Looking back and forward: the Birmingham Rep at 100

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Barry Jackson

I spent Saturday in Birmingham, at the Old Repertory Theatre in Station  Street, which this year celebrates its centenary. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog about the history of Barry Jackson’s great theatre.

The keynote speech was given by actor and director John Harrison, whose career stretches back almost 70 years. He started his theatrical life at the Rep under Barry Jackson, being one of the first group of students in the Birmingham Rep School, for the training of actors, in 1943-4. He recalled that the tradition by which some leading actors still expected to be greeted with a round of applause, was still not dead, and Barry Jackson himself was treated with great formality, everybody calling him “Sir Barry”.

Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1946. David King-Wood as Berowne, Paul Stephenson as Ferdinand, Donald Sinden as Dumain and John Harrison as Longaville

Jackson was a shy man with a kindly and benign presence, and Harrison was obviously well-liked because he was one of just a few actors who made their way to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre when Jackson took over the reins there in 1946. Harrison took part in the 1946 and 1947 seasons, playing Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet and  Longaville in Love’s Labour’s Lost, among other roles. I asked him about Dorothy Green’s production of Henry V, in which he had played the French Dauphin. Disappointingly, he said it had been one of the least successful productions of the 1946 season, Henry being Scofield’s least successful part. Scofield was one of the other actors who Jackson took with him to Stratford, having been immediately marked out for success on his arrival in Birmingham. Sullivan remembers Scofield’s stillness on stage: he said there was a connection between Scofield and the audience that marked him out as a star performer even at that young age.

He recalled how, during Peter Brook’s first rehearsal for Man and Superman Barry Jackson stood outside the rehearsal room door, so worried was he by Brook’s extreme youth. He was only 19, and at the time youth was not a recommendation, but Harrison and Scofield loved working with someone of their own generation. It was fascinating to hear John Harrison talking, he and Brook being what Roxana Silbert described as “the last survivors of that epic period”.

In the discussion that followed Barry Jackson’s career was mapped out by Claire Cochrane, who has documented the history of Birmingham Rep in two books, and by Peter Smith who talked about Jackson’s work forming the Malvern Festival: my own contribution was about the years from 1946-1948 when he was the Director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Festivals. The session was chaired by eminent playwright David Edgar whose aunt, Nancy Burman, worked for Jackson as an administrator in both Birmingham and Stratford, through whom he met Jackson as a child.

In the afternoon we were treated to a showing of the 1986 film: Barry Jackson, The Quiet Pioneer, introduced by its maker Jim Berrow, by a talk about the Rep’s archives which I will be writing about in a later post, and a discussion with current practitioners and how classics can be made relevant to modern audiences. This was led by Roxana Silbert, the recently-appointed Director of the Birmingham Rep, writer Robin French, and designers Pamela Howard, Jamie Vartan and Ruari Murchison. Through this session the enthusiasm for theatre and for the creativity of the performing arts was palpable. The Old Rep, currently being used for the Rep’s performances while the New Rep is refurbished as part of the Library for Birmingham project, is clearly still a much-loved theatre that still works beautifully as a performance space. It’s where I first went to the theatre and saw my first Shakespeare productions, but it was also described by Pamela Howard as an Arthouse, where great visual artists like Paul Shelving worked. Barry Jackson himself was a designer as well as a director.

A still from Robin French’s current play Heather Gardner, a “cover version” of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler

It would be a tragedy for this historic theatre, still an effective performance space, to be neglected once the new Rep is reopened towards the end of the year. Serious theatre in Birmingham sometimes struggles to find an audience, but the world of theatre is still vibrant and indeed is one of the UK’s greatest assets.

Quite by chance, the Guardian has just published an article about the relationship between TV and theatre, pointing out that in the 1960s stage productions could inspire TV versions of classic plays. Yet now TV rarely goes back to stage plays, whether of Chekhov, or of contemporary work. One notable exception within the last twelve months has been Shakespeare, with the RSC’s Julius Caesar being adapted for the BBC, and a mini-series of history plays, The Hollow Crown. But the work of the young, exciting playwrights working in theatre is rarely considered. It would be wonderful if TV could be used to help build a new audience for contemporary theatre work, rather as the film of War Horse has benefitted the stage version.

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Visiting Shakespeare’s Stratford treasures

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

The question of how to celebrate the life and work of Shakespeare in the town of his birth is one that has caused much deliberation over the centuries. In 1847 the Birthplace, that “heart-stirring relic” was purchased for the nation not least to protect it from unscrupulous exploitation: over the previous century every item in the house that might have had a link to Shakespeare had disappeared, including as I mentioned in my last post a plaster panel that had been fixed to the wall. The town is amply provided with statues and other memorials, and in the 1860’s the idea of a permanent theatre devoted to performing his work gained ground, culminating in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and the formation of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

As well as the houses associated with Shakespeare, and the theatres, large number of books, archives and artefacts related to him have been accumulated in the past 150 years or so. These have been available for study and research for many years, but after years of planning an exhibition of items from the vaults of the Shakespeare Centre has become a reality this week.

Shakespeare’s Treasures is available to anyone visiting Shakespeare’s Birthplace. It includes items reminding us of Shakespeare’s place in international culture: translations into a number of languages including Klingon (yes, really), and a little fan dating back to 1794 decorated with Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man in French. Some objects date from Shakespeare’s own period, and have been acquired for their relevance to life in the period: an impressive jug, a doctor’s travelling medicine chest, some gold coins, and there are documents that Shakespeare knew, preserved among local records almost by chance: the letter written to him by Richard Quiney and the conveyance for his house, New Place which he bought in 1597. Representations of Shakespeare over the years are included: the Ely Palace portrait which for many years hung in the Birthplace itself, the Soest portrait dating from the late seventeenth century, and the newly-acquired Shakespeare Birthplace Trust portrait (previously known as the Ellenborough portrait), a copy of the still-disputed Cobbe portrait, only identified a few years ago.

Other rarities include one of the finest copies of the First Folio from 1623, the Ashburnham, and items relating to the stage history of Shakespeare’s plays: a pair of Sarah Siddons’ slippers, a lantern Henry Irving used in his production of Hamlet, a photograph of Laurence Olivier as Coriolanus at the theatre in Stratford in 1959. It’s a gloriously eclectic mixture of objects, from a huge variety of sources, and a tribute to the many people who have sought to capture something of what has always made Shakespeare special.

But sadly none of his own belongings. And hard though it is for us to believe, his manuscripts, little valued in his own time, were never preserved.

Shakespeare can be elusive, even here in his own town. His plays are performed by the RSC, and as writers from Ben Jonson onwards have commented, it’s in the plays themselves that we find the man. The plays themselves though have only been preserved because of the technology of printing, and the desire to read and collect books in Libraries.

Hamlet from The Gower memorial

Shakespeare’s links with Stratford have been honoured for centuries, and in many ways, whether by creating a statue, holding a celebration, publishing volumes of essays and poetry, or more personally by leaving a lasting impression by scratching a signature on the window of the Birthroom or a quotation in the Birthplace’s visitors’ book. More recently visitors have appeared on the SBT’s website talking about their reasons for visiting the Birthplace. It’s important to recognise that people want to make their mark, however small, and to show people of the present that they are following in the footsteps of others who have done the same to show their love for Shakespeare’s work.

A few weeks ago a company that creates walking tour apps for smartphones asked if I would like to write a personal tour of Shakespeare’s Stratford. It’s now in progress and I hope will be launched within the next few weeks. I’ve tried to link places in Stratford and people he knew with themes and moments from his plays. In writing it I’ve become even more aware of how fragile are some of the points of connection between Shakespeare’s town and Stratford today, and how important it is to remember these connections when faced with constant pressure to build more houses and roads.

The SBT’s website also includes an online gallery including several of the items now actually on display, and a range of SBT items are on the Windows on Warwickshire website, while all the paintings are on the wonderful Your Paintings website.

 

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Shakespeare at New Place: making the house a home

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

An artist’s impression of New Place

You can tell a lot, can’t you, about people from the inside of their houses, and what they choose to put there?  The TV programme Through the Keyhole is jokily based on the idea that it’s possible to deduce the identity of a person by looking at their home.

Knowing something about Shakespeare’s home might just help us to understand his work and what sort of man he really was. At this month’s meeting of the Stratford Shakespeare Club Dr Tara Hamling spoke about “Shakespeare at Home”. How did he choose to decorate his grand house, New Place, after he had bought it in 1597? It had a chequered history: originally built in the 1480s by Sir Hugh Clopton, it was already an old building. He might have made quite radical changes himself: Shakespeare sold the Stratford corporation a load of stone, thought to be left over from his building work. Then his house was substantially changed around 1700, perhaps being almost totally rebuilt, and it was this house that was demolished by the most unpopular man ever to have lived in Stratford, the Reverend Francis Gastrell, in 1759.

The Vertue sketch

Tara Hamling then, has to speculate about what Shakespeare’s home was like. All that actually remains is a blank space with the remains of some foundations below ground level. To help give an idea of what it might have looked like the EyeShakespeare app is about to be upgraded to include a 3D simulation. The only record of the house that Shakespeare knew is the little sketch you see here, made from memory by George Vertue many years later in 1737. It would be entirely consistent with the period for Shakespeare to have done Clopton’s house up. Late Elizabethan England saw an unprecedented building boom, with old buildings being remodelled and new ones springing up. In Stratford two major fires forced the rebuilding of houses in the 1590s:  many of the new houses that were put up to replace the old ones still stand, impressive three-storey townhouses.

 

The interior of Hutton in the Forest, dating back to the 1630s

What, though, might the house have looked like inside? Around the time he bought New Place he also acquired a coat of arms for the Shakespeare family, and it’s pretty certain that he would have found a way of incorporating it in his house, maybe placing it above the fireplace, as it confirmed his rising social status. We know from his will that he owned one object of considerable craftsmanship, a silver-gilt bowl left to his younger daughter Judith, but there is no information about what else he might have owned. Tara Hamling produced images of several existing houses of the same period and the same approximate size: they featured decorative plaster ceilings, carved staircases, wall hangings, and lofty halls with large, beautiful windows. There is some evidence that houses in Stratford were so decorated: there is still a shop in Wood Street with an elaborate plaster ceiling. A questioner mentioned the local tradition that the carved wooden staircase now in the Dower House in Stratfordwas originally in New Place, and Hamling agreed this was quite possible as valuable materials were routinely recycled.

She commented that art historians have concentrated on great art such as was to be seen at court or in stately houses, but suggested that the “middling group” were prosperous enough to aspire to own artworks of their own. Edward Alleyn, another actor who made his fortune, was known to have purchased portraits of royalty and of religious subjects. And wall paintings showing the Old Testament story of Tobias and the Angel still decorate what is now the White Swan Hotel.

The Samson and Goliath panel, an early photograph

Hamling concluded by talking about an item which she has only recently discovered, a plaster panel at one time in Shakespeare’s Birthplace. It shows the Old Testament story of David and Goliath. The piece is dated 1606 and may have been added to the room when Lewis Hiccox rented the property as the Maidenhead Inn. This makes it the only decorative piece we can be sure was in a property owned by Shakespeare during his lifetime, even if he didn’t live there. It was first recorded in 1795, and was removed by Mrs Hornby who stripped the house of everything that could be moved when she quit the property in 1820. It was auctioned off in 1896. The buyer’s name is not recorded, but as it sold for the substantial sum of £25 it’s likely that it was put in a prominent place in someone’s house. Somebody must know where it is! The full details are in Tara Hamling’s blog and if you would like to go through the keyhole to see what people’s houses were really like she and Catherine Richardson are organising a conference to be held in London between 17-19 April 2013, entitled Materialities of Urban life in Early Modern London.

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Henry V, Edwards’ Boys and World War 1

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

This past weekend an extraordinary series of performances of Henry V has been staged in Stratford-upon-Avon, for once almost unrelated to the RSC or the SBT, the leading Shakespeare organisations in the town, but all to do with Shakespeare’s school, King Edward VI.

For several years a unique group of players made up of pupils at the school, Edward’s Boys, has been putting on performances of little-known plays of the period, in particular those plays that were performed by boy companies in Shakespeare’s time. But that’s only part of the story. On Sunday evening Shakespeare’s play Henry V was performed in the same space that another production of the play was staged, by boys from the school, exactly a century ago. What is now the Swan Theatre was in 1913 the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. As well as celebrating this centenary, this production is also in memory of those boys.

The following description explains more:
In 1913 the boys from ‘Shakespeare’s School’ – King Edward VI, Stratford-upon-Avon, were invited to perform Shakespeare’s Henry V as part of a season of history plays at the Memorial Theatre staged by Sir Frank Benson. Original music for the production was composed by the then little-known Ralph Vaughan Williams. The schoolboys brought to life the battlefields of France both on-stage and in a special performance filmed in the school courtyard – the earliest filmed amateur production of Shakespeare on record.

Shortly afterwards, all the boys taking part in the production were in France fighting for real on the Western Front of the First World War; seven were killed.

One hundred years later an all-boy company from the school, “Edward’s boys” celebrate the centenary of the Benson production, and the memory of its young heroes, by performing Henry V at the RSC Swan Theatre on Sunday 17 March 2013. The music for the new production will be an edited and partially reconstructed version of the original Vaughan Williams score, recently rediscovered, and to be performed for the first time since the original production 100 years ago.

In the original 1913 production the role of the Chorus was taken by a professional actor, and we are delighted that Tim Pigott-Smith, distinguished actor and an Old Boy of the school, has agreed to take the part in our production. 

BBC Midlands Today have broadcast a piece about this production which includes clips from rehearsals and interviews with the Director, Perry Mills and the School’s Archivist, Richard Pearson as well as Tim Pigott-Smith.

And Perry Mills, in the production blog, explains another connection between the past and the present:
In the school’s Memorial Library (built in 1923) there is a bronze plaque with the names of the Old Boys and Masters of the school who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars. There is also a stained-glass window which commemorates two brothers who died in the earlier conflict, the Jennings Window. Both lads were in the cast of Henry V and so the window features an image of Shakespeare’s king and a quotation from Act 4 (“O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts.”)

The curtain call

The action of the play could not be more apt, and made for a richly-layered evening. In the production Tim Pigott-Smith plays the chorus as a teacher at the school, looking back at the boys he has taught, many of whom went to war. At the end of the play, in a ceremony reminiscent of Shakespeare’s birthday celebrations in Stratford, the boys line up to place posies of spring flowers on the coffin of Henry V. As the lights dim, the explosions of the battles of World War 1 are heard as Smith, surrounded by exercise books as he sits at the teacher’s desk in Big School, weeps.

KES is a school especially aware of its past: the schoolroom in which Shakespeare was taught still exists, and continues to be used for teaching today. The production skillfully connects today’s schoolboys, some of whom appear in their school uniforms, with modern soldiers and with the historical characters of the play. The youth of some of the boys on stage is a reminder of the harshness of the war in which the boys of 1913 went on to fight, some to die. As so often, Shakespeare memorialises the past while simultaneously helping us make sense of the present.

I’d like to thank all those involved in the creation of this very special production: for those of you not able to see it, the performance was recorded and I understand a TV documentary on the subject is planned. Further information is certain to be posted on the website

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Celebrating Barry Jackson at the Birmingham Rep and the Shakespeare Memorial

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

The original Birmingham Repertory Theatre

This year the Birmingham Repertory Theatre celebrates its centenary, and over the weekend of 23 and 24 March there is to be a series of talks, discussions and an exhibition to be held at the original theatre in Station Street.

Birmingham Repertory Theatre was founded by Barry Jackson, who over several decades poured much of his substantial income, the result of his father’s successful grocery business, into it. His financial independence meant that he could experiment, and the result was that the Birmingham Rep gained a name for innovation and exciting theatre. His modern dress Shakespeare productions proved not all the most interesting developments happened in London.

On the first day of the weekend there will be a focus on Barry Jackson, led by a keynote address by John Harrison, who as a young actor worked with Jackson at the Rep and then in Stratford. I’m excited to be taking part in the discussion led by playwright David Edgar about Jackson’s work in Birmingham, Malvern and Stratford, where Jackson was Director of the Festivals from 1946-1948. A timetable for the weekend is to be found at the end of this post.

Jackson had been a Governor of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre since 1929. During the War the theatre in Stratford had been surprisingly financially successful, managing to remain open as usual despite considerable difficulties such as restrictions on travel, the impossibility of casting and retaining young actors, and the availability of fabrics for costumes. There had been no new developments: each year about eight productions were put on, over a season of six months. The Director concerned himself mainly with the actual productions, in 1945 Robert Atkins directing all the plays himself.

The war in Europe had come to a close in May 1945, and by the end of August all hostilities had ceased. The newspaper reports detailing the end of the Theatre season in September were full of phrases like “the end of a chapter” and “great hopes for the future”. Barry Jackson took over the running of the theatre almost immediately, in October 1945.

He took over a theatre building much in need of investment, and a festival which needed, artistically, an injection of new thinking. Allowed more control over the building itself he spent money on upgrading facilities such as machinery and improving dressing rooms. The Governors had been notoriously stingy: there were assets of £190,000 in the bank, explained by Lord Iliffe, the Chairman of the Governors as money to be used in promoting the theatre after the war.

Jackson promised to balance new thinking against tradition. At the end of his first season, in spite of full houses, there was a deficit, mostly caused by spending money on those behind the scene improvements. Having propped up Birmingham Repertory Theatre using his own money for many years he was not disturbed, though some of the Governors were horrified. More difficult for Jackson was his deteriorating relationship with Fordham Flower, who actually ran the theatre.

Jackson could be distant: the photograph widely circulated of him showed him seated in the theatre’s library reading its copy of the First Folio. This academic manner, combined with his homosexuality, (never of course publicly discussed), did not go down well with Flower. He refused to live in Stratford, staying in Malvern, and did not join in the numerous social events which had endeared some of his predecessors to local people and organisations.

Paul Scofield as Don Adriano and David O’Brien as Moth in Love’s Labour’s Lost

Artistically, his years were undoubtedly successful. Although in the early years of the 1932 building there were signs of experimentation, during the war the Memorial Theatre had got into a rut from which it needed to be shaken. Jackson shared the ambition for Stratford to become the best venue for Shakespeare in performance nationally and internationally, proclaiming on 22 January 1946 “youth is the theme for the next Shakespearian season”.  Sure enough he brought in a host of talented and mostly young actors and directors who brought the theatre to national attention. Two of these were the 20-year old Peter Brook and the young actor Paul Scofield. Each production was directed by a different person, the 66 year-old Jackson keeping in the background by not directing a single one. Brook’s productions of Love’s Labour’s Lost and Romeo and Juliet, both featuring Scofield, were controversial but essential viewing.

John Harrison as Benvolio, Laurence Payne as Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet

To his disappointment, his three-year tenure was not extended, and he was replaced by a man of very different character, Anthony Quayle, a family man with a background that combined the military and the theatrical, an easy manner and contacts throughout the theatre world. Quayle’s directorship, still remembered positively, was much more conservative than Jackson’s, but it was Jackson who laid the foundation for the creation of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Find out more about Barry Jackson and his work at the Rep 100 Weekender:

EP100 Weekender23 & 24 March 2013

                                                                

Saturday 23 March:   “Station Street   to Stratford   via Malvern”10:00am Keynote speech by John Harrison on his experiences   working with Sir Barry Jackson, Paul Scofield and Peter Brook, both at   Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Stratford in the 1940s, and also his time as   Artistic Director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre in the 1960s11:15am   Playwright David Edgar and guests discuss Sir Barry Jackson’s work in Birmingham, Malvern and Stratford.
2:00pm A showing of The   Quiet Pioneer – the acclaimed   documentary film about Sir Barry Jackson’s career.

2:30pm REP100   curator Gwendolen Whitaker presents items from archive which tell the   fascinating story of The REP.

4:00pm The   REP’s new Artistic Director, Roxana Silbert discusses re-imagining classics   from the first modern dress Shakespeare production in 1923 to The REP’s new   Sixties-set production of Hedda Gabler, with writer   Robin French and designers Pamela Howard, Ruari Murchison and Jamie Vartan.

Sunday 24 March: “Drama Queens”

10:00am Meera   Syal discusses her work in theatre.

11:00am   Professor Claire Cochrane leads an all-female panel of celebrated writers,   including Bryony Lavery, Gurpreet Bhatti and Rachel Delahay.

1.30pm Janet   Suzman leads an all-female panel of actors, including Lorna Laidlaw, Shelley   King and Elisabeth Hopper.

2.45pm Roxana   Silbert leads a discussion on the role of women in theatre today and   historically with Kate Horton, Gwenda Hughes, Pamela Howard, Janet Suzman,   Vikki Heywood, Kate Organ and Elizabeth Freestone.

Special offer
Daily passes are just £5 but are free when booking to see Hedda Gabler on either 23 or 24 March. Plus, to further enhance your   REP100 Weekender experience , Ming Moon Chinese Restaurant on Hurst Street   are providing a special lunch offer for £7 and a dinner offer for just £11 on   both days.

 
 

 

 

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Shakespeare’s Hamlet: productions for their own time

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Jonathan Slinger in rehearsal

This week the actor Jonathan Slinger, who in the last 10 years has played many of Shakespeare’s leading roles including Richard III, Prospero and Macbeth, is taking on  Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Any new production is always met with great anticipation. In it Shakespeare directly tackles the relationship of acting to real life, and both the play and Hamlet himself speaks to us about the here and now.
The purpose of playing … was and is, to hold, as ’twere, the
mirror up to nature; to show … the very age and body of
the time his form and pressure.

I’ve recently begun making sound recordings of people remembering Hamlets of the past, and have looked at three in particular: the 1958 production with Michael Redgrave, 1965 with David Warner, and 1980 with Michael Pennington. I’ve been wondering what these productions said about the times in which they were performed. The right actor at the right time can strike a note that resonates: the actors themselves become “the abstract and brief chronicles of the time”.

Glen Byam Shaw, one of the most brilliant of interpreters of Shakespeare, directed Michael Redgrave in the role in 1958. He had played it at the Old Vic eight years earlier, and he gave a virtuoso performance: Ken Tynan was full of praise: “No subtlety of inflexion or punctuation escapes him: at time, indeed, he seems to be giving us three different interpretations of the same line simultaneously”.

Redgrave also had tremendous physical charisma. The Sunday Express enthused “six foot three inches tall, broad and handsome as a pagan god brought up on unlimited supplies of ambrosia, Mr Michael Redgrave bestrides the English stage like a matinee idol with brains”.  Although at the height of his powers, Redgrave, aged 50,  was undeniably of the pre-war generation. He had recently starred in The Dam Busters, a popular film about the Second World War. The Sunday Times reviewer put his finger on it. “When Mr Redgrave recaptures the turmoil of youth it is the turmoil of another generation’s youth”.

Sure enough the next two Hamlets in Stratfordwere from a younger generation. By 1961 the theatre was being run by the baby-faced Peter Hall. Hall had brought about a revolution in the Stratford theatre, and for his own 1965 Hamlet cast the relatively unknown 24-year old David Warner. Hall had already brought a political edge to the theatre, and he wanted this play to belong to the young. Warner was gawky and awkward, and wore scruffy clothes, especially his long red knitted scarf. He was the image of the discontented student, not dignified or princely, but real. The production was a massive box office success, and was repeated the following year. As well as Warner, the production featured Glenda Jackson who brought a brittle quality to the role of Ophelia, both of them vulnerable pawns in their parents’ political machinations.

In 1980 came a different sort of Hamlet in the person of Michael Pennington. Pennington had already played Mercutio and Berowne. He was known for his intelligence, his ability to handle Shakespeare’s language, and romantic good looks. With his director John Barton, it had been decided that it was time for a sweet prince. In a visually spare production the theatre motif was used repeatedly, with a theatrical basket onstage from which costumes and props were sometimes taken, particularly a mask and cloak. The players were the fine actors that Shakespeare describes, Bruce Purchase creating a moment of complete stillness with the Hecuba speech. The connection between Pyrrhus, paralysed with indecision, and Hamlet’s situation, was obvious, and the line “Did nothing” was echoed by Hamlet. In the closet scene Gertrude half-saw the ghost, making her decision about who to side with more difficult.

Did this air of indecision and uncertainty in the production mirror the public mood?  This week’s Start the Week on Radio 4 brought together film-maker Ken Loach and James Graham, author of the hit play This House, which examines the years 1974-79. What they said made me think that perhaps it did, and that the same mood affected other RSC productions of the time. After years of political chaos, strikes and rampant inflation, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979, promising to replace discord with harmony. Graham and Loach agreed the late 1970s were characterised by a sense of uncertainty, replaced in early 1980 by a closing down of debate about the way forward.

Hamlet reached the stage in Stratford at almost the same time as Nicholas Nickleby did the Aldwych. The production emphasised Charles Dickens’ social awareness: in the final moment Roger Rees as Nicholas picked up the crumpled figure of an abandoned boy, his defiant glare noted by some of the reviewers as a challenge to the inhumanity of the new government.

At the start of 1980 John Barton’s trilogy The Greeks was performed at the Aldwych in London, dominated by the question “Who is to blame?” In The Greeks, we could blame the gods: in Hamlet there was no easy answer. The older generation were troubled and human, just as Hamlet was, and in the real world people of all generations who had voted for a return to normality found that the country was moving towards what Loach described as “dog eat dog raw capitalism” and the privatisation of many industries. Maybe it was indeed the right time for a “sweet prince”.

PS I’ve just heard of another production of Hamlet, running this week in Cardiff. Here’s the link.

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Shakespeare’s silly sheep: the royal connections

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Countryfile

This week’s TV programme Countryfile was guest edited by the Prince of Wales, giving him the opportunity to explore issues about the countryside and farming that are close to his heart.

The prince is also a great lover of Shakespeare, who often wrote about the connection between the rulers of the land and those who work it.  Shakespeare reminds us that kings are human too: on the night before Agincourt Henry V, in disguise, speaks to one of his soldiers. “I think the king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me:…” And when Richard II realises he has been abandoned by his allies, he lets the facade slip:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

At times of crisis Shakespeare’s kings often long for a simple life. Henry VI escapes from the height of battle:

December from The Shepheardes Calendar

O God! methinks it were a happy life,
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run,
How many make the hour full complete;
How many hours bring about the day; …
When this is known, then to divide the times: …
So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean:
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece: …
Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider’d canopy
To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?

In King John, young Prince Arthur is an unwilling pawn in a power game being played by his elders:
…By my christendom,
So I were out of prison and kept sheep,
I should be as merry as the day is long.

References to the humble sheep have always abounded: in Greek legend, Jason sought the Golden Fleece, referred to in The Merchant of Venice, and everyone was familiar with the image of Christ as the Good Shepherd and the nativity story of the shepherds, the first to see the star that signalled his birth.

In Shakespeare’s own time poet Edmund Spenser popularised the literary convention of pastoral in The Shepheardes Calendar. He describes himself as a shepherd, spending his time playing music, in contemplation and writing poetry. Although Shakespeare plays with this convention in As You Like It, most of his references are much more down to earth. Corin, the shepherd, explains the practicalities of being a shepherd to Touchstone, the courtier:
Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not
at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds…. Besides, our hands are hard….And they are often tarr’d over with the surgery of our sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier’s hands are perfum’d with civet.

Cotswold Sheep

Both Shakespeare’s parents were from farming families, and Stratford’s prosperity depended on agriculture. There’s still a Sheep  Street in the town, and the Shakespeares had shepherds living across the road in Henley Street. Shakespeare’s father, although primarily a glover, was also a significant dealer in sheep. To the south of Stratford lie the Cotswold Hills, one of the most important wool-producing areas in the country with their own breed of sheep. Shakespeare knew the practicalities of the trade: in Henry IV Part 2 Silence and Shallow discuss the price of sheep, and the Young Shepherd in The Winter’s Tale tries to calculate the value of his fleeces:
Let me see: every ‘leven wether tods; every tod
yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred
shorn. What comes the wool to?

One of the sheep-shearing scenes from The Winter’s Tale

The most obvious references to sheep come in the sheep-shearing scenes in The Winter’s Tale and in the scenes in the Forest of Arden in As You Like It, but there’s also an extremely unfunny exchange about sheep and shepherds in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and in Henry VIII the king and his followers enter in disguise dressed as shepherds. Joan of Arc too is a shepherd’s daughter.

References to sheep, lambs, fleeces, wool and shepherds are to be found in almost all of Shakespeare’s plays and poems, almost whenever he needs an image of vulnerability. Before the mood darkens in The Winter’s Tale Polixenes remembers when he and Leontes were boys:
We were as twinn’d lambs that did frisk i’ the sun,
And bleat the one at the other: what we changed
Was innocence for innocence.

My favourite quotation, though, is the shepherd Corin’s simple but dignified statement of his philosophy:
Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I
wear; owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness; glad of other
men’s good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is
to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.

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Souvenirs of Shakespeare: “I’ll have his picture”

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

The Garrick medallion

Whenever we visit an unusual place or special event, we buy a souvenir. We may want to show off to our friends, or just to have something to remind us of the occasion.

The first proper Shakespeare souvenirs were the mulberry wood relics created by Thomas Sharp in the late 1700s from the wood of Shakespeare’s mulberry tree. This had been growing in New Place Gardenbefore being unceremoniously cut down by the Reverend Francis Gastrell who was tired of people asking to see it. Instead of burning the wood, he sold it to Sharp who saw a business opportunity.

When David Garrick was presented with the freedom of the borough in 1769 at the time of his Stratford Jubilee, it was delivered in a casket made of the wood, and during the Jubilee he wore the medallion now in the collections of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. This was fantastic publicity for the wood, and Sharp began to made all kinds of mementoes, often called relics, from it: so many that it was commented on that it must have been a very large tree.

Objects containing a portrait of Shakespeare have always been particularly prized, and as late as 1864, for the tercentenary celebrations, they were still being produced. This handsome mulberry-wood goblet was made for the tercentenary, still, apparently, from the original tree, and was sold at auction in 2012 for £4750, greatly exceeding its estimate. By 1864 Shakespeare was well and truly established as the national hero and many high-quality souvenirs were being produced as well as cheaper ones.

I’m indebted to Bryan Palin for showing me a jug and platter which he owns, made in 1864 for the magnificent Tercentenary celebrations. A portrait of Shakespeare is positioned at the front of the jug.

The Minton jug

It would seem that quite a number were made, and in a variety of different colours. Casting around, I found a similar jug and platter for sale on Ebay, more elaborately coloured. Made by the renowned company Minton these would always have been expensive and are some of the most impressive Shakespeare souvenirs I’ve seen.

Most people would have had to settle for something a little cheaper: an engraving perhaps, or a metal medallion. By 1864 gone were the days when visitors to the Birthplace could remove a bit of wood off “Shakespeare’s Chair” as a souvenir. Like the Mulberry tree, there seems to have been an inexhaustible supply as long as there were people to buy them, but these spurious relics were by then frowned on.

 

Nowadays Shakespeare is everywhere: on mugs, tea towels, and key rings. A few years ago I spotted this mass-produced modern tea pot on Ebay and couldn’t resist it. It shows Shakespeare holding a quill in one hand (the handle) and a scroll with a quotation from Hamlet in the other (the spout). His head, naturally, is the lid. The sticky label underneath tells me that it is not to be used as a teapot, but I suppose we rarely buy a souvenir for its practicality. It is part of the charm of the pot that the line inscribed “Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well Horatio”, is a misquotation. I somehow doubt it will ever be worth anything, but it always makes me smile.

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Relics of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre’s fire

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Monroe wearing the historic jacket

Last year on 6 March, the anniversary of the fire that destroyed the first Shakespeare Memorial Theatre I wrote a piece about the events of the day. Most people who were living in the town at the time remembered it vividly, and over the years I’ve heard several accounts.

Fire engines from miles around made their way to Stratford, but I hadn’t realised that people from outside the town had also come to watch, though photographs of the fire certainly show hundreds of people standing around the building as it burned. I’m grateful to Bronwyn Robertson, who for many years ran the RSC studio theatre The Other Place, for sending me the story about her father, John Charles Robertson and the fire:

John Charles Robertson wearing the jacket on holiday

My father and friends jumped in a car and raced over to Stratford from Coventry when they heard the theatre was on fire. He was wearing his striped blazer from Coventry Cricket Club (where he was a member) and it had a hole from one of the embers that blew across the river. Only last year I passed on the blazer to my son Monroe who’s taken it back to NYC where he now lives.

This jacket has become a family heirloom, and Bronwyn comments that it was a family tradition for her father to wear the jacket on their family holidays to the seaside, as shown in the photograph.

 

Charred wood and stone from the ruins of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre

The other keepsakes of the fire I have been shown are relics of the building itself. After the fire the ruins became a sort of tourist attraction in their own right. Apparently a local resident made her way down to the theatre and picked up a charred piece of wood and a piece of the stone, both of which were lying around. From the wood a rough bowl has been carved, and these have now found their way to Shakespeare-fan Bryan Palin.

Some wonderful photographs were taken of people standing on the curved wall of the auditorium, with no apparent regard for safety. The the statue of Lady Macbeth from the Gower Memorial, then just outside the theatre, was visible through a gap where once there had been a window. Appropriately she is shown wringing her hands in despair.

The Picture House in Greenhill Street was converted into a temporary theatre within a few weeks, and plans for a new theatre were created almost immediately. In spite of local affection for the building, the fire was seen by some as a blessing in disguise. Archibald Flower claimed that there had been so much discontent with the old theatre that discussions had already taken place amongst the governors with a view to building a new theatre. George Bernard Shaw was so opposed to the old theatre that he sent a telegram of congratulations to the Governors after the fire.

It was not a foregone conclusion that the theatre would stand where it does, connected to the old building. Other sites were considered, especially The Paddock off Southern Lane which had been the venue for the 1864 Pavilion. This had the financial advantage of being visible only from two sides, not all the way round as with the riverside site. But it was eventually decided that the site by the river was so imposing it could not be ignored.  It’s interesting to think how much difference this change of venue would have made, particularly to the older, quieter end of the town.

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Seeking A Midsummer Night’s Dream in “the winds of March”

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Image for the Bristol Old Vic production

It’s the beginning of March and signs of spring are still few and far between after a long and dreary winter. What does the dedicated Shakespeare-lover need to cheer themselves up? A Midsummer Night’s Dream, of course! And of course you don’t need to be a Shakespeare-lover to enjoy this most endearing of comedies.

It’s the play that’s got everything: romance, music, comical mistakes, transformations, dance, and of course that magical stuff that brings out the child in all of us. If you’re lucky you’ll also get a real live dog!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1970, Peter Brook’s RSC production

Ever since Peter Brook’s landmark “white box” production in 1970 it’s also been impossible to ignore the fact that it’s also Shakespeare’s sexiest play. Among all the misunderstandings the mechanicals can provide a surprisingly moving play within a play and you’ll hear a good deal of beautiful poetry, such as Oberon’s description of the place where Titania sleeps:
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk roses and with eglantine.

If you do want a flavour of midsummer madness the good news is that you don’t have to wait because there are already productions ready to lift your spirits.

A couple of tours are currently in progress, one by Custom/Practice, and the other Sell a Door Theatre Company. Both are in action during March in a variety of venues.

Bristol Old Vic are just launching a new production in association with Handspring Puppet Company, running through March and April until 4 May. This sounds like it’s going to be a bit special: Handspring are the company responsible for the puppets in the phenomenally successful production of War Horse, and  the production is going on to perform in the USA over the summer. The director Tom Morris has described it as “an experimental production”. And the Bristol Old Vic has recently reopened after a redevelopment. To celebrate, the Old Vic are running a competition, the prizes for which are three pairs of tickets and programmes to this major new production. Follow this link to have the chance to win. The closing date is 8 March.

Also in March the Shakespeare Institute Players in Stratford-upon-Avon are staging the play from 14-16 March. This is sure to be good fun so do go along!  And later on the Norwich Players are performing at the Maddermarket Theatre from 21-30 March.

From April onwards there’s lots of choice, including a production at Shakespeare’s Globe, one in Northampton, another at the Stamford Shakespeare Festival, and at Stafford Castle, and from September  to November there will be a production in the West End directed by Michael Grandage.

Incidentally,if you’re ever looking for a production of a Shakespeare play in the UK, The University of Birmingham’s Touchstone is a really great listing.

This year, forget the economic gloom and go along and see A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There’s really no excuse not to enjoy Shakespeare’s most joyful and entertaining play.

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