Deb Streusand is back! This afternoon I'll be liveblogging Staging Session II from 2:30 pm to 3:45 pm. This session is taking place in the King Theatre at Stuart Hall School.
Instant!_Shakespeare: Make Students' First Readings Staged Readings
Becki Jones, Thomas Dale High School
Jones conjures the picture of a student struggling through a dreary, solitary reading of his or her first Shakespeare play, and contrasts this with her own recommendation for a first class on a given play: a lively staged reading of one scene, plastic swords and all. She cites several experiences, including work at the Globe and seeing Patrick Tucker's Original Shakespeare Company perform without rehearsal, that gave her faith in the ability of a staged reading to create engagement with the play regardless of the degree of preparation. She demonstrates preparing the students by telling them the story of the play up to the scene they will be reading. The students from Stuart Hall School do their reading of the final scene of Hamlet, working out the blocking as they go; the sword fight is the only portion that they have prepared, for safety reasons. Jones gives them limited instructions as the scene goes on, but only where it is necessary for the scene to operate properly. Making sure that Hamlet and Laertes do change foils, for example, aids students' understanding of the scene without disrupting the flow. Jones describes the advantages she has perceived from doing staged readings before students begin reading on their own. She gives the audience practical advice on how to prepare for this type of staged reading, and provides a handout for this purpose. Sally Southall, a fellow teacher at Jones' school, provides an account of how this process has worked for her. She reports that she has found it quite successful in engaging even students who have studied Shakespeare before and have not particularly liked it. Jones concludes, "Instant Shakespeare! Just add students! Try it today!"
Touring and Original Practices: The Grassroots Shakespeare Company
Alex Ungerman and Mark Oram, Utah Valley University
Ungerman and Oram describe their experience founding the Grassroots Shakespeare company. Oram discusses his visit to the ASC in 2008, and the powerful effect that elements such as universal lighting, minimal sets, and doubling had on his experience. He saw A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Revenger's Tragedy in the Actors' Renaissance Season; he praises the "beautiful chaos" of this experience. Inspired by the ASC, he returned home and started an Original Practices company. The principles of Grassroots Shakespeare include role doubling, cue scripts, not having a director or any designers, and using limited rehearsal time. Oram and Ungerman describe their learning process as they worked on creating and using cue scripts, having actors design their own costumes, and coordinating rehearsals as a group.
Oram describes the challenges of using original practices without having a resident company, and explains the casting process that they have devised to make this possible. In the initial audition, they bring in groups and have the members of the group give each other notes on their monologues, allowing them to assess the actors' potential as ensemble members. Ungerman describes a callback exercise wherein groups create jigs to popular songs and perform them. After further monologues and feedback, the company selects itself by popular vote, so that the actors know they have been chosen by their peers, setting up an immediate sense of collaboration. The company casts the show itself in the same way, working with sides and feedback, and the process again culminates in a popular vote and, if necessary, discussion until consensus is reached.
The presenters next discuss how their rehearsal process works. Their primary principle is that all actors must come to the first rehearsal prepared with a "first draft" performance, with their lines memorized. (There are about two weeks between casting and the first rehearsal.) They must also be prepared to receive and implement peer feedback. All actors are required to watch their fellow actors and give them feedback, emphasizing positive reinforcement and language of collaboration. They find that this atmosphere creates a better show and a more positive experience for the actors. In rehearsal, actors first perform a scene once through uninterrupted. The entire company then works with that scene collaboratively, trying to establish an approach to the scene that feels good onstage and looks good from offstage. Once the scene is put together, they perform it again to commit it to memory.
The presenters describe their two basic rules for their actors. 1)You must try any suggestion once, even if it is totally absurd. 2)Actors have final authority over their own performance. They note that once the company comes together, it creates a synergy and trust that makes actors responsive to each other and determined to make things work.
They next discuss the logistics of company work. Since there are no designers, the actors choose their own costumes, bringing a first draft in and then getting feedback on it. Without a stage manager, actors rotate through being "captain" for each rehearsal and performance. Actors are also responsible for marketing and publicity. Oram reports that in a group of 15-20 actors, he finds that there is an expert on just about anything. By making collaboration a part of the design, they achieve great results.
The presenters tell us how created their own stage to bring with them on tour. They describe several influences on their staging practice for tours, including Shakespeare's Globe on Tour and other modern companies, as well as Elizabethan images of touring stages. They created a design inspired by these influences, with primary elements including wooden planking, curtains for a discovery space, ladders to provide levels, stairs up to the stage, trestles as a base for the stage, and, the innovation of which they are proudest, placing their stage on top of barrels to create the feel of early modern performance at an alehouse or inn. Their practical considerations include negotiation of the relationship between an early modern aesthetic and modern construction materials, creating universal lighting even at night with 360-degree lamps, and easy assembly and disassembly of the stage.
Oram and Ungerman share some of their company's successes with us. They describe productions of Much Ado about Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, illustrating the evolution of their staging practices. They share some of the ways they encourage audience engagement, and provide data about the growth of their audience. Oram tells us about Grassroots companies he started in Exeter and London, which are going strong without him due to the collaborative nature of this approach.
They conclude with the principles that are most important in their approach: autonomy for the actor, enlisting everyone in the collaborative process, and synergistic collaboration. They again acknowledge their debt of inspiration to the ASC.
We have some time for questions. A questioner asks Ungerman and Oram if there is anything they would have done differently. Ungerman describes starting over from scratch with each new company, and starting troupes in different locations, so that in effect, they get to revise their approach each time. Another questioner asks about the financial elements of the work. Oram describes their beginning as a sharers' company, and how this approach did not work so well, which led them to become an unpaid company, with a Pay What You Will policy for most shows. Another questioner asks about how they build their audience. Oram explains their use of social media and email databases, and the enthusiasm their audience engagement creates, which encourages audience members to bring their friends next time. The final questioner asks about their growth plan. Ungerman reports that they will be doing workshops with Tiffany Stern in the spring and touring in the summer. Oram tells us that they are thinking about starting Grassroots companies in San Francisco and Salt Lake City.
Brett Sullivan Santry of Stuart Hall School and Mary Baldwin College moderates this session.
27 October 2011
Blackfriars Conference 2011 – Staging Session I
Cass Morris back again, and I'll be covering the first of our Staging Sessions. In these sessions, scholars and practitioners get to bring specific staging issues to our actors and work through them. We have two running concurrently today, one in the Blackfriars Playhouse, and one at the King Theatre at Stuart Hall School, just a few blocks down the road. From 2:30pm to 3:45pm, I'll be covering the session at the Playhouse, moderated by Matt Davies of Mary Baldwin College.
Matt opens by remarking that he presented at one of these staging sessions back in 2009, and he jokes that while Sarah Enloe assured him that he knew what to do to introduce one, he thinks the best thing to do is just get to the staging as quickly as possible. He points out that both companies ran Kickstarter campaigns in order to reach the Blackfriars Conference this year. Both staging sessions will run in succession, and then Davies will moderate a group discussion. The presenters in this session are assisted by Greg Phelps, Daniel Burrows, and Dan Kennedy.
Lee Benjamin Huttner, New York University: "Mirrors in Richard II"
Huttner is a graduate student in both literature and drama at NYU and Tisch. He will be examining the "mirror-breaking" scene and the famous deposition scene, 4.1, of Richard II, and he believes that this scene may never have been performed on the early modern stage, due to censorship issues. He looks at mirrors as an organizing principle for Richard II, not just literally, but as "the fundamental disjuncture that occurs at an encounter of the self".
Huttner begins the scene at Richard's entrance. Greg as Richard II encourages the audience to respond when he calls out "God save the king!", which he then immediately denies being, prefacing the tug-of-war that will occur over the crown with Henry Bolingbroke (Dan Kennedy) later in the scene.
"There are a number of choices to be made during the scene," some of which Huttner admits he did not anticipate, "which is why we're here." He brings in the idea of role segregation -- the idea of the self being separate from one's role. Richard in this scene exists between the two roles of subject and king. Huttner argues that he is not distanced from both, but rather has to try to fulfill both simultaneously. Huttner explores some ideas of metatheatricality, looking at ways in which human life can be construed in terms of performance, scripting, and "backstage" actions. Nothing, he argues, distinguishes the ritual performativity of the stage from the ritual performativity of life. This concept brings the idea of mirrors back into play (via a short detour to Hamlet's ideas of holding a mirror up to nature); Richard sees himself in the glass as others see him, seeing the self that he presents to others.
Huttner relates this disjuncture of self with the disjuncture of the crown (and thus of the role and assumed self) that we just saw in the deposition. He describes Richard and Henry as "a living chiasmus ... simultaneously linked and thrust apart by the crown, by the 'I'." He interrogates the idea that Richard and Henry might have to both hold on to the crown for an extended length of time during the scene. The chiastic structure comes back into play with Richard's response to Henry's question, "Are you content to resign the crown": "Aye, no; no, aye" (or possibly "I know no I", bringing the signification of self back to the forefront). Taken out of his roles, Huttner argues, Richard "considers himself erased." Huttner then discusses how Richard pre-emptively "ghosts" himself -- and will, in fact, become a ghost that haunts the rest of the tetralogy, his legacy weighing heavily on Bolingbroke's son Henry V.
The actors confer for a moment and stage the scene again, incorporating ideas from Huttner's presentation. This time, Richard requests less of the audience initially, and his approach to Bolingbroke is somewhat softer (though also quite bitter). Both men cling tight to the crown throughout the verbal negotiation over it. Richard re-crowns himself (acting, as Huttner earlier pointed out, as both bishop and king in an instant) and then holds the crown out to Bolingbroke, though does not relinquish it throughout his long speech. Dan Kennedy's Bolingbroke seems impatient, even exasperated, with Richard's indulgence.
Beth Burns, Hidden Room Theatre: "Original Practices at Hidden Room"
Beth Burns introduces her support team from Hidden Room, noting that she met her dramaturg for The Taming of the Shrew at a previous conference. She positions herself clearly on the side of practitioners as opposed to strict academics, but states that she tries to make her practice as well-grounded in scholarship as she can. She thanks the scholarly crowd for "letting me steal your work, as I do do and will do today."
Burns discusses her experiences with Original Practices and notes that, while different companies and scholars have different views on what that means, they all come down to: "let's not fight the text; let's go with it." She's curious about the idea of "male playing female, and what that does to the text," particularly what it does to jokes -- which she doesn't like to cut just because the reference isn't relevant. She wondered if the idea of men playing women would balance out the gender issues in Shrew. "What I found instead was, actually, a love story. A really sexy love story." It also produced a theme of identity.
She noted two challenges: 1) to get the audience to believe the man playing a woman as a female character, and 2) to make the audience perceive the relationship displayed as a heterosexual one, not a homosexual one. Her actors from Hidden Room then present the introduction between Kate and Petruchio (2.1), in (as in her production), late-sixteenth-century costumes and (lead-free) makeup. The scene is fast-paced and full of action, with a Kate visibly enjoying the challenge of sparring with Petruchio, and a Petruchio utterly unwilling to part company with her. Kate also seems moved (though somewhat uncomfortable) by a Petruchio speaking to her sexually -- as, this staging seems to suggest, no other man has ever done.
Burns notes that the scene is "a veritable cornucopia" of the techniques they use. She notes that, to make the steaminess palpable, they don't just go for the obvious sexual jokes, but also those words that "sound sexual" by virtue of their sonic qualities or the face-shapes the sounds cause. They also explored "non-standard touch", to break the expectation of the usual courtship interactions. She moves to the next scene, which she hopes will cause us to look at gender role and power.
In the "sun and moon" scene, 4.5, Kate's concession to Petruchio's declarations comes with more than a light touch of sarcasm -- but she laughs when Petruchio address Vincentio (an impromptu substitution of Matt Davies) as a fair mistress. When Kate gets the joke and flirts with Vincentio, Petruchio intervenes a bit hastily, to cut off a kiss -- which represents, as Burns points out, that she's now playing on an even field with him. They move to the final scene: 5.1, on the street -- the "kiss me, Kate" moment. Their frenetic energy slows to tender regard, but loses none of its passion.
Burns brings her actors out and first asks Ryan (Kate) about building the character. He talks about placing her "center" low, to ground her and also give her grace. Burns and Judd (Petruchio) talk about building the "uber-macho" Petruchio, who Judd describes as "the archetypal alpha male" who goes beyond the typical plateau of gentlemanly behavior.
Matt Davies opens up to questions from the audience for either presenter.
Q: Has Hidden Room yet done this with tragedies, and if so, how was it the same or different?
A: Short answer is no. Will be doing "Rose Rage" in July.
Q for Beth: How early in the process did you get into costume?
A: Ryan responds that the skirt and the shoes were really important -- He gave himself permission to go there early on, not just for himself but also because he felt it helped his castmates see him as Kate, not as Ryan. Judd adds that it changes the way you carry yourself. Beth clarifies that they got Ryan into a skirt on Day One, and that their Bianca had to shave an enormous beard before they could start her love scenes. Matt comments that competing beards could create "a Velcro situation".
Q for Beth: Would you consider casting a prepubescent boy whose voice has not yet cracked?
A: Beth says was not willing to go "that far down the rabbit hole". Afraid that less-experienced actor might not get the quality needed, also that a prepubescent boy might get them in trouble with all the steamy bits. Matt adds his wondering if, looking at plays like Antony and Cleopatra, if the boys got given better female roles as they got older, and thus were no longer prepubescent or even pubescent.
Q for Greg: Struck by first version, when he came out to the audience, with the scene moving to such a solipsistic moment -- interesting counterbalance to the mirrored exchange. Wondering if that was scripted as part of rehearsal?
A: All respond that: There was no rehearsal.
Q: Matt adds, does the direct address come into contrast with those introspective moments, asks Lee how he would deal with that in rehearsal.
A: In early modern environment, there's no huge distinction between stage and audience. Richard speaks of notions of embarrassment and of deference -- thinks deference particularly important, especially with regard to reflection of how audience defers to actors on stage. Thinks the interplay of ideas only works in an environment like this.
Q: Wonders what he thinks about how the direct address would have functioned with the Essex performance?
A: "Well, there's a lot to say about that." Discusses the possible explanations regarding the censorship.
Matt suggests that discussion of the Essex Rebellion continue at the bar.
Matt opens by remarking that he presented at one of these staging sessions back in 2009, and he jokes that while Sarah Enloe assured him that he knew what to do to introduce one, he thinks the best thing to do is just get to the staging as quickly as possible. He points out that both companies ran Kickstarter campaigns in order to reach the Blackfriars Conference this year. Both staging sessions will run in succession, and then Davies will moderate a group discussion. The presenters in this session are assisted by Greg Phelps, Daniel Burrows, and Dan Kennedy.
Lee Benjamin Huttner, New York University: "Mirrors in Richard II"
Huttner is a graduate student in both literature and drama at NYU and Tisch. He will be examining the "mirror-breaking" scene and the famous deposition scene, 4.1, of Richard II, and he believes that this scene may never have been performed on the early modern stage, due to censorship issues. He looks at mirrors as an organizing principle for Richard II, not just literally, but as "the fundamental disjuncture that occurs at an encounter of the self".
Huttner begins the scene at Richard's entrance. Greg as Richard II encourages the audience to respond when he calls out "God save the king!", which he then immediately denies being, prefacing the tug-of-war that will occur over the crown with Henry Bolingbroke (Dan Kennedy) later in the scene.
"There are a number of choices to be made during the scene," some of which Huttner admits he did not anticipate, "which is why we're here." He brings in the idea of role segregation -- the idea of the self being separate from one's role. Richard in this scene exists between the two roles of subject and king. Huttner argues that he is not distanced from both, but rather has to try to fulfill both simultaneously. Huttner explores some ideas of metatheatricality, looking at ways in which human life can be construed in terms of performance, scripting, and "backstage" actions. Nothing, he argues, distinguishes the ritual performativity of the stage from the ritual performativity of life. This concept brings the idea of mirrors back into play (via a short detour to Hamlet's ideas of holding a mirror up to nature); Richard sees himself in the glass as others see him, seeing the self that he presents to others.
Huttner relates this disjuncture of self with the disjuncture of the crown (and thus of the role and assumed self) that we just saw in the deposition. He describes Richard and Henry as "a living chiasmus ... simultaneously linked and thrust apart by the crown, by the 'I'." He interrogates the idea that Richard and Henry might have to both hold on to the crown for an extended length of time during the scene. The chiastic structure comes back into play with Richard's response to Henry's question, "Are you content to resign the crown": "Aye, no; no, aye" (or possibly "I know no I", bringing the signification of self back to the forefront). Taken out of his roles, Huttner argues, Richard "considers himself erased." Huttner then discusses how Richard pre-emptively "ghosts" himself -- and will, in fact, become a ghost that haunts the rest of the tetralogy, his legacy weighing heavily on Bolingbroke's son Henry V.
The actors confer for a moment and stage the scene again, incorporating ideas from Huttner's presentation. This time, Richard requests less of the audience initially, and his approach to Bolingbroke is somewhat softer (though also quite bitter). Both men cling tight to the crown throughout the verbal negotiation over it. Richard re-crowns himself (acting, as Huttner earlier pointed out, as both bishop and king in an instant) and then holds the crown out to Bolingbroke, though does not relinquish it throughout his long speech. Dan Kennedy's Bolingbroke seems impatient, even exasperated, with Richard's indulgence.
Beth Burns, Hidden Room Theatre: "Original Practices at Hidden Room"
Beth Burns introduces her support team from Hidden Room, noting that she met her dramaturg for The Taming of the Shrew at a previous conference. She positions herself clearly on the side of practitioners as opposed to strict academics, but states that she tries to make her practice as well-grounded in scholarship as she can. She thanks the scholarly crowd for "letting me steal your work, as I do do and will do today."
Burns discusses her experiences with Original Practices and notes that, while different companies and scholars have different views on what that means, they all come down to: "let's not fight the text; let's go with it." She's curious about the idea of "male playing female, and what that does to the text," particularly what it does to jokes -- which she doesn't like to cut just because the reference isn't relevant. She wondered if the idea of men playing women would balance out the gender issues in Shrew. "What I found instead was, actually, a love story. A really sexy love story." It also produced a theme of identity.
She noted two challenges: 1) to get the audience to believe the man playing a woman as a female character, and 2) to make the audience perceive the relationship displayed as a heterosexual one, not a homosexual one. Her actors from Hidden Room then present the introduction between Kate and Petruchio (2.1), in (as in her production), late-sixteenth-century costumes and (lead-free) makeup. The scene is fast-paced and full of action, with a Kate visibly enjoying the challenge of sparring with Petruchio, and a Petruchio utterly unwilling to part company with her. Kate also seems moved (though somewhat uncomfortable) by a Petruchio speaking to her sexually -- as, this staging seems to suggest, no other man has ever done.
Burns notes that the scene is "a veritable cornucopia" of the techniques they use. She notes that, to make the steaminess palpable, they don't just go for the obvious sexual jokes, but also those words that "sound sexual" by virtue of their sonic qualities or the face-shapes the sounds cause. They also explored "non-standard touch", to break the expectation of the usual courtship interactions. She moves to the next scene, which she hopes will cause us to look at gender role and power.
In the "sun and moon" scene, 4.5, Kate's concession to Petruchio's declarations comes with more than a light touch of sarcasm -- but she laughs when Petruchio address Vincentio (an impromptu substitution of Matt Davies) as a fair mistress. When Kate gets the joke and flirts with Vincentio, Petruchio intervenes a bit hastily, to cut off a kiss -- which represents, as Burns points out, that she's now playing on an even field with him. They move to the final scene: 5.1, on the street -- the "kiss me, Kate" moment. Their frenetic energy slows to tender regard, but loses none of its passion.
Burns brings her actors out and first asks Ryan (Kate) about building the character. He talks about placing her "center" low, to ground her and also give her grace. Burns and Judd (Petruchio) talk about building the "uber-macho" Petruchio, who Judd describes as "the archetypal alpha male" who goes beyond the typical plateau of gentlemanly behavior.
Matt Davies opens up to questions from the audience for either presenter.
Q: Has Hidden Room yet done this with tragedies, and if so, how was it the same or different?
A: Short answer is no. Will be doing "Rose Rage" in July.
Q for Beth: How early in the process did you get into costume?
A: Ryan responds that the skirt and the shoes were really important -- He gave himself permission to go there early on, not just for himself but also because he felt it helped his castmates see him as Kate, not as Ryan. Judd adds that it changes the way you carry yourself. Beth clarifies that they got Ryan into a skirt on Day One, and that their Bianca had to shave an enormous beard before they could start her love scenes. Matt comments that competing beards could create "a Velcro situation".
Q for Beth: Would you consider casting a prepubescent boy whose voice has not yet cracked?
A: Beth says was not willing to go "that far down the rabbit hole". Afraid that less-experienced actor might not get the quality needed, also that a prepubescent boy might get them in trouble with all the steamy bits. Matt adds his wondering if, looking at plays like Antony and Cleopatra, if the boys got given better female roles as they got older, and thus were no longer prepubescent or even pubescent.
Q for Greg: Struck by first version, when he came out to the audience, with the scene moving to such a solipsistic moment -- interesting counterbalance to the mirrored exchange. Wondering if that was scripted as part of rehearsal?
A: All respond that: There was no rehearsal.
Q: Matt adds, does the direct address come into contrast with those introspective moments, asks Lee how he would deal with that in rehearsal.
A: In early modern environment, there's no huge distinction between stage and audience. Richard speaks of notions of embarrassment and of deference -- thinks deference particularly important, especially with regard to reflection of how audience defers to actors on stage. Thinks the interplay of ideas only works in an environment like this.
Q: Wonders what he thinks about how the direct address would have functioned with the Essex performance?
A: "Well, there's a lot to say about that." Discusses the possible explanations regarding the censorship.
Matt suggests that discussion of the Essex Rebellion continue at the bar.
Blackfriars Conference 2011 - Plenary Session IV
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Blackfriars Conference 2011 - George T. Wright Keynote Address
Greetings! I'm Charlene V. Smith and it's 10:30 am on Day 2 of the 2011 Blackfriars Conference. George T. Wright from the University of Minnesota is giving the Keynote today, entitled "Climbing Shakespeare's Ladder, and Other Sound Patterns." Wright is well-known among the both the conference attendees and the graduate students at Mary Baldwin due to his seminal work Shakespeare's Metrical Art.
After some announcements from Sarah Enloe, director of Education at the ASC, Dr. Ralph Alan Cohen takes the stage to introduce Wright. Wright is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Minnesota. Besides Shakespeare's Metrical Art, Wright has also written Hearing the Measures: Shakespearean and Other Inflections and Poetical Craft and Authorial Design. Dr. Ralph says that when the graduate Shakespeare program at MBC began, he really wanted to use Shakespeare's Metrical Art as a classroom textbook. He was worried that some students, less familiar with Chaucer and poetry, might find it difficult. He says he made the mistake of using a different book, but for year two of the program Ralph "switched to the Wright/right book."
Wright begins by noting his growing interest in ladders in Shakespeare's text, and that years ago he noticed too many actors underplaying long verse speeches and rhetoric. They were being cheated of their force, brought down to the prose moments of the play.
Wright grew aware of growing interest amongst British actors and directors in speaking Shakespeare's verse. Wright was interested in how verse was heard by the ear of the audience. These actors and directors were looking for guidance and rules for shared lines, pauses, enjambed versus end stopped lines, etc. Wright cares much more about the weight given to stressed and unstressed lines as they are critical to the emotional intensity of the text.
Wright notes that there are three kinds of people interested in the meter of the verse: Actors, editors, prosodists. The questions each group asks are how shall we speak the lines, how shall we print the lines, and how shall we hear the lines, respectively. Wrights says that editors and actors must print and speak the lines in a way that allows us to read and hear the lines as metrically coherent.
Wright has consulted many texts of Shakespeare's verse and has not found much dealing with the ladder. As an example, he presents an early speech from Julius Caesar, a speech Wright says in a perfect example of a ladder.
And do you not put on your best attire?
And do you not cull out a holiday?
And do you not strew flowers in he way
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.
(1.1.48-55)
The first four lines step up, and the last three lines step back down the ladder. A ladder is sequences of clauses that keep elaborating on a topic until it's been exhausted and then the actor has to run back down.
After 1593, Shakespeare's line really find their range. Wright says we have the plague to thank, as it caused Shakespeare to write the sonnets. With the sonnets, Shakespeare was training himself to compose verse speech in a larger four line unit. Though many sonnets are end stopped at the end of each line, usually do to the rhyme scheme. The end stopping of the lines halts the rising of the verse. There is an inherent rise and fall in the structure of the sonner. The quatrains build up and then down.
Shakespeare then used more ladders in his blank verse. Wright demonstrates Shakespeare's powerful buildup via ladders with Richard II's "For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground," John of Gaunt's This England, and Henry V's famous St. Crispin Day speeches. Shakespeare had found a new way to be seriously expressive. Why say a thing once, when saying it differently and again and again will make it more memorable?
Wright notes that the performance of these ladders is not always the same, nor is it a continuous rise. The voice likes to back track a little, or down track a little, before it continues to the next level of the speeches. Wright speaks some of Macbeth's speech, "Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, / Loyal and neutral, in a moment?" This speech goes up and down constantly, as if Macbeth doesn't know where he wants to be.
Wright launches into Claudio's speech from Measure for Measure, "Ay, but to die, and go we know not where," a speech Wright calls, "one of the finest of all ladder speeches." This speech goes up for many lines, and then steps down powerfully. The imagery is as over the top as the dramatic structure of the ladder, and Wright suggests that Shakespeare intended that.
Wright notes that every actor will not perform ladders the same way, but that the device should be recognized as respecting it creates a powerful effect. Shakespeare was an extraordinary writer but also an extraordinary listener.
Wright loves the increasing attention given in recent years to the performance of verse, but the more he reads about it the more questions he has. Metrical variations add texture to Shakespeare's verse. Readers, editors, and voice professionals need to note these variations. Not just the normal variations such as trochees, but the rarer ones such as hexameter, broken-back lines, and epic caesuras, should be considered. Shakespeare uses these irregularities more than the other Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, and we should wonder why.
Wright then takes a few questions from the audience. One person asks about Wright's suggestions that we have some reservations when we hear a ladder, and wonders if that is connected to a feeling that the ladder is calculated. Wright likes the idea and the suggestions it gives for performance. Another scholar asks about evangelism and whether Wright thinks Shakespeare could have picked up some of the ladder technique from church. Wright thinks it is completely possible and beautifully quotes a poem of John Donne. Mary Baldwin professor Matt Davies mentions that the sonnets were metrically regular, and that so were the examples, there weren't a lot of inverted feet in them, which might cause a trip in the ladder. He asks whether regularity is essential to building a ladder. Other audience members respond to this idea and ASC actor James Keegan says he notes that sort of thing a lot in Tamburlaine. Keegan then notes that he feels contemporary actors are afraid of pitch, of singing the pitch, and has anxiety about it. Wright agrees, and says that they are afraid of going of the top. But Wright says he'd like to hear actors going over the top a bit more and notes that you can find fine examples of this, nodding to Keegan's fine performance as Prospero in The Tempest the night before.
After some announcements from Sarah Enloe, director of Education at the ASC, Dr. Ralph Alan Cohen takes the stage to introduce Wright. Wright is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Minnesota. Besides Shakespeare's Metrical Art, Wright has also written Hearing the Measures: Shakespearean and Other Inflections and Poetical Craft and Authorial Design. Dr. Ralph says that when the graduate Shakespeare program at MBC began, he really wanted to use Shakespeare's Metrical Art as a classroom textbook. He was worried that some students, less familiar with Chaucer and poetry, might find it difficult. He says he made the mistake of using a different book, but for year two of the program Ralph "switched to the Wright/right book."
Wright begins by noting his growing interest in ladders in Shakespeare's text, and that years ago he noticed too many actors underplaying long verse speeches and rhetoric. They were being cheated of their force, brought down to the prose moments of the play.
Wright grew aware of growing interest amongst British actors and directors in speaking Shakespeare's verse. Wright was interested in how verse was heard by the ear of the audience. These actors and directors were looking for guidance and rules for shared lines, pauses, enjambed versus end stopped lines, etc. Wright cares much more about the weight given to stressed and unstressed lines as they are critical to the emotional intensity of the text.
Wright notes that there are three kinds of people interested in the meter of the verse: Actors, editors, prosodists. The questions each group asks are how shall we speak the lines, how shall we print the lines, and how shall we hear the lines, respectively. Wrights says that editors and actors must print and speak the lines in a way that allows us to read and hear the lines as metrically coherent.
Wright has consulted many texts of Shakespeare's verse and has not found much dealing with the ladder. As an example, he presents an early speech from Julius Caesar, a speech Wright says in a perfect example of a ladder.
And do you not put on your best attire?
And do you not cull out a holiday?
And do you not strew flowers in he way
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.
(1.1.48-55)
The first four lines step up, and the last three lines step back down the ladder. A ladder is sequences of clauses that keep elaborating on a topic until it's been exhausted and then the actor has to run back down.
After 1593, Shakespeare's line really find their range. Wright says we have the plague to thank, as it caused Shakespeare to write the sonnets. With the sonnets, Shakespeare was training himself to compose verse speech in a larger four line unit. Though many sonnets are end stopped at the end of each line, usually do to the rhyme scheme. The end stopping of the lines halts the rising of the verse. There is an inherent rise and fall in the structure of the sonner. The quatrains build up and then down.
Shakespeare then used more ladders in his blank verse. Wright demonstrates Shakespeare's powerful buildup via ladders with Richard II's "For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground," John of Gaunt's This England, and Henry V's famous St. Crispin Day speeches. Shakespeare had found a new way to be seriously expressive. Why say a thing once, when saying it differently and again and again will make it more memorable?
Wright notes that the performance of these ladders is not always the same, nor is it a continuous rise. The voice likes to back track a little, or down track a little, before it continues to the next level of the speeches. Wright speaks some of Macbeth's speech, "Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, / Loyal and neutral, in a moment?" This speech goes up and down constantly, as if Macbeth doesn't know where he wants to be.
Wright launches into Claudio's speech from Measure for Measure, "Ay, but to die, and go we know not where," a speech Wright calls, "one of the finest of all ladder speeches." This speech goes up for many lines, and then steps down powerfully. The imagery is as over the top as the dramatic structure of the ladder, and Wright suggests that Shakespeare intended that.
Wright notes that every actor will not perform ladders the same way, but that the device should be recognized as respecting it creates a powerful effect. Shakespeare was an extraordinary writer but also an extraordinary listener.
Wright loves the increasing attention given in recent years to the performance of verse, but the more he reads about it the more questions he has. Metrical variations add texture to Shakespeare's verse. Readers, editors, and voice professionals need to note these variations. Not just the normal variations such as trochees, but the rarer ones such as hexameter, broken-back lines, and epic caesuras, should be considered. Shakespeare uses these irregularities more than the other Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, and we should wonder why.
Wright then takes a few questions from the audience. One person asks about Wright's suggestions that we have some reservations when we hear a ladder, and wonders if that is connected to a feeling that the ladder is calculated. Wright likes the idea and the suggestions it gives for performance. Another scholar asks about evangelism and whether Wright thinks Shakespeare could have picked up some of the ladder technique from church. Wright thinks it is completely possible and beautifully quotes a poem of John Donne. Mary Baldwin professor Matt Davies mentions that the sonnets were metrically regular, and that so were the examples, there weren't a lot of inverted feet in them, which might cause a trip in the ladder. He asks whether regularity is essential to building a ladder. Other audience members respond to this idea and ASC actor James Keegan says he notes that sort of thing a lot in Tamburlaine. Keegan then notes that he feels contemporary actors are afraid of pitch, of singing the pitch, and has anxiety about it. Wright agrees, and says that they are afraid of going of the top. But Wright says he'd like to hear actors going over the top a bit more and notes that you can find fine examples of this, nodding to Keegan's fine performance as Prospero in The Tempest the night before.
Blackfriars Conference 2011- Plenary Session III
Hi, I'm Deb Streusand, and I'll be liveblogging Plenary Session III from 9 am to 10:15 am.
"Lie there, Religion": Implications of the Vestment Controversy on the Early Modern English Stage
Margaret Rose Jaster, Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg
Jaster argues that one of the lasting effects of the Vestment Controversy might have been satirical treatment of Roman Catholic clergy on stage. She suggests that vestments served as a metonymic device for all things Roman Catholic, and that the cultural event we refer to as the Vestment Controversy did affect the early English stage. Vestments were regarded as "indifferent," that is, not necessary to the honor and glory of God. The reformers despised the vestments as symbolic of excess, and wanted to return to a more pristine spiritual institution, free of such trappings. On stage, whoever dons the Roman Catholic vestments appears as a Roman Catholic cleric to the audience, even in the case of characters who are in disguise. In the anonymous play Look About You, the scoundrel Skink disguises himself as a monk in order to con the other characters. In Measure for Measure, Duke Vincentio dons religious garb for his own ends, but, scandalously, he actually confesses Mariana in the process. If the portrayal of characters in clerical garb was always satirical, it is possible that the Roman Catholics in the audience might have been horrified or indignant. If both reformers and Catholics considered vestments indifferent, however, and the characters misusing the vestments were not Roman Catholic at all, as in the case of disguise, the contention that vestments were used this way is not so controversial.
"The mirror of all Christian kings": Choral Medievalism in the Henry V Folio
Christina Gutierrez, The University of Texas at Austin
Gutierrez argues that Shakespeare can be regarded as one of the most recognizable writers of medieval history. As a historical account, Henry V's double vision of its central character destabilizes audience perception of this historical period. She reads the play in the light of current medieval historiography and analyzes contemporary stagings of the play. She cites Umberto Eco's argument that the Middle Ages have never ended in the popular imagination, arguing that "Medievalism constructs the Middle Ages to suit post-medieval values, concerns, and effects." The play can be used to stage tensions between the historical past and the present moment. She cites the Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh movie versions, drawing a contrast between their respective treatments of Henry and of the Middle Ages. This ambiguity about how we should view Henry and his historical period comes from the text itself, particularly in the differences between how the Chorus describes Henry and how he is portrayed in person. The Chorus exists to provide a contrast to the Henry that the audience sees. In the 1600 Quarto, the choral passages do not appear. Scholars debate the reason for this absence-had they not been written yet, or were they redacted for political reasons? The Quarto's portrayal of Henry is unambiguously heroic. Shakespeare may have meant this to be an image of Elizabeth I. Gutierrez discusses the productions of Charles Kemble and William Macready, who respectively cut and restored the Chorus. She argues that Macready's restoration of the Chorus allowed the play to live in the gaps of time between the historical period being portrayed, Shakespeare's time, and the time of the production. More recent productions have set the play in various modern conflicts, whether to promote patriotism or portray the folly of war. The play's double presentation of its central character represents the duality of our view of the Middle Ages, allowing directors to make a choice as to how they will stage Henry and the play's approach to war.
Linden Kueck performs as the Chorus in Henry V for this presentation. A.J. Sclafani performs as Henry.
Making Malapropism: Reconsidering Mistress Quickly
Emily Sloan-Pace, University of California, Santa Cruz
Sloan-Pace points out that Mistress Quickly is often read solely for her malapropisms and is not considered relevant enough to the Falstaff plot or to the play's historical project to be worthy of much more analysis. She argues that in this typically upper-class genre, Quickly offers an alternative voice, representing the middle class and a female with linguistic agency in a play dominated by the masculine and martial. Quickly is distinct for her control over the economy of her alehouse and her body. In 2 Henry IV, she becomes a developed character outside of her relationship to Falstaff and the other tavern characters. The characters outside of the tavern allow her agency by providing her with positive acknowledgement. Aside from Falstaff, men seem to respect Quickly, but in his company she is subjected to a constant barrage of slurs. Editors have allowed this barrage to color their view of Mistress Quickly. Yet the Lord Chief Justice, for example, immediately accepts Quickly's claims over those of Falstaff, implying that the men in power respect her. The Justice's refusal to view her sexually leads Falstaff to admit his debt, giving Quickly the power and thereby placing her in the masculine role in this sexual exchange. Reading this scene in a non-malapropistic way provides a new view of this character as a respected figure who can employ language to her own ends.
How to Shrew
Joe Ricke, Taylor University and Hungry Shakespeare
Ricke begins his presentation in the character of Stephanie Stern, Tiffany Stern's fictional younger sister, illustrating the ways in which we view the concept of "shrewing." In his own person, he argues that the short answer to "how to shrew" is not "you're beaten to a bloody pulp," but that you are loud and argumentative, being tried as a shrew after an accusation made by a specific man or men. In a shrew play, the shrew must defend herself against the audience and her male accuser. Although some critics argue that Shakespeare's shrew must be viewed in the light of contemporary concerns about shrewish women, we should consider his approach to the shrew in terms of the tradition of staged shrews in other shrew plays rather than viewing it as an anomaly of cultural hysteria. In Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare uses one of the most popular contemporary ways of talking about the battle of the sexes. In these plays, shrews are on display as shrews because of the characters who accuse them. They then defend themselves in dialogue. The ubiquity of the shrew plays challenges any simplistic view of the Early Modern perspective on shrewish women because of the plays' allowance for dialogue and self-defense. We must also take into account the shrew's characterization of the men around her as lazy and not contributing to the household economy, which further complicates any argument that the plays unequivocally portray the shrews in a negative light. "Saintly shrews" in the mystery plays turn out to be on the side of righteousness. In Winter's Tale, Shakespeare portrays his own saintly shrew in the person of Paulina, showing that shrews can do good work by protecting others and themselves.
Kim Maurice portrays Kate in this presentation. A.J. Sclafani performs Petruchio. Maurice portrays Paulina and Sclafani Leontes in Winter's Tale. These two actors also play scenes from an earlier shrew play concerning Noah and from Peele's The Old Wives' Tale.
Competing Heights in As You Like It
Jemma Alix Levy, Muse of Fire Theater Company
Levy lays out the textual contradiction between the descriptions of Rosalind's and Celia's heights in two different scenes, and reminds us that in production Rosalind is usually portrayed as taller. Editors and directors seem to have reached the consensus to that Le Beau's statement that Celia is taller is a mistake. Levy discusses the performance potential of leaving this contradiction intact. What if Le Beau is referring to their current physical positions, or following the Duke's requirement that he see Celia as taller? Levy argues that the explanation with the greatest potential in performance is that the two women may be so close in height that each appears taller at different times. Staging their heights in this way draws attention to the competitive aspects of Rosalind and Celia's relationship. Competition is a theme throughout the play, but the competition between Rosalind and Celia is limited to the time when they are both presenting as female. While at Frederick's court, they continually one-up one another. Since Rosalind is the speaker who describes herself as taller, while Le Beau is speaking in public in the court, the shift in height may reflect a shift in perspective rather than a mistake. By insisting she is taller, Rosalind earns the right to become male while they are in disguise, preventing comparison to her cousin for that period, which allows her to become a unique individual, an initiator rather than an onlooker. In the forest, they compete only when alone or with Touchstone, as in their conversation about Orlando's poems, but this scene is interrupted, suggesting that it is no longer important who would have won. The cousins have changed in the forest, and the play replaces the language of competition with the language of equality. Now that the women have truly separated from each other, they seem prepared to embrace their equality. Levy argues that staging this contrast, rather than regarding it as a mistake, illuminates the characters and their relationship.
Linden Kueck and Charlene Smith portrayed a taller Rosalind and a shorter Celia. Smith and Kim Maurice portrayed a Rosalind and Celia of indistinguishable heights.
The presentations finish promptly and we have time for questions.
A questioner describes Quickly and Mistress Overdone as shrews of a sort, and wonders whether Overdone has agency in a fashion similar to Quickly. Sloan-Pace suggests that Mistress Overdone is portrayed more exclusively as a madam, but that men may also show her respect in a manner similar to how the men outside the tavern world treat Quickly. Ricke discusses these women as shrews in terms of the ubiquity of shrew plays and their portrayal of female agency.
The next questioner asks whether women were becoming more of an economic force in England at this time. Ricke replies that there is a dialogue about women's struggle to gain the upper hand, as portrayed in contemporary ballads. The female character is given the opportunity to voice opposition in the dramatic tradition.
The next questioner asks Jaster about the representations of authentic churchmen on stage, as opposed to characters in disguise. Jaster thinks that even when the characters are supposed to be clerics, the authors are still being satirical, as in the portrayal of Canterbury at the opening of Henry V. The cultural moment provided too good an opportunity for satire for the playwrights not to have taken advantage of it, she argues. In Look About You, Skink explicitly identifies his clerical disguise with religion itself, addressing the words "lie there, religion" to his clerical cloak.
The next questioner asks Sloan-Pace about the relationship between malapropisms and justice scenes, as in Much Ado About Nothing. Sloan-Pace points out that in these cases it is the character of lowest class who is able to discover the truth.
The final questioner discusses the first OED definition of shrew, which applies to men. Petruchio is said to be almost as shrewish as Kate is, so the issue of shrewishness and gender is much more complicated than the exclusive assignment of that identity to women. Ricke discusses the English dramatic tradition of shrewish characters and related name-calling, where "shrew" is often used to refer to men, especially in the earlier plays. This word, he asserts, tells us as much about the person who's saying it as about the person described.
Holly Pickett of Washington and Lee University moderates this session.
"Lie there, Religion": Implications of the Vestment Controversy on the Early Modern English Stage
Margaret Rose Jaster, Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg
Jaster argues that one of the lasting effects of the Vestment Controversy might have been satirical treatment of Roman Catholic clergy on stage. She suggests that vestments served as a metonymic device for all things Roman Catholic, and that the cultural event we refer to as the Vestment Controversy did affect the early English stage. Vestments were regarded as "indifferent," that is, not necessary to the honor and glory of God. The reformers despised the vestments as symbolic of excess, and wanted to return to a more pristine spiritual institution, free of such trappings. On stage, whoever dons the Roman Catholic vestments appears as a Roman Catholic cleric to the audience, even in the case of characters who are in disguise. In the anonymous play Look About You, the scoundrel Skink disguises himself as a monk in order to con the other characters. In Measure for Measure, Duke Vincentio dons religious garb for his own ends, but, scandalously, he actually confesses Mariana in the process. If the portrayal of characters in clerical garb was always satirical, it is possible that the Roman Catholics in the audience might have been horrified or indignant. If both reformers and Catholics considered vestments indifferent, however, and the characters misusing the vestments were not Roman Catholic at all, as in the case of disguise, the contention that vestments were used this way is not so controversial.
"The mirror of all Christian kings": Choral Medievalism in the Henry V Folio
Christina Gutierrez, The University of Texas at Austin
Gutierrez argues that Shakespeare can be regarded as one of the most recognizable writers of medieval history. As a historical account, Henry V's double vision of its central character destabilizes audience perception of this historical period. She reads the play in the light of current medieval historiography and analyzes contemporary stagings of the play. She cites Umberto Eco's argument that the Middle Ages have never ended in the popular imagination, arguing that "Medievalism constructs the Middle Ages to suit post-medieval values, concerns, and effects." The play can be used to stage tensions between the historical past and the present moment. She cites the Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh movie versions, drawing a contrast between their respective treatments of Henry and of the Middle Ages. This ambiguity about how we should view Henry and his historical period comes from the text itself, particularly in the differences between how the Chorus describes Henry and how he is portrayed in person. The Chorus exists to provide a contrast to the Henry that the audience sees. In the 1600 Quarto, the choral passages do not appear. Scholars debate the reason for this absence-had they not been written yet, or were they redacted for political reasons? The Quarto's portrayal of Henry is unambiguously heroic. Shakespeare may have meant this to be an image of Elizabeth I. Gutierrez discusses the productions of Charles Kemble and William Macready, who respectively cut and restored the Chorus. She argues that Macready's restoration of the Chorus allowed the play to live in the gaps of time between the historical period being portrayed, Shakespeare's time, and the time of the production. More recent productions have set the play in various modern conflicts, whether to promote patriotism or portray the folly of war. The play's double presentation of its central character represents the duality of our view of the Middle Ages, allowing directors to make a choice as to how they will stage Henry and the play's approach to war.
Linden Kueck performs as the Chorus in Henry V for this presentation. A.J. Sclafani performs as Henry.
Making Malapropism: Reconsidering Mistress Quickly
Emily Sloan-Pace, University of California, Santa Cruz
Sloan-Pace points out that Mistress Quickly is often read solely for her malapropisms and is not considered relevant enough to the Falstaff plot or to the play's historical project to be worthy of much more analysis. She argues that in this typically upper-class genre, Quickly offers an alternative voice, representing the middle class and a female with linguistic agency in a play dominated by the masculine and martial. Quickly is distinct for her control over the economy of her alehouse and her body. In 2 Henry IV, she becomes a developed character outside of her relationship to Falstaff and the other tavern characters. The characters outside of the tavern allow her agency by providing her with positive acknowledgement. Aside from Falstaff, men seem to respect Quickly, but in his company she is subjected to a constant barrage of slurs. Editors have allowed this barrage to color their view of Mistress Quickly. Yet the Lord Chief Justice, for example, immediately accepts Quickly's claims over those of Falstaff, implying that the men in power respect her. The Justice's refusal to view her sexually leads Falstaff to admit his debt, giving Quickly the power and thereby placing her in the masculine role in this sexual exchange. Reading this scene in a non-malapropistic way provides a new view of this character as a respected figure who can employ language to her own ends.
How to Shrew
Joe Ricke, Taylor University and Hungry Shakespeare
Ricke begins his presentation in the character of Stephanie Stern, Tiffany Stern's fictional younger sister, illustrating the ways in which we view the concept of "shrewing." In his own person, he argues that the short answer to "how to shrew" is not "you're beaten to a bloody pulp," but that you are loud and argumentative, being tried as a shrew after an accusation made by a specific man or men. In a shrew play, the shrew must defend herself against the audience and her male accuser. Although some critics argue that Shakespeare's shrew must be viewed in the light of contemporary concerns about shrewish women, we should consider his approach to the shrew in terms of the tradition of staged shrews in other shrew plays rather than viewing it as an anomaly of cultural hysteria. In Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare uses one of the most popular contemporary ways of talking about the battle of the sexes. In these plays, shrews are on display as shrews because of the characters who accuse them. They then defend themselves in dialogue. The ubiquity of the shrew plays challenges any simplistic view of the Early Modern perspective on shrewish women because of the plays' allowance for dialogue and self-defense. We must also take into account the shrew's characterization of the men around her as lazy and not contributing to the household economy, which further complicates any argument that the plays unequivocally portray the shrews in a negative light. "Saintly shrews" in the mystery plays turn out to be on the side of righteousness. In Winter's Tale, Shakespeare portrays his own saintly shrew in the person of Paulina, showing that shrews can do good work by protecting others and themselves.
Kim Maurice portrays Kate in this presentation. A.J. Sclafani performs Petruchio. Maurice portrays Paulina and Sclafani Leontes in Winter's Tale. These two actors also play scenes from an earlier shrew play concerning Noah and from Peele's The Old Wives' Tale.
Competing Heights in As You Like It
Jemma Alix Levy, Muse of Fire Theater Company
Levy lays out the textual contradiction between the descriptions of Rosalind's and Celia's heights in two different scenes, and reminds us that in production Rosalind is usually portrayed as taller. Editors and directors seem to have reached the consensus to that Le Beau's statement that Celia is taller is a mistake. Levy discusses the performance potential of leaving this contradiction intact. What if Le Beau is referring to their current physical positions, or following the Duke's requirement that he see Celia as taller? Levy argues that the explanation with the greatest potential in performance is that the two women may be so close in height that each appears taller at different times. Staging their heights in this way draws attention to the competitive aspects of Rosalind and Celia's relationship. Competition is a theme throughout the play, but the competition between Rosalind and Celia is limited to the time when they are both presenting as female. While at Frederick's court, they continually one-up one another. Since Rosalind is the speaker who describes herself as taller, while Le Beau is speaking in public in the court, the shift in height may reflect a shift in perspective rather than a mistake. By insisting she is taller, Rosalind earns the right to become male while they are in disguise, preventing comparison to her cousin for that period, which allows her to become a unique individual, an initiator rather than an onlooker. In the forest, they compete only when alone or with Touchstone, as in their conversation about Orlando's poems, but this scene is interrupted, suggesting that it is no longer important who would have won. The cousins have changed in the forest, and the play replaces the language of competition with the language of equality. Now that the women have truly separated from each other, they seem prepared to embrace their equality. Levy argues that staging this contrast, rather than regarding it as a mistake, illuminates the characters and their relationship.
Linden Kueck and Charlene Smith portrayed a taller Rosalind and a shorter Celia. Smith and Kim Maurice portrayed a Rosalind and Celia of indistinguishable heights.
The presentations finish promptly and we have time for questions.
A questioner describes Quickly and Mistress Overdone as shrews of a sort, and wonders whether Overdone has agency in a fashion similar to Quickly. Sloan-Pace suggests that Mistress Overdone is portrayed more exclusively as a madam, but that men may also show her respect in a manner similar to how the men outside the tavern world treat Quickly. Ricke discusses these women as shrews in terms of the ubiquity of shrew plays and their portrayal of female agency.
The next questioner asks whether women were becoming more of an economic force in England at this time. Ricke replies that there is a dialogue about women's struggle to gain the upper hand, as portrayed in contemporary ballads. The female character is given the opportunity to voice opposition in the dramatic tradition.
The next questioner asks Jaster about the representations of authentic churchmen on stage, as opposed to characters in disguise. Jaster thinks that even when the characters are supposed to be clerics, the authors are still being satirical, as in the portrayal of Canterbury at the opening of Henry V. The cultural moment provided too good an opportunity for satire for the playwrights not to have taken advantage of it, she argues. In Look About You, Skink explicitly identifies his clerical disguise with religion itself, addressing the words "lie there, religion" to his clerical cloak.
The next questioner asks Sloan-Pace about the relationship between malapropisms and justice scenes, as in Much Ado About Nothing. Sloan-Pace points out that in these cases it is the character of lowest class who is able to discover the truth.
The final questioner discusses the first OED definition of shrew, which applies to men. Petruchio is said to be almost as shrewish as Kate is, so the issue of shrewishness and gender is much more complicated than the exclusive assignment of that identity to women. Ricke discusses the English dramatic tradition of shrewish characters and related name-calling, where "shrew" is often used to refer to men, especially in the earlier plays. This word, he asserts, tells us as much about the person who's saying it as about the person described.
Holly Pickett of Washington and Lee University moderates this session.
26 October 2011
Blackfriars Conference 2011 - Plenary Session II
Hi! I'm Julia, I'll be liveblogging Plenary Session II from 3:15 to 4:45.
Moderator: Hank Dobin, Washington and Lee University
Time to Play
Steven Urkowitz, University of Southern Maine
Urkowitz discussed the duration of performances in Early Modern Theater. Some scholars have tried to argue that all performances adhered strictly to the "two hours traffic of our stage," even though some early modern plays are a good deal longer than others. He mentioned that a performance of a play would include music before and dancing after, so that even if a performance was expected to be more or less the same duration, the other entertainments could be shortened or lenghthened to accomodate the difference. He also discussed script cutting as a possibility raised by scholars such as Andrew Gurr, but Urkowitz dismisses the arguments that script cutting was necessary.
The Bookend Project:
Transforming Shakespeare's Revenge Play from Violence to Virtue in Titus Andronicus and The Tempest
Tara Bradway, St. John's University
Bradway, artistic director of the Adirondack Shakespeare Company, discussed one interesting comparison she and her performers discovered when the same actress played Lavinia and Caliban. Early in Titus Andronicus, Lavinia fails to play within the form of the iambic pentameter line, but later in the play she breaks out of the pattern, uses initial trochees and lines witn 9 or 11 syllables, and in so doing struggles for greater agency within her own life. Caliban also uses an irregular verse pattern to assert his agency within is position of servitude. Both characters are also marked by sexual violence, and both become more eloquent through silence. Miriam Donald performed as Lavinia, Benjamin Curns as Caliban, and James Keegan as Prospero.
Laughter in Time and Space
Casey Caldwell, Mary Baldwin College
Caldwell brought together two ongoing scholarly discussions (the study of laughter in Shakespeare, and the study of sound in Shakespeare) to point out that neither discussion integrates laughter as a sound. He goes on to point out that the Blackfriars' status as an Early Modern reconstruction gives us a tension when we come into it bringing our own time period, as there is a tension between our time and the time to which the Blackfriars belongs. Laughter is a way of imposing our own imminence onto our surroundings, but we are not laughing at the space. In the same way, a sleeping Bottom (performed by Benjamin Curns) awakes from his dream and chooses to remain imminent by re-formating his perception of his experience and using it to commission a work of art.
Remember the Porter:
Knock-Knock Jokes, Tragedy, and Other Unfunny Things
Chris Barrett, Harvard University
Barrett discussed the Porter's scene as an extended knock-knock joke; the first, she says, in the English language. The porter, as the keeper of the threshold, has no trouble playing both the host and the interrupter in the joke. A knock-knock joke has a formula that suggests not only fear, but a disruption of the rules of hospitality: the guest is an uncouth interrupter and the joke is always on the host. Implied is a laughing forgiveness for the transgression -- thus pity and fear are integral to the knock-knock joke and also, as it happens, to tragedy.
Performing Verse/Prose Transitions
James Loehlin, The University of Texas at Austin
Loehlin presented several instances of transitions between verse and prose in Shakespeare, using examples from Hamlet and As You Like It, performed by Shakespeare at Winedale actors Isto Barton, Sonia Desai, and Kelsi Tyler. He demonstrated that when a character switches from verse to prose, the other characters onstage have an opportunity to confirm or deny that transformation. He also discussed lines within prose scenes that sound and scan like verse, and concluded that characters can manipulate verse/prose transitions to rhetorical effect.
Moderator: Hank Dobin, Washington and Lee University
Time to Play
Steven Urkowitz, University of Southern Maine
Urkowitz discussed the duration of performances in Early Modern Theater. Some scholars have tried to argue that all performances adhered strictly to the "two hours traffic of our stage," even though some early modern plays are a good deal longer than others. He mentioned that a performance of a play would include music before and dancing after, so that even if a performance was expected to be more or less the same duration, the other entertainments could be shortened or lenghthened to accomodate the difference. He also discussed script cutting as a possibility raised by scholars such as Andrew Gurr, but Urkowitz dismisses the arguments that script cutting was necessary.
The Bookend Project:
Transforming Shakespeare's Revenge Play from Violence to Virtue in Titus Andronicus and The Tempest
Tara Bradway, St. John's University
Bradway, artistic director of the Adirondack Shakespeare Company, discussed one interesting comparison she and her performers discovered when the same actress played Lavinia and Caliban. Early in Titus Andronicus, Lavinia fails to play within the form of the iambic pentameter line, but later in the play she breaks out of the pattern, uses initial trochees and lines witn 9 or 11 syllables, and in so doing struggles for greater agency within her own life. Caliban also uses an irregular verse pattern to assert his agency within is position of servitude. Both characters are also marked by sexual violence, and both become more eloquent through silence. Miriam Donald performed as Lavinia, Benjamin Curns as Caliban, and James Keegan as Prospero.
Laughter in Time and Space
Casey Caldwell, Mary Baldwin College
Caldwell brought together two ongoing scholarly discussions (the study of laughter in Shakespeare, and the study of sound in Shakespeare) to point out that neither discussion integrates laughter as a sound. He goes on to point out that the Blackfriars' status as an Early Modern reconstruction gives us a tension when we come into it bringing our own time period, as there is a tension between our time and the time to which the Blackfriars belongs. Laughter is a way of imposing our own imminence onto our surroundings, but we are not laughing at the space. In the same way, a sleeping Bottom (performed by Benjamin Curns) awakes from his dream and chooses to remain imminent by re-formating his perception of his experience and using it to commission a work of art.
Remember the Porter:
Knock-Knock Jokes, Tragedy, and Other Unfunny Things
Chris Barrett, Harvard University
Barrett discussed the Porter's scene as an extended knock-knock joke; the first, she says, in the English language. The porter, as the keeper of the threshold, has no trouble playing both the host and the interrupter in the joke. A knock-knock joke has a formula that suggests not only fear, but a disruption of the rules of hospitality: the guest is an uncouth interrupter and the joke is always on the host. Implied is a laughing forgiveness for the transgression -- thus pity and fear are integral to the knock-knock joke and also, as it happens, to tragedy.
Performing Verse/Prose Transitions
James Loehlin, The University of Texas at Austin
Loehlin presented several instances of transitions between verse and prose in Shakespeare, using examples from Hamlet and As You Like It, performed by Shakespeare at Winedale actors Isto Barton, Sonia Desai, and Kelsi Tyler. He demonstrated that when a character switches from verse to prose, the other characters onstage have an opportunity to confirm or deny that transformation. He also discussed lines within prose scenes that sound and scan like verse, and concluded that characters can manipulate verse/prose transitions to rhetorical effect.
Blackfriars Conference 2011 – Plenary Session I
I'm Charlene V. Smith, and I'll be liveblogging Plenary Session I from 1pm to 2:15pm.
Leslie Thomson, University of Toronto
The Tempest and the Stage-Sitters
Thomson starts by pointing out that the King's Men had already started using the Blackfriars by the time that Shakespeare started writing The Tempest. Thus he would have known that the most expensive seats would have been those on stage. Thomson asks what effect the gallants onstage might have had, for example they created a type of stage dressing, and caused an alienating effect by reminding the audience that they were at a play.
The stage-sitters would have completed with the players for staging space and for audience attention, so Thomson explores whether the plays at the time included elements meant to counteract this or remind the sitters to behave? Thomson argues that The Tempest is constructed to quiet the stage sitters using elements such as soliloquies, discoveries, masques, and other staging devices.
The Tempest's 78 uses of "now"and numerous mentions of the island create a single shared time and location. Events in the play such as the shipwreck, banquet, and the masque draw attention to drama onstage as opposed to the drama offstage. The text also suggests a number of sitting, reclining, or leaning positions. Groups of figures are also regularly observed by others. All these features help point the audience's attention to the play itself. Thomson then suggests that Prospero acts as a stage-manager, speaking directly to the playgoers, and controlling moments of action during the play.
Thomson concludes with the thought that the presence of stage-sitters couldn't be ignored during the early modern era and therefore shouldn't be ignored now. By considering their effect on the performance, we can gather a more accurate and fuller picture of early modern theatre.
Mark Z. Muggli, Luther College
"After the first death, there is no other": Except in the Case of Falstaff
Muggli mentions that much attention has been paid to Falstaff's reported death in Henry V, and says he instead wants to focus attention on Falstaff's first death in Henry IV, part one. Falstaff, to avoid fighting in the battle, "falls down as if he were dead." The "as if" is ambiguous.
Should Falstaff rise up thirty lines later to the audience's complete surprise? Or should he fall down with a wink to the audience so that we know he is faking during Hal and Hotspur's fight?
Muggli says that a Falstaff who informs the audience that he is faking is an impressive trickster, but he is only a trickster. A Falstaff that convinces the audience that he is dead is a Falstaff who has the power to resurrect himself.
Muggli mentions a production he saw recently where an overweight Falstaff apparently suffered a heart attack and falls down. To Muggli, it was convincingly real. While speaking to colleagues about this production, one disagreed, telling Muggli that "it was obvious that Falstaff was faking." Muggli suggest the cultural legacy of Falstaff means that audiences, even nonspecialists, are aware that he does not die in the first play he appears, and so his resurrection can never truly come as a surprise.
Walter Cannon, Central College
Complex Hearing
Cannon describes complex hearing as a moment when a character hears something that he or she cannot respond to directly, either due to disguise, eavesdropping, decorum, tact, or prevailing social norms.
Cannon says the character's reticence and a restraint can be used as a guide to emotional and psychological complexity.
To demonstrate his point, Cannon looks at two speeches of Edgar's in King Lear. The first in 3.6 is a soliloquy in which Edgar speaks out-loud to himself. The second is the speech he delivers in 5.3 to Albany and Edmund. These speeches deal with Edgar's disguise of Poor Tom.
Cannon points out that disguises are often used to gain or regain power, but Poor Tom gives Edgar knowledge, but not power. It is a disguise that puts an emotional burden on Edgar that he reveals after his fight with Edmund.
Cannon stages the speech in 5.3 in order to demonstrate that the onstage hearers guide audience response. Edgar faces entirely upstage, where Albany and Edmund are located. Edmund and Albany's faces were therefore much more visible to the majority of the audience.
Bill Gelber, Texas Tech University
A "Ha" in Shakespeare: the Soliloquy as Excuse and Challenge to the Audience
Gelber begins by mentioning the large debate surrounding soliloquies: should they be internal and introspective or external and taken to the audience? To explore the answer, Gelber looks at Shakespeare's use of a single word, "Ha." "Ha" can be a shorter version of the word "have," when elision is necessary, or it can be repeating to simulate a character's laughter: "ha, ha, ha," or it can be a word of chiding, especially when located after a question.
Gelber is interested in this final use, especially when it occurs in a soliloquy. Shakespeare uses it sparingly, and Gelber with the help of the actors explores two examples.
The first is from Measure for Measure, 2.2. Angelo asks, "Who sins most? Ha?" In this moment he is looking to the audience for an answer. Gelber argues that the "ha" here is an interjectional interrogatory used to explain Angelo's previous aside in the scene with Isabella, an aside that is an abrupt and surprising admission of temptation. In this soliloquy, Angelo is making his case before a jury of playgoers.
Gelber then briefly looks at a couple examples where "ha" us used in dialogue, where it is used to provoke other characters to respond. Gelber says "ha" is used in much the same way in a soliloquy, only the other character is the audience.
Hamlet says "ha" in his "Am I a coward?" soliloquy. Gelber argues that the "ha?" seeks an actual response, otherwise why would Hamlet bother? This soliloquy assumes response. Gelber mentions the famous production of Hamlet starring David Warner where one night when Warner asked, "Am I a coward?," a man called out, "Yes!" When Mark Rylance played Hamlet he performed this soliloquy at the edge of the stage, as close to the audience as possible in order to provoke a response.
Evelyn Tribble, University of Otago
Inset Skill Displays
Tribble's paper is on early modern actors and their skill set. She bemoans that this aspect is not paid much attention in current studies. For example, the art of gesture is often dismissed as static and old-fashioned. Tribble feels that we should look at these skills positively and as part of an ecology of skill.
Tribble notes that the abundant stage directions in early modern play texts call for a wide range of physical and verbal abilities, including speaking, fencing, wrestling, vaulting, dancing, tumbling, and singing. Londoners could experience many of these skills in arenas other than the theatre, meaning that they were educated and informed.
Fencing displays were part of theatrical tradition and also civic life. and therefore viewers of drama were likely to have a high knowledge of the sport. Many plays also call for highly technical forms of dance. Dance had a wide cultural currency. Spectators attended performances at London's dancing schools.
Tribble encourages us to consider how an early modern performer's skills existed in a whole culture that cannot be discovered by looking at the printed page alone.
Katherine Mayberry, Grand Valley State University & Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company
Judging Spectators: The Manipulation of Audience Critical Response
Mayberry took the stage to discuss the use of prologues and epilogues in early modern drama. These speeches address the theatre audience as an audience; they define the audience role and give specific instructions. These prologues and epilogues frequently refer to the audience's power to judge the performance, but manage to shifts the responsibility for the play's success or failure onto the audience.
Playwrights use several tactics in their prologues and epilogues, including scripting and cueing applause, preemptively apologizing, anticipating criticism and dismissing them, and stating that the play will appel to discerning auditors.
Shakespeare cues the audience's applause in A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, and As You Like It. Puck says, "Give me your hands if we be friends." This is a conditional phrase. The audience must either applaud or cease to be the players' friends. Rosalind's epilogue scripts the audience response: "bid me farewell," and cues the audience: "when I curtsy."
In the opening Chorus of Henry V, Shakespeare uses the tactics of preemptively apologizing, and anticipating criticism and dismissing it, specifically demands for onstage realism. The Chorus also enlists the audience in the creation of performance, thus suggesting if the play's not successful the audience has failed.
Mayberry moves onto examples where the playwright is more insulting to the audience. Ben Jonson's prologues were often antagonistic. He disparages the judgement of those who criticize the play.
Jonson doesn't solicit the audience's help, but places blame for negative response on the audience's poor taste.
John Ford's The Broken Heart offers auditors membership in an elite club of those with "noble judgement" and "clear eyes." giving an incentive to like the play. Thomas Middleton's No Wit/No Help Like a Woman concedes failure before the play begins: "How is it possible to suffice so many ears? So many eyes?"
Mayberry concludes that early modern authors recognized the audience's power over playwright and performer and sought to control it. They sought to wrest that power back by orchestrating audience response.
The speakers in this session were aided by ASC actors John Harrell, Allison Glenzer, and Gregory Jon Phelps.
Leslie Thomson, University of Toronto
The Tempest and the Stage-Sitters
Thomson starts by pointing out that the King's Men had already started using the Blackfriars by the time that Shakespeare started writing The Tempest. Thus he would have known that the most expensive seats would have been those on stage. Thomson asks what effect the gallants onstage might have had, for example they created a type of stage dressing, and caused an alienating effect by reminding the audience that they were at a play.
The stage-sitters would have completed with the players for staging space and for audience attention, so Thomson explores whether the plays at the time included elements meant to counteract this or remind the sitters to behave? Thomson argues that The Tempest is constructed to quiet the stage sitters using elements such as soliloquies, discoveries, masques, and other staging devices.
The Tempest's 78 uses of "now"and numerous mentions of the island create a single shared time and location. Events in the play such as the shipwreck, banquet, and the masque draw attention to drama onstage as opposed to the drama offstage. The text also suggests a number of sitting, reclining, or leaning positions. Groups of figures are also regularly observed by others. All these features help point the audience's attention to the play itself. Thomson then suggests that Prospero acts as a stage-manager, speaking directly to the playgoers, and controlling moments of action during the play.
Thomson concludes with the thought that the presence of stage-sitters couldn't be ignored during the early modern era and therefore shouldn't be ignored now. By considering their effect on the performance, we can gather a more accurate and fuller picture of early modern theatre.
Mark Z. Muggli, Luther College
"After the first death, there is no other": Except in the Case of Falstaff
Muggli mentions that much attention has been paid to Falstaff's reported death in Henry V, and says he instead wants to focus attention on Falstaff's first death in Henry IV, part one. Falstaff, to avoid fighting in the battle, "falls down as if he were dead." The "as if" is ambiguous.
Should Falstaff rise up thirty lines later to the audience's complete surprise? Or should he fall down with a wink to the audience so that we know he is faking during Hal and Hotspur's fight?
Muggli says that a Falstaff who informs the audience that he is faking is an impressive trickster, but he is only a trickster. A Falstaff that convinces the audience that he is dead is a Falstaff who has the power to resurrect himself.
Muggli mentions a production he saw recently where an overweight Falstaff apparently suffered a heart attack and falls down. To Muggli, it was convincingly real. While speaking to colleagues about this production, one disagreed, telling Muggli that "it was obvious that Falstaff was faking." Muggli suggest the cultural legacy of Falstaff means that audiences, even nonspecialists, are aware that he does not die in the first play he appears, and so his resurrection can never truly come as a surprise.
Walter Cannon, Central College
Complex Hearing
Cannon describes complex hearing as a moment when a character hears something that he or she cannot respond to directly, either due to disguise, eavesdropping, decorum, tact, or prevailing social norms.
Cannon says the character's reticence and a restraint can be used as a guide to emotional and psychological complexity.
To demonstrate his point, Cannon looks at two speeches of Edgar's in King Lear. The first in 3.6 is a soliloquy in which Edgar speaks out-loud to himself. The second is the speech he delivers in 5.3 to Albany and Edmund. These speeches deal with Edgar's disguise of Poor Tom.
Cannon points out that disguises are often used to gain or regain power, but Poor Tom gives Edgar knowledge, but not power. It is a disguise that puts an emotional burden on Edgar that he reveals after his fight with Edmund.
Cannon stages the speech in 5.3 in order to demonstrate that the onstage hearers guide audience response. Edgar faces entirely upstage, where Albany and Edmund are located. Edmund and Albany's faces were therefore much more visible to the majority of the audience.
Bill Gelber, Texas Tech University
A "Ha" in Shakespeare: the Soliloquy as Excuse and Challenge to the Audience
Gelber begins by mentioning the large debate surrounding soliloquies: should they be internal and introspective or external and taken to the audience? To explore the answer, Gelber looks at Shakespeare's use of a single word, "Ha." "Ha" can be a shorter version of the word "have," when elision is necessary, or it can be repeating to simulate a character's laughter: "ha, ha, ha," or it can be a word of chiding, especially when located after a question.
Gelber is interested in this final use, especially when it occurs in a soliloquy. Shakespeare uses it sparingly, and Gelber with the help of the actors explores two examples.
The first is from Measure for Measure, 2.2. Angelo asks, "Who sins most? Ha?" In this moment he is looking to the audience for an answer. Gelber argues that the "ha" here is an interjectional interrogatory used to explain Angelo's previous aside in the scene with Isabella, an aside that is an abrupt and surprising admission of temptation. In this soliloquy, Angelo is making his case before a jury of playgoers.
Gelber then briefly looks at a couple examples where "ha" us used in dialogue, where it is used to provoke other characters to respond. Gelber says "ha" is used in much the same way in a soliloquy, only the other character is the audience.
Hamlet says "ha" in his "Am I a coward?" soliloquy. Gelber argues that the "ha?" seeks an actual response, otherwise why would Hamlet bother? This soliloquy assumes response. Gelber mentions the famous production of Hamlet starring David Warner where one night when Warner asked, "Am I a coward?," a man called out, "Yes!" When Mark Rylance played Hamlet he performed this soliloquy at the edge of the stage, as close to the audience as possible in order to provoke a response.
Evelyn Tribble, University of Otago
Inset Skill Displays
Tribble's paper is on early modern actors and their skill set. She bemoans that this aspect is not paid much attention in current studies. For example, the art of gesture is often dismissed as static and old-fashioned. Tribble feels that we should look at these skills positively and as part of an ecology of skill.
Tribble notes that the abundant stage directions in early modern play texts call for a wide range of physical and verbal abilities, including speaking, fencing, wrestling, vaulting, dancing, tumbling, and singing. Londoners could experience many of these skills in arenas other than the theatre, meaning that they were educated and informed.
Fencing displays were part of theatrical tradition and also civic life. and therefore viewers of drama were likely to have a high knowledge of the sport. Many plays also call for highly technical forms of dance. Dance had a wide cultural currency. Spectators attended performances at London's dancing schools.
Tribble encourages us to consider how an early modern performer's skills existed in a whole culture that cannot be discovered by looking at the printed page alone.
Katherine Mayberry, Grand Valley State University & Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company
Judging Spectators: The Manipulation of Audience Critical Response
Mayberry took the stage to discuss the use of prologues and epilogues in early modern drama. These speeches address the theatre audience as an audience; they define the audience role and give specific instructions. These prologues and epilogues frequently refer to the audience's power to judge the performance, but manage to shifts the responsibility for the play's success or failure onto the audience.
Playwrights use several tactics in their prologues and epilogues, including scripting and cueing applause, preemptively apologizing, anticipating criticism and dismissing them, and stating that the play will appel to discerning auditors.
Shakespeare cues the audience's applause in A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, and As You Like It. Puck says, "Give me your hands if we be friends." This is a conditional phrase. The audience must either applaud or cease to be the players' friends. Rosalind's epilogue scripts the audience response: "bid me farewell," and cues the audience: "when I curtsy."
In the opening Chorus of Henry V, Shakespeare uses the tactics of preemptively apologizing, and anticipating criticism and dismissing it, specifically demands for onstage realism. The Chorus also enlists the audience in the creation of performance, thus suggesting if the play's not successful the audience has failed.
Mayberry moves onto examples where the playwright is more insulting to the audience. Ben Jonson's prologues were often antagonistic. He disparages the judgement of those who criticize the play.
Jonson doesn't solicit the audience's help, but places blame for negative response on the audience's poor taste.
John Ford's The Broken Heart offers auditors membership in an elite club of those with "noble judgement" and "clear eyes." giving an incentive to like the play. Thomas Middleton's No Wit/No Help Like a Woman concedes failure before the play begins: "How is it possible to suffice so many ears? So many eyes?"
Mayberry concludes that early modern authors recognized the audience's power over playwright and performer and sought to control it. They sought to wrest that power back by orchestrating audience response.
The speakers in this session were aided by ASC actors John Harrell, Allison Glenzer, and Gregory Jon Phelps.
Blackfriars Conference 2011 – Welcome and Stephen Booth Keynote
Greetings to all -- The 6th Blackfriars Conference has officially begun! A team of ASC employees and MBC MLitt/MFA graduate students will be live-blogging throughout the week, so that those of you who couldn't be here to join us can still get a little taste of the scholarship and other exciting events. Our livebloggers for the week are: Christina Sayer Grey, the ASC's Marketing Associate, graduate students Charlene Smith, Julia Nelson, and Deborah Streusand, and me, Cass Morris, the ASC's Academic Resources Manager.
9:45 am - Welcome Address
The welcome opens with Ralph Alan Cohen introducing Amy Wratchford, the ASC's managing director, Paul Menzer, director of the MLitt/MFA graduate program, Dean Catharine O'Connell from Mary Baldwin College, Steven Owen, Staunton City Manager, and ASC Director of Education Sarah Enloe.
Sarah and Ralph give everyone an overview of their packet materials, both those essentials of the conference, such as maps, nametags, schedules, and directories, and the fun bits: the Truancy Award (given to the person who spends more time exploring Staunton than actually attending conference events) and the swag, including a thermos and water bottle (so that the conference can "go green" and not offer plastic or styrafoam cups for water and coffee).
Ralph comments about the special late-night shows, 11pm performances of original (but Shakespeare-related) works. Ralph then warns everyone about the bear. It's a bit infamous at our conference that, if your paper runs over time, you will have to exit, pursued by a bear. A thunder sheet gives presenters a 2-minute warning, and Sarah lets the bear out of the cage so that everyone can see what they'll be baiting if they go on for too long.
Ralph calls attention to a few changes and additions to the program. In celebration of our partnership with Washington and Lee, who are now hosting the ASC archives, we will be holding a champagne reception at 4:45pm, immediately following the last paper session.
Farah Karim-Cooper and Neil Constable from Shakespeare's Globe in London then take the stage to discuss their plans to build a new indoor theatre in London. Farah explains the history of the research behind their plans -- that the architectural designs were originally thought to be created by Inigo Jones in 1616, but that later research revealed them to be a later creation. As a result, the Globe has decided to construct an archetype of Jacobean theatres, rather than re-creating one specific building. Neil then walks the audience through a short Powerpoint presentation which conveys the visual plans for the indoor theatre. He discusses the planned timeline for project completion, estimating that by the fall of 2013, the indoor theatre will be open and in use, allowing the Globe to perform 52 weeks a year -- which will make the Globe and the American Shakespeare Center the only two Shakespeare theatres in the world who run shows continuously.
Ralph thanks everyone at the Globe for their support not only for the Blackfriars Playhouse but for their ongoing support of our goals to build Globe II, a re-creation of the 1614 Globe.
Ralph then moves into introducing Stephen Booth, Professor emeritus of English literature at the University of California at Berkeley. Booth is the author of On the Value of Hamlet; Shakespeare's Sonnets, Edited with Analytic Commentary; King Lear, Macbeth, Indefinition, and Tragedy, and Precious Nonsense: The Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's Epitaphs on His Children, and Twelfth Night. Ralph shares some anecdotes about working with Stephen over the years, then introduces him by saying, "Today Stephen is going to share with us some things about audience that he already knows and that we have never thought about."
10:30am - Stephen Booth Keynote: "Shakespeare vs the Audience", or, "The Audience as Lady Anne"
"You will notice, with pleasure, how briefly the previous speakers have spoken. That is all over." Stephen then absconds with two cushions from the gallant stools, to further elevate his reading podium. Booth claims that we should look at Richard III as the greatest author analog in Shakespeare, relating Shakespeare's joy in "rhetoric over circumstance" to Richard III's delight in the rhetorical power to woo Lady Anne. He then moves on to the odd abortive ending of Love's Labour's Lost and to The Tempest, "Shakespeare's greatest success in leading the audience to increasingly improbably responses". Prospero, he says, is a failure both as a character ("he bores us") and as a leader, who he characterizes as "casually unjust". Booth argues that audiences come away with an impression of Prospero that reflects his final generosity, not his moment-to-moment cruelties. Similarly, audiences at the end of Romeo and Juliet feel they have seen the play the prologue promised, when the play itself undercuts much of the outline. The Winter's Tale he categorizes as another instance of inappropriate responses to circumstances, with giant logic holes that the audience blithely ignores, and with characters such as Autolycus, "who seems to be there just to see if the play can get away with it".
Not all of Shakespeare's plays, however, achieve such a success of theatre over context, nor are they always consistent within a play. Booth relates Shakespeare's overconfidence with language again to Richard III, whose triumph in his second wooing scene is less justified than his first. He then provides a list of plays where the contextual misalignments tempt the audience to dismiss or question circumstances: Richard III ends with Henry of Richmond, Macbeth with the bloodless Malcolm. In Much Ado about Nothing, "the unnecessary detail that asks audience's minds to accommodate the presence of two people in Hero's window who have no business in Hero's bedchamber" and the subsequent request that they believe this would cause Claudio to believe Hero unfaithful, Booth says strains credulity. He moves next to the Chorus in Henry V, who asserts a confidence in the King that the play itself undercuts. In Hamlet, audiences agree with the Ghost for chastising Hamlet's delay, even though both Ghost and audience know that Polonius's corpse is right there and that the Ghost's pointed language imitates the weapon Hamlet used. In Macbeth, audiences "ignore the comic klutz that Macbeth is" when his superstitions lead him to unnecessary murders (when warned against Banquo's children, he kills Macduff's). In King Lear, the "wicked" sisters Goneril and Regan give voice to what the audience must think about a father and a king overconfident in his own omnipotence, yet forty minutes later, the audience believes them as pure and entirely sympathetic victims. "Shakespeare manipulates audiences into unlikely acquiescence." Julius Caesar makes the relation very plain through its association of the audience with the plebeian mob.
Booth warns that he may be leaving us with the impression Shakespeare felt the same contempt for audiences that Richard III felt for Lady Anne and Lady Elizabeth. He claims that he had no intention of giving us that impression when he began the paper, but now feels sure that he has, and asks us to "consider the evidence."
The address ends early enough that we can open for questions. One question asks if the audiences might be seen to derive pleasure from being insulted by Shakespeare, as Groucho Marx became famous and adored for insulting audiences. Booth responds that he thinks the critical importance is that intelligent audiences like being insulted if they know they're being insulted, whereas Shakespeare, he believes, "doesn't offer a smirk" of knowledge at them. Another question asks if Booth believes Shakespeare gets us to consent to his treatment; Booth agrees, yes, he does. Another scholar comments that "we're not really rationalists" when we're in the audience. She brings up Measure for Measure, where the Duke manipulates Isabella, claiming that he'll offer her comforts when he does nothing of the kind. She asks, "Where is the emotion?" and wonders if it's up to the actors either to connect with the audience or to make them feel the disconnect.
18 October 2011
Notes from the Hathway Brown residency
I spent the past week in Shaker Heights, OH, working with Kelley McKinnon and Chad Bradford (both formerly of the ASC touring troupe). This expedition was the first ASC educational residency, where we send a team out on location to wor
k with students on text exploration, Shakespeare's staging conditions, rehearsal observation and coaching, and a plethora of other ASC mission-driven programming that we can develop for the specific school or pull from our existing publications. It's sort of the inverse of our Little Academes, where college professors bring their classes to us in Staunton for a custom-designed week of lectures, workshops, and play-going. The residency gives us the extra benefit of being able to reach many more students from the same school than could feasibly travel to Staunton for an extended stay. Molly Cornwell, the theater teacher at Hathaway Brown School and director of their plays, brought us in to work with everyone from 7th-graders up to college-bound seniors.
In Hathaway Brown's fabulous black box theatre, we met with drama and English classes to introduce ASC rehearsal practices and methods of learning through performance. The acting classes did some in-depth monologue work with Kelley and Chad, bringing the nuances of Shakespeare's language to the forefront. Several of those students are also in Cornwell's production of Macbeth, currently in rehearsals, and so they worked on monologues or important staging moments from the play. Improv classes played word games and worked with cue scripts, while English classes examined issues of masculinity, asides and audience contact, and the challenges and opportunities of playing darkness. The 7th grade intro to drama class explored the many vocal and physical choices an actor can make -- and also learned how to die dramatically as Juliet. Watching a 12-year-old perform Juliet's death so passionately that she actually creeps herself out is one of the more amusing things I've gotten to do lately.
We also got to work with the full cast of Macbeth, with Kelley and Chad serving as rehearsal coaches each afternoon. They encouraged the students to make big choices. Everything, they pointed out, is a choice -- or at least, it should be. If you're not making a choice, you're throwing a line away. They also helped the actors interrogate Shakespeare's language to find all of the delivery clues he provides. Hathaway Brown is educating som
e incredibly talented young women -- during the week, I saw wonderful transformations as the students really dug in to the text. The witches discovered disparate identities that still worked in unison, Lady Macbeth built ways to present herself both as a powerful instigator and as a fearful madwoman, Macbeth explained his soul-shaking quandaries to the audience, and the entire cast navigated the challenges of group scenes like the revelation of Duncan's death or the banquet featuring Banquo's ghost. Other activities during the week included practicing safe stage combat, looking for embedded stage directions, and learning how to share focus on the stage.
I was so impressed by the young ladies at Hathaway Brown. Not only were they bright, active, and engaged, willing to experiment with Shakespeare's text and to try new things, but they also all seemed so kind and generous, both with us and with each other. I loved that, when I asked the 7th-graders to explore different ways of delivering the first line of Macbeth -- "When shall we three meet again?" -- I got 18 completely different responses from each of the 18 girls, each one fully committed to her choice and excited to show it off to the rest of the class. That sort of effervescent enthusiasm was prevalent in the whole school. Everyone there really seemed to be enjoying the learning process -- which is, of course, exactly what we hope for. Molly Cornwell has done a great job building her drama program, and I'm so glad the English teachers are working with her to bring new ways of looking at Shakespeare to their students.
We finished off the week with an assembly, opening with some snippets from Macbeth that the cast had worked on during the week. The Porter took on the challenge of presenting a monologue she'd only learned two days earlier, and she did an incredible job, strolling nonchalantly through the audience, mocking her classmates, and setting the tone for the rest of the hour. Then Macbeth and Lady Macbeth presented Act One, scene seven, the famous "If it were done, when 'tis done" speech and following conversation. They demonstrated wonderful focus and intensity, and I can only imagine that their classmates will be excited to see the final, finished product. Kelley and Chad performed the Macbeth-Young Siward fight, and then we demonstrated some of the workshops, in brief, that we'd done during the week with classes. Kelley had two volunteers find the delivery clues in a scene between Katharine and Petruchio, using the alliteration as a physical direction, and used cue scripts to find the moments where Romeo asks Juliet for a kiss. Chad led a group of students in a Shakespearean insult contest, and then Kelley unleashed total delightful mayhem by demanding that the faculty come up to give it a try. We ended the week on just the right note, leaving the students with the idea that Shakespeare is exciting, energetic, and an overall good time.
After one last group photo with the cast of Macbeth, it was, sadly, time to head home. Photos from the week are up on the ASC Facebook page, and I hope I'll have video to share with you all soon. Kelley, Chad, and I had an absolutely wonderful time, and I can't wait till the next educational residency.
k with students on text exploration, Shakespeare's staging conditions, rehearsal observation and coaching, and a plethora of other ASC mission-driven programming that we can develop for the specific school or pull from our existing publications. It's sort of the inverse of our Little Academes, where college professors bring their classes to us in Staunton for a custom-designed week of lectures, workshops, and play-going. The residency gives us the extra benefit of being able to reach many more students from the same school than could feasibly travel to Staunton for an extended stay. Molly Cornwell, the theater teacher at Hathaway Brown School and director of their plays, brought us in to work with everyone from 7th-graders up to college-bound seniors.In Hathaway Brown's fabulous black box theatre, we met with drama and English classes to introduce ASC rehearsal practices and methods of learning through performance. The acting classes did some in-depth monologue work with Kelley and Chad, bringing the nuances of Shakespeare's language to the forefront. Several of those students are also in Cornwell's production of Macbeth, currently in rehearsals, and so they worked on monologues or important staging moments from the play. Improv classes played word games and worked with cue scripts, while English classes examined issues of masculinity, asides and audience contact, and the challenges and opportunities of playing darkness. The 7th grade intro to drama class explored the many vocal and physical choices an actor can make -- and also learned how to die dramatically as Juliet. Watching a 12-year-old perform Juliet's death so passionately that she actually creeps herself out is one of the more amusing things I've gotten to do lately.
We also got to work with the full cast of Macbeth, with Kelley and Chad serving as rehearsal coaches each afternoon. They encouraged the students to make big choices. Everything, they pointed out, is a choice -- or at least, it should be. If you're not making a choice, you're throwing a line away. They also helped the actors interrogate Shakespeare's language to find all of the delivery clues he provides. Hathaway Brown is educating som
e incredibly talented young women -- during the week, I saw wonderful transformations as the students really dug in to the text. The witches discovered disparate identities that still worked in unison, Lady Macbeth built ways to present herself both as a powerful instigator and as a fearful madwoman, Macbeth explained his soul-shaking quandaries to the audience, and the entire cast navigated the challenges of group scenes like the revelation of Duncan's death or the banquet featuring Banquo's ghost. Other activities during the week included practicing safe stage combat, looking for embedded stage directions, and learning how to share focus on the stage.I was so impressed by the young ladies at Hathaway Brown. Not only were they bright, active, and engaged, willing to experiment with Shakespeare's text and to try new things, but they also all seemed so kind and generous, both with us and with each other. I loved that, when I asked the 7th-graders to explore different ways of delivering the first line of Macbeth -- "When shall we three meet again?" -- I got 18 completely different responses from each of the 18 girls, each one fully committed to her choice and excited to show it off to the rest of the class. That sort of effervescent enthusiasm was prevalent in the whole school. Everyone there really seemed to be enjoying the learning process -- which is, of course, exactly what we hope for. Molly Cornwell has done a great job building her drama program, and I'm so glad the English teachers are working with her to bring new ways of looking at Shakespeare to their students.
We finished off the week with an assembly, opening with some snippets from Macbeth that the cast had worked on during the week. The Porter took on the challenge of presenting a monologue she'd only learned two days earlier, and she did an incredible job, strolling nonchalantly through the audience, mocking her classmates, and setting the tone for the rest of the hour. Then Macbeth and Lady Macbeth presented Act One, scene seven, the famous "If it were done, when 'tis done" speech and following conversation. They demonstrated wonderful focus and intensity, and I can only imagine that their classmates will be excited to see the final, finished product. Kelley and Chad performed the Macbeth-Young Siward fight, and then we demonstrated some of the workshops, in brief, that we'd done during the week with classes. Kelley had two volunteers find the delivery clues in a scene between Katharine and Petruchio, using the alliteration as a physical direction, and used cue scripts to find the moments where Romeo asks Juliet for a kiss. Chad led a group of students in a Shakespearean insult contest, and then Kelley unleashed total delightful mayhem by demanding that the faculty come up to give it a try. We ended the week on just the right note, leaving the students with the idea that Shakespeare is exciting, energetic, and an overall good time.
After one last group photo with the cast of Macbeth, it was, sadly, time to head home. Photos from the week are up on the ASC Facebook page, and I hope I'll have video to share with you all soon. Kelley, Chad, and I had an absolutely wonderful time, and I can't wait till the next educational residency.
07 October 2011
'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Study Guide Now Available
The ASC Study Guide for A Midsummer Night's Dream is now available on our website. And, I promise you, this one's a lot of fun. Midsummer has so much potential for playing, and I think we've found some ways to really bring that to life in classrooms.
Here is a ten-page preview. The Study Guide contains the following activities:
Here is a ten-page preview. The Study Guide contains the following activities:- The Basics: Getting your students on their feet, working with iambic pentameter, paraphrasing, exploring rhetoric, and turning your classroom into an early modern stage. These sections include, for your benefit, the first 100 lines of text, already marked-up, to use as a model in the classroom.
- Line Assignments: A way to give your students ownership over a small section of text, which they will use in further language-based activities and staging explorations.
- Metrical Magic: Examines the performance clues provided by the shifts between normal iambic pentameter and the unusual trochaic tetrameter, the rhythm of spellcasting. The moments when a speaker transitions from one form to the other provide the basis for performance choices. Does the unusual meter call for music? A different physicality? How can actors emphasize the mysticism of what's going on in those moments?
- Staging Challenges: Titania's Bower explores the opportunities presented by the early modern stage. When Titania falls asleep on stage, where can she be placed? She can't be too much in the way of what's going on, but she also needs to be close enough for Oberon to ensorcel her and for Bottom to wake her. Students will experiment with different options and determine which they think is most effective.
- Perspectives: Courtship Rituals examines the social context of the romantic troubles in the play. How would Shakespeare's audience have perceived Egeus's ruthless inflexibility and Hermia's defiance? What implications of pre-contracted betrothals are in the play?
- Staging Challenges: Actors Playing Actors. The well-meant shenanigans of the Mechanicals can illuminate some potential clues about Shakespeare's own theatrical world. In this activity, your students will first explore the rehearsal process that Quince, Bottom, and the rest display, and then will prepare their own production of 'Pyramus and Thisbe'. We expect the result to be far more mirthful than tragical.
- Perspectives: Fairies explores the changing nature of the fae in literature, from its darker origins in English folklore to the benign transformation effected by the Victorians and Disney. Students will choose a source as inspiration for costume design in their vision of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
- Textual Variants: Examines a curious difference in speech prefixes between the Quarto and Folio versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream (which I discussed in my last post).
- Creative writing exercises based on the play, involving imitating Pyramus's questionable poetry or giving relationship advice to one of the lovers
- A guide to producing a 1-hour version of the play in your classroom
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