bastard, 1804

The Bastard has often been played by the leading actor. Completely invented by Shakespeare, he speaks directly to the audience, and appears to be a straight-talker in a world of political deception. He also speaks the final, patriotic lines of the play:
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them.
Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

In the Globe’s production the Bastard has been played by Alex Waldmann, the King in the RSC 2012 production, while the King is played by Jo Stone-Fewings, the Bastard in another RSC production back in 2002. How interesting it would be to hear their views on performing these two contrasting but complementary roles.

Posted in Legacy, Plays and Poems, Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged Alex Waldmann, James Dacre, James Planche, Jane Austen, Jo Stone-Fewings, King John RSC, Sarah Siddons, Shakespeare's Globe | 1 Comment

Julie Taymor’s phantasmagoric film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Sylvia Morris

Julie Taymor’s film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was released in the UK, perhaps predictably, on Sunday 21 June 2015. And from the trailer, it looks amazing (see the end of this post). As a director she’s worked around the world on film, stage productions of opera, straight plays and of course the musical The Lion King.

Much of her work demonstrates her interest in the mythology and folklore of different cultures, probably owing to the fact that she spent much time in the far east when young, learning about mime and puppetry. She’s noted for her love of spectacular visual effects.

She’s also got a great love of Shakespeare and has directed several of his plays on stage. Her previous Shakespeare films, Titus and The Tempest, started, as did A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with stage productions. Both those, though, were made on location, whereas this one is based on the New York production by Theatre for a New Audience from 2013, and firmly rooted in the theatre. The audience are clearly visible in at least some of the shots. It’s not just a filmed version of the stage show though. In Broadway World she describes is as “a new hybrid of film and theater where the best of both worlds has the opportunity to join forces and create a unique new form of entertainment”

We’re only just getting used to live streaming of plays from theatres into cinemas, and there are still those who don’t like the practise. There are worries that it will harm audience figures and reduce the number of productions being put on. And there are ongoing discussions about how it could change stage productions. How might the knowledge that the production was to be made available as a live relay and ultimately for sale on DVD affect the director, the designer and even the initial casting of the roles?

I imagine Taymor planned to make the film from the start, and used all her knowledge to create a film far more spectacular than the stage production can have been for the audience. In this interview she explains “if you just film a [theatre performance], you don’t get to put the camera on stage or use a handheld camera for close-ups of speeches, which I’ve done here … My big belief about Shakespeare on film is that, if you can show close-ups of mouths moving and reaction shots of other actors in the scene, you have double the understanding.”

It’s obviously much more sophisticated than the versions of productions filmed for TV in the 1970s and 1980s, like Trevor Nunn’s The Comedy of Errors where moments that had been subtle onstage were embarrassingly clumsy on film.

She describes her method and what she hopes to achieve in What’s on Stage: “I had 16 camera positions over four performances. I got those cameras in the best seats in the house for every moment. It took me a month to go through all the material just to select the best shots, but I feel it was worth it, because film is forever, while our initial production only ran for 12 weeks.”

“I much prefer productions on film that have been edited this way… When you edit it live there’s only so much preparation you can do – plus you don’t have camera movement, you don’t have cameras on stage. With this approach there’s a closeness to the actors that brings a liveness. You still get a connection with the audience – after all, the actors are still projecting to the live audience. So it’s not false in that sense. But there’s a wonderful level of intimacy to it”.

She’s certainly chosen the right play to try this out. Broadway World, again, calls the play “phantasmagorical”, and Taymor’s film “visually breathtaking, funny, sexy and darkly poetic”. You can also hear Taymor on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, broadcast on 19 June. In the interview she talks about some of the ideas and motifs behind her visual inspiration for the film, and about her interest in work that transcends culture. I was pleased to hear her saying she wanted to help the understanding Shakespeare’s words. For me the proof of the pudding will be whether the speaking of Shakespeare’s words are overwhelmed by the glorious special effects and music. The words are, after all, rather good.

The film is to be shown at the Picturehouse in Stratford at 1.30 on Sunday 28 June, and at other cinemas at different times on the same day. The trailer is below: if you receive posts by email click on the link at the end of the message to go to the blog to play the video.

Posted in Legacy, Plays and Poems, Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julie Taymor, Theatre for a New Audience | 1 Comment

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News about Shakespeare’s School

Roger Rees: good night, sweet prince

Hugh Quarshie looking for the Moor

The Wars of the Roses at the Rose, Kingston

All for your delight: Shakespearian summer treats

When Parliament almost came to Stratford-upon-Avon

Is King John Shakespeare’s most unloved play?

Julie Taymor’s phantasmagoric film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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