Shakespeare’s well-apparell’d April

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Sylvia Morris

Shakespeare loved spring, and April, with its freshness and optimism is the month of which he writes most fondly.

I couldn’t let it go by without a post containing a few of his lines, together with a selection of photographs taken mostly this year in or around Stratford-upon-Avon. I hope you enjoy them.
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well-apparell’d April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house.
Romeo and Juliet Act 1 Scene 2

Yet I have not seen
So likely an ambassador of love.
A day in April never came so sweet
To show how costly summer was at hand.
The Merchant of Venice Act 2 Scene 9

He dances, he has eyes of youth…he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May. He will carry it.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 3 Scene 2

O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 1 Scene 3

And he wasn’t alone. Nicholas Breton, in his 1626 book Fantasticks, writes this exuberant description of the delights of the month:

It is now April, and the Nightingale begins to tune her throat against May; the sunny showers perfuse the air, and the bees begin to go abroad for honey:…the garden banks are full of gay flowers, and the thorn and the plum send forth their fair blossoms; the March Colt begins to play, and the cosset lamb is learned to butt. The Poets now make their studies in the woods, and the youth of the country make ready for the Morris-dance; the little fishes lie nibbling at the bait, and the porpoise plays in the pride of the tide; the Shepherd’s pipe entertains the Princess of Arcadia, and the healthful soldier hath a pleasant march… The aged hairs find a fresh life and the youthful cheeks are as red as a cherry: It were a world to set down the worth of this month; but in sum, I thus conclude, I hold it the Heavens’ blessing and the earth’s comfort. Farewell.

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Global Shakespeares

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Sylvia Morris

The World Shakespeare Festival, which has just begun, is already opening our eyes to performances of Shakespeare from some of the most remote corners of the world. Nothing does more to prove that Shakespeare is the world’s dramatist than productions which originate in places where Shakespeare is, you would think, not on the cultural menu, and these productions often demonstrate the persistence and bravery of those involved.

At the Swan Theatre in Stratford you’ll find Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad, set in modern Iraq where the usual feud between the Montagues and Capulets becomes the sectarian division between Sunni and Shia. The cycle of violence and revenge is fuelled by intervention from outside forces, which may make some of this production uncomfortable viewing.

But most of these zingy productions are happening as part of the Globe to Globe Festival in London. Here will be The Two Gentlemen of Verona from Zimbabwe, and Cymbeline by the South Sudan Theatre Company. The Republic of South Sudan became the world’s newest country in April 2011 after 50 years of violent struggle. Cymbeline‘s a play which examines the nationalistic desire of a small country to liberate itself from external powers. The resulting adaptation draws on local traditions to create a show that resonates with the politics and celebrates the traditions of South Sudan.

But the most unlikely company visiting the Globe must be Roy-e-Sabs, from Afghanistan. They have been described as “a theatrical miracle”. In 2005 they performed Love’s Labour’s Lost in war-ravaged Kabul. Controversially, men and women acted together, the women sometimes not wearing headscarves, and lovers held hands, all of which had been strictly forbidden. It’s truly amazing that this group are now bringing a new production of The Comedy of Errors to London.

The story of the 2005 production of Love’s Labour’s Lost that took place in Kabul is told in a new book, Shakespeare in Kabul. On 26 April the authors, Stephen Landrigan and Qais Akbar Omar, are talking at the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon as part of the Stratford Literary Festival. It’s a fascinating story, beginning with the difficulties of translating the play, and the problems of finding actors since theatre is not part of Afghanistan’s culture. Unexpected barriers were encountered: some of the actors could barely read, for instance. Several of the actors had been wounded themselves, or had seen relatives killed. And they had to overcome the fact that a woman on stage is still thought no better than a prostitute. The play was adapted and directed by the French actress Corinne Jaber for a local audience and taking their sensibilities into account, so the young men, played as nobles of Kabul, disguised themselves as itinerant Indian dancers rather than Russians.

But the major hurdle was the political situation. There can be no country in the world with a more troubled history than Afghanistan. In 2005 there was a feeling of optimism: “the future held no limits, the actors believed”.

The production was received with rave reviews from foreign journalists and the cheers of local audiences. But just as in the play, the end was tinged with sorrow. Recently that hope for the future of Afghanistan has turned to fear of what may happen when the peacekeepers depart. Love’s Labour’s Lost ends with the possibility that a resolution will be found in time, and this hope can still be seen with the visit of the company to London with another Shakespeare play. Perhaps the choice is significant: The Comedy of Errors is a play in which the happiness promised in Love’s Labour’s Lost becomes a reality, all disputes ended and families reunited.

Reactions to all of these productions will form part of the new project Shakespeare’s Global Communities. Look out for its official launch.

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Happy Birthday Shakespeare 2012

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Sylvia Morris

People all round the world will be celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday today, 23rd April. This year we in the UK welcome productions of Shakespeare’s plays in many languages from all parts of the world as part of the Cultural Olympiad. Even though these plays were written for English theatre audiences over 400 years ago, they still remind all of us of our common humanity. I can’t possibly add anything to the mountain of writings which try to define what is so great about Shakespeare, so I’ll mention two things I love about his work.

First of all there’s the power of his imagination and the boldness with which he expresses it. His work has inspired writers, artists and musicians to create their own often outstanding work from at least the eighteenth century.

And then Shakespeare used the ephemeral medium of popular drama to discuss complex arguments from every angle, creating three-dimensional characters who avoid being simply mouthpieces for particular points of view. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Theseus explains what it means to be a poet:
And as imagination bodies forth
The form of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to aery nothing
A local habitation and a name.

It’s almost a year since I started The Shakespeare blog, www.theshakespeareblog.com. I had no idea what to expect. Would anybody other than a few loyal friends want to read it? The internet isn’t exactly short of people writing about Shakespeare. So its success has surprised me:  well over 25,000 unique visitors from all round the world have read my posts, with over 50,000 page views. Visitors to the site don’t just click on a page and then move off, they stay long enough to read a whole post, and I’ve received an average of three comments for each post, so many I don’t have time to respond individually to everybody who contacts me. I’ve met up with readers at conferences, been sent books for review, been asked for advice, and have helped promote people’s Shakespeare projects.

I hope that it’s obvious to readers of my blog that Shakespeare really matters to me. I’ve been able to spend time thinking about Shakespeare from many different angles and have been amazed that so many other people are enthusiastic enough about Shakespeare to put massive amounts of time into creating blogs, videos and educational projects. I’m looking forward to seeing how new technology makes it even easier for people around the world to communicate with each other.

On Sunday afternoon I went down to Holy Trinity Church. It was the day after the official celebrations for Shakespeare’s Birthday, and I went to look at his grave and the floral tributes which were placed there the previous day. Formal wreaths carried by dignitaries from all round the world are surrounded by posies made of flowers from the back gardens of local children. The sight and smell of spring flowers, filling the chancel, makes a real connection between the past and the present.

 

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Shakespeare Unlocked with the BBC

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Sylvia Morris

In case it had escaped your notice, the World Shakespeare Festival’s about to kick off in theatres around the country. But even if you don’t intend to go anywhere near a theatre, the BBC is providing enough programmes in the next week or so to keep you glued to your TV and radio set. So much, in fact, that I’ve prepared a handy list so you can make absolutely sure you don’t miss a bit of it. You won’t have much time for anything else, so get down to the supermarket to stock up on everything you’re likely to need to get you through a pretty full week of Shakespeare-related programmes.

Saturday 21 April
9 am Radio 4 Extra: Shakespeare: Thereby hangs a tale: a celebration of the Swan of Avon.
10.30 am Radio 4 William Shakespeare’s Playlist. This sounds like a gentle introduction with David Owen Norris, Gregory Doran, Stanley Wells and Lucie Skeaping listening to some lullabies and jigs.
7 pm Radio 4 Extra: Repeat of Thereby hangs a tale
10.05 pm World Service. The Weekend Strand: celebration of how the bard staged the world and the world has staged the bard. Presented by Harriett Gilbert

That’s all there is for Saturday so you can relax and prepare for the rest of the week.

Sunday 22 April
11.05 am World Service. The Weekend Strand: celebration of how the bard staged the world and the world has staged the bard. Presented by Harriett Gilbert
11.15 am. Radio 4, The Reunion, interviews people who were involved in the building of the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre including Zoe Wanamaker, daughter of Sam, whose idea the whole thing was, and Patrick Spottiswoode.
8.30 pm. Radio 3. Drama on 3: Twelfth Night with David Tennant as Malvolio, Trystan Gravelle as Sebastian, and Ron Cook as Toby Belch. This sounds much too good to miss.
10.25 pm BBC 1 for viewers in the Midlands: Macbeth, the Movie Star, and me. Documentary about actor David Harewood’s attempt to take Shakespeare back to his old school.

Monday 23 April
This is where it really gets going:
10.30 am Radio 3: To mark Shakespeare’s traditional birthday, Harriet Walter shares some musical choices.
1.45 pm  Radio 4: Shakespeare’s Restless World, episode 6. Henry V’s instruments of war.
1.45 pm BBC1: For lovers of daytime TV Doctors has a Shakespeare theme all week. Today Fall of a sparrow
2 pm  Neil MacGregor is doing a live blog relating to Shakespeare’s Restless World – go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2012/04/shakespeare_live_blog_with_nei.html to listen or participate.
4.30 pm Radio 3: Simon Russell Beale joins Suzy Klein to read one of his favourite love sonnets each day for In Tune: Shakespeare And Love
7.45 pm Radio 4: repeat of Shakespeare’s Restless World
9 pm BBC4: The King and the Playwright. Part 1 of Documentary on Shakespeare and King James by James Shapiro.
10.45 pm Radio 3: The Essay: Shakespeare and love, by Margaret Drabble

 Tuesday 24 April
10 am Radio 4 Extra:, The Jacobean Box (repeats 3.00pm and 3.00am), Shakespearian academic, Brian Blake learns a large item awaits collection at a remote northern station, starring Stephen Moore.
10.30 am Radio 3 In the week of Shakespeare’s birthday, Harriet Walter shares some musical choices.
1.45 pm Radio 4: Shakespeare’s Restless World, episode 7. Ireland: failures in the present
1.45 pm BBC1: For lovers of daytime TV Doctors has a Shakespeare theme all week. Today: If music be the food of love.
4.30 pm Radio 3: Simon Russell Beale joins Suzy Klein to read one of his favourite love sonnets each day for In Tune: Shakespeare And Love
7.45 pm Radio 4: repeat of Shakespeare’s Restless World
10.45 pm  Radio 3: The Essay: Shakespeare and love, by Stanley Wells

Wednesday 25 April
1.45 Radio 4: Shakespeare’s Restless World, episode 8. City life, Urban strife.
1.45 pm BBC1: For lovers of daytime TV Doctors has a Shakespeare theme all week. Today: Being your slave
4.30 pm Radio 3: Simon Russell Beale joins Suzy Klein to read one of his favourite love sonnets each day for In Tune: Shakespeare And Love
7.45 Radio 4: repeat of Shakespeare’s Restless World
10.45 pm Radio 3: The Essay: Shakespeare and love, by Samuel West
11 pm. Radio 4 Extra. The Reduced Shakespeare Radio Show: the comedies

I hope you’re keeping up, because there’s still a lot to get through.

Thursday 26 April
9 am Radio 4: In Our Time. Melvyn Bragg and guests report on the 1485 Battle of Bosworth Field, immortalised in Shakespeare’s Richard III.
11.15 am, Radio 4 Extra. Another Shakespeare (repeats 9.15pm and 4.15am) is a drama inspired by the true life story of an 18th century forger of the Bard.
1.45 pm Radio 4: Shakespeare’s Restless World, episode 9: New Science, Old Magic
1.45 pm  BBC1: Doctors has a Shakespeare theme all week. Today: Genius
4.30 pm Radio 3: Simon Russell Beale joins Suzy Klein to read one of his favourite love sonnets each day for In Tune: Shakespeare And Love
7.45 pm Radio 4: repeat of Shakespeare’s Restless World
9.30pm Radio 4: Shortened repeat of In Our Time on the Battle of Bosworth
10 pm BBC2: Shakespeare-themed edition of Stephen Fry’s quiz show QI.
10.45 pm Radio 3: The Essay: Shakespeare and love, by Helen Hackett
11 pm BBC4: Repeat of The King and the Playwright. Part 1 of Documentary by James Shapiro on Shakespeare and King James

Friday 26 April
9am Radio 4. Repeat of The Reunion, interviewing people who were involved in the building of the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
11.15 am Radio 4 Extra:  Another Shakespeare (repeats 9.15 pm and 4.15 am)
1.45 pm  Radio 4: Shakespeare’s Restless World, episode 10: Toil and Trouble, on witchcraft.
1.45 pm BBC1: Doctors has a Shakespeare theme all week. Today: The Lunatics, the lover and the Poet
4.30 pm Radio 3: Simon Russell Beale joins Suzy Klein to read one of his favourite love sonnets each day for In Tune: Shakespeare And Love 7.45 pm Radio 4: repeat of Shakespeare’s Restless World
10 pm BBC2: Shakespeare-themed edition of Stephen Fry’s quiz show QI.
10.45 pm Radio 3: The Essay: Shakespeare and love, by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Congratulations if you’ve made it this far! The schedules for the following week aren’t up yet, but as far as I know, you can rest and recover on Saturday 27 April, and on Sunday 28 April enjoy the Antiques Roadshow on BBC1 from Charlecote Park, recorded in September 2010. This should feature me, while I was head of SCLA, trying to get a bit more information about a little mystery object from the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive with the help of one of their experts.

In the following weeks many treats are promised by the BBC, but not in quite such a concentrated form.

  • Shakespeare’s Restless World is due to keep going on Radio 4 for another 2 weeks with the final 10 objects.
  • The King and the Playwright also has two more episodes on Monday evenings.
  • Drama on 3 is broadcasting performances of Romeo and Juliet on 29 April,  and The Tempest on 6 May as well as a repeat of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on 13 May, all at 8.30pm.
  • From 12 May to 25 May stars such as Jools Holland and Gareth Malone give their perspective in My Shakespeare on Radio 3 and 4.
  • A series of documentaries are to be broadcast: Francesco da Mosto will be seeking Shakespeare’s Italian links, Felicity Kendall will be investigating India’s love affair with Shakespeare, and Simon Schama is producing Shakespeare and Us, a three-part view of Shakespeare.
  • At some point (I haven’t been able to find the date), they will be screening Off By Heart, a competition for secondary school children performing speeches from Shakespeare.
  • And in a special edition of Night Waves: The Tempest, Philip Dodd leads a discussion on the enduring attraction of The Tempest for directors, scholars and performers of this extraordinary play that bears continued interpretation – with Professor Helen Hackett and Jonathan Miller, amongst others (Thu 3 May, 10pm, Radio 3).
  • Filmed productions of a history cycle consisting of Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V are all to be screened in due course, and should be worth looking out for.
  • A filmed version of Greg Doran’s RSC stage production of Julius Caesar will be screened on BBC 4 later in 2012. 

The BBC’s Shakespeare Unlocked season offers an amazing choice of programmes for anyone wanting to get to know Shakespeare from many different, and perhaps new, points of view. As well as the link to the official site at the top of the post here’s a link to the blog about the BBC’s season. I hope everybody will be getting out to experience some Shakespeare for themselves, but the programmes are all available from the comfort of your own home, for free. I hope you enjoy them.

I’m grateful to Stuart Ian Burns and Jo Wilding for additions/corrections to this list.  Thanks, both.

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Picturing Shakespeare: the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Sylvia Morris

Macbeth, Banquo and three witches, by Fuseli, engraved by James Caldwell

In November 1786 the printer Josiah Boydell held a dinner at his London home to which he invited several leading artists including George Romney and Benjamin West. The discussion turned to the idea of creating a lavishly illustrated edition of Shakespeare’s plays.

Within a week the Boydells, Josiah and his uncle John, announced a more ambitious plan. A Shakespeare Gallery was to be opened, hung with newly-commissioned oil paintings depicting scenes and characters from Shakespeare’s plays. Large engraved prints of the paintings, published by the Boydells, would be sold by subscription, and small versions of the images would be used to decorate an edition of Shakespeare’s works.

King Richard III Act 4 Scene 3. the smothering of the princes, by James Northcote, engraved by Francis Legat

The Boydells were already successful printers, engravers and publishers, and hoped that the Gallery would be both commercially and artistically successful, with the specific aim of promoting British painting. Most British painters specialised in portraiture: even images of Shakespeare on stage tended to be portraits of eminent actors in role. History painting, taking grand events as its subjects, and communicating high moral values, had for centuries been seen as the noblest form of painting. It’s hardly surprising that Shakespeare, rapidly becoming the symbol of the nation, was so attractive. As John Boydell wrote in his preface to the first catalogue of the Gallery “no subjects seem so proper to form an English School of Historical Painting, as the scenes of the immortal Shakespeare; yet it must be always remembered, that he possessed powers which no pencil can reach”.

Earlier this week art historian Paul Lewis gave a lecture to the Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Club on the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery which put the Gallery in its historical context and suggested that the paintings and engravings are worthy of the revival of interest which they’re currently receiving.

Thomas Banks' statue of Shakespeare

Boydell’s idea was a bold one: by getting some of the most important British painters such as Reynolds, Opie, and Fuseli involved  he ensured that subscribers would pay in advance for the engravings, but the investment would be huge. Although there are now many collections of paintings open to the public, Paul Lewis reminded us that this was not the case in the late eighteenth century. There was no National Gallery, and the Royal Academy had only recently been founded. So Boydell’s Gallery, opening in June 1789 with 34 paintings on view, was a novelty, but also something of a risk.

The Gallery itself was a magnificent space. The entrance was dominated by a marble sculpture by the distinguished artist Thomas Banks, showing Shakespeare seated between the Dramatic Muse and the Genius of Painting. An engraving appears as a frontispiece to the Illustrated Shakespeare volumes published in 1803. Banks was a notable sculptor whose work included both classical statuary and public monuments to the heroes of the time. It was the one part of the Gallery that was universally admired, and Boydell at one time intended the sculpture to be placed above his grave.

Gillray's satiric cartoon

The project was not without detractors. James Gillray’s engraving Shakespeare Sacrificed: Or the Offering to Avarice might have been just the revenge of a man who wasn’t invited to create any of the engravings, but it was a hugely popular shot at this very public target. Alderman Boydell stands in front of a fire in which Shakespeare’s plays are being burnt, and within the smoke is a statue of Shakespeare himself. Images from some of the paintings in the Gallery can be seen above. The figure of Avarice is the gnome-like figure perching on top of a volume of Subscribers’ names, holding two moneybags. Vanity sits on his shoulders.

The Boydell Gallery is usually thought of as a commercial failure, but Paul Lewis pointed out that it was actually a success for over ten years, during which time the number of paintings on show grew to almost 170, by 33 artists.  But by the early 1800s the Gallery was no longer the height of fashion, and the war in Europe effectively closed off the trade in engravings with the Continent. By 1803-4 the Gallery was failing, and in 1805 all the contents were dispersed.

The sculpture remained in place until 1869 when it was acquired by Charles Holte Bracebridge of Atherstone Hall who presented it to the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in 1871. It now sits in a quiet corner of New Place Garden.

Paul Lewis illustrated his talk with many of the engravings and a few of the paintings. He reminded us that many of the images continued to appear in different forms until the end of the nineteenth century, and illustrated his point by showing a beautiful piece of Worcester china painted with one of the images. The Gallery also spawned several imitators: Macklin’s Poets Gallery, an Irish Shakespeare Gallery, and Fuseli’s Milton Gallery.

The engravings are still to be seen in many collections and quite by chance Yale University’s Remembering Shakespeare blog featured Boydell this week. Click here to be taken to the post. In a later post on this blog I’ll be looking more closely at the images themselves.

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Shakespeare’s horses: nags, jades and steeds, or wonders of nature

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Sylvia Morris

The horse in Topsell's book

I’m no great lover of any sport involving animals, but I do admire the beauty of those superbly athletic thoroughbred horses. It was shocking to hear that two horses had died during the running of last weekend’s Grand National, one of them the extraordinary horse Synchronised which only weeks ago won the Cheltenham Gold Cup. No matter how successful they are, these horses exist only for the benefit of the people who own, train, ride and bet on them.

Horses have been bred and kept by man for millenia, for a whole variety of purposes. One of the ways we know about how horses were viewed in Shakespeare’s day is from Topsell’s History of Four-Footed Beasts. This encyclopaedia of animals from mice to elephants is 586 pages long, of which the section on horses takes up 120 pages, far more than any other creature. His opening introduction is an affectionate tribute:

When I consider the wonderful work of God in the creation of this Beast, enduing it with  singular body and a noble spirit, the principal wherof is a loving and dutiful inclination to the service of Man; wherein he never faileth in Peace nor war, being every way more neer unto him for labour and travel: and therefore … we must needs account it the most noble and necessary creature of all four-footed Beasts, before whom no one for multitude and generality of good qualities is to be preferred, compared or equalled.

The section is divided up into descriptions of different kinds of horses: “of coursers, or swift light running horses”, “of careering horses for pomp or triumph”, and “of load or pack horses”.  Horses could be used “for War, and Peace, pleasure and necessity”.

Topsell encourages grooms to be affectionate to their charges: “and evermore there must be nourished a mutual benevolence betwixt the Horse and Horse-keeper, so as the Beast may delight in the presence and person of his attendant”. Horses are supposed to be sensitive, loving music, and “have a singular pleasure in publick spectacles”.

Many of Shakespeare’s mentions of horses relate to the close bond between rider and horse. In Henry V the French Dauphin so loves his horse that he writes a sonnet in its praise. And in Richard II it’s a groom who visits Richard in prison to tell him how Bolingbroke, the new king, rode Richard’s own horse in his coronation procession:
O, how it erned  my heart when I beheld,
In London streets that coronation day,
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary!
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
That horse that I so carefully have dressed!

Richard’s initial reaction is to feel betrayed:
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand,
This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.

Before realising that the horse is only doing what it has been trained to do:
Forgiveness, horse! Why do I rail on thee,
Since thou, created to be awed by man,
Wast born to bear.

 

Horseriding for pleasure: a detail from a 1480 French book of hours from a manuscript in the Morgan Library, New York

The fullest description of a well-bred horse is Adonis’s unruly steed in Venus and Adonis:
Round-hoof’d, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:

This literal description prompted the critic Dowden to ask: “is it poetry or a paragraph from an advertisement of a horse sale?” but Shakespeare shows an appreciation of the qualities of a fine horse.

Not all the horses in Shakespeare are owned by royalty or the nobility: in Sonnet 50 he writes how “the beast that bears me… plods dully on” and ordinary horses are mentioned over and over again in the plays and poems.

After thousands of years in which horses were used for everything, it always surprises me that within a few decades we lost our connection with them. A hundred years ago everybody would have been familiar with horses, whether they were making deliveries around town, working on farms, or being ridden for pleasure. Watching horseracing is now most people’s only link with them.

Bruno the Ardennes horse

There is one kind of work in which the working horse is making a comeback. The tree-felling industry is now using placid, strong breeds like the Ardennes, originally from Belgium. Horses are able to work in forested areas where powered vehicles are difficult to manoeuvre, and horses would have worked in the Forest of Arden where Shakespeare’s mother was born and brought up. This photograph of one of the working horses was taken recently a few miles from Stratford-upon-Avon.

Man’s relationship with horses may have changed over the centuries, but it shows no sign of ending.

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Shakespeare unbounded: the digital domain

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Sylvia Morris

On 7 April I was part of a panel on the subject of performance archives at the Shakespeare Association of America’s annual meeting in Boston. The panel was chaired by Michael Warren and the speakers were Kate Dorney from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Georgianna Ziegler from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and Tracy Davis from Northwestern University in Chicago.

My constribution was on digital developments in performance archives, and the following is the text of my presentation interspersed with the slides to which they relate. I’ve added a few links to relevant websites and online resources:

This session is entitled “The once and future performance archive” and while working with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s archives, one of the most important collections of material relating to Shakespeare in performance, I was involved in projects that involved digitising historic material, digital remastering, data projects and working with born-digital materials.

It’s worth remembering that digital projects have only been in existence for around 20 years, and many of the projects I’ve been involved with have felt experimental, sometimes having to wait for software to be developed to match the requirements of the project. Where once there seemed to be no signposts on the way, now guidelines for dealing with digital preservation are being published online by the UK’s Collections Trust.

Many of the projects I worked on have been in partnership with other organisations, and it’s been important that information professionals who work with the collections are brought in from the start. They understand the organisation, preservation issues, and intellectual property concerns relating to the collection as well as knowing the kinds of demands made by users.

But following many years caring for a collection I’m now on the other side of the fence. Working independently and writing my own blog about Shakespeare, I’m as impatient as any of you with the restrictions imposed by collections to accessing and repurposing the material they care for. Before I look forward to where digital might be going, I’m going to briefly look back.

This is the RSC Performance Database, the largest digital project I was involved in. Unusually for a project hosted by a collection it doesn’t relate simply to its own holdings. It was, and remains, an attempt to convey hard factual information about over 130 years of RSC productions that can be used by anybody. It went live in 2004 after a painful 3 year gestation period during which the bespoke software was developed so that most, if not all, our requirements were met.

The structure of the database was developed in response to observation of how researchers worked, searching by person or play title, leading to a list of possible productions and then to a performance record that draws together all the facts relating to the production. From that record the database was designed to link through to the catalogue to display records of items. It’s a rigid structure that now seems out of date, but it remains a high-quality reference tool driven by user demand.

It has just been made public that a National Performance Data Project, using data from this and several other similar databases about UK performances, which is to be run by the Victoria and Albert Museum, is to be given funding. This database will enable people to search for information about a wide range of UK theatre productions.

Hamlet on the Ramparts is another early digital project put together by MIT which brought together digitised material of various types from different collections, all relating to performances of Act1 Scene 4 and 5 of Hamlet. You can see that the designers struggled with the limitations of the software to deal with a variety of media, with different tabs for art and film for instance. It’s a project which tries to solve problems of finding linked data, but it doesn’t address the concerns of the curator.

In her paper, Kate Dorney has already spoken about the work of the archivist. The digital world has amplified the challenges of caring for collections, with work in almost all areas of curation changing dramatically.

  •  Preserving and curating a collection: digital files might appear to be simpler to care for than paper or analogue ones, but long-term storage is actually more complicated and more costly.
  • IPR: digital has increased demands for content and owners are aware of the potential value of their assets.
  • Undigitised material: Users expect everything to be available online
  • Sites like Google and Wikipedia present a challenge to professional standards and potential loss of control over content.

 

Bardbox is a personal and witty response from a professional curator at the British Library. Luke McKernan highlights the issues to Shakespeare material presented by the chaos of YouTube. He selects creative clips, helping users find the most interesting content, and catalogues them using consistent cataloguing rules. He even reminds users of the fugitive nature of digital content, documenting clips that are no longer available.

These are some of the things I think people want: a recent issue of Archives Quarterly published the results of a survey, which suggested that users of archives wanted a “more intuitive, more logical” resource, and the “consolidation of all resources into a single system”. They reported that there are “too many separate overlapping resources”.

These findings apply across every area of study, and would add that as well as not being able to find things, it’s not clear whether resources can be repurposed, or how to credit them. A lot of people want to participate, especially regarding performances they have enjoyed, and content creators want that content to be made as visible as possible. The same survey suggested a need for resources that reveal the hidden depth of archives to enable the creation of narratives and the development of new ideas.

How can technology resolve the gap between what curators do and what users want? A number of developments are offering new opportunities. Just in the last couple of weeks I’ve received information about several new projects which all aim to provide visual interfaces to massive amounts of data which will allow for more intuitive searching and the ability to organise information from many different sources, regardless of format.

ChronoZoom aims to “imbed multimedia that will tell the history of everything”, while Histopedia seems to have slightly more modest aims. Both are examples of the new tools that are being developed all the time.

Social media has allowed many more people to comment on and use collections – there’s a real thirst for the material which collections own. Now professionals working within organisations are joining in with social media with institutional blogs, facebook pages and twitter feeds.

And both the British Museum and the John Rylands University Library in Manchester are appointing Wikipedia librarians to add content about their collections to this site which most universities have been trying to steer their students away from up to now.

Technology is allowing for greater democratisation of learning and knowledge, encouraging openness and communication. These ideals are also shared by libraries and archives: what prevents them from joining in more fully is their need to limit access for reasons usually beyond their control.

With digital technology now moving in a positive direction, I suggest that Shakespeare in performance is a perfect subject around which to create a project to link up existing digital resources and to create new ones, and it’s a subject which could and should involve archivists, academics, students and the public working together.

Shakespeare is performed around the globe and appeals at many levels. It’s a cross-disciplinary subject, and looks both backwards and forwards in time, allowing for a constantly evolving project. It would be highly participative, offer a future for all kinds of content, be visual and improve the image of archives.

This project, Shakespeare’s Global Communities, is still in the design stages. Controlled by the Shakespeare Institute it will create new resources based on academic and public responses to the 2012 World Shakespeare Festival performances. It will have a geographical visual interface, and each production will have its own page to which the responses will link. It should offer some ideas about how a more inclusive project might work.

This diagram is a simple attempt to explain how a performance archive project could work. It links a performance record to the texts and video – linear versions of the production – and then to digital files in the official archive such as photographs and rehearsal notes, files from other archives such as an actor’s personal script, and unofficial files added by individual  such as essays or own reminiscences. Speaking to an audience like the Shakespeare Association of America, full of people who have attended multiple productions of Shakespeare, I’m struck by the fact that as academics you already have huge amounts of data which you could contribute, with your conference papers, personal journals and memories. Curators and academics inevitably see things from different points of view, but with a university-led project like Shakespeare’s Global Communities, which has such obvious application to performance archives, there is an opportunity for them to work together to create something that is more than just another of those separate resources.

I’d be delighted to receive feedback on this presentation and look forward to hearing from you.

 

 

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Shakespeare’s sisters

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Sylvia Morris

Elizabeth Cary's Tragedie of Mariam

We’re used to the idea that in the early modern period women were seen as intellectually inferior to men. Denied the educational opportunities afforded to their brothers, girls learned only the rudiments of reading and writing. And with their lives dominated by the responsibilities of running a home and family there was little time for study.

So I found walking in to the Folger Shakespeare Library’s exhibition space to find it lined with cases containing the work of dozens of women from the period 1500-1700 quite a challenge to these preconceived ideas.

Georgianna Ziegler’s exhibition Shakespeare’s Sisters introduces the work of around fifty of these women, some familiar names like Mary Sidney, some completely unknown to me, from both England and Continental Europe.

From the items on display it’s clear that women were able not just to write their own work, but in some cases to get it published. And it isn’t just devotional work: it’s well known that Mary Sidney completed a set of psalms after her brother Sir Philip Sidney died leaving them uncompleted, but did you know about Elizabeth Cary, the first woman to publish an original play in England, or that Lady Anne Southwell wrote secular verse, including sonnets, as well as religious poetry?

Christine de Pisan's book

In terms of womens’ roles, the exhibition includes a book on their achievements, written by Christine de Pisan in 1404-5 and printed in English in 1521, called City of Ladies, and much of the exhibition centres on Lady Anne Clifford who spent much of her long life in dispute over her inheritance. As a young girl she had as her tutor the distinguished poet Samuel Daniel who was so impressed with her ability that he wrote a poem praising her learning.

A few months ago I wrote a post mentioning Margaret More, the daughter of Thomas More, who was thought to be one of the best-educated women in Tudor England, and Queen Elizabeth’s learning was much admired. Class certainly played a part, and the women represented in this exhibition had the benefit of privileged backgrounds and high social standing, but they were also expected to be wives and mothers. 

This excellent free exhibition challenges our ideas about early modern expectations of womens’ abilities and the social acceptability of womens’ education and writing.

If you’re not able to get to Washington DC to see it in person the Folger has produced a wealth of information available online, available through the link above, and Georgianna Ziegler is going to be giving a lecture on the exhibition in New York on 16 April.  

Shakespeare clearly didn’t go along with the idea that women were incapable of learning, creating female characters who are every bit as bright as their male counterparts. Rosalind in As You Like It wipes the floor with Orlando and even the shepherdess Phebe is capable of writing her “very taunting letter”, delivered by the doting Silvius. It’s always tempting to think that Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna, who her tombstone tells us was “witty above her sex” might have been the inspiration for some of these intelligent girls.  His female roles are still some of the greatest ever written for women.

 On 7 April Georgianna Ziegler presented a paper on the Folger Shakespeare Library’s recent projects at the Shakespeare Association of America’s annual meeting, where I was privileged to be part of the same panel. A version of her paper has been posted here, and I will be posting a version of my own paper in the next few days.

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Mozart, Shakespeare and genius

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Sylvia Morris

Maybe it’s because I’ve been away from the BBC for two weeks, but the Radio 4 documentary by Dr Robert Winston about Mozart, broadcast a couple of days ago, struck me as a fascinating mix of analysis and glorious music.

 Mozart is to music what Shakespeare is to literature, the greatest among many brilliant figures, and there are mysteries about both. Dr Winston revealed that the most persistent mystery about Mozart, which continues to provoke debate, is why he died in 1791 at the early age of 35. Rumours persist about poisoning, and no fewer than 140 different causes of death have been proposed.

For Shakespeare, the mystery which people still struggle to find an answer to is how could a man with limited education and experience of life write plays and poems which appear to display such a wide range of knowledge?

 Mozart’s life is well-documented, and there’s no discussion about whether he really wrote his own music. His father promoted him as a child prodigy, touring him around Europe for over three years before he developed into an adult pianist and composer of breathtaking ability.

Mozart's manuscript of part of the Jupiter Symphony

His wife Constanze outlived him by many years and left accounts of how he wrote. Jane Glover, the conductor and Mozart biographer, explained that he would appear for a time to be distracted before sitting at his desk and scribbling “as if he was pressing the print button in his head”, accounting for the amazing neatness of his manuscripts. Interestingly, Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare that “in his writing, (whatsoever he penn’d) hee never blotted out a line”, so perhaps the two men shared the same way of working. When looking at manuscripts we like to see the obvious effort, the first choices that were later refined, the bits that were added in. Beethoven’s manuscripts, in which you can see how hard he worked over his scores, are more satisfying to us, and in another parallel, Ben Jonson was  known to labour over his scripts. But just because the writing seems effortless doesn’t mean that the music, or the poetry, was dictated effortlessly by God. Mozart, and perhaps Shakespeare too, was capable of working it all out in his mind, holding it there until it was perfect, and all that remained was the mechanical business of getting it down on paper.

We like to feel that the creator’s life is in some way mirrored by their work, and the ordinariness of Mozart’s life, like Shakespeare’s, doesn’t satisfy our need. Jane Glover noted that Mozart wrote some of his most joyous work when he was going through the most difficult time of his life, as if composing offered a release from emotional pain instead of a way of working it through, rather the reverse of what we expect. See here for a blog post about the Jupiter Symphony by the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Pennsylvania. 

Ultimately the mystery is the same for both men. How is it possible for anyone, regardless of background, to be able to create what they did?

 Going back to the question of why people are so fascinated with how he died, one writer said of Mozart, “he is culturally supernatural, so no natural death will do”. And with Shakespeare, no ordinary life will do. You can say that they had phenomenal memories, an unusually developed ability to solve problems in their heads, and natural talent. When it’s all added together and it still doesn’t explain the inexplicable, that’s when we call it genius.

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Bardbox: Shakespeare on YouTube

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Sylvia Morris

At the Shakespeare Association of America’s annual meeting in Boston this weekend I’m part of a panel looking at the future of Shakespeare performance archives. My particular contribution is a paper on the digital domain, and one of the websites which I’m going to be mentioning is Bardbox, the blog by the British Library’s Luke McKernan.

He’s taken the unusual step of looking at the thousands of Shakespeare-related videos posted on sites like YouTube and Vimeo and made his own personal selection. While it’s easy to dismiss these sites as containing only repetitious, derivative videos it’s McKernan’s contention that interesting original and creative work is to be found there, and he’s made it his mission to unearth it.

The resulting website is a delight: no need to wade through endless people awkwardly intoning one of Shakespeare’s famous speeches. He’s done all the sifting for you and you know that anything he’s chosen is worth the time it takes to look at it. And his descriptions of the videos themselves are frank and often very funny.

Not many people will investigate the tab marked Cataloguing, but I love the way that McKernan has set up a standard template for describing the videos, and he’s also documented the videos which he selected but which have subsequently disappeared from the site in the Alas, alas section.

Hamlet "in the original Klingon"

I think I’ve mentioned before that although not a Trekkie, I’m fond of the wackiness of Shakespeare “in the original Klingon”. So the video of a recital of “To be or not to be” by a man in full Klingon make-up is one of my personal favourites. And although I haven’t managed to find it on my latest trip to Bardbox I loved the recording of Marianne Faithfull’s As Tears go by twinned with scenes from Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V.

Do go and take a look around at this engaging site!

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