Photo: The Guardian

In the England of 1596 those fearful of “death or mutilations” could appeal to the judicial process to head off a potential attack. In operation, the likely malefactor(s) was required to post financial indemnities, subject to forfeit, if a bond to keep the peace was broken.

Though sound in theory, it was frequently used as a technique to burden an adversary by tying them up in inconvenient litigation and expense. The Shakespeare family was no stranger to the technique as John, William’s father, instigated such a writ in 1582. On that occasion it was against four men including Ralph Cawdrey, high bailiff of Stratford that year and therefore a Justice of the Peace – which may explain why it was not initiated at a local, Stratford town, level but in London.

The true adversaries in the writ of 1596 were William Gardiner, Justice of the Peace for Bankside, corrupt judge and vicious fraudster, acting through his step-son William Wayte, versus Francis Langley, theatrical impresario, builder of the Swan theatre, and all-round villain. This pair had been at each other’s throats for some time. Leslie Hotson, who unearthed this writ in 1931, and wrote about it in Shakespeare versus Shallow, also found an earlier suit initiated by Langley against Gardiner.

Countersuits, seeking to hit back at someone litigating against you, have always been a good source of income for the legal profession. This type of action is an established technique to raise the stakes in any legal battle. Often, parties in some way important to the target, financially or personally, will also be dragged in to make depositions just to maximize the inconvenience and throw pressure on the other party to the legal action. An indication of who is most important to the true object of the action comes in the order parties are named. Be named first, as Shakespeare was in this case, then the adversary probably considers you to be the most vulnerable to being embarrassed, threatened or inconvenienced by being drawn into the dispute.

The suit was aimed at causing Francis Langley as much financial distress as possible. With Langley’s Swan theatre just finished he needed it to start operating quickly and effectively, not just for profit but to cover its construction costs. The Swan is the likeliest, but not necessarily the only, tie to William Shakespeare. As to the two women named (Dorothy Soer and Anne Lee), it appears that at least one was a tenant of Langley’s on his Paris Garden site. The obvious, though as yet unproven, proposition is that the three named “employees” in the writ represented key businesses for Langley. However, there still remains genuine puzzlement over what Samuel Schoenbaum called these “four quite ill-matched names.”

That Shakespeare is named first has been attributed to his possibly lampooning Gardiner in The Merry Wives of Windsor. There the character Justice Shallow could, in the minds of some (including Hotson), be a caricature of Gardiner, with his stepson being the physical manifestation of the ninny Abraham Slender.

But money was then, and is now, nearly always at the bottom of this type of countersuit. Besides which, Gardiner was hardly a Justice Shallow, being at best little better than Langley himself.

It is possible that The Merchant of Venice contains a likelier parallel of both Gardiner and Langley in the shape of Shylock. Here is a man who usually charges interest, but whose real aim is to press for the penalty hoping the bond will be defaulted upon (a sharp and well proven business practice of both Langley and Gardiner).

For Shakespeare to be named first in this suit goes a long way to confirm that he was, in 1596, economically very important to Langley. Nor is it likely that this was just a “minor legal drama” as Schoenbaum described it. This was a fight to the commercial death through the courts over money. Gardiner once took suit to have a man’s ears “nailed to a post” – then a legal punishment – over this individual bearing witness against him in a case involving thirteen pounds.

These were nasty men who played for keeps and the how and why of William Shakespeare’s involvement tells us much about his own financial and business activities.

But that’s for the third and final part on Monday…

Redcrosse offers its new vision of England through brand-new poetry which I wrote with three major poets—former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, the winner of the Costa Prize Jo Shapcott, and Michael Symmons Roberts—as well as the radical theologian Andrew Shanks. It features original music by Grammy-winning Tim Garland for trio Acoustic Triangle and the Choir of Royal Holloway, University of London.

Spenser refashioned St. George for his own time into a symbol of the spiritual life as an unceasing and restless quest for holiness. We’ve written our liturgy in that same spirit, ‘still questing, always questing, and in that questing free, / still yearning, only yearning, for by that yearning we / may find that life beyond life, which is what it means to be’. It’s a liturgy for everyone—all spiritual seekers, anyone who’s seeking something better and seeking others who want the same. It ultimately celebrates England and St George in terms of our potential openness to each other and to truth.

Redcrosse was premiered at two high-profile events at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and Manchester Cathedral last year. It gained considerable media attention from radio, television and the national press. But the RSC performance in the modernist masterpiece that is Coventry Cathedral will be its most dramatic instantiation to date.

This is what Archbishop Rowan Williams says about the project:
‘How do we think about identity in ways that don’t reflect anxiety, fear of the other, uncritical adulation of our past and all the other pitfalls that surround this subject? The Redcrosse project manages to negotiate these difficulties with immense imaginative energy and honesty: no sour notes, no attempt to overcompensate by desperately overapologetic rhetoric, simply a recovery of deep roots and generous vision. As much as it takes its cue from Spenser, it’s a contemporary working out of some of the great and inexhaustible legacy of Blake, a unique contribution to what is often a pretty sterile discussion of who we are in these islands.’

I can’t wait to see what the RSC make of it! Please do come along. Further information and tickets are available by clicking here.:

And you can read about the forthcoming book of the project by clicking here.

Four years in the making, the film, to quote co-director Rob Curry, “merges drama and documentary to explore English identity and youth culture… in the shadow of protests, riots and the Olympic Games.” And within a few minutes, one is aware that this is no ordinary adaptation. Opening with a monologue describing the isolation and disillusionment of inner-city youth, played over grainy video of last summer’s riots, the viewer appreciates right away that Tempest is a modern, bold and urgent production.

Staged across a variety of sets – one of which utilises a South London council estate where many of the cast grew up as a stand-in for Prospero’s island – and featuring young actors, Tempest defies simple explanation. Combining elements of stage play, amateur film, documentary, mockumentary, found footage, and even animated film, it is a dazzling blend of styles. At its core is a fascinating interplay between interviews with the actors – both in and out of character – and then handheld footage of those same actors both rehearsing and acting out their scenes. Co-directors Rob Curry and Anthony Fletcher employ this self-reflexivity without falling into any of the pretentiousness so often associated with it and other postmodern techniques – and it is via the approach that we get a genuine sense of the young cast’s engagement with Shakespeare’s last, great play.

There is a good chance that Shakespeare purists would hate this film, but one gets the impression that this wouldn’t bother the cast and crew in the slightest. Indeed, part of what gives Tempest its wonderful energy is precisely its air of rebellion against what it dubs “teapot Shakespeare,” and productions in which the characters aren’t so much human as “stereotypically Shakespearean” “cardboard cut-outs.” At a time when the World Shakespeare Festival is playing host to lavish productions and well-funded theatre groups, the film’s on-a-shoestring aesthetic provides an interesting contrast. Towards the end of the film – in tune with its ongoing implicit comment on the gross financial inequalities present in England’s capital city – we hear the actors themselves lament the fact that financial constraints deny them easy access to more glamorous forms of acting.

Ultimately, Tempest is highly original and constantly entertaining, but what gives it its strength is what I can only describe as its honesty. We see the cast wrestling with their lines, and arguing over which character is which other character’s cousin. We see them having difficulties with pronunciation. And to anyone who isn’t a Shakespeare scholar, this is deeply endearing, and deeply familiar. Because the fact is that – even if it’s not very fashionable to admit it – this is how many (perhaps most) people actually experience Shakespeare; with trepidation, with frustration, and eventually – provided you are not George Bernard Shaw or Leo Tolstoy – a sort of joyful amazement.

Many people decry the younger generation’s lack of engagement with classic literature. And yet in Tempest we see the work of a 16^th century dramatist treated like putty in the hands of a group of (far from classically trained) British twenty-somethings. Actor Zephryn Taitte – who is brilliant as Prospero – reveals that he had to more or less “educate himself,” and that he was first drawn to Shakespeare when he learnt that the protagonist of Othello was black. This, right here, is the younger generation engaging with Shakespeare. And while Tempest‘s more political moments – criticism of the dogmatic nature of modern British schooling; an equating of the dehumanised Caliban with the politically neglected black youth of London – might not be agreeable to everyone, they will certainly provoke debate.

I said earlier in this piece that Fifth Column Film’s Tempest defies simple explanation. That’s true. And so I shall cease my breathless praise. My best advice would be to go and see it. As soon as possible.

(N.B. Tempest is screening on 6^th July at the East End Film Festival, and on 12^th July at the Galway Film Fleadh. An interview with film-makers Rob Curry and Anthony Fletcher on the Directors’ Notes podcast is available via the iTunes store, or this link. You can receive updates on the film via both Facebook and Twitter.)

When I first read a play by Shakespeare, I was 13 years old. A perfect time to read Romeo and Juliet, being exactly the same age as the heroine. This is just crazy how much different I was back then. I was willing to ‘fight’ not to read Shakespeare, I’d never read him before, but who cares, I knew, I just knew, he was boring. And I was made to read him. So I sat down on my bed, opened the book, sighed, and started reading. A couple of hours later, the book was hidden under my pillow, a place reserved for the number 1 special book in my heart. That’s how my Shakespeare adventure started.

I was in love with Romeo and Juliet, so I watched Baz Luhrmann’s film, and the musical (Polish production by Studio Buffo, Warszawa, Poland). I got the musical soundtrack for my birthday and I was jumping with happiness. I was watching the film over and over again. Always crying my eyes out when Romeo died just when Juliet was waking up. Even now, and it’s been 7 years since I first saw the film, I can’t help but cry. The feelings that are stored in my memory in the drawer with Romeo+Juliet on it, are so strong that I sometimes find myself feeling like crying the very second I start watching the film.

This weird feeling of fascination has never left, it’s been with me ever since. Though I was enchanted by this particular play, I was scared of reading anything else in fear of it ruining the perfect image of Shakespeare that existed in my head. Luckily for me, high school finds various ways to make students read Shakespeare. Preparing a speech to defend Lady Macbeth in court made me open Macbeth, psychological talks about jealousy made me look through Othello. These did not make such a strong impression on me as Romeo and Juliet did. But later on I chose to study English language and literature and the stories of Shakespeare’s plays turned out to be just captivating; once I started reading the first line of a play, it would create a whole new world around me.

I think for me the love of Shakespeare had to go through a whole process. I was raised on tales based on his plays. I’ve been in love with Romeo and Juliet for so many years, but not until recently have I realised that it’s not the play I love; it’s the author. I had to grow up to understand some of his plays, maybe I had to ‘digest’ his works. All I know is that when I thought I was flooded with his works, reading comedies, tragedies, sonnets and poems, I suddenly thought that this feels just great. That’s what I want to do. I want to know everything about Shakespeare, know him better than I know myself.

Although I know that I’ll never know everything, this naive dreams made me think. And then do what I love. Now I just can’t escape Shakespeare and I don’t even want to. I’m just fine being a Shakespeare nut, making plans to make the modern world a little bit more Shakespeare-loving. But as we all know, if you want to change the world, you need to start with yourself, so this year I’m going to London to see the World Shakespeare Festival, and then back home, to Gdansk, where Gdansk Shakespeare Festival begins on 27 July. But what’s going to happen when the festivals are over? I don’t know yet, but I’m sure that Shakespeare won’t disappear, neither in my life, nor on the streets.

This is definitely his year!

Photo by Kate Brooks

Afghan people love poetry; it’s part of their soul. Afghanistan is a nation which has the profoundest respect for storytellers. Stephen Landrigan has just spoken at The Shakespeare Centre about a production of Love’s Labour’s Lost he worked on in Kabul in 2005. And I’ve just quoted the first sentence of his new book (co-authored with Qais Akbar Omar) all about it.

People thought it heralded a new beginning for the Afghanistan. Love’s Labour’s Lost was chosen in part because of its strong female roles. It was the first time anyone had known women to perform in Afghanistan, a compelling, rich, and dangerous cultural moment.

The production was directed by Corinne Jaber whose Afghan production of The Comedy of Errors forms part of the World Shakespeare Festival’s Globe to Globe programme at Shakespeare’s Globe.

On Shakespeare’s Birthday Haus Publishing brought out Shakespeare in Kabul, by Stephen Landrigan and Qais Akbar Omar. Qais is still waiting for his visa in Pakistan and is missing out on all the special events happening around his moving and beautiful account of an extraordinary moment in the international history of Shakespeare on stage.

Why Shakespeare? Why Love’s Labour’s Lost? Which language could it be translated into and acted in? How do you tell a story about romantic love in a culture which only arranges marriages? These are the sorts of discussions that occur throughout Shakespeare in Kabul.

Stephen intends to give a copy of the script and other materials relating to the production to The Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive in the not too distant future, hopefully accompanied by his co-author. Now that will be a moment worth celebrating.

I wish this book especially well because hearing Stephen talk about it reminded me of the freedoms that Shakespeare and poetry and drama make possible.

You can find out more about the project here. And you can listen to Stephen Landrigan talking to me about the project on this audioboo.

RICHARD III  IN TURKEY

by

Necla Çıkıgil

When Bank of America- Merill Lynch presented the Bridge Project which involved the production of Richard III as well by the Old Vic, BAM &  Neal Street, the play travelled to İstanbul to be performed at the Harbiye- Muhsin Ertuğrul Playhouse between 5 – 9 October 2011. The play had opened in London at the Old  Vic on 18 June 2011.

It is interesting to have Richard III performed in İstanbul within the Bridge Project framework since İstanbul is a city which has literally been the “bridge” between the East and theWest embracing diverse cultures throughout the centuries.

Richard III has always been a popular play in Shakespearean theatre history, its popularity dating back to Shakespeare’s own lifetime. Hence the famous Richards ranging from Burbage to Sir Laurence Olivier. It is a challenging part for a 21st Century actor when before him there are so many monumental portrayals of the part. On the other hand Shakespeare’s Richard is a monumental actor too who really enjoys playing numerous parts to spectators who swallow whatever is delivered to them.

Since the production that came to İstanbul is a travelling production, the setting was kept very simple designed by Tom Piper. The minimalistic design presented an empty stage (a greyish-white box) on either side of which there were 5 doors and at the back 8 doors could be seen. Later the back doors disappear leaving a long deeper stage.

When the play starts a big capitalized NOW is projected onto the back wall. Under the big NOW, Richard’s black armchair is seen as his “control tower” where he contrives his evil plots. He is a winner at the beginning with his “inverted” plots so the word NOW also stands for WON. Each scene has a capitalized title projected onto the upper part of the stage to help the spectators follow the traffic of the characters appearing and disappearing which is also a help for the different spectators that will be watching the play in different countries. In Act I, the titles are mainly ANNE, ELIZABETH, CLARENCE,KING EDWARD,CITIZENS, RICHARD DUKE OF YORK, PRINCE EDWARD, HASTINGS, RIVERS&GREY, THE COUNCIL, THE PUBLIC, THE TOWER. After the interval KING RICHARD can be seen but the word KING is on one side RICHARD on the other side since Richard is no more the controlling central figure who has lost his integrity and “alacrity” even though he has become the King.   At the beginning of the play King Edward’s image is projected onto the back wall to be replaced by Richard’s image later. Richard’s image appears again before his coronation showing a repentant individual addressing the onlookers through this projection presenting himself as a modest and an innocent human being.

The tables that are used  to represent council meetings turn into opposing camps when at the end of the play Richmond and Richard have to challenge each other. Around the same tables the selected 7 victims of Richard (in the play he has 10 victims) sit to haunt Richard and to bless Richmond while the two sit on either end of the table right before the final battle.

As Richard has his victims murdered thus closing down a house, Queen Margaret puts a cross on the doors at the sides of the stage. Doors close yet doors may open too. Richard uses these doors to enter at the right moment when his name gets mentioned (speak of the devil…) or when he feels he has been away from the spotlight too long.

Sam Mendes’s production clearly displayed the team work involved in the staging of the play.

Since Kevin Spacey, the Artisitc Director of the Old Vic and someone who is so keen on impersonating famous performers ranging from Katherine Hepburn to Jack  Lemmon (who Kevin Spacey sees as his mentor), received a lot of publicity as soon as he arrived in İstanbul and even before, one  worried that the performance would be a one-man show. It was quite evident that all the players had worked very hard and performed with great strength and consistency. The refined delivery of the lines and the use of the language (both English and American) proved to be impressive.

Shakespeare, a theatre person took a character from English history and created a new theatre character. Shakespeare’s Richard is an actor who delights in his own performance. Kevin Spacey is an actor who delights in his own performance too.In Kevin Spaecy’s case, however, there is double acting. Actually Kevin Spacey had to  impersonate Richard and a crippled character. Obviously this must have put a strain on him since he had to be carrying his hunch back and limping about with a braced leg and trying to show his dexterity with the language and his never-ending energy constantly contriving plot after a plot. At the end of the play he has to be lifted upside down and remain suspended in the air for quite a while before the play is over.But Kevin Spacey seemed to endure all this and skilfully overcame this impediment and managed to stay fit till the end of the play although there were times that the strain was affecting him and his voice.

The weakness of Richard lies in the fact that he only contrived to get to the throne and to wear the crown but unfortunately he has not developed his strategies well enough to remain in power once he becomes the king. He lacked that foresight. Hence, the deterioration of Richard in the second part of the play. Even his language, his wit starts failing him and one by one people around him start abandoning him. Only ghosts of his victims are his bed-fellows.

At the beginning of the play Kevin Spacey is really enjoying the part he is playing outwitting each character that he comes across. Yet, he is challenged by Queen Margaret . Gemma Jones as Queen Margaret was a theatre monument on stage. There were times when she did not have to speak  and yet just be on stage. Her presence was indeed overpowering. In the play also Richard overlooking the power  of the Queen is outwitted by her.

The most powerful and the effective scene of the play was when Queen Margaret (Gemma Jones), Queen Elizabeth (Haydn Gwynne), Duchess of York (Maureen Anderman) chant their sorrows almost creating a scene  from a Greek Tragedy. The voice command, the body language, the gestures were were very powerful. Another actress who was equally effective was Annabel Schoely as Lady Anne who later became the ineffective Queen sitting on her throne already like a dead body next to King Richard. She was very successful indeed playing the difficult part  of Lady Anne who is filled with diverse emotions. She has to experience the dying down and soaring up of different emotions in a short period of time which was presented by Annabel Schoely very convincingly.

Another memorable scene was the scene in which the First Murderer (Gary Powell) and the Second Murderer (Jeremy Bobb) try to come to terms with the idea of murdering Clarence. Reward versus consience dilemma is effectively and humorously presented. The most exploited follower of Richard, the Duke of Buckingham (Chuc Iwugi) has been portrayed very meaningfully as well. Being loyal, serving one’s master obediently are not merits in this world of “wrangling pirates” as Shakespeare’s Margaret in the play declares.

Sam Mendes created a clever choreography for Richard to dance about on stage although Richard in his first speech emphasizes the fact that he is “not shaped for sportive tricks”. Richard is paired with various characters and then he changes his partners moving onto the next one as if he is on the dance floor. The famous pairs are; Richard-Clarence, Richard-Hastings, Richard-Anne, Richard-Margaret (sharing the same dance steps), Richard-Prince Edward, Richard-Buckingham, Richard-Tyrrel, Richard-Queen Elizabeth, Richard-Ratcliffe. When he is not paired with anybody, he enters through one of the side doors (almost breaking and entering) not to be left out of a meeting. Similarly, he enters the forced and fake reconciliation scene and bursts out his news upsetting a possible but not achievable harmony.

He makes his plans, shares them with the spectators, and puts them into an action.He is not only a speaker, he is also a doer.Unfortunately, after he reaches the summit which is clearly presented when he walks towards the throne in his ceremonial attire, he has no more plans. Even his walk towards the throne is not firm. He stumbles along the way. What he accomplished overpowers him. Sam Mendes staged this change of affairs very cleverly. Richard had already said “ We are not safe”. Indeed, nobody is safe in this unpredictable world of Richard.

Another successful arrangement of of the players by Sam Mendes was seen when the players came into the auditorium and spreaded among the spectators and started applauding and cheering Richard on the screen.

The timeless costumes designed by Catherine Zuber, the light effects of Paul Pyant, and the projection by Jon Driscoll were very effective and powerful as well. The sound effects arranged by Gareth Fry and the music of Mark Bennett set the atmosphere immediately. The keyboards and the percussion sounded the changes taking place successfully which were placed on either side of the stage.

In this dark play,  there were points where laughter lit up the atmosphere and indeed as a play Richard III can easily make the spectators laugh as well.

In this Bridge Project, therefore the play Richard III ,including both English and American players and travelling through various cities of the world, becomes a meaningful enterprise of uniting different talents (players) and reception (spectators) to create a total theatre.

Shakespeare, Marx and the Tickling Commodity

In his 1846 book, The German Ideology, Karl Marx wrote that Shakespeare knew more about the alienating effects of commodities than did the ‘theorising petty bourgeois’.  Marx then quoted a selection of lines about the god of commodities – gold – from Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens:

Thus much of this will make

Black white, foul fair, wrong right,

Base noble, old young, coward valiant.

This yellow slave…[will]

Make the hoar leprosy adored…

This is it

That makes the wappen’d widow wed again;

She whom the spittle-house and ulcerous sores

Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices

To th’April day again…

Thou visible god,

That solder’st close impossibilities,

And makes them kiss! (4.3)

Marx included quotations from Timon of Athens in all of his economic writings.  There is evidence that the play may have had a formative influence on Marx’s economic theory.

The following video clips from interviews with Marx scholar and biographer David McLellan and Shakespeare scholar and biographer Jonathan Bate discuss Marx’s engagement with economic themes in Shakespeare’s plays.

And here is the answer to Jonathan’s question about whether Marx worked with Shakespeare’s multiple meanings of the word commodity in King John. The excerpt below is from an article written by Marx for the New York Daily Tribune, March 31, 1857. It is called, ‘The Coming Election in England’. The italicized lines are from King John, 1.1 and 2.1.Marx writes:

"'Stand between two churchmen, good my Lord; For on that ground I'll make a holy descant.' Palmerston does not exactly comply with the advice tendered by Buckingham to Richard III. He stands between the churchman on the one side, and the opium-smuggler on the other. While the Low Church bishops, whom the veteran impostor allowed the Earl of Shaftsbury, his kinsman, to nominate, vouch his 'righteousness', the opium-smugglers, the dealers in 'sweet poison for the age's tooth', vouch his faithful service to 'commodity, the bias of the world.' Burke, the Scotchman, was proud of the London 'Resurrectionists'. So is Palmerston of the Liverpool 'poisoners'. These smooth-faced gentlemen are the worthy representatives of a town, the pedigree of whose greatness may be directly traced back to the slave trade."

My friend Bill Barclay has set himself an interesting challenge – that is to read all 118,406 lines of Shakespeare’s complete works ……in public ……. in different locations …… around the world.  He is also writing a blog diary in which he will reflect upon his engagement with Shakespeare’s works over the coming year – come rain or shine.

Bill first told me about his plan back in May, during a break from rehearsals of The Globe’s production of Much Ado About Nothing for which he was working as assistant composer.  He travelled down to Stratford armed only with a copy of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, a video camera, and his cranium companion, Yorick. Bill was keen to begin his Shakespeare speakathon in front of Shakespeare’s birthplace, and we were both interested to see what sort of reaction his performance would draw from passers by. It is not every day that you spot a lone figure, skull in hand, performing all the roles (and stage directions!) of one of Shakespeare’s works, and Bill is sure to turn a few heads on planes, trains and automobiles.

Having waved Bill off, I have been monitoring his travels, and have enjoyed watching Shakespeare being spoken aloud in some of the most unlikely of places.  Bill notes that:

 “Starting at Shakespeare’s actual birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, I read scenes from Two Gentlemen of Verona at Notre Dame Cathedral (Proteus’ soliloquy was read inside the church, walking among the prayerful), the Eiffel Tower, on a boat along the Seine, in London at the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, deep in the English countryside, and locales in Geneva including the United Nations and a treehouse.

I’ve read for Oliver Cromwell (in bronze form), been interviewed by the BBC and stopped by Scotland Yard, have been interrupted by gunshot (not at me thankfully) and also by dozens of Shakespeare enthusiasts representing a panoply of mental states.  Something always happens.”  

You can follow Bill, and join in the fun by visiting http://www.shakespearealoud.com/

Sam Mendes’s Richard III at Epidaurus

Reviewed by Tina Krontiris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Greeks recently thronged to the ancient theatre of Epidaurus by the masses to see the Bridge Project production of Richard III, featuring Kevin Spacey in the title role. The two performances scheduled for 29-30 July were sold out within hours from the time the ticket sale began on the Internet and an extra performance had to be fitted into the  theatre’s Festival Programme to satisfy the high demand (the joke went, ‘my kingdom for a ticket’). Whether it was the good impression the Bridge Project and its director had left in Greece a couple of years ago (when they had presented the Winter’s Tale at the same place) or the desire to see the film star Kevin Spacey in the role of the villainous, crippled king (or both), a total of about 27,000 spectators, traveled from all parts of Greece to see and hear Richard III in English with Greek supertitles. I was one of the thousands who attended the performance and found it quite compelling, as did the rest of the audience, who gave actors a standing ovation with prolonged applause and shouted many hearty ‘bravos’.

Mendes created a production that maintained the focus on Richard at the same time that it paid sensitive attention to the text’s nuances in mood and tempo, as well as to the variety of verbal and representational styles. Above all, Mendes globalized successfully an English play that is customarily viewed within the context of the civil wars (Wars of the Roses) that England experienced before the consolidation of central power by the early Tudors. Indeed one might say that the director combined successfully two seemingly unlike things: the Englishness of Shakespeare and the Greekness of Epidaurus.

The performance began with a video wall, depicting the watchful eyes of Richard over a chorus of drummers through which one could get a glimpse of a gilded seat of power. This image introduced the power theme and linked the beginning with the end, as the same drummers appeared in the battle scenes of the final act. The theme of power, with a clear allusion to modern dictators, was indeed very prominent in Mendes’s interpretation, but it was not the only issue brought forward. At least three things are noteworthy in Mendes’s Richard III as I saw it performed at Epidaurus: the interpretation of the protagonist, the treatment of the women in the play, and the allusions to ancient Greek drama.

Kevin Spacey captured brilliantly the physical condition, self-hatred and multifaceted personality of Shakespeare’s protagonist. With his left leg clipped up in a metal splint and a hunched back, he moved across the empty stage energetically in complete control of his role. His voice, aided only by the natural acoustics of the place, carried clearly throughout the open-air amphitheatre. During the first half of the play, Spacey portrayed Richard as a supreme actor who entertains the audience with the various roles he plays on his way to the throne. He and Mendes exploited to the full the special relationship that Shakespeare establishes between his protagonist and the audience, including the use of direct address, facing and speaking to the viewers from a front-stage position.

In the portrayal of the women’s suffering there were several allusions to Greek drama. At the end of the first scene in Act Four of Shakespeare’s play Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of York, and Lady Anne come to theTowerofLondonto see the children. In the Folio version of the text, this scene is concluded with a six-line apostrophe to the Tower spoken by Elizabeth. In Mendes’s production this apostrophe, which begins with the plea ‘Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes’, was chanted by the three women facing the audience and so the word ‘ancient’ took on a double meaning—referring to the oldness of the Tower but also to the ancient stones upon which the spectators sat.  In the same vain, Mendes created images of ancient mourning rites with the three women bewailing their children’s death, dressed in black and bend on their knees.

Allusion to Greek tragedy was also made through the creation of various choral forms. Since the play does not include a typical chorus, Mendes create chorus-like images with the women chanting their lines together, as well as with the army at the end, made up of twelve drummers arranged in circular manner and synchronized in their beats. The most obvious reference to classical Greek drama was the final head-side-down hanging of Richard’s body, which resembled a deus ex machina device and suggested the image of a slaughtered animal, the ‘hog’-Richard referred to throughout the play. It was a very impressive scene, as spectacular as actual scenes in Shakespeare’sLondon (and no doubt painful for the actor, who stayed in this very uncomfortable position for several minutes).

All in all, Mendes proved that Shakespeare’s Englishness can be brought into dialogue with ancient Greek drama, not by distorting or exaggerating the bard’s text, but by elucidating aspects of its style that manifest the indirect, almost labyrinthine course of the theatre from antiquity to early modern times. The spirit of Epidaurus Theatre helped him to do this.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (along with Charles University, Prague, and The International Shakespeare Association) sponsored individuals from Argentina, Romania, Hungary, India, Russia, Canada, Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, and Chile to attend the World Shakespeare Congress 2011.  Make sure that you follow this series to hear from more of our award winners  who will be talking about the ways in which Shakespeare is a subject for research, performance, and conversation across the globe.

]]> http://bloggingshakespeare.com/all-the-worlds-a-stage-no-11-in-series/feed 0 http://bloggingshakespeare.com/all-the-worlds-a-stage-no-10-in-series http://bloggingshakespeare.com/all-the-worlds-a-stage-no-10-in-series#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:52:31 +0000 Nick Walton http://bloggingshakespeare.com/?p=4300  

In the run-up to The Ninth World Shakespeare Congress in Prague I posted a selection of blogs from grant winners looking forward to that event. Over the next couple of weeks I will be posting a selection of blogs from some  more of those grant winners.  This week’s contribution comes from Emma Firestone, who is studying for a Ph.D at Cambridge University, UK.

Greetings all –

Just thought I’d take advantage of this bloggers’ platform to spread some international hype for Fiasco Theater Company’s Cymbeline, an exceptionally worthy show now playing in downtown Manhattan.

Mind you, this Cymbeline is not exactly under the radar—a fact inconsistent with its modest production stats: zero scene changes, props in the single digits (including a trunk multicast as a cave entrance, mountain landscape, magicians-box-like beheading device, and [hysterically] trunk and bed simultaneously), and a cast of just six, all recent grads of the same Masters in Acting program. Yet incredibly, the current staging marks this production’s fourth run, though its first as a commercial venture: following a premiere at TriBeCa’s Access Theater in Autumn 2009, it returned for a five-night encore, returned again in early 2011 at the New Victory Theater in Times Square (next door to Broadway’s Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark, a very different sort of fiasco), and now finds itself settling into an 18-week run at the reputable Barrow Theater in the West Village. As far as I can gather, the show owes its prolonged stage life entirely to critical acclaim, popular interest, and the support of the nonprofit Shakespeare institution Theater for a New Audience. This situation, while sadly atypical of American independent theater at large, is inspiring in itself, not to mention a serious endorsement of Fiasco’s achievement.

And what an achievement it is. This is one of the most astute, intelligible, and genuinely entertaining versions of a Shakespeare play that I have ever seen: anchored in uniformly strong performances by actors who wear their [multiple] talents lightly; assisted greatly by their willingness to speak verse instead of parsing, pummeling or apologizing for it; and bolstered by super-minimalist staging that is frequently ingenious but never self-satisfied. When Iachimo (Ben Steinfeld, a co-director) climbs into and lowers the lid of that trunk, upon which Imogen (Jessie Austrian) takes a slumbering perch, the audience enjoys an incredulous pause: now how is this going to work? Suddenly, Mr. Steinfeld thrusts his body through an invisible side panel and out across the stage floor, his expression registering relief, triumph, and slight bewilderment at how he could have managed to pursue his damaging plot all the way into the bedchamber itself. The ruse expertly elides actor and role, deepening and expanding our interest in the character, who now appears at once absurd, avaricious and curiously, pathetically helpless. Furthermore, it anticipates the complexities of the scene that follows, in which Iachimo itemizes Imogen’s bedroom and body with a relish that is too contrived to be menacing, yet too intense to really be comic.

There are many other such moments, in which staging choices motivated (one presumes) by frugality work nicely to aid our understanding of character and plot. In the midst of actively plotting with Pisanio (Paul L. Coffey) to continue to Milford Haven in male disguise, Imogen pulls down her skirt to reveal that she already sports a pair of men’s breeches—a move that suits the character’s endearing over-earnestness, and makes the line “I see into thy end, and am almost a man already” that much funnier. Elsewhere, in the first Welsh Countryside scene, the line “Now for our morning sport” is revised to “Now for our morning practice”—prompting the stolen princes (Mr. Steinfeld and Mr. Coffey again) and their foster-parent (here called Belaria and played by Emily Young) to produce banjo & guitar and expertly pick out an Appalachian-style folk song. Incongruous, yes, but not trite: after all, our belief that “nature prompts these boys/ In simple and low things to prince it much” is surely more sincere for our having observed the boys exercise some real talent, than would have been possible had they pursued more conventional stage business (trotting around the stage, flourishing fake weapons, &c.). What might have felt gratuitous in others’ hands is wonderfully effective here.

Like all of Shakespeare’s plays, Cymbeline has great prospects for suggestive double-casting, some of which have proven attractive to actors in recent years—for instance, Tom Hiddleston in a brilliant Posthumus-Cloten/Ego-Id performance for Cheek by Jowl in 2007. Fiasco’s doubling choices seem based more on its ensemble’s diverse abilities than on thematic pertinence, but this is a perfectly just strategy that yields some great results. Andy Grotelueschen, the cast’s ablest comedian and resident Very Big Guy, is bullish and intimidating as King Cymbeline, and then ludicrously oversized as Cloten. (He is also alarmingly good at playing his own severed head.) His portrayal of Cymbeline’s long, long climb out of ignorance and towards a spectacular, improbable reunion is both the show’s comic highpoint and dramatic centerpiece: one wonders why more Cymbelines don’t have “Did you e’er meet?” as the line of the night. As Iachimo Mr. Steinfeld is a revelation, communicating through verse-handling alone that Iachimo acts more from insecurity and shadowy impulse than from any real investment in Posthumus’ ruin. He also makes a fine jaded Arviragus, and his transitions between these characters in the play’s denouement are model instances of how to establish identity in mere seconds. Ms. Young slightly misconceives her Belaria as a dotty windbag-type, but her gift for combining a broad acting style with linguistic acuity (and making slinkiness look graceful) prevents her Queen from tipping any farther into caricature than necessary. Mr. Coffey shows the most range of all, turning up as a jocular Philario, proud-yet-humble Guiderius, touchingly distressed Pisanio, and more.

The actors playing the couple at Cymbeline’s center are less ambitiously multicast, if no less overworked (Mr. Brody co-directed the show and choreographed its excellent fights; Ms. Austrian is a company co-founder). Both do well in challenging roles. Ms. Austrian as Imogen is lovely, accessible, and an unabashed geek: a good pitch for this character, though I wished for more shades of vulnerability or defeat in her Fidele disguise (cum alter ego) later in the play. Posthumus—part credible soldier, part impulsive overgrown adolescent—is even harder to crack, and Mr. Brody does solid work, slicking his character’s real pain at Imogen’s supposed faithlessness with a thin film of bathos. He also has the square jaw, warm eyes and bland expression of a soap-opera doctor, a look befitting the character’s peculiar combination of histrionics and blankness.

Considering how well Fiasco handles so many of Cymbeline’s genuine textual-structural difficulties, it might seem petty to quibble with some of their choices respecting cuts to the script. And to be sure, their interventions are quite modest, relative to what their cast-size might have licensed. The decision to pare down the dialogue between Cloten’s servants and give the remaining lines to Pisanio, and to revise the opening dialogue between two ‘Gentlemen’ into a prologue spoken by one actor, are sensible and effective enough. Less successful, though, is the substantial cutting of Posthumus’ role in Act 5. He is permitted to express some manly remorse on receiving the bloody cloth, but his plan to fight for Britain, then disguise himself as an Italian and submit to arrest, is patchily excised. More disappointingly, this Cymbeline has no jailor or jailing, and correspondingly no Jupiter, no Eagle, and no Spirits of the Leonati. Maybe the dream-vision-plus-deus ex machina struck the directors as one dramaturgical hurdle too many, or maybe Mr. Brody found himself stretched too thin by creative and production tasks to play Posthumus to completion. Nevertheless, such was my regard for the company’s potential and imagination that I was sorry to miss seeing what they might have done with this sequence of notorious theatrical coups. Perhaps Fiasco will address the omissions in revival number five?

All in all, though, this is a really splendid piece of theater. It is modestly conceived, painstakingly executed, and performed with a level of confidence, good humor, and lack of pretense as appealing as it is unusual. The actors spend their offstage time seated around the perimeter of the playing space, generating sound and music effects and assisting each other with props and costume changes; their dedication and ease as an ensemble is palpable and touching. Fiasco’s Cymbeline is a shining example of smart, content-driven, economy-conscious Shakespeare performance. And what other kind, really, is more deserving of recognition and praise?

  The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (along with Charles University, Prague, and The International Shakespeare Association) sponsored individuals from Argentina, Romania, Hungary, India, Russia, Canada, Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, and Chile to attend the World Shakespeare Congress 2011.  Make sure that you follow this series to hear from more of our award winners  who will be talking about the ways in which Shakespeare is a subject for research, performance, and conversation across the globe.