The Shakespeare blog

Revisiting Shakespeare’s restless world: an era in objects

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Most books on the subject of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods include chapters on seafaring and exploration, religious change, war, medicine and government, supported by illustrations of maps, religious paintings, contemporary buildings, portraits and printed works. The head of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor takes a different approach in his book Shakespeare’s Restless World, which has just been published in the USA. UK residents had the chance in 2012 to hear MacGregor’s radio broadcasts, and to visit the BM’s Shakespeare exhibition, and it’s good to have a reason to revisit the book after the gap of a year.

MacGregor follows the format of his hugely successful History of the World in 100 Objects. Each self-contained chapter effortlessly roams between the objects, the history of the period, Shakespeare’s works and our own world. The book is beautifully-illustrated, with images not just of the objects themselves but of other resources and of Shakespeare in performance.

The eye relic

The objects have been chosen carefully, and all are astonishing in their own way. Most are unfamiliar. Some, like the clock, the model of the ship and the Venetian goblet, are beautiful in their own right, made with tremendous skill. Others, like Dr Dee’s stone, are curiosities, or fantastic survivors like Henry V’s original funeral achievements. Some are gruesome, like the relic containing the eye of an executed Catholic priest, or commonplace, like the woollen cap that would have been worn every day by thousands of Elizabethan Londoners.

The pedlar’s trunk

My favourite chapter is the one about the Pedlar’s Trunk, entitled Disguise and Deception. The object immediately reminds us of the trickster Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale, but on closer inspection the trunk turns out to be not what it seems. It was used as a cover by an itinerant Catholic priest, who would have been in constant danger of discovery:

…the linen, silk and damask in this particular pedlar’s trunk are not bits of material waiting to be transformed into smart clothes for a young Elizabethan woman. They have already been made into the illegal vestments of a clandestine Roman Catholic priest

The restless world portrayed in these pages is a long way from “Merrie England”. It’s a world of political and religious upheaval, where violence, uncertainty and fear were common.

The cover disguising the Robben Island Shakespeare

MacGregor also aims to make connections between Shakespeare’s world and our own, and to investigate the question of why Shakespeare has such a hold on not just the UK but the world. The book begins and ends with chapters that focus on these questions. Drake’s Circumnavigation Medal marked his round-the-world journey which began the story of the British Empire that reached its height in the nineteenth century when Shakespeare was our national hero and his works evidence of UK superiority. The final chapter, on the Robben Island Shakespeare, illustrates how truly international his influence has become.

As the quotation after which the book is named reminds us, Shakespeare’s plays are about experience, emotion and the search for meaning in life. In Measure for Measure, Claudio is condemned to die, and fears not dying, but death:

To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: ’tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.

Claudio’s speech is only the second half of the discussion about life and death, though. It’s been started by the disguised Duke, who has visited him in prison and advised him to “be absolute for death”. But Claudio, a young man with everything to live for, fails to be convinced.

The book is subtitled “A portrait of an era in twenty objects”, and it tells many compelling stories about the period in which Shakespeare lived, and connects his plays with them. It is valid to ask how much physical objects can ever represent the concepts which Shakespeare wrote about, and some of the book’s reviews have been a little sniffy about making these links, but anyone interested in Shakespeare’s work and world will be surprised and intrigued by it. The book confirms the amazing way in which Shakespeare still shares with us his own restless search for meaning in life and death.

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare's World | Tagged British Museum, Measure for Measure, Neil MacGregor, objects, Robben Island | Comments Off

Stay passenger, why goest thou by so fast? A taste of history at Holy Trinity Church

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Stay passenger, why goest thou by so fast?

This line begins the English verse beneath the figure of Shakespeare on his monument. It was designed to draw attention to the grave of Shakespeare “with whome, quick nature dide”. Ironically, for hundreds of years visiting the grave of Shakespeare has become the main, if not the only reason for going inside Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. One estimate is that 200,000 people a year do just that.

There must be thousands of others who look at the church from the outside. It’s a beautiful building, in a lovely setting some way away from the town centre. Its terrace in the churchyard is a peaceful place to sit, enjoying the view across the river to the open recreation ground beyond.

But the emphasis on Shakespeare and the pressure of tour schedules means that most of the visitors don’t give the church or its surroundings the attention it deserves. Passengers need to be encouraged to stay to look at the rest of the building, not just Shakespeare’s tomb.

The Friends of Shakespeare’s Church is seeking to redress this balance by setting up a series of lunchtime talks about the building, its history and conservation. These are timed for Wednesdays from 6 November. They’re designed to fit in with lunchtimes, with each event beginning at 12.30, the talk lasting no more than 30 minutes from 12.45-1.15, and a sandwich lunch provided as an optional extra.

The lecture series is entitled A Taste of History, and full information is available on the Friends of Shakespeare’s Church website. The lectures are free, but donations are encouraged. The money raised will help to take further the work of conservation and restoration of this historic church.

The following information on the lectures is taken from the FOSC website:

The first talk on 6^th November will be by Stephen Oliver, our Church architect, who will tell us how the history of Holy Trinity feeds into our conservation work. Stephen will thereby lay the foundation for the remaining talks and explain why we do what we do.

Next up will be David Odgers (13^th November), the conservation specialist who did such a wonderful job conserving the Clopton Chapel, and who told us about his work so engagingly. This time, David will discuss and point out the conservation work he’s just finished on the memorials in the Chancel, including the bust of William Shakespeare and the tombs of Dean Balsall (or Balsale) – mutilated as it is – and of Shakespeare’s friend John Combe.

The third, excellent, speaker will be Mairi Macdonald on 20^th November. Mairi’s topic is the Guild of the Holy Cross and its relations with, and presence in, Holy Trinity. There were tensions between the Guild and the Church, not quite amounting to fisticuffs but strong-minded nonetheless. Yet the Guild maintained two chapels in the Church and contributed to our services. No one knows as much as Mairi, as the editor of The Register of the Guild of the Holy Cross, Stratford-upon-Avon, about the Guild and the Church. We’ll live and learn.

The final two talks will be given by Robert Bearman (27^th November and 4^th December). Robert will talk first about ‘The Shakespeare Family Gravestones and what they tell us’, a topic of unfailing interest not to say controversy. His second talk will be about St Peter’s Chapel – with its rich history and potential beauty – as well as the South Aisle and the Beckett chapel. Robert, as former Head of Archives and Local Studies at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust will stimulate a great deal of interest, you may be sure, in these sometimes overlooked but richly historic areas of the Church.

All the speakers are experts in their fields and are sure to bring to light unknown details of the church’s history. You’ll learn more about this ancient, important building, and incidentally it will be a great way to spend your lunchtime.

Posted in Legacy, Stratford-upon-Avon | Tagged conservation, Friends of Shakespeare's Church, grave, Holy Trinity Church, Mairi Macdonald, Rober Bearman | 1 Comment

Ian Richardson and Richard II’s ring

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Maroussia Frank, the BBC interviewer and David Tennant with the ring

On Friday morning BBC Radio 4’s Today programme included a feature about theatre history relating to David Tennant’s current role as Richard II. On the press night Tennant received a package from Ian Richardson’s widow Maroussia Frank containing the ring that Richardson had worn when he played the role in the same theatre in 1973 and 1974. Tennant now wears the ring for every performance. The piece is at 2hrs 49 into the three-hour programme, and this is a link to the story.

The Richard II ring

David Tennant admitted the history of Shakespeare in Stratford makes the experience of performing there rather intimidating, and said he wanted to wear the ring “to have a bit of Ian Richardson on stage with me, giving me a hand”. The RSC has a formidable record of performing Richard II, but of all their productions, none has a reputation to match that in which Ian Richardson appeared. In 1973 John Barton, the most intellectual of the RSC’s directors, emphasised the parallels between Richard and Bolingbroke by having two actors, Richardson and Richard Pasco, alternate the roles. Although Pasco is now much less familiar to the public he had already played the role for John Barton, and was well-known for his mellifluous verse-speaking. Using Richard II’s love of role-play, the production revelled in theatricality.

Ian Richardson as Bolingbroke and Richard Pasco as Richard II, RSC 1973-4

The moment where the two men each held the crown was central:
Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown;
Here cousin:
On this side my hand, and on that side yours.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another,
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen and full of water:
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

At the start of each performance Pasco and Richardson appeared to decide which of them was to play which role (though this was decided in advance). The two men had similar hair and beards. In the broken mirror, reduced to a crown-shaped frame, Richard literally came face to face with himself. And when Richard was in prison, the groom who visited him was revealed to be Bolingbroke.

Between 1960 and 1975 no actor was more closely associated with the RSC than Ian Richardson. Among his Shakespeare roles were Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Prospero in The Tempest, Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard III, Angelo in Measure for Measure, Pericles, Coriolanus, Iachimo in Cymbeline and Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Michael Billington’s obituary in 2007 indicated how important Richard II was:
If any single production staked his claim to greatness, however, it was John Barton’s 1973 Richard II in which Richardson and Richard Pasco alternated the roles of the king and Bolingbroke. Christopher Ricks, on the BBC radio programme, The Critics, vividly described Richardson’s Richard as “like Charles I in the first half and Jesus Christ in the second”. For my part, I recall his mixture of infinite sweetness, bruising irony and thunderous scorn. And Barton’s radical notion of Richard and the usurper as mirror-images of each other paid off brilliantly with the transition of Richardson’s Bolingbroke from apparently innocent victim to guilt-haunted wreck. Richardson and Pasco between them redefined the play.

After 1975 Richardson moved on, taking the role of Henry Higgins in a stage version of My Fair Lady (an ideal role for him, given his cut-glass diction), later becoming a household name through television series such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy and the House of Cards trilogy.

Richardson in The Hollow Crown

His last Stratford performances were in 2002 when he went back to the RST for a run of John Barton’s recital programme The Hollow Crown with other distinguished Shakespeare actors Donald Sinden, Derek Jacobi and Janet Suzman. The programme examines the history of the kings and queens of England, and Richardson memorably recited the speech from Richard II that gives the programme its name, with which he was so closely associated.

Nigel LIndsay as Bolingbroke holds the crown with David Tennant as Richard

He died in his sleep in 2007, and when his widow and younger son Miles, an actor with the RSC, visited the theatre during its transformation, it occurred to them that it would be appropriate for Ian’s ashes to be placed there. This wish was granted. So it isn’t just the ring that David Tennant can call on for a bit of moral support when on stage.

Just in case you haven’t heard, Richard II is going to be streamed Live from Stratford-upon Avon on 13 November to cinemas around the country. Lots of information about the production is available on the RSC’s website, including production diaries offering a fascinating insight into the show and some video clips from the dress rehearsal, very much worth a look even if you’re not able to get to the play itself.

Posted in Plays and Poems, Shakespeare on Stage, Stratford-upon-Avon | Tagged David Tennant, Ian Richardson, Richard II, Royal Shakespeare Theatre | 3 Comments

Visualising Shakespeare’s London

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

John Gipkin’s painting of Paul’s Cross, 1616

Most of the London that Shakespeare knew disappeared in the Great Fire of London in 1666. As the city was rebuilt the original street pattern was re-established, and today we still find places with medieval names: Cheapside, Newgate, Bishopsgate and many others. But among the glossy modern buildings it’s rare to get more than a glimpse of what Shakespeare’s London was really like.

It’s not, though, completely lost as documentary evidence for the appearance of the city still exists in museums, libraries and archives. And these sources are providing information with which digital reconstructions of the City are being created using skills usually associated with video game production.

John Stow memorial

Elizabethan London was fortunate in having residents who spent their lives documenting the city’s history and appearance. One of these was John Stow, a Londoner by birth whose father had supplied churches in the pre-reformation city with lamp-oil and candles. Stow was born in 1525 and initially became a tailor. His first literary work was an edition of Chaucer but he soon became preoccupied with historical studies. His most famous work, The Survey of London, was published in 1598 after decades of research, and was so popular that it was reprinted with additions in 1603. It has since been printed dozens of times. The 1603 edition is reproduced on the website British History Online, a digital library that makes available many of the most important primary and secondary sources for the history of the UK.

The book contains information about the city’s water supply, customs and schools as well as describing the city divided into wards. Having lived through the destructiveness of the Reformation, Stow was aware of the importance of keeping a historical record.

John Stow’s Survey of London

The most important building destroyed in the Fire of London was St Paul’s, and Stow’s book contains a great deal of information about this great medieval church. The churchyard was an area Shakespeare knew well. It contained the booksellers’ stalls where he would have consulted books on offer, and where quarto editions of his own plays were sold. It was also the place where outdoor sermons were preached. Here is part of a modernised version of Stow’s description:
About the midst of this churchyard is a pulpit cross of timber mounted upon steps of stone, and covered with lead, in which are sermons preached by learned divines every Sunday, in the forenoon; the very antiquity of which cross is to me unknown. I read that, in the year 1259, King Henry III commanded a general assembly to be made at this cross… Also, in the year 1262, the same king caused to be read at Paul’s cross a bull, obtained from Pope Urban IV, as an absolution for him …This pulpit cross was by tempest of lightning and thunder defaced. Thomas Kempe, Bishop of London, new built it in form as it now standeth.

Stow’s description is brought to life by the Virtual Paul’s Cross Project, based on a digital re-creation of John Donne’s Gunpowder Day sermon preached in Paul’s Churchyard on 5 November 1622. The 1605 Gunpowder Plot was still a vivid memory and the subject of the sermon was the need for good citizens to be obedient to their monarch. The King asked for a copy of Donne’s sermon: this manuscript still exists and has been used in the Project.

Reconstruction of Paul’s Cross from the churchyard

The Project is to be officially launched at North Carolina State University on 5 November 2013, to be followed by a symposium at the University on Preaching, Performance and Public Space in Medieval and Early Modern England. The website already contains lots of material, the most exciting of which is a fly-around view of the visual model of Paul’s Churchyard and Paul’s Cross.

Here we can imagine what it might have been like to stand in and move around the Churchyard. There’s also an audio performance of the sermon, delivered by actor Ben Crystal, which has been given an audio soundscape to suggest what it might have been like to hear it within the space.

This is an exceptionally detailed and well-researched website. It includes a link to the London Charter for the Computer-based Visualisation of Cultural Heritage, set up to establish standards for visualisations like those for conventional publications. The preamble notes that ‘a set of principles is needed that will ensure that digital heritage visualization is, and is seen to be, at least as intellectually and technically rigorous as longer established cultural heritage research and communication methods’.

In the last week another project has been launched that provides a 3D representation of Shakespeare’s London. This too has been put together by University students, this time from De Montfort University’s Pudding Lane Productions. They have taken historic maps and engravings from the British Library and created a flythrough, with musical accompaniment, that takes the viewer along the streets of seventeenth century London. Tom Harper, curator of cartographic materials at the BL, suggests: “Some of these vistas would not look at all out of place as special effects in a Hollywood studio production” and goes on to praise their use of original materials: “I’m really pleased that the Pudding Lane team was able to repurpose some of the maps from the British Library’s amazing map collection…in such a considered way.”

Both projects make inventive use of original source material, and both illustrate the importance of cross-disciplinary work. The Pudding Lane Production site suggests the fly-through could be the foundation of another video game, but it’s also likely to be used to interest and engage students of the period.

PS Heather Knight has sent me a link to another visualisation, this time of The Theatre, the very first purpose-built theatre in London. It gives a lovely impression of being a member of the audience in this very early building. Here’s the link.

Posted in Shakespeare's World | Tagged De Montfort University, Great Fire of London, John Donne, John Stow, North Carolina State University, St Paul's, Survey of London, visualisation | Comments Off

Shakespeare’s crows and hateful ravens

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Illustration from Crows of Shakespeare

When Shakespeare wanted to conjure up a sense of foreboding he often used the image of the birds of the crow family: crows, magpies, ravens and rooks. Lady Macbeth chillingly predicts the King’s murder:
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.

And at the beginning of the play scene in Hamlet, the prince links the idea of revenge with the same birds:
Begin, murderer. Pox, leave
thy damnable faces, and begin! Come, the croaking raven doth
bellow for revenge.

The crow or corvid family have been associated with doom-laden myths and legends for centuries, making Hallowe’en a particularly suitable time to be thinking about them. From Aesop in 6th century BC Greece up to Ted Hughes’ malevolent Crow, they have been renowned as messengers, mischief-makers, and bringers of bad luck, even death. It may be because of their habit of scavenging from dead bodies, or their distinctive calls, particularly the deep “pruk, pruk” of the raven or the cacophony of a rook colony. As a child I was told it was unlucky to see a single magpie, and taught to count them using the rhyme one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.

Jemima Blackburn

Lots of books have been written about Shakespeare’s birds, but back in 1899 Crows of Shakespeare was published. The author and illustrator was Jemima Blackburn (nee Wedderburn), who accompanied each image by the appropriate crow-related quotation. She was born in 1823, the daughter of the solicitor-general for Scotland, and her privileged family was connected to the most important people in the land. At 17 she spent three months in London where she met the Duke of Wellington, and she was later presented to Queen Victoria. In spite of her background, she was almost completely self-taught as an artist.

Her illustrations of birds and animals were highly regarded, and exhibited in London and New York. Her Dictionary of National Biography entry suggests that she was in the first rank of Victorian ornithological illustrators and describes her as one of Scotland’s first major modern women artists.

Blackburn’s illustration of the cuckoo in the nest

She was also an acute observer of bird behaviour. In the 1882 edition of The Origin of Species Charles Darwin acknowledged that she was the first to record how the baby cuckoo ejects its rivals from the nest. The great wildlife artist Landseer was so impressed with her work he gave her some lessons, and John Ruskin took a keen interest in her work.

It was after her marriage to Mathematics professor Hugh Blackburn in 1849 that she began to shine. Together they turned the Roshven estate on Moidart, a virtually inaccessible part of Scotland, into a summer destination for many of the most distinguished scientists and artists of the age. As well as drawing and painting birds she found inspiration in the life and landscapes she saw about her. She kept a visual journal in which she recorded her extensive travels and the daily activities of those living and working in rural Scotland.

An illustration to Tom Thumb

Her illustrations appeared in books and magazine, and like Beatrix Potter she also wrote her own verses, usually with animal themes, and illustrated them for children. Some of the best-known are The History of Tom Thumb and The Cat’s Pilgrimage. In 1862 she produced her most esteemed book, Birds from Nature. Several examples of her work are included in the University of Rochester’s Robbins Library Digital Project. But from having been so well-known, she has since been almost forgotten.

Crows of Shakespeare was one of her last works, and was obviously close to her heart. In her preface she mentions that a “favourite walk on the autumn afternoons was to the fir woods to see the rooks fly home, in a great column, after their day’s foraging in the fertile fields”, echoing Shakespeare’s lines from Macbeth, illustrated in the book:
Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to th’ rooky wood.

Blackburn’s watercolour of Charles Kean, at the National Portrait Gallery NPG2772(33a)

Her love of Shakespeare began early. During a visit to London she went to both the theatre and opera which sparked her interest in fairy tales and legends. She knew some of the most important literary figures of the day, corresponding with Ruskin and Thackeray, and co-writing an account of travels to Iceland with Anthony Trollope. She saw Fanny Kemble act, saw Charles Kean play Macbeth on tour, and met him. In 1848 she came to the Midlands, visiting Warwick, Stratford and Leamington, and it seems likely that she visited Shakespeare’s Birthplace. In spite of living largely in rural Scotland, Shakespeare remained in her mind. In her modest preface to Crows of Shakespeare she suggests that the book “may interest those who care for Crows, and induce young people to read Shakespeare”.

Jemima Blackburn did care for crows, and perhaps she also knew that early in his career Robert Greene had described Shakespeare himself as an “upstart crow”.

Posted in Legacy | Tagged crows, Hallowe''en, Hamlet, illustration, Jemima Blackburn, Macbeth, Robert Greene | Comments Off

“Far more fair than black”: Cleopatra, Othello and blacks in Renaissance England

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Joaquina Kalukango in rehearsal

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s new production of Antony and Cleopatra will, for the first time in its history, feature a black actress, Joaquina Kalukango, as Cleopatra. It’s a co-production between the RSC, the Public Theatre, New York and Gablestage, Miami, with a cast drawn from both the US and UK, to be performed in all three venues.

The production is described as “a stripped down, radical new version of Shakespeare’s gripping story of romance set against a world of imperial politics and power play and transports us to 18th century, sun-soaked Saint-Domingue on the eve of revolution”.

Cross-casting in the theatre has received a lot of attention in recent months. The Caribbean island setting, at a time when slavery was at its height, will almost certainly resonate more in New York and Florida than in Stratford-upon-Avon. The issue of race will not be simple, however, with Enobarbus as well as Cleopatra and Charmian being played by black actors, and the RSC’s website includes an explanation of the complicated racial make-up of Saint-Domingue that will help to make the relevance of the setting clear.

The story of the fight for independence in what is now the republic of Haiti is certainly appropriate for Black History Month, but Shakespeare’s play isn’t really about race. Shakespeare knew that the historic Cleopatra was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, originating in Greece, describing her as “Queen of Ptolemy”, and although she is exotic, her colour is not significant.

Laurence Olivier as Othello, 1965

Shakespeare’s greatest black character is Othello, and Dr Carol Rutter and Dr Tony Howard have now posted a video talking about the part played by race in the National Theatre’s four productions of Othello from Olivier to Adrian Lester. The first production emphasised Othello’s “otherness”, but Adrian Lester reveals in the video that he had asked the director not to make Othello isolated on stage. Carol Rutter’s opinion is that the play is “beyond race”, and that the commercialisation of slavery has skewed responses to the play for the last couple of hundred years. Lester comments that Othello is “not a representation of blackness – he’s Othello”.

In an article relating to a (now-closed) exhibition, Dr Miranda Kaufmann suggests that the number of Africans who were living in Europe in Shakespeare’s time has been understimated. She found “the greatest revelation is that not all Africans in Renaissance Europe were enslaved. As slavery was not for life, or hereditary, there were growing numbers of free Africans or people of African descent.”.

Kaufmann is an expert on the history of Africans in Early Modern England. For Black History Month she has contributed to an exhibition at Sutton House in Hackney on influential black Londoners which is open until the end of November. Her blog contains many interesting posts on the Elizabethan and Jacobean period: I particularly enjoyed the one about the black servant who features in a portrait of Anne of Denmark, wife to James 1.

She has several talks coming up soon, including one at the School of Oriental and African Studies on Tuesday 29 October on The Image and Reality of Black Africans in Renaissance England, and on 8 November at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester on Africans in Urban Britain 1500-1640. More information is to be found here.

Posted in Shakespeare on Stage, Shakespeare's World | Tagged Antony and Cleopatra, Carol Rutter, Miranda Kaufman, Othello, race, Tony Howard | 5 Comments

Elizabeth 1 and her people in portrait and performance

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

The new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Elizabeth I and her people, puts on display a glorious collection of portraits of Elizabethans, supported by objects, manuscripts and books that provide some background to the world in which these people lived.

As well as famous paintings of Elizabeth and her courtiers, the publicity for the exhibition claims that “Visitors will also come face to face with lesser-known Elizabethans including butchers, goldsmiths, brewers, merchants, writers and artists”

A fete at Bermondsey

Although, obviously, ordinary people were unlikely to be the main focus of portraits, I was hoping to glimpse some of these ordinary citizens. So I felt a little disappointed to find that most of the sitters for the paintings, if not actually noble by birth, came from a privileged background, and the paintings set out to celebrate the status and wealth of the sitter. At the end of the exhibition an original set of clothes worn for seafaring is displayed, alongside a statement that the labouring poor are rarely recorded. The plain, worn clothes are in stark contrast to the fabulous costumes worn by the sitters in the portraits.

A child and his nurse

Even in the painting of an unknown child and his nurse, although of lower social status than the gorgeously-dressed infant, the immaculate black costume and elaborate ruff show she is no common wet-nurse. Ordinary people also appear in the painting of the Fete at Bermondsey, where country people dance as the formal procession takes place. It’s still a genteel affair though, especially compared with the paintings of the Flemish artist Bruegel.

This is though no reason not to enjoy the exhibition, which does bring together paintings of less well-known representatives of the professional classes.

Edward Lister

I particularly liked the painting of Edward Lister (1556-1620), whose painting is owned by the Royal College of Physicians. Here’s a link to some information about it. He held the post of physician-in-ordinary to both Elizabeth 1 and James 1, so he was no ordinary doctor. Coming from a family of distinguished physicians in Yorkshire he was educated at Eton and King’s College Cambridge. The portrait bears no obvious links to his profession, and Lister looks like a real person.

Cuthbert Vaughan

The same can’t be said of the portrait of a soldier, thought to be Cuthbert Vaughan (1519-1563), painted around 1560. This man with overflowing beard and stern gaze is surrounded by objects telling the viewer that he is a professional soldier, from the armour he wears to the plumed helmet and metal gauntlets, all beautifully decorated.

My favourite portrait in the exhibition, though, is that of George Gower (c1540-1596). It’s a self-portrait by the leading English portraitist of the day, dating from 1579.

George Gower

A gentleman by birth, he was appointed Serjeant-Painter to Queen Elizabeth in 1581 and painted the Armada portrait of her. In the portrait he shows himself with brush and palette, the tools of his trade. What I found most endearing about the portrait, though, was his inscription and the image of a set of scales, balancing his coat of arms on one side and a compass, representing his skill on the other side. The point of both is that his skill outweighs the privileged status guaranteed by the accident of birth. This symbol is one that would have been appreciated by all those who succeeded in bettering themselves in the flourishing economic and cultural world of Elizabethan England, not least Shakespeare himself. There’s a review of the exhibition here, in Katherine Tyrrell’s Making a Mark blog.

I went straight from this exhibition to a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Noel Coward Theatre, Shakespeare’s play in which ordinary people become the centre of attention. David Walliams (Bottom) and his friends are probably more the members of an amateur dramatics society than the collection of weavers, tailors, carpenters, tinkers and joiners that make up the “Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,/Which never laboured in their minds till now”, but as always, the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe is the highlight of the show, with Walliams revelling in the role of Pyramus. The “crew of patches, rude mechanicals /That work for bread upon Athenian stalls”, usually as invisible as the working classes in the portraits on show at the NPG, deserve their moment in the spotlight.

Posted in Shakespeare's World | Tagged A Midsummer Night's Dream, David Walliams, Elizabeth 1 and her People, National Portrait Gallery | Comments Off

Richard II at the RSC

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Nigel Lindsay as Bolingbroke, David Tennant as Richard

The RSC’s Richard II is onstage at last, and I’ve got to one of the performances. I’ve seen quite a few past productions of the play onstage, some extremely memorable. Like Hamlet, it’s often judged by its central performance, but both plays need a really strong company to be successful. In Hamlet Doran fielded the strongest RSC team for some years, and in Richard II he’s done it again.

David Tennant had his greatest RSC success with Hamlet, but Richard II is a different kettle of fish. Richard is more interested in himself than anyone else, and can be hard to like. This makes him a challenge for any actor, and I was interested to see how David Tennant, an actor who thrives on communicating with the audience, would play the role.

Jeremy Irons as Richard

I’ve seen many notable productions with strong central performances. To begin with Tennant often reminded me of Jeremy Irons in 1986, both glamorous, physically alike and both exhibiting boredom when faced with quarrelling nobles. Michael Kitchen was a down to earth Bolingbroke who seemed to inhabit a different England from the gorgeously illuminated medieval book of hours that Irons lived in. But whereas Irons never managed to escape the limitations of this setting Tennant brought his usual nervous energy to bear throughout the king’s decline and fall.

Alan Howard as Richard

Alan Howard’s golden Richard, in 1980, was described by Michael Billington as “peacock-proud”, with “star presence”, making his decline painfully humiliating. I remember it as a richly-spoken production with David Suchet as a striking, emotional Bolingbroke.

The difference in style between Richard and Bolingbroke was also apparent in The Other Place production in 2000, in which Sam West’s intellectual, self-aware king was contrasted with David Troughton’s bullish, angry Bolingbroke. The production presented different versions of modern England, with football chants played as the audience assembled and a pile of freshly-dug earth on the stage floor. For me one of the most striking images of the play was Troughton, when banished, picking up a handful of earth, dropping it only when he arrived back in England.

Edward II, National Theatre 2013

Another memorable production, also staged in a small auditorium, was that at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory in 2011. John Heffernan’s King was immature rather than bad, a victim who did not deserve his tragic end. Heffernan is currently playing Edward II in Christopher Marlowe’s play at the National Theatre. The King’s desperate need for personal relationships drives Marlowe’s play, and this eccentric but enjoyable production moves between the period of the play and today, and between the onstage and the backstage world. This link is to a post that compares it with the RSC’s Richard II, and this link is to a interview about the play with the director and Heffernan.

The current production is full of ritual, formality and sophistication. The seemingly-simple, elegant set features projected backdrops, a smoothly-gliding stage bridge and an understage setting for Richard’s dungeon. The religious imagery is insistent and appropriate. Three sopranos sing sumptuous heavenly music written by Paul Englishby. The projections place us in English cathedrals, and Tennant’s costumes and long hair are reminiscent of paintings of Christ. The poetry of the play is beautifully spoken by a cast including experienced Shakespeareans Michael Pennington, Jane Lapotaire and Oliver Ford-Davies, who all make it look easy. David Tennant isn’t afraid of being unlikeable, particularly at the start, though here and there I would have liked him to resist the temptation to make the audience laugh.

As the first production in the six-year cycle of all Shakespeare’s plays announced by Doran when he took over as Artistic Director of the RSC, Richard II lays down a marker. Above all, it illustrates his determination to strive for quality above quantity, and bodes well for the next few years.

If you’d like to find out more about this striking production, here are some links:

John Wyver’s Illuminations blogs:

Wyver’s thoughts about Richard II, and ten things he likes about it.

Post about the production containing lots of links

Illuminations post about plans for Live from Stratford-upon-Avon

Reviews

Independent review

Guardian review

Evening Standard review

Financial Times review

Birmingham Press review

What’s on Stage review

An article from 2011 by Michael Dobson about Richard II, calling it “A play for today”

Posted in Plays and Poems, Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged Alan Howard, Jeremy Irons, John Heffernan, National Theatre, Richard II, Sam West, Tobacco Factory | 6 Comments

Elizabeth 1 and her people

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Our fascination with the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods shows no sign of abating. Lives of the monarch and courtiers have always been recorded but in recent years it’s apparent that there is much evidence for the lives of ordinary citizens too if you look for it. The new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, running until 5 January is significantly entitled Elizabeth 1 and her People. The exhibition focuses not only on the wearers of conspicuously expensive consumer goods like clothes and jewellery, but also on those who created them.

The exhibition publicity claims that it “includes many outstanding paintings of Elizabeth I and her courtiers including explorers, and soldiers, and enchanting portraits of her female courtiers. Visitors will also come face-to-face with lesser-known Elizabethans including butchers, goldsmiths, brewers, merchants, writers and artists. These will be shown alongside artefacts from the period including exquisite jewellery, books and coins, which give a fascinating glimpse into their way of life.”

One notable item, that makes the link between these sumptuous paintings and everyday life is an inventory of a London haberdasher’s stock dating from 1582, an extraordinary survival held in the National Archives. The NPG’s Chief Curator Tarnya Cooper explains all in her blog post.

Part of the Cheapside hoard

Also, at the Museum of London is another exhibition that shows off a hoard of jewels, the Cheapside Hoard, which was discovered by chance in 1912. The Guardian article explains its importance: “The hoard of almost 500 pieces was a 17th-century goldsmith’s stock – worth a king’s ransom then and priceless now…Nothing in the world comes close,” said Museum of London curator Hazel Forsyth, who has spent years studying the brooches and necklaces, rings and chains, pearls and rubies, scent bottles and fan holders, two carved gems which date back 1,300 years to Byzantium – and a watch set into a hollow carved out of one stupendous emerald which was originally the size of an apple.” Most of the jewellery dates back to the late 16th and early 17th century. The Museum’s website claims

“Through new research and state-of-the-art technology, the exhibition will showcase the wealth of insights the Hoard offers on Elizabethan and Jacobean London – as a centre of craftsmanship and conspicuous consumption, at the crossroads of the Old and New Worlds.” The exhibition The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels runs at the Museum of London until 27 April 2014.

Elsewhere there has been another reminder of how, in late medieval times, British embroiderers were producing some of the best work being produced. The BBC4 documentary Fabric of Britain: The Wonder of Embroidery was screened on 2 October. It’s not currently available on I-Player, though I’m including links to a clip, a piece on the Victoria and Albert Museum’s website, and an article on the subject.

Shakespeare and all theatre professionals would have needed to employ skilled craftspeople. His own father was a maker of leather gloves, and in London he chose to lodge for a while with Christopher and Marie Mountjoy, makers of elaborate and costly head-dresses whose apprentice Stephen Belott courted their daughter. His plays often call for special costumes, like the costume painted with tongues for Rumour in Henry IV Part 2, the fairies of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Prospero’s magic cloak in The Tempest.

Skilled musicians were also essential to theatre performances. I recently attended a concert entitled The Queene’s Speech, part of the Stratford on Avon Music Festival, performed by the wonderful early music group Charivari Agreable,. Their programme included instrumental music, played on treble and bass viols and virginals, poetry and song. It centred on Queen Elizabeth’s life and loves, including several well-chosen Shakespeare’s sonnets such as Sonnet 11, “When forty winters shall besiege thy brow”.

The central point of the evening was Isobel Collyer’s delivery of Elizabeth I’s great speech given at Tilbury in 1588 anticipating the attack by the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth repeatedly appeals to the people, her subjects, the source of her power. Here is the speech as it appears on the Luminarium website:

My loving people,
We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We do assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time, my lieutenant general² shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare's World, Stratford-upon-Avon | Tagged Charivari Agreable, Mountjoy, Museum of London, National Portrait Gallery, Queen Elizabeth, sonnet, Stratford on Avon Music Festival | Comments Off

Shakespeare and the National Theatre

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Rufus Norris

On 15 October it was announced that Rufus Norris was to be appointed to the most important job in UK theatre, as Artistic Director of the National Theatre, taking over in April 2015.

Then next week, on 22nd October the National Theatre celebrates 50 years since its first performance. This was a production of Hamlet, at the Old Vic, directed by Laurence Olivier, with a cast including Peter O’Toole, Rosemary Harris, Michael Redgrave, Diana Wynyard, Frank Finlay, Derek Jacobi and Robert Stephens.

The creation of a National Theatre for the UK had taken many years. It was first suggested in 1848, interestingly just after Shakespeare’s Birthplace was purchased for the nation. It took another thirteen years after the first production for Denys Lasdun’s National Theatre building to be opened by the Queen. The story of the many obstacles that stood in the way, and the eventual creation of the what has become a great national institution has been fully researched by Daniel Rosenthal in the National Theatre’s archives.

He’s unearthed a lot of unpublished material and interviewed all the surviving Artistic Directors and well as many great actors for his new book, The National Theatre Story, being published by Oberon Books in November. The history is also to be celebrated by a three-hour programme, The National Theatre at 50, on Radio 4 Extra on Saturday 19 October (9am- 12, repeated 7pm-10). James Naughtie has also presented two radio documentaries on its history, The Road to the National Theatre.

From its very first production Shakespeare was seen as central to the National Theatre. In an interview with Rufus Norris following his appointment, Mark Lawson commented that Shakespeare is a gap in Norris’s experience, having directed only one production. “Will you leave Shakespeare to others?” he asked. Norris affirmed that Shakespeare would be “a very large part of the rep”, and that “Shakespeare is absolutely the bedrock of our literary, let alone our dramatic culture”, but left it open as to whether he would be directing Shakespeare himself.

Nicholas Hytner

The link with Shakespeare is a strong one: not only was the first artistic director of the National the greatest Shakespearean actor of his time, the post has also been taken by two former Artistic Directors of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Peter Hall and Trevor Nunn. And the outgoing Artistic Director, Nicholas Hytner, has had notable successes with Shakespeare, most recently his Othello starring Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear. Hytner has recently commented, however, that he too has struggled with Shakespeare.

Norris is certainly not giving much away about his plans, and no wonder: he doesn’t take up the reins until April 2015. After his appointment as Artistic Director of the RSC, it took Gregory Doran many months to formulate his first big announcement, which included the production of Richard II which as I write is about to have its press night on 17 October. This production is the first of Doran’s planned cycle of all of Shakespeare’s plays which are to be staged over a period of five or six years. A recent interview with Doran asked him to outline his overriding vision for the RSC.
Excellence, it’s got to be. It all starts with how we do Shakespeare on the main stage; everything else is a pyramid beneath that. We aspire to be the best, we may not always be the best, we may not always get there, but we always strive to be the excellence that Shakespeare deserves.

And asked how he would measure success:
Success would mean there being no question about the RSC’s London base, as well as there being a sense of Stratford being the Shakespeare destination. Those two things are my priority.

There are interesting parallels between the two men. Unlike most of their predecessors in the roles, both are trained actors, and neither are Oxbridge graduates. Both have partners who are heavily involved in theatre: Norris’s wife is playwright Tanya Ronder, and Doran’s partner is one of our greatest actors (who incidentally has done much of his best work at the National Theatre), Antony Sher.

Peter O’Toole and Rosemary Harris in the National Theatre’s 1963 Hamlet

The Theatre World’s reviewer of the 1963 Hamlet found it to be “all that a National Theatre production of Shakespeare’s tragedy should be”. Performed in period costume it was “clear, compelling and unambiguous”, O’Toole was “mercifully lacking in gimmicks and exaggerated histrionics” and the cast “created a timelessness in the characters which brought us closer to them than ever before”. Only two years later, in Stratford, the young Peter Hall was to produce a very different version of the play. Maybe feeling the need to give his company a new and distinctive personality in the face of the National Theatre’s creation, Hall’s production starred the little-known David Warner playing Hamlet as a 1960s student, set against the politically oppressive Establishment. It attracted a whole new generation to Shakespeare and a new following for the fledgling RSC.

Fifty years on, there have been massive changes in almost every part of our lives, but for both national companies Shakespeare is still at the centre of the theatrical landscape of the UK.

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged Daniel Rosenthal, David Warner, Gregory Doran, Hamlet, National Theatre, Old Vic, Peter Hall, Peter O'Toole, Rufus Norris | Comments Off

Revisiting Shakespeare’s restless world: an era in objects

Stay passenger, why goest thou by so fast? A taste of history at Holy Trinity Church

Ian Richardson and Richard II’s ring

Visualising Shakespeare’s London

Shakespeare’s crows and hateful ravens

“Far more fair than black”: Cleopatra, Othello and blacks in Renaissance England

Elizabeth 1 and her people in portrait and performance

Richard II at the RSC

Elizabeth 1 and her people

Shakespeare and the National Theatre

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