New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity 9781474244558, 9781474244589, 9781474244572

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Preface
Introduction
Part One: After Garrick
1. Reviving Garrick
2. A Shakespeare Masque: Reflections on an Anniversary Commission with Sally Beamish and Carol Ann Duffy
3. Shakespeare Unbard: Negotiating Civic Shakespeare
Part Two: New Places; New Forms
4. Communities in the Theatre and in the World: Three Ballets and a Masque
5. Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love: A Liturgy for Voices Based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream
6. The Marina Project
Part Three: New Places: Europe
7. Shakespeare’s German Place: Weimar and the Jubilees, 1864/2014
8. On Romeo and Juliet and Civic Crisis in Contemporary Verona
9. Shylock in the Thinking Machine: Civic Shakespeare and the Future of Venice
10. Mastersinger Shakespeare!
Part Four: New Places: North America
11. New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America
12. Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection
Afterword: Civic Shakespeares
Notes
Index

Citation preview

New Places

ALSO AVAIL ABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China, edited by Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson and Shih-­pe Wang ISBN 978-1-472-58341-3 A Year of Shakespeare: Re-­living the World Shakespeare Festival, edited by Paul Edmondson, Erin Sullivan and Paul Prescott ISBN 978-1-408-18814-9 Broadcast your Shakespeare: Continuity and Change Across Media, edited by Stephen O’Neill ISBN 978-1-474-29511-6 Playing Indoors: Staging Early Modern Drama in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Will Tosh ISBN 978-1-350-01388-9 Shakespeare: Actors and Audiences, edited by Fiona Banks ISBN 978-1-474-25793-0 Shakespeare’s Artists, B.J. Sokol ISBN 978-1-350-02193-8 Shakespeare’s Creative Legacies: Artists, Writers, Performers, Readers, edited by Paul Edmondson and Peter Holbrook ISBN 978-1-474-23448-1 Shakespeare’s Fathers and Daughters, Oliver Ford Davies ISBN 978-1-350-03846-2 Stage Directions and Shakespearean Theatre, edited by Sarah Dustagheer and Gillian Woods ISBN 978-1-474-25747-3 Thomas Mann and Shakespeare: Something Rich and Strange, edited by Tobias Döring and Ewan Fernie ISBN 978-1-628-922103 Macbeth, Macbeth, Ewan Fernie and Simon Palfrey ISBN 978-1-474-235549

New Places Shakespeare and Civic Creativity Edited by Paul Edmondson and Ewan Fernie

THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC 1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE and the Arden Shakespeare logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2018 This paperback edition published 2020 Copyright © Paul Edmondson, Ewan Fernie and contributors, 2018 Paul Edmondson, Ewan Fernie and contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as authors of this work. Cover design: Irene Martinez Costa Cover images: The UK ’s Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy, sitting in Shakespeare’s Chair in New Place. Credit: Paul Edmondson; Los Angeles’ Will Power to Youth summer programme. Credit: Michael Palma; Katie Trethewey in Ex Cathedra’s world premiere of A Shakespeare Masque at Holy Trinity Church on 22 April 2016. Credit: University of Birmingham; The Merchant of Venice performed in the Jewish Ghetto, Venice, Summer 2016. Credit Andrea Messana; David Garrick’s specially commissioned ribbon for the 1769 Stratford Jubilee. Credit: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Edmondson, Paul, editor, writer of preface. | Fernie, Ewan, 1971editor, writer of introduction. | Holderness, Graham, writer of afterword. Title: New places : Shakespeare and civic creativity / edited by Paul Edmondson and Ewan Fernie. Other titles: Shakespeare and civic creativity Description: London, UK ; New York, NY : Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017045570 (print) | LCCN 2018040097 (ebook) | ISBN 9781474244565 (epub) | ISBN 9781474244572 (epdf) | ISBN 9781474244558 | ISBN 9781474244558(hardback :alk. paper) | ISBN 9781474244541(pbk. :alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Appreciation. | Literature and society. Classification: LCC PR2976 (ebook) | LCC PR2976 .N48 2018 (print) | DDC 822.3/3--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017045570 ISBN :

HB : PB : ePDF : eBook:

978-1-474-24455-8 978-1-474-24454-1 978-1-474-24457-2 978-1-474-24456-5

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations  vii List of Contributors  ix Preface  x Paul Edmondson Introduction  xiv Ewan Fernie

Part One: After Garrick  1 1 Reviving Garrick  3 Michael Dobson 2 A Shakespeare Masque: Reflections on an Anniversary Commission with Sally Beamish and Carol Ann Duffy  23 Paul Edmondson 3 Shakespeare Unbard: Negotiating Civic Shakespeare  41 Hester Bradley and Richard O’Brien

Part Two: New Places; New Forms  63 4 Communities in the Theatre and in the World: Three Ballets and a Masque  65 David Fuller 5 Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love: A Liturgy for Voices Based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream  83 Paul S. Fiddes and Andrew Taylor

vi

CONTENTS

6 The Marina Project  109 Katharine A. Craik and Ewan Fernie

Part Three: New Places: Europe  127 7 Shakespeare’s German Place: Weimar and the Jubilees, 1864/2014  129 Tobias Döring 8 On Romeo and Juliet and Civic Crisis in Contemporary Verona  145 Silvia Bigliazzi 9 Shylock in the Thinking Machine: Civic Shakespeare and the Future of Venice  161 Shaul Bassi 10 Mastersinger Shakespeare!  179 Paul Edmondson

Part Four: New Places: North America  217 11 New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America  219 Katherine Scheil 12 Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection  235 David Ruiter

Afterword: Civic Shakespeares  251 Graham Holderness

Notes  257 Index  283

ILLUSTRATIONS

1.1 The Jubilee Pavilion erected for David Garrick’s 1769 Stratford Jubilee. Credit: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. 1.2 David Garrick reciting his Ode to Shakespeare. Credit: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. 1.3 The mulberry-­wood medallion worn by David Garrick for the 1769 Jubilee. Credit: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. 1.4 Actor Samuel West, dressed as David Garrick with a statue of Shakespeare. Credit: Adam Scott. 2.1 Samuel West as David Garrick, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-­upon-Avon. Credit: Ex Cathedra choir, Birmingham. 2.2 From Sally Beamish’s score for A Shakespeare Masque. Credit: Edition Peters. 2.3 A Shakespeare Masque, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-­upon-Avon. Credit Ex Cathedra choir, Birmingham. 2.4 ‘Morris’ in A Shakespeare Masque, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-­upon-Avon. Credit: Ex Cathedra choir, Birmingham. 2.5 Dame Carol Ann Duffy and Sally Beamish at New Place 23 April 2016, Stratford-­upon-Avon. Credit: Paul Edmondson. 3.1 Shakespeare Unbard: a civic performance in the Front of House areas at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Credit: Steve Horobin. 3.2 Creative collisions: The Complete Works is torn apart and stuck back together onstage, throwing familiar characters into surprising contexts. Credit: Steve Horobin. 4.1 The Winter’s Tale, a ballet by Joby Talbot, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon for the Royal Ballet. Credit: Johan Persson / ArenaPAL. 4.2 The Tempest, a ballet by Sally Beamish, choreographed by David Bintley for the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Credit: Bill Cooper.

4 5 8 9

24 26 30 32

34

41

51

74

79

viii

ILLUSTRATIONS

5.1 Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love: A Liturgy for Voices based on ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Frame from a video by David Clarke. Credit: Regents Park College, Oxford. 5.2 ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ in Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love. Frame from a video by David Clarke. Credit: Regent Park’s College, Oxford. 6.1 The Marina workshop at The Other Place, Stratford-­upon-Avon. Credit: Richard Twyman. 6.2 ‘Chastity’ by Tom de Freston. Marina workshop, The Other Place, Stratford-­upon-Avon. Credit: Tom de Freston. 7.1 At Otto Lessing’s Shakespeare monument in Ilm Park, Weimar. Credit: Silvia Tiedtke. 7.2 Tobias Dürr as Richard II in Shakespeares Könige: Mord Macht Tod. Credit: Marianne Menke; image reproduced courtesy of the Bremer Shakespeare Company. 8.1 The Shakespeare Walk in Verona. Credit: Mirko Barbieri 8.2 Romeo and Juliet in Verona. Credit: Nicoletta Ferrari/Dismappa. 8.3 At the Circus in Verona. Credit: Carolina Cavallo. 9.1 The Colombari company rehearsing The Merchant in Venice in the Ghetto, Venice. Credit: Andrea Messana. 9.2 Five Shylocks. The Merchant in Venice in the Ghetto, Venice. Credit: Andrea Messana. 10.1 Civic tributes at Shakespeare’s grave, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-­upon-Avon, 23 April 2016. Credit: Paul Edmondson. 10.2 A wreath for Shakespeare from Germany, 1864. Credit: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. 10.3 Vocal score for ‘To the memory of our beloved, the author, Master William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us’. Credit: Paul Edmondson. 11.1 The Neville Shakespeare Club of Green Bay, Wisconsin, 1902. Credit: Neville Public Museum of Brown County. 11.2 The Seattle Shakespeare Readthrough Group, 2016. Credit: Paul Kreider.

85

86 110 120 131

141 149 151 159 161 173 181 185

197 222 223

CONTRIBUTORS

Shaul Bassi Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

David Fuller University of Durham

Sally Beamish contributing composer

Graham Holderness University of Hertfordshire

Silvia Bigliazzi University of Verona Hester Bradley Oxford Brookes University Katharine A. Craik Oxford Brookes University Michael Dobson The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham Carol Ann Duffy Poet Laureate Tobias Döring Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich Paul Edmondson The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Jenny Lewis contributing poet Sinéad Morrissey contributing poet Richard O’Brien The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham Micheal O’Siadhail contributing poet David Ruiter University of Texas at El Paso Lawrence Sail contributing poet Katherine Scheil University of Minnesota

Ewan Fernie The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham

Michael Symmons Roberts contributing poet

Paul Fiddes Regent’s Park College University of Oxford

Andrew Taylor Regent’s Park College University of Oxford

PREFACE Paul Edmondson, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Shakespeare knew what it meant to be a poet and playwright of the people. He had been brought up in a household alert to civic life because of the many offices his father, John, held for Stratford-­upon-Avon’s borough council. Shakespeare’s professional, creative and personal lives formed themselves around two civic centres: Stratford and London. He held major business interests in the most innovative and exciting art form of his time, and, as the leading playwright for what became (from 1603) England’s most prominent theatrical troupe, his job was to produce compelling entertainment for all sectors of society, but also to fulfil his duties with The King’s Men in the Court of King James I. Commuting back to Stratford-­upon-Avon, to New Place (his family home from 1597), he carried something of his London reputation with him. But even the house itself positioned him prominently in the town’s civic life. New Place had been built as the personal residence of Hugh Clopton, who went on to become Lord Mayor of London. It was the largest house in the borough, the only one with a courtyard and gatehouse-­style entrance, and it stood next door but one to the Guild Hall where the Stratford Corporation held its meetings. The Shakespeares’ lodger from 1603 to 1611, Shakespeare’s kinsman, Thomas Greene, was clerk to the Corporation for almost fourteen years. ‘Civic Shakespeare’ (a term coined by Tobias Döring, Ewan Fernie and me during a meeting in the town in 2011) is explored in different ways throughout this volume, but actually begins during Shakespeare’s own lifetime with Shakespeare himself as its first, creative protagonist. Our term, ‘Civic Shakespeare’, refers specifically to forms of engaging with Shakespeare that might take place on the streets or in other civic spaces, spilling beyond the boundaries of schools, universities, theatres, concert halls, galleries, libraries and museums. ‘Civic Shakespeare’ includes creative projects, intended for a general public, projects which might appropriate or adapt Shakespeare’s work. Or, perhaps expressions of ‘Civic Shakespeare’ might even ignore Shakespeare’s words altogether and focus instead on his

PREFACE

xi

cultural reputation and life in the world. That is what David Garrick did for his Stratford Jubilee of 1769 (an important point of departure for our exploration of this theme). ‘Civic Shakespeare’ seeks to include, to bring people together, just as Shakespeare’s works and reputation have provided the focal-­point for special gatherings for centuries. Some of the hallmarks of ‘Civic Shakespeare’ include consensual pageantry, music and dramatic performance, liturgy and poetry, and community interaction (through, for example, reading groups). ‘Civic Shakespeare’ enacts what is perhaps our best hope for any work of art: that it might enable us to see the world around us differently, or differently ‘for real’. Well I recall the feelings of exultation that turned my walk into a sort of dance through the streets of Verona after having seen the radical choreographer Lindsay Kemp’s workshop on Romeo and Juliet (Kemp’s project is described by Silvia Bigliazzi in this volume). But above all ‘Civic Shakespeare’ is about generating ‘new’ places, happenings, and intentions, just as Garrick’s Stratford Jubilee did 250 years ago: or, as the swaggering Sir Toby Belch has it, ‘my very walk should be a jig’ (Twelfth Night, 1.5.125). We live in a culture of anniversaries. When Fernie and I started talking about ‘Civic Shakespeare’, as early as 2010, we were especially interested in the fact that the five centenary years of the First World War – 2014 to 2018 – coincided with the 450th and the 400th anniversaries of Shakespeare’s birth and death respectively (2014 and 2016). We looked to Europe for our inspiration, a Europe which had, over a century, become ever more unified. In our ongoing appropriation of Shakespeare into our own cultures, the people of Europe have continued to find his work an expressive vehicle for our own shared and distinctive values. In asking the question (inspired by our special interest in Garrick’s 1769 Stratford Jubilee) ‘why do we celebrate Shakespeare and how do we do it?’, we became even more emphatically aware of Shakespeare’s own identity as a European writer. Two countries especially loomed large on our European-CivicShakespeare horizon: Germany and Italy. The former was the first European country to make Shakespeare truly its own through translation (Julius Caesar in 1741). By the middle of the nineteenth century, Germany had adopted Shakespeare, along with Goethe and Schiller, as one of its national poets. In Shakespeare’s own age, Germany had led the way with European religious reforms, Italy with Europe’s re-­evaluation and re-­birth of Classical culture. Italian cities themselves provide the imaginative backdrops in about a third of Shakespeare’s plays. One might even say that without the cultural significance of Italy and Germany – coupled with Shakespeare’s own Europe-­ wide perspective – there would be no Shakespeare. And our articulation of ‘Civic Shakespeare’ was developing at the same time as the excavations at New Place. Among the artefacts unearthed were Nuremburg jettons of the kind used for gaming in London. In re-­curating the site in time for 2016, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust was keen to present it as a writer’s house in part through the installation of specially

xii

PREFACE

commissioned artworks. New Place was once again becoming a source of creative, civic pride. The ‘new places’ of our title is our way of relating this collection of essays to Shakespeare’s own innovative and civic creativity, reaching for new directions whilst at the same time drawing attention to the past. ‘Civic Shakespeare’ enacts – particularizes – a location and a moment, and has within its scope the ability to make even an old place seem new. Whether the location is the Jewish Ghetto in Venice, the foyer areas of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, a town hall, Holy Trinity Church or the streets of Verona, the enactment of ‘Civic Shakespeare’ seeks a specific endorsement and permission from the people for a unique time and space. But the ‘new places’ are not always exclusively physical. In this collection, they are presented as more broadly cultural as well as actual. We sought to encourage Shakespeare scholarship to go into new territories, new places, to step inside the act of making new works of art, and thereby even, potentially, to create new forms of civic life and action. By the summer of 2015, and with the help and encouragement of a cohort of European Shakespearian colleagues from France, Germany, Italy and Portugal, we had as good as persuaded the European Parliament in Brussels to name Shakespeare as European Laureate for the anniversary year of 2016. (‘Bard of Avon now . . . and Euro-Laureate hereafter? EU urged to adopt Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death’ was the headline of Dalya Alberge’s article in The Observer, 6 January 2013). But our creative and civic intentions would be overtaken by international events. Little did we know that the United Kingdom, during the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, would inadvertently set out to destroy its place in the European Union. In sending this book to press we feel already the nostalgia of the future. There are many civic happenings throughout the world every year in celebration of Shakespeare, but special anniversaries serve to emphasize them. In Stratford-­upon-Avon the 2016 Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations had special resonance. A new Shakespeare piece (in light of Garrick’s ode) was commissioned. The result is A Shakespeare Masque by the UK’s Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy, and distinguished composer, Sally Beamish. Its premiere, which took place in Holy Trinity Church on 22 April 2016, also included a staging of Garrick’s own ode, a reminder that the Stratford Jubilee of 1769 was a major, innovative event which we have come to regard as the beginning of what is now a long tradition of ‘Civic Shakespeare’. Some traces of Garrick’s Jubilee can be found among the collections of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which continues to collect examples of international responses to Shakespeare and Shakespearian celebrations. We wish that there had been space and time enough to include more expressions of Shakespeare and civic creativity in this volume, and from more countries and cultures. Certainly I have come to realize, having either worked alongside or witnessed many of the projects here presented, that ‘Civic Shakespeare’ is synonymous with what many people might mean

PREFACE

xiii

when they claim to be ‘passionate about Shakespeare’, and that part of that passion arises from a sense of specific rootedness, and place. So, in the end, as in its beginning, ‘Civic Shakespeare’ is about the life that is given to and generated around Shakespeare among the people. What all the projects represented in this volume have in common – some European, some North American – is that they wear their heart on their sleeve. Every one of them is engaged, not only with Shakespeare, but with the contemporary world which his persona and works continue to inspire. Some of the expressions of Civic Shakespeare present here are critical, troubled by the world and Shakespeare’s place within it; others dare to risk embarrassment, to be sentimental and enthusiastic, to be passionate; some might even wave flags.

INTRODUCTION Ewan Fernie

We started talking about the looming anniversaries in Prague, at the World Shakespeare Congress in 2011. In prospect were the following year’s World Shakespeare Festival, then 2014’s 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, then 2016’s 400th anniversary of his death. He was hardly lacking cultural limelight before, but suddenly, in the papers, on television and radio, and online, Shakespeare was in danger of being overexposed. Several contributors to this volume – Paul Edmondson, Michael Dobson, Silvia Bigliazzi, Tobias Döring and Shaul Bassi – started to feel that, as Shakespeareans, we should do something, put Shakespeare to the test beyond our own professional commitment to him, prove he really matters (or at least can be made to matter) beyond the worlds of education and the theatre. For those of us who live or work in Stratford, it was natural to return to the original Shakespeare celebration: the eighteenth-­century actor David Garrick’s famous Stratford Jubilee and Shakespeare Ode of 1769. This was decisive in what Michael Dobson calls ‘the making of the national poet’, as well as to Shakespeare’s major (if less well-­known) impact in continental Europe.1 Garrick took Shakespeare out of the study and beyond the theatre; he took Shakespeare, quite literally, to the streets. The rainbow-­coloured ribbon he encouraged festival-­goers to wear symbolized the playwright’s potential to bring together people of all political and religious persuasions (an image of the ribbon is reproduced on the back cover of this book).2 We wanted to know whether Shakespeare celebrations might help to define a wider ‘civic’ sphere beyond divided institutional interests and political and religious loyalties today. But Garrick made new poetry and music after Shakespeare’s example, and we likewise sought to discover whether the example of Shakespeare can stimulate new forms of civic creativity now. This volume therefore opens with Dobson’s account of the revival of the original Garrick Ode, with music by Thomas Arne, and with Samuel West in the title-­role of Garrick, which was commissioned by the Shakespeare Institute, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Ex Cathedra Choir to kick off the anniversary celebrations in Stratford in 2016. It proceeds to present and reflect upon the brand-­new A Shakespeare Masque commissioned by

INTRODUCTION

xv

the same organizations from the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, and the major contemporary composer Sally Beamish, and premiered in the second half of the concert. Richard O’Brien and Hester Bradley, part of the Institute’s first cohort of students on its pioneering Shakespeare and Creativity MA, then offer an account of their efforts to bring their more critical consideration of Garrick’s and subsequent efforts to bring Shakespeare into the wider world to life as a devised dramatic essay. By means of such unique experiments, New Places asks whether Garrick’s civic ambitions for Shakespeare are achievable in our time; and if they are, whether what we started to refer to as Civic Shakespeare can avoid the jingoistic triumphalism which arguably tainted Garrick’s original Shakespeare celebration. I have said we wanted to do something, and it had, in each case, to have the specificity of an action in a specific context, in order to have an impact on an actually existing community (or communities). There is evidence to suggest that our Garrick revival, paired with the Duffy/Beamish A Shakespeare Masque, had such an impact. Some 1,574 people came to see the six performances around the country, and the premiere in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, where Shakespeare of course is actually buried, was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. Thanks to funding from the British Council, the performance was also filmed and licensed to the BBC’s Shakespeare Lives festival (www.bbc.co.uk/shakespearelives), where it was broadcast worldwide and available on demand until the end of October 2016. In addition, it was available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer over the same period. Matthew Dodd, Head of Speech Programming and Presentation at BBC Radio 3, told us that our Shakespearean double bill was key to the station’s broadcasts from Stratford over the anniversary weekend which had an estimated reach of 1.23 million listeners. The concerts, in Stratford and elsewhere, were also widely reviewed in high-­profile papers, including The New York Times, The Guardian, the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph.3 So we did get Shakespeare out there, and not just as English heritage, but as source and spur for doing something, something different, something new. Perhaps more importantly, we got Shakespeare at least some way out beyond the confines of his usual elite constituency in English culture. Paul Edmondson and Jeffrey Skidmore, the Artistic Director of Ex Cathedra, had both always been very keen that the Duffy/Beamish A Shakespeare Masque should be at least partly modelled on Benjamin Britten’s communitarian one-­act opera, Noye’s Fludde (1957). Like Britten’s work, the Masque actively involved its audience, teaching them the music as it unfolded, so that, in the end, they could join in with the singing, as it were magically constituting a single united community with the performers, in line with Garrick’s discovery of Shakespeare’s community-­convening powers in 1769. The community thus constituted was more varied and representative of the diverse complexion of twenty-first-century England than you might expect, largely because the six performances around the country involved 175 schoolchildren in the Shakespeare Masque, and not just singing but also

xvi

INTRODUCTION

performing Dalcroze musical movement (under the guidance of Monica Wilkinson) as directed by an RSC Director (James Farrell); and of course some of their parents came to the concerts. Five of the participating schools were from deprived inner-city wards (St Gregory’s Catholic Primary, Bearwood, Birmingham; St Edmund’s Catholic Primary School, Ladywood, Birmingham; Arnhem Wharf Primary School, Tower Hamlets, London; Manorfield Primary School, Tower Hamlets, London; and John Scurr Primary School, Tower Hamlets, London); and the remaining three were small rural schools with a high traveller population (Wilmcote Church of England Primary School; Snitterfield Primary School; and Loxley Church of England Community Primary School, all in Warwickshire). The families of the urban schoolchildren were ethnically very diverse, with respondents in two schools being 79 per cent and 77 per cent from BAME (British, Asian and minority ethnic) groups. In one of the schools, 77 per cent of parents responding were born outside the UK , and only 38 per cent of families spoke English at home. To give an example, one Philippines-born Birmingham mother, who speaks Tagalog as much as English, had never seen Shakespeare performed, or attended a classical concert, or visited Birmingham’s historic Town Hall before coming to watch her daughter perform there. She said afterwards, ‘My daughter enjoyed the concert so much that she wants to join again.’ Parents reported learning about Shakespeare from their children, and expressed surprise and delight at what they had been able to achieve. One father of a child at Snitterfield School said: It was, like, quite impenetrable really, personally I found it, but after you’ve heard it loads you do begin to understand you . . . know the kind of sophistication of the lyrics and the tunes I mean, but initially I thought ‘wow, that’s a lot for the kids to [learn]’, but they did – and that was the most amazing part for me, they weren’t just singing they were singing something incredibly complicated, lyrically and melodiously as well. Credit to them, really. Perhaps the most striking result of the impact report which Lucy Vernall and the Academic Ideas Lab prepared on the project for the University of Birmingham (from which these data derive) was the extraordinarily widespread boost to self-confidence that this experience of involvement in an aesthetically ambitious celebration of a major Shakespeare anniversary effected in participating children. Part of the argument of our book is that Garrick’s bygone and largely forgotten project challenges us to be more ambitious for Civic Shakespeare now. But as Dobson’s essay indicates, central to the establishment and subsequent history of Civic Shakespeare though it undoubtedly was, Garrick’s 1769 version of Civic Shakespeare nevertheless remains an eccentric production, and our book is called New Places. It therefore goes very much

INTRODUCTION

xvii

beyond Garrick, presenting and reflecting upon a rich range of Shakespeare-­ inspired, civically motivated poetry, liturgy, theatre, dance, opera and music, in England and abroad. David Fuller’s essay considers the Duffy/Beamish Shakespeare Masque alongside four new ballets created for the 2014/2016 anniversaries – Jean-Christophe Maillot’s The Taming of the Shrew, with music by Shostakovich (Bolshoi Ballet); Christopher Wheeldon’s The Winter’s Tale, with music by Joby Talbot (Royal Ballet); and David Bintley’s The Tempest, with music by Sally Beamish (Birmingham Royal Ballet) – showing how each finds in Shakespeare a different way of engaging with contemporary public life. Fuller equally makes the case for the exemplary community-­building power of group performance itself, particularly given the physical intensity which a dance troupe brings. In his essay, Shakespearean performance emerges as a significant form of social action; and yet, mobilising Tolstoy’s novels against the cruder didacticism of his aesthetic theory, Fuller wisely cautions that we cannot know where this will take us. But Garrick’s Shakespeare Ode actually made its own poetry and music out of Shakespeare’s example, and this cues our further question: to what extent can the example of Shakespeare stimulate new forms of cultural creativity today? Paul Fiddes and Andrew Taylor’s project wittily echoes the conjunction of ill-­assorted lovers Bottom and Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by combining Shakespearean comedy with Christian liturgy in an event that was also performed at Holy Trinity, as well as at St Martin’s-­ in-the-Fields in London’s Trafalgar Square, during the 2016 anniversary. This new liturgy featuring commissioned contributions by significant contemporary poets (Jenny Lewis, Micheal O’Siadhail, Michael Symmons Roberts, Lawrence Sail and Sinéad Morrissey) recreates as sacramental actions Shakespeare’s ideas of erring love-­sight restored and barriers of misunderstanding dismantled, in the belief that the illusions of art can lead us towards participation in a larger civic and spiritual life. Katharine Craik and Ewan Fernie’s project, workshopped in Stratford at the RSC’s reopened studio theatre for radical experiment, The Other Place, begins from the startling contemporary resonances of Pericles being a Middle Eastern play set in Syria, Turkey, Greece and the surrounding seas, and dramatizing a story of political tyranny, migrancy and trauma through the plight of a scattered family whose flight from terror casts them adrift in hostile lands. Craik and Fernie’s project asks what this means in the context of contemporary global instability and the migrant crisis, particularly if we re-­ imagine not just Shakespeare’s original romance but also contemporary London through Marina’s rather than Pericles’ eyes. But for all that Craik and Fernie’s is an effort to open up canonical culture to those others who share England with us, it was clear from the beginning that our wider effort to bring Shakespeare and Shakespeare scholarship into the public sphere would need to transcend English borders, and therefore the conversation which this volume represents always involved federated projects in Europe and America.

xviii

INTRODUCTION

Working with Bassi in Venice, Bigliazzi in Verona and Döring in Weimar, as well as with other European Shakespeareans, such as Nathalie VienneGuerlin from the Société Française Shakespeare, we wanted to know whether Shakespeare might operate in our culture as a positive figure for a European (not just English) identity that cannot be reduced to economics; and if so, whether, in his anniversary year of 2016, he could be named in the European Parliament as an inaugural European Laureate, a figurehead for a broader European tradition of cultural achievement and creative endeavour. The campaign got up some real momentum;4 indeed, it got so far as a positive hearing in the European Parliament. But Brexit stopped it in its tracks. Bigliazzi’s, Bassi’s, Döring’s, and Edmondson’s essays nevertheless demonstrate, first, Shakespeare’s vital presence in European culture and, second, an expansively European dimension to the whole phenomenon of Civic Shakespeare, in spite of Brexit. It was Germany, not England, that had the first national association for Civic Shakespeare. The Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft was founded on the tercentenary of Shakespeare’s birth in 1864, and was always more than a club for those (theatre people and scholars) with a professional stake in Shakespeare. Also at the German tercentenary in Weimar, Franz von Dingelstedt (1814–1881) first staged Shakespeare’s histories as one great national drama, in his own creative adaptation expressly offered as a model for the emergent German Reich. Döring shows that this völkisch legacy has been an ambiguous gift to German culture, feeding into, on the one hand, the violently exclusive racism of the Nazis, but also inspiring a more open and inclusive vision of Germany. As the President of the Gesellschaft in 2016, Döring was eager to offer a new Shakespeare celebration at Weimar which reflected critically on this as a way of positively opening it up to the different exigencies and challenges of cultural and civic life in Germany today. One animating ambition, or fantasy, behind the phenomenon of Civic Shakespeare, from 1769 onwards, is to bring Shakespeare’s surpassing artistic achievement to life as a real-world community. And if Weimar is Germany’s Stratford, Verona, where Bigliazzi works, considers itself ‘the Italian Stratford-upon-Avon’, offering international tourists a Romeo-andJuliet experience which, she suggests, amounts to an ideologically conservative ‘Disneyfication of Shakespeare’.5 Against this, Bigliazzi and her colleagues – including the academic Skenè research group, but also artists such as the Verona-based Teatro Scientifico Company – have worked together with the city council over a number of years to foment alternative forms of Shakespeare-inspired civic life. They have mounted public events exploring the open-ended process by which Romeo and Juliet emerges from, and flows back into, many different cultural traditions and languages, as well as events performing its textual variants and championing The Two Gentlemen of Verona as a way of creatively destabilizing Romeo and Juliet’s familiar centrality in Verona. The aim is to open up this Shakespearean city to creative possibility and dialogue, and to encourage a more serious and

INTRODUCTION

xix

flexible engagement with the themes of civic conflict and reconciliation which the Verona plays present, and which are again pressing questions now, and not just in Verona. Bassi’s contribution takes us to the open-air performance of The Merchant of Venice which he and others contrived in the original Jewish Ghetto in 2016 when its 500th anniversary coincided with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. This extraordinary achievement brought Shakespeare back to the original scene of the travails, terrors and triumphs of the Jewish life he drew upon, and to which, in a variety of ways, his influential play has since contributed; and it also intimates how Shakespeare could continue to contribute to Venice as what Bassi presents as the ‘thinking machine of civic culture as such’. In ‘Mastersinger Shakespeare!’, Edmondson brings Europe back to Stratford, Wagnerizing Shakespeare just as European culture has so often been Shakespearized. My ugly verbs suggest appropriating violence which in fact is precisely what Edmondson is concerned to defeat in a process that weaves together different cultures and moments until it resembles the wreath that he features as an illustration and tells us the German Hochstift brought in Goethe’s name to Shakespeare’s Birthplace in 1864. By linking specifically Wagner and Shakespeare, Edmondson is refusing to side-step the aggressive nationalism that art and artistic achievement can promote. Instead, he opens up such proud traditions to one another according to a principle of cultural cross-over, engagement and identification, and as an indication of shared and varied Shakespearean traditions that might form the basis of hopeful European solidarity even in light (and in spite) of Brexit. One thing that emerges through the essays in this volume is the idea that Shakespeare might afford different ways of improvising civic culture in various times and places. In her essay, Katherine Scheil points out that America has a long tradition of Civic Shakespeare, dating back to the last few decades of the nineteenth century, one which was particularly important to the liberation and social action of American women.6 Women’s Shakespeare clubs, including black women’s Shakespeare clubs, were actively engaged in a range of significant civic reforms in the nineteenth century but, Scheil observes, such associations declined in the twentieth century after the Second World War. She quotes Robert D. Putnam’s description of an ‘erosion of America’s social connectedness and community involvement’, and asks three fundamental questions: whether Shakespeare can still serve as one of the building blocks of civic life in America; whether decentralized, non-institutional, community-building, grass-roots efforts based on or inspired by Shakespeare still exist; and if they do, whether reading and/or performing Shakespeare can still inspire participants to accomplish any kind of civic betterment.7 Scheil finds promising signs of renewal in her exploration of Shakespeare clubs that have sprung up on the online site Meetup.com, which she suggests combines the communitymaking advantages of face-to-face reading and performance, with the

xx

INTRODUCTION

accessibility and reach of the new social media, through which any new iteration of Civic Shakespeare will have to work if it is to flourish as fully as possible in our new times. Writing in the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency, David Ruiter considers the moment when a representative of the diverse cast of the phenomenally successful musical of American history, Hamilton, spoke from the stage to then Vice President-elect Mike Pence as he left the theatre of their fears that the new administration would not enact so open and plural a United States as their play had done. Ruiter relates this to the work of the Will Power to Youth programme of The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, which was set up after the vicious assault on the defenceless black taxi driver Rodney King in the city in 1992 as, Ruiter suggests, a sort of ‘art in response to historical atrocity programme’. Will Power to Youth, as Ruiter describes it, is not precious about Shakespeare, which it sees as a vehicle for the self-empowering and integration of those otherwise excluded from full participation in an unjust world – a process, it is worth emphasizing, that will enlarge and enrich that world as well as those whom it previously excluded. Borrowing Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of ‘intersectionality’, Ruiter is interested in the way in which WPY positively puts Shakespeare to work at what he calls ‘the civic intersection’, which he defines as ‘a place teeming with the traffic of history and present day life, of identities and narratives built, shared, and owned in a lively, if sometimes challenging process of self-authoring and inclusion’. From the wider perspective of this volume, it is possible to say that Shakespeare, in himself, is a civic intersection, a place of experiment where cultures are made, and also a place where those cultures meet and can be enlarged and remade in light of each other. I started this Introduction by recalling its beginnings in a shared desire to do something more engaged for and with Shakespeare. It would have been false to begin with a post-hoc rationalization. Nor would it have been advisable to pre-empt the forms and prescribe the limits of what Civic Shakespeare might be. Instead, we preferred to conduct an open enquiry; indeed, this was a fundamental opening for creativity in our project. But of course as that speculative project took more and more concrete and targeted forms it became important to consider more carefully and analytically what we thought we were doing, and it isn’t hard to define its broad parameters. One way or another, Civic Shakespeare is for the community beyond professional Shakespeareans of whatever stripe. Our commitment to this strikes lights with John Carey’s advocacy of ‘active art’ in his high-profile and controversial 2005 book, What Good are the Arts? Carey suggests that when the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, which later became the Arts Council, chose to define art as essentially ‘a professional activity’, it made a woeful mistake. He also says: Every child in every school should have a chance to paint and model and sculpt and sing and dance and act and play every instrument in the

INTRODUCTION

xxi

orchestra, to see if that is where he or she will find joy and fulfilment and self-respect as many others have found it. Of course it will be expensive – very, very expensive. But then, so are prisons. Perhaps if more money had been spent on, more imagination and effort devoted to, more government initiative directed towards art in schools and art in the community, Britain’s prisons would not now be so overcrowded. Perhaps if the fledgling Arts Council had decided, at that crucial, never-to-comeagain moment at the end of the Second World War, that community art was its remit, not showpiece art, the whole history of post-war Britain, and all our preconceptions about what art is, would have been different. ‘It is time’, he concludes, ‘we gave active art a chance to make us better.’8 Quite apart from the effect it has on participants, it is certainly true that bringing a civic criterion to bear on Shakespearean production makes a difference to Shakespeare. O’Brien and Bradley observe that Civic Shakespeare: ‘is not bound to academic expectations of coherence, completeness or truth, however contested and whatever other truth-expectations might replace these; it encourages treatment of Shakespeare’s canon as a grouping of separable parts rather than engaging with individual plays as integral wholes, as commonly expected in the theatre (as examples from Garrick’s Ode to the pre-war history pageant to Kenneth Branagh’s Caliban-Brunel attest); and it directs itself towards an audience which need not itself feel bound by academic or theatrical expectations’. As an academic enterprise, Civic Shakespeare is also distinctive in that it involves much more active participation than usual from academics themselves. In this, it takes a bearing from Stephen Greenblatt, who in Practicing New Historicism offers as a model for the engaged academic the figure of the ‘wicked son’, who participates in Jewish ritual in a negative or critical fashion.9 Since then, Rita Felski has questioned the exclusively critical character of literary scholarship in The Limits of Critique (2015).10 As will already be apparent from this introduction, many of the essays in New Places begin to suggest that literary scholarship might make a positive contribution to contemporary public life. They take different positions on how much it will have to change in the process. Döring is probably more typical in distancing himself from Kunstreligion (the Romantic religion of art) and insisting that scholarship can play an important part in today’s civic culture without giving up any of its specifically critical vocation. But Edmondson boldly ventures that Civic Shakespeare may be irreducibly ‘Romantic, sentimental, amateurish’ and yet the vehicle of creative thought and responsible community-building nevertheless. But never mind civic art or Shakespeare, how should we define the ‘civic’, as such? Döring points out that the term doesn’t appear in Shakespeare, but was used in early modern English to designate a crown or garland, when it also connotes affairs of citizenship and urban life, and so concerns the welfare of communities. In the history of ideas, there is a long tradition

xxii

INTRODUCTION

dating back to Aristotle of the civic being simply synonymous with the state; but an alternative tradition in which ‘civil society’ designates the people as distinct from the state dates back to radicals such as Tom Paine and the later eighteenth century, just when Garrick was taking Shakespeare to the streets of Stratford. Döring cites Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba’s 1963 description of civic culture as ‘a third culture, neither traditional nor modern but partaking of both; a pluralistic culture based on communication and persuasion, a culture of consensus and diversity’.11 But he notes that when Thomas Bridges revisited their argument in our times, it was to ask more despairingly, ‘Can a new form of liberal civic culture arise out of the ruins of modernist liberal doctrine?’12 And it is true that there are dangers in embracing civic culture. For a start, its affirmative tendency can slide into complicity with things as they are. As Craik and Fernie suggest, it is important not to underestimate its affirmations, which have their subversive aspect in the colder environment of atomised and bureaucratic Western capitalism.13 But it is impossible to deny that the solidarity proclaimed in Shakespeare’s name can be corrupting, as in the Nazi construction of Shakespeare as Volksdichter. Peter Bazalgette has argued that the arts have a special vocation to foster that venturesome sort of empathy which is the way to create a more civil and inclusive society.14 And more inclusive forms of solidarity seem desirable, even if they do involve a certain suspension of individual difference, as O’Brien and Bradley suggest. Nearly thirty years ago now, Stuart Hall wrote: the question of ethnicity reminds us that everyone comes from some place – even if it is only an ‘imagined community’ – and needs some sense of identification and belonging. A politics which neglects that moment of identity and identification – without, of course, thinking of it as something permanent, fixed or essential – is not likely to be able to command the new times.15 Elsewhere Hall called for ‘a politics that is open to contingency but still able to act’, insisting that ‘the politics of infinite dispersal is no politics at all’.16 Döring cites Almond and Verba again: ‘civic culture’ requires ‘a symbolic event’ or ‘some other means of creating commitment and unity at the symbolic level’.17 He speaks for the volume as a whole in suggesting that Shakespeare has often provided this, and still can. A further problem with embracing civic culture in our time is that right-­ wing political parties have encouraged this as a way of outsourcing the state’s responsibility for social welfare.18 But it would surely be perverse to give up our struggle for social welfare because our governments are turning their backs on it. The emergence of a sinister and successful populism in political life (Trump, Brexit) is a reason for mistrusting the popular complexion of civic movements; but I think this, too, would be a mistake. Back in the 1980s, Hall (again) recognized that Thatcherism succeeded – even among the working

INTRODUCTION

xxiii

classes which it harmed – because it understood how to appeal to people’s hopes and fears.19 The history of Civic Shakespeare shows there have been progressive and democratic as well as regressive and authoritarian forms of populism. We need critical and creative forms of popular culture which work against its susceptibility to cynical manipulation. We need to open up traditional culture and its establishment constituency to others. Populism isn’t itself a bad thing: it is a force, which can be wielded for good or for ill. A populism opened up to all the populace is surely something to strive for. As Alan Sinfield suggests, Shakespeare ‘has been appropriated for certain practices and attitudes, and can be reappropriated for others’.20 The pluralism of the plays, and the plurality of ways in which they have been appropriated in the history of culture, encourages us to believe that they lend themselves especially to an ethos of constructive openness. As a way of drawing this introduction to a close, I want, briefly, to remark on a modern construction of civil society which seems particularly apt to our construction of Civic Shakespeare in this book. It entered political discourse in the late 1970s, via the Charter 77 movement in Communist Czechoslovakia, as a term for that whole sphere of cultural self-organization, independent of the government, which totalitarianism represses. In ‘The Power of the Powerless’, Václav Havel defined his civic ideal as an antipolitical politics: that is, as a kind of politics that allowed for social identification beyond party lines.21 Himself a playwright and admirer of Shakespeare, Havel offered a vision of the political significance of nonpolitical life, including artistic enterprises. For him, contemporary Western democracy could ‘only with great difficulty be imagined as the source of humanity’s [necessary] rediscovery of itself’. Our mass political parties he saw as ‘rigid’, ‘conceptually sloppy’ and cynically ‘pragmatic’, run by ‘professional apparatuses’ that alienate the citizen from ‘all forms of concrete and personal responsibility’, and lost in ‘the omnipresent dictatorship of consumption, production, advertising, commerce, consumer culture, and all that flood of information’.22 What Havel favoured instead was concrete and provisional forms of civic activity that discover and enact ‘the independent spiritual, social and political life of society’.23 These ‘citizens’ initiatives’ would ‘arise from below as a consequence of authentic social “selforganization” ’.24 They would convene and attest to ‘structures that are open, dynamic and small’; indeed, Havel contends that ‘beyond a certain point, human ties like personal trust and personal responsibility cannot work’. They would supplant ‘formalized and ritualized ties common in the official structures’ with ‘a living sense of solidarity and fraternity’.25 Ultimately, he felt, this would enable us to ‘shed the burden of traditional political categories and habits’, open ourselves up fully to ‘the world of human existence’, and start politics afresh.26 It would afford ‘a rudimentary prefiguration, a symbolic model of those more meaningful “post-democratic” political structures that might become the foundation of a better society’.27 Civic Shakespeare, we propose, could make a real contribution.

PART ONE

After Garrick

1 Reviving Garrick Michael Dobson

TO what blest genius of the isle, Shall Gratitude her tribute pay, Decree the festive day, Erect the statue, and devote the pile? . . . Let Rapture sweep the trembling strings, And Fame expanding all her wings, With all her trumpet-­tongues proclaim, The lov’d, rever’d, immortal name! SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE!1

On 22 April 2016, at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-­upon-Avon, the actor Samuel West, with the Birmingham-­based ensemble Ex Cathedra (conducted by Jeffrey Skidmore), performed the work from which these lines are drawn, David Garrick’s An ode upon dedicating a building, and erecting a statue, to Shakespeare, at Stratford upon Avon (1769), using as much of the original music by Thomas Arne as survives and some new introductory and connecting passages composed for the occasion by Sally Beamish. The performance made up half of an evening which concluded with Carol Ann Duffy’s companion piece, or counter-­piece, also with music by Beamish, A Shakespeare Masque. It marked the first time the Ode had been performed as part of a Shakespeare anniversary event since its revival at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 23 April 1816, and one of very few full-­dress revivals it has ever received (the most recent having taken place at the Dartington Hall summer school for musicians in 2000).2 It was simultaneously streamed live, with video, on the BBC website, and broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, with the entire piece available for viewing for six months and its opening

4

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

FIGURE 1.1  The temporary Jubilee Rotunda, the purpose-­built original venue for Garrick’s Ode. The site is now occupied by the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Holy Trinity Church, the venue for the 2016 revival (in 1769, still without a spire), is visible just beyond it.

stanza still accessible at the time of writing.3 Garrick’s performance of his Ode as the climax of the 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee is widely regarded as a multiply founding moment in modern culture – for different commentators, it has marked the instigation of Bardolatry, of the Stratford-­upon-Avon tourist industry, of Shakespeare’s central place in national and international public culture, and of Romanticism – and in this chapter I want to consider what if anything of the force of that original event survived in or was echoed by the 2016 revival. As someone involved in the commissioning and mounting of that revival, I am keen to record here what questions the whole enterprise raised about the aesthetic and cultural value of the piece; what answers the exercise provided; and especially what the event suggested as an image of where creative responses to Shakespeare and to the history of his reception might find a place in the present-­day public sphere. Is Garrick’s Ode any good, whether as poetry alone, or as a performance piece compounded of recitation, recitative, solos and choral music? This was naturally one of the first things Ex Cathedra and Samuel West wanted to know when we started discussing the possibility of reviving it as part of the 2016 celebrations, but it is the question on which the work’s extensive reception history since 1769 has the least to offer. Strangely, even for those who know of it at all the Ode has been comprehensively upstaged by its own initial context and by its own historical significance.

Reviving Garrick

5

FIGURE 1.2  David Garrick reciting the Ode, 1769. The fact that the actor is shown holding a text of the poem provided a useful precedent for Samuel West.

For most of the last two and a half centuries, it has either been cursorily described in the course of a narrative about what happened at the Jubilee, or discussed as a distillation of what the whole Jubilee was intended to mean, or selectively quoted as a sample of how Garrick wanted to represent himself in relation to Shakespeare. But it has scarcely been analysed as an ode at all.4 This is the more remarkable given that not only the paratexts of the published Ode but its contents foreground Garrick’s anxiety that his own abilities as a writer might not be adequate to the rhetorical and poetic tasks which the Ode took on, as if prompting us to assess its level of literary accomplishment above all other considerations. In its printed form it begins with an apology: COULD some gentlemen of approved ability have been prevailed upon to do justice to the subject of the following Ode, the present apology would have been unnecessary; – but as it was requisite to produce something of this kind upon the occasion, and the lot having unluckily fallen on the person perhaps the least qualified to succeed in the attempt, it is hoped the candour of the public will esteem the performance rather as an act of duty, than vanity in the author.5 These sentiments are repeated in the poem itself, just before what was to become its most well-­known section, the lyric ‘Ye soft-­flowing Avon . . .’:

6

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

here Garrick wishes that Stratford’s praises were instead being sung by approved, properly learned poets from the ancient universities. O had those bards, who charm the list’ning shore Of Cam and Isis, tun’d their classic lays, And from their full and precious store, Vouchsaf’d to fairy-­haunted Avon praise! . . . Nor Greek, nor Roman streams would flow along, More sweetly clear, or more sublimely strong, Nor thus a shepherd’s feeble notes reveal, At once the weakest numbers, and the warmest zeal.6 There is doubtless some false modesty being advertised in these lines, as the ‘shepherd’ Garrick both rebukes the educational establishment for its neglect of Shakespeare to date and deliberately draws attention to his own status as the fittingly unprivileged chief disciple of the upstart crow. But it is perhaps symptomatic of a genuine awkwardness that in 2016 this fussy and diffident disclaimer was the passage which West at first found most difficult to construe and most difficult to incorporate into an overall trajectory through the poem. It has to be relevant, too, that when publishing the Ode Garrick seemed to feel that the poem itself was not to be trusted as an adequate statement about Shakespeare’s talent, encumbering the sixteen pages devoted to its text with an eighteen-­page appendix, ‘TESTIMONIES TO THE GENIUS AND MERITS OF SHAKESPEARE,’ an anthology of the accumulated praise of others, from Ben Jonson to Elizabeth Montagu. The 2016 revival, then, was a venture into the unknown rather than the revisiting of a work whose classic status had been assured from the start. It was also a venture onto what in present-­day culture is a faultline between the enjoyment of poetry and the enjoyment of music, art forms far less closely and routinely allied in our time than in Garrick’s, when theatrical bills regularly incorporated songs and recitations alongside spoken drama, and when the stages of the Theatres Royal occasionally played host to fusions of poetic declamation with incidental music of precisely the kind which Garrick’s Stratford performance imitated. (The most immediately relevant is William Havard’s even more thoroughly forgotten Ode to the Memory of Shakespeare, 1757).7 In 2016, if Garrick’s Ode was known at all, it was known to two quite distinct constituencies, namely literary and theatrical historians interested in Garrick and in Shakespeare’s reception, and musical connoisseurs interested in English music of the baroque period. When it was revived at Dartington Hall in 2000, tellingly, the piece was supplied with an entire prefatory monologue, spoken by the actor Clive Francis who would go on to recite the Ode, in which Garrick had to explain who he was and what the Shakespeare Jubilee was all about before the musicians ever struck up. We were especially fortunate in this regard to be able to cast Samuel West as our Garrick, not only because of his

Reviving Garrick

7

Garrick-­like talents and appearance (in 2016 West was roughly the same age Garrick had been in 1769, and like him was known for having played a great Hamlet and a great Benedick), but because his career had included substantial experience providing the spoken words in concert-­hall performances of classical compositions incorporating poetry. A highly musical actor known to the audiences of the Royal Shakespeare Company and of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra alike, here was someone who would understand not only what Garrick and the Ode meant for Shakespeareans, but what it might mean to devotees of Thomas Arne and indeed Sally Beamish. Given his work and indeed his zeal as a spokesman for the National Campaign for the Arts, West would also be as committed as we were to reaching new audiences beyond all of these groups, and alive to the Ode’s own implicit representation of Shakespeare as a freedom-­loving poet of all the people. West’s first task, however, involved taking on part of Garrick’s legacy not as a writer of lyrics but as an inspired self-­publicist. Early in the autumn of 2015, Ex Cathedra pointed out that the mechanics of modern public relations would shortly oblige them to start advertising the impending performances of the Ode on their website, and that for this they would need a suitable image that would somehow summarize it in advance. Such an image, they pointed out, might also be used for advertising purposes by any of the partner organizations involved in the commission (principally the Shakespeare Institute and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, but also Holy Trinity, and, as co-­producers, the Royal Shakespeare Company). I do not now remember why the task of producing it fell to me, beyond my longstanding interest in the iconography of Garrick’s self-­representation as Shakespeare’s chief representative on earth, but I do remember thinking that the exercise might be enjoyable, in a surreal way. In this I was not disappointed. My idea was to obtain a photograph that would look like a modern recreation of one of the many images of Garrick which show him with a statue or bust of Shakespeare, whether Gainsborough’s ‘David Garrick with a bust of Shakespeare’ (1769),8 ‘Mr Garrick reciting the Ode in honor of Shakespeare at the Jubilee at Stratford’ (1769),9 or Robert Edge Pine’s ‘Garrick delivering the ode to Shakspeare at the Jubilee, surrounded by Shakspearean characters’ (1784).10 All we would need to do would be to juxtapose West, ideally in some way marked as at least nominally representing someone from the eighteenth century, with a statue of Shakespeare, and take a fetching double portrait. In an ideal world, we would have used the very statue which the Ode dedicated, and in front of which it was recited, the metal copy of Peter Scheemakers’ 1740 statue in Westminster Abbey which Garrick presented to Stratford in 1769; but since this now occupies a niche on the front of Stratford town hall some twenty feet above the pavement, practicality ruled it out, quite apart from the possibility of having to spend several months petitioning the town council for permission to borrow it and almost certainly

8

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

FIGURE 1.3  The mulberry-­wood medallion Garrick wore as Steward of the Jubilee: confirming his self-­identification as Shakespeare’s representative on earth, the Ghost’s chosen Hamlet, its obverse quotes a Hamlet-­based line from the conclusion of the Ode: ‘We ne’er shall look upon his like again!’

Reviving Garrick

9

being turned down. Fortunately, however, another candidate, which also once co-­starred with Garrick, still exists, and at a much more accessible height, namely the almost identical statue of Shakespeare which Garrick bequeathed to Drury Lane Theatre and which now stands in a neglected corner of its foyer.11 I duly opened negotiations with the theatre management for permission to have West pose with it; booked a photographer and an available slot in West’s diary; and, in order to give West at least a token look of Garrick, set about obtaining an eighteenth-­century wig. The RSC’s entire stock of such things, inconveniently, was at the time in use in Helen Edmundson’s play Queen Anne at the Swan and unavailable for opportunistic borrowing, so in the event I had to hire a wig from a specialist supplier to the film industry. Solemnly bearing this unlikely object in its special box from the company’s Dickensian office in Shoreditch, I converged with the photographer and with West on the pre-­arranged morning in November 2015, only to discover, when we all arrived at Drury Lane, that the statue of Shakespeare had just been obscured completely by the erection of an immense Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-themed Christmas tree directly in front of it. Undaunted by this sorry evidence of Shakespeare’s current status at Garrick’s old headquarters, the photographer and I finally persuaded the front-­of-house staff to let us temporarily move the (very heavy and awkward) tree to one side, while West – still anachronistically

FIGURE 1.4  Samuel West, with one of Garrick’s copies of Scheemakers’ statue of Shakespeare: publicity photo, taken in the foyer of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, November 2015.

10

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

bearded from his recent performances in a season of Chekhov plays at Chichester, but promising to shave before April unless lucratively cast in a bearded film role at the time – adjusted his modern jacket lapels and collar and put on a white scarf to look vaguely eighteenth-­century, and donned the wig. Despite the visible anxiety of the front-­of-house staff as West clambered onto the statue’s plinth and put one arm around its shoulder, the results were exactly as I had wished. Great actors have an under-­praised skill at responding obediently and expressively to direction. All I had to do was suggest that West ought to look at once proprietorial and almost intolerably pleased with himself, and the thing was done. The Ode proper, though, would present him with much more of a challenge. At Holy Trinity, for one thing, West would not have such a convincing and authentic co-­star. He and Ex Cathedra would have to be placed at the focus of the nave, well in front of the choir stalls and much too far from the sanctuary for the bust of Shakespeare above his grave to be usefully visible to either the actor or the audience. The fact that the Ode would on this occasion be performed in the very building in which Shakespeare is buried might give it an added intellectual frisson, and might even usefully renew something of the sense of dangerous idolatry the poem carried in 1769,12 but it would not in practice supply a built-­in replacement for the statue. As it turns out, furthermore, readily portable life-­size statues of Shakespeare, able to be placed in the middle of Holy Trinity Church on a Friday and then easily removed in time for an entire civic procession of well-­ wishers to pass down the nave en route to lay flowers on the playwright’s grave the following morning, are shockingly scarce when you need them. Fortunately, one was within a mile or so of Holy Trinity at the time, in the possession of the Royal Shakespeare Company: the polystyrene copy of the Scheemakers’ likeness used in Peter Barnes’ 2001 play Jubilee. Mercifully that play’s director Gregory Doran, now artistic director of the whole RSC, was graciously willing to have it exhumed from storage and placed once more in the limelight. Barnes’ play is fairly satirical about the Jubilee, and the plastic statue made for its original production could not be said to be a very reverent piece of work – frankly, its styling suggests not a baroque tribute to sublime genius but a one-­off prank carried out at a garden gnome factory. But with the singers and musicians clustered around it and with West holding forth in the foreground, perhaps it would do. It was another potential prop which stimulated the first substantial discussion I had with West about how best to bring the Ode back to life. The next occasion on which we met after the photo shoot in London was at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, where West’s first participation in a 2016 Shakespeare anniversary event was a performance, with the BSO, of William Walton’s Henry V suite. This has become one of his signature pieces, and it was easy to see why: rather than simply speaking the extracts from Shakespeare’s script which Walton’s music accompanies and on which it comments, West essentially gives an abbreviated live solo performance of

Reviving Garrick

11

Henry V, moving fluently around the stage, adjusting his body language to suit each character he voices, fully embodying Walton’s and Shakespeare’s drama at once. Backstage afterwards, he was congratulated by the conductor and others on the added vividness he brings to the Walton simply by having learned the lines, quite apart from the thespian skill he brings to enacting them, and several musicians commented on how comparatively inert this piece can be in performance when the spoken passages are merely read aloud, even by good actors. West and I started talking then and there about whether he should memorize the whole of the Ode, or whether he should recite it from a script. If what we were seeking to do was produce an ‘original practices’ revival – which, given that we would be using a smaller orchestra and choir than Garrick’s and some new music by Beamish, and would consciously be serving as the first act for a wholly new work by Duffy, we definitely weren’t – the evidence was fairly clear. Although in Pine’s idealized, posthumous ‘Garrick delivering the ode to Shakspeare at the Jubilee, surrounded by Shakspearean characters’ the actor has both hands free (one to gesture towards Shakespeare, one with which to indicate his own feeling breast), in those engravings which are closer in date to the occasion and which have stronger claims to be impartial records of its appearance he holds at least a book in his left hand. In an engraving which shows Garrick declaiming the poem at Drury Lane, moreover (at the culmination of the smash-­hit afterpiece The Jubilee by which he recouped the losses he made at the festival itself),13 he holds a large scroll, which suggestively echoes the one to which the statue of Shakespeare is pointing behind him.14 Like the poem’s own printed introduction, the original live occasion seems to have invited its audience to respond not so much to Garrick’s undiluted performance as to the poem as a text: the actor was not simulating on-­the-spot inspiration but visibly giving voice to something he had authored, a literary work which his audience were to judge as such. In the event, by the time we returned to the question of whether West should hold a script – when, a month before the performance, we had the sole in-­depth session with the poem’s text that our schedules permitted, at a French patisserie in Islington – the question had answered itself, since West admitted that he was finding much of Garrick’s poem insufficiently fluent or logically structured to be absolutely sure that without a text to refer to he could guarantee getting all of its lines in the right order. The sung passages had doubtless provided Garrick with deliberate opportunities to turn aside and look at what was coming next in the poem, and West would use them in the same way. With a visible script, he suggested, the whole piece might be usefully Brechtian – the audience would see and judge an actor playing an actor consciously performing that actor’s poem, and the musical interludes would allow them to think about it too. With luck, the historical fancy dress which West, the musicians and the singers would all wear would also be productively alienating, rather than just escapist or twee.

12

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

This settled, we discussed at length how Garrick’s very eighteenth-­century verbal idiom might be enlivened and variegated. The key, for West, lay in distinguishing vocally the different Shakespearean figures to which different sections of the poem allude, as if he were delivering certain passages in character: a quasi-Miltonic Chorus from Henry V for ‘O from his muse of fire / Could but one spark be caught . . .’ (5) and an imperious Lear for ‘Ingratitude would drop the tear . . . .’ (5); a penitent Claudius for ‘Ye guilty, lawless tribe . . . .’ (6) and a despairing Macbeth for ‘They live indeed, but live to feel . . . .’; a jovial Falstaff for ‘With kindling cheeks and sparkling eyes’ (9–10); a reverent Hamlet for ‘We ne’er shall look upon his like again!’ (15), and so on. This way West’s performance of the poem might sound a bit less like an exercise in rhetorical antiquarianism and a bit more like a one-­ man RSC. It was beginning to sound quite promising, and the croissants were excellent. During this discussion, I was reminded of something about West as an actor that I had almost forgotten, but which the sheer volume of the notes he made while rehearsing the role of Hamlet (now deposited in the Shakespeare Institute library) might have reminded me: he is as obsessive a researcher as any PhD student. Simply talking through the poem and its original context in the café, one outcome of this was less visible than it would be at the performance proper, but it became clear that West had already sought out and studied most of the surviving images of Garrick in his major Shakespearean roles. In due course I would be suitably delighted and impressed by the way in which West was able to offer not just a repertoire of different vocal tones and inflections for the quasi-­characterized passages in the Ode, but a run-­through of the matching gestures and body-­shapes, culled from Pine, Fuseli Zoffany and the rest, which Garrick had adopted when playing the relevant characters. Whatever other publics the occasion might convene, it would surely provide a memorable night out for theatre historians. The 400th anniversary of the death of the most important single writer in world literature, however, was surely an event with a bearing on more people than the members of the Society for Theatre Research, if any of them would even be sufficiently free and mobile to get to Warwickshire for the performance. In the church on 22 April, and on the subsequent occasions over the ensuing days when West and Ex Cathedra took the combined programme of Garrick’s Ode and Duffy’s Masque to other venues around the Midlands, I have to admit that the first half of the event was comprehensively eclipsed, quite properly, by the second. Many in the audience were parents and well-­wishers of the schoolchildren conscripted to form the processions and choirs of A Shakespeare Masque after the interval, and by comparison to the modern, biographical and highly personalized idiom of Duffy’s piece, the Ode must have seemed, to spectators many of whom had no experience of live Shakespeare, like a baffling sample of everything they had always assumed live Shakespeare to be: declamatory,

Reviving Garrick

13

verbally difficult, obsolete, played in ‘olde worlde’ costume, and to be endured in constrainedly polite silence. The thrilling blasphemy implicit in declaring Shakespeare the god of our idolatry not in a temporary pavilion but actually in a real church, meanwhile, seemed to pass most of those present by, Bardolatry and Anglicanism having perhaps alike faded into the realms of generic heritage. Arne’s music, by contrast, especially ‘Thou soft-­ flowing Avon’, seemed genuinely to please, perhaps more than did that of Beamish. As someone who has been writing about the Ode on and off for well over thirty years, I am hardly a representative sample of the general populace, let alone someone capable of giving a disinterested short answer to the question as to whether it is any good, but my own response to seeing and hearing it at last was a curiously double one. I was at once much more impressed and delighted with it as a multi-­media work for live performance than I had anticipated, and struck by how comparatively useless and inaccessible and merely quaint it seemed to be for everyone else there. Alas, 2016 was a big year for being outvoted. But then again, as in 1769 the live event was only part of the story. Just as Garrick’s Jubilee and his Ode alike did their great work for Shakespeare’s national and international status largely by repute and in print rather than for the unfortunate few who actually underwent the discomforts of the Jubilee, so this revival reached many more people via radio and the internet than it did in person. On radio, it was at least informative: while the audience at Holy Trinity made do with fairly light-­touch explanatory programme notes aimed mainly at the schools from which Duffy’s choruses would be drawn, and spent the interval being taught the passages in Duffy’s masque in which audience participation was invited, the BBC Radio 3 audience had the option of listening to Ewan Fernie and me talking live, throughout the gap between the two halves of the performance, about the entire history of Shakespeare’s reception, its libertarian valences, and the place of both Garrick and Duffy within it. And even if most of them did so electronically and in isolation, many more people heard Garrick’s Ode in 2016 than in 1769, and they heard it performed remarkably well. It is not the least of the benefits that the Shakespeare canon and the Shakespeare cult have brought to the world that they license an element of the eccentric as well as of the sublime, and, to invoke the other great Renaissance creative genius celebrated in 2016, putting on the Garrick Ode seemed an enrichingly quixotic thing to do. I was very pleased to note at Holy Trinity that at the close of the Ode’s first stanza – when West, as we had discussed, finally answered the poem’s opening rhetorical questions by pronouncing the playwright’s loved, revered immortal name three times, calling on a different section of the audience with hand gestures each time – many people did overcome their sense of being on their best behaviour at a cultural event in a church and joined in. It may be that electronic surveillance unknowingly carried out via infiltrated domestic devices is by now at such an advanced and viral stage that somebody, somewhere already knows how many of those who consumed the Ode as a podcast also called out, when the cue

14

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

came, ‘SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE!’ I hope it was an overwhelming majority.

David Garrick, An Ode upon Dedicating a building and Erecting a Statue, to Shakespeare, at Stratford Upon Avon (1769) ode

To what blest genius of the isle, Shall Gratitude her tribute pay, Decree the festive day, Erect the statue, and devote the pile? Do not your sympathetic hearts accord, To own the ‘bosom’s lord?’ ’Tis he! ’tis he! – that demi-­god! Who Avon’s flow’ry margin trod, While sportive Fancy round him flew, Where Nature led him by the hand, Instructed him in all she knew, And gave him absolute command! ’Tis he! ’tis he! ‘The god of our idolatry!’ To him the song, the Edifice we raise, He merits all our wonder, all our praise! Yet ere impatient joy break forth, To tell his name, and speak his worth, And to your spell-­bound minds impart Some faint idea of his magic art; Let awful silence still the air! From the dark cloud, the hidden light Bursts tenfold bright! Prepare! prepare! prepare! Now swell at once the choral song, Roll the full tide of harmony along; Let Rapture sweep the trembling strings, And Fame expanding all her wings, With all her trumpet-­tongues proclaim, The lov’d, rever’d, immortal name! SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE! Let th’ inchanting sound, From Avon’s shores rebound;

Reviving Garrick

Thro’ the Air, Let it bear, The precious freight the envious nations round! chorus .

Swell the choral song, Roll the tide of harmony along, Let Rapture sweep the strings, Fame expand her wings, With her trumpet-­tongues proclaim, The lov’d, rever’d, immortal name! SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE! air . I. Sweetest bard that ever sung, Nature’s glory, Fancy’s child; Never sure did witching tongue, Warble forth such wood-­notes wild!

II. Come each Muse, and sister Grace, Loves and Pleasures hither come; Well you know this happy place, Avon’s banks were once your home. III. Bring the laurel, bring the flow’rs, Songs of triumph to him raise; He united all your pow’rs, All uniting, sing his praise! Tho’ Philip’s fam’d unconquer’d son, Had ev’ry blood-­stain’d laurel won; He sigh’d – that his creative word, (Like that which rules the skies,) Could not bid other nations rise, To glut his yet unsated sword: But when our SHAKESPEARE’S matchless pen Like Alexander’s sword, had done with men; He heav’d no sigh, he made no moan, Not limited to human kind, He fir’d his wonder-­teeming mind, Rais’d other worlds, and beings of his own!

15

16

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

air .

When Nature, smiling, hail’d his birth, To him unbounded pow’r was given; The whirlwind’s wing to sweep the sky, ‘The frenzy-­rowling eye, To glance from heav’n to earth, From earth to heav’n!’ O from his muse of fire Could but one spark be caught, Then might these humble strains aspire, To tell the wonders he has wrought. To tell, – how sitting on his magic throne, Unaided and alone, In dreadful state, The subject passions round him wait; Who tho’ unchain’d, and raging there, He checks, inflames, or turns their mad career; With that superior skill, Which winds the fiery steel at will, He gives the aweful word – And they, all foaming, trembling, own him for their Lord. With these his slaves he can controul, Or charm the soul; So realiz’d are all his golden dreams, Of terror, pity, love, and grief, Tho’ conscious that the vision only seems, The woe-­struck mind finds no relief: Ingratitude would drop the tear, Cold-­blooded age take fire, To see the thankless children of old Lear, Spurn at their king, and sire! With his our reason too grows wild! What nature had disjoin’d, The poet’s pow’r combin’d, Madness and age, ingratitude and child. Ye guilty, lawless tribe, Escap’d from punishment, by art or bribe, At Shakespeare’s bar appear! No bribing, shuffling there – His genius, like a rushing flood, Cannot be withstood,

Reviving Garrick

Out bursts the penitential tear! The look appall’d, the crime reveals, The marble-­hearted monster feels, Whose hand is stan’d with blood. semi-chorus .

When law is weak, and justice fails, The poet holds the sword and scales. air . Though crimes from death and torture fly, The swifter muse, Their flight pursues, Guilty mortals more than die! They live indeed, but live to feel The scourge and wheel, ‘On the torture of the mind they lie;’ Should harrass’d nature sink to rest, The Poet wakes the scorpion in the breast, Guilty mortals more than die!

When our Magician, more inspir’d, By charms, and spells, and incantations fir’d, Exerts his most tremendous pow’r; The thunder growls, the heavens low’r, And to his darken’d throne repair, The Demons of the deep, and Spirits of the air! But soon these horrors pass away, Thro’ storms and night breaks forth the day. He smiles, – they vanish into air! The buskin’d warriors disappear! Mute the trumpets, mute the drums, The scene is chang’d – Thalia comes, Leading the nymph Euphrosyne, Goddess of joy and liberty! She and her sisters, hand in hand, Link’d to a num’rous frolick band, With roses and with myrtle crown’d, O’er the green velvet lightly bound, Circling the Monarch of th’ inchanted land! air . I. Wild, frantick with pleasure, They trip it in measure,

17

18

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

To bring him their treasure, The treasure of joy. II. How gay is the measure, How sweet is the pleasure, How great is the treasure, The treasure of joy. III. Like roses fresh blowing, Their dimpled-­cheeks glowing, His mind is o’erflowing; A treasure of joy! IV. His rapture perceiving, They smile while they’re giving, He smiles at receiving, A treasure of joy. With kindling cheeks, and sparkling eyes, Surrounded thus, the Bard in transport dies; The little Loves, like bees, Clust’ring and climbing up his knees, His brows with roses bind; While Fancy, Wit, and Humour spread Their wings, and hover round his head, Impregnating his mind. Which teeming soon, as soon brought forth, Not a tiny spurious birth, But out a mountain came, A mountain of delight! laughter roar’d out to see the sight, And falstaff was his name! With sword and shield he, puffing, strides; The joyous revel-­rout Receive him with a shout, And modest Nature holds her sides: No single pow’r the deed had done, But great and small, Wit, Fancy, Humour, Whim, and Jest, The huge, mis-shapen heap impress’d; And lo – sir john ! A compound of ‘em all, A comic world in ONE.

Reviving Garrick

air . A world where all pleasures abound, So fruitful the earth, So quick to bring forth, And the world too is wicked and round. As the well-­teeming earth, With rivers and show’rs, Will smiling bring forth Her fruits and her flow’rs; So falstaff will never decline; Still fruitful and gay, He moistens his clay, And his rain and his rivers are wine; Of the world he has all, but its care; No load, but of flesh, will he bear; He laughs off his pack, Takes a cup of old sack, And away with all sorrow and care.

Like the rich rainbow’s various dyes, Whose circle sweeps o’er earth and skies, The heav’n-­born muse appears; Now in the brightest colours gay, Now quench’d in show’rs, she fades away Now blends her smiles and tears. Sweet Swan of Avon! ever may thy stream Of tuneful numbers be the darling theme; Not Thames himself, who in his silver course Triumphant rolls along, Britannia’s riches and her force, Shall more harmonious flow in song. O had those bards, who charm the list’ning shore Of Cam and Isis, tun’d their classic lays, And from their full and precious store, Vouchsaf’d to fairy-­haunted Avon praise! (Like that kind bounteous hand15, Which lately gave the ravish’d eyes Of Stratford swains A rich command, Of widen’d river, lengthen’d plains, And opening skies) Nor Greek, nor Roman streams would flow along, More sweetly clear, or more sublimely strong, Nor thus a shepherd’s feeble notes reveal, At once the weakest numbers, and the warmest zeal.

19

20

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

air .

I. Thou soft-­flowing Avon, by thy silver stream, Of things more than mortal, sweet Shakespeare would dream, The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, For hallow’d the turf is which pillow’d his head. II. The love-­stricken maiden, the soft-­sighing swain, Here rove without danger, and sigh without pain, The sweet bud of beauty, no blight shall here dread, For hallow’d the turf is which pillow’d his head. III. Here youth shall be fam’d, for their love, and their truth And chearful old age, feel the spirit of youth; For the raptures of fancy here poets shall tread, For hallow’d the turf is that pillow’d his head. IV. Flow on, silver Avon, in song ever flow, Be the swans on thy bosom still whiter than snow, Ever full be thy stream, like his fame may it spread, And the turf ever hallow’d which pillow’d his head. Tho’ bards with envy-­aching eyes, Behold a tow’ring eagle rise, And would his flight retard; Yet each to Shakespeare’s genius bows, Each weaves a garland for his brows, To crown th’ heaven-­distinguish’d Bard. Nature had form’d him on her noblest plan, And to the genius join’d the feeling man. What tho’ with more than mortal art, Like Neptune he directs the storm, Lets loose like winds the passions of the heart, To wreck the human form; Tho’ from his mind rush forth, the Demons to destroy, His heart ne’er knew but love, and gentleness, and joy. air . More gentle than the southern gale, Which softly fans the blossom’d vale, And gathers on its balmy wing, The fragrant treasures of the spring,

Reviving Garrick

Breathing delight on all it meets, ‘And giving, as it steals, the sweets.’ Look down blest spirit from above, With all thy wonted gentleness and love; And as the wonders of thy pen, By heav’n inspir’d, To virtue fir’d, The charm’d, astonish’d, sons of men! With no reproach, even now, thou view’st thy work To nature sacred as to truth, Where no alluring mischiefs lurk, To taint the mind of youth. Still to thy native spot thy smiles extend, And as thou gav’st it fame, that fame defend; And may no sacrilegious hand Near Avon’s banks be found, To dare to parcel out the land, And limit Shakespeare’s hallow’d ground16. For ages free, still be it unconfin’d, As broad, and general, as thy boundless mind. Can British gratitude delay, To him the glory of this isle, To give the festive day The song, the statue, and devoted pile? To him the first of poets, best of men? ‘We ne’er shall look upon his like again!’ duett . Shall the hero laurels gain, For ravag’d fields, and thousands slain? And shall his brows no laurels bind, Who charms to virtue humankind? chorus .

We will, – his brows with laurel bind, Who charms to virtue human kind: Raise the pile, the statue raise, Sing immortal Shakespeare’s praise! The song will cease, the stone decay, But his Name, And undiminish’d fame, Shall never, never pass away.

21

2 A Shakespeare Masque: Reflections on an Anniversary Commission with Sally Beamish and Carol Ann Duffy Paul Edmondson

Throughout our ongoing explorations of what we mean by ‘Civic Shakespeare’, Ewan Fernie and I considered David Garrick’s Stratford Jubilee of 1769 to be a watershed moment. Garrick’s event saw Shakespeare breaking out of the theatres, the libraries and studies and taking to the streets. But professional Shakespearians have traditionally felt embarrassed by Garrick’s Ode to Shakespeare. Whilst it has become the most famous, it was not the first such work that might cause us now to blush. That honour goes to William Havard’s (1710?–1778) Ode to the Memory of Shakespeare, set to music by William Boyce (1711–1779) and first performed in 1756, and, for a time, annually. Havard’s ode ends with the couplet: Then, Britain, boast that to thy Sons was giv’n The greatest Genius ever sent from Heav’n!1 On learning of plans for the Stratford Jubilee in 1769, Havard wrote to Garrick to offer him the use of his Ode. But Garrick turned Havard down; he wanted to produce his own song of praise.2 Embarrassment might be prompted by any ‘civic’ happening. The music and flags of yesterday’s parade or pageant might seem at best quaint, at worse jingoistic, or otherwise morally and politically outmoded, when viewed from later perspectives. Whilst acknowledging those feelings of

24

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

embarrassment, especially around Garrick’s Ode, we felt it crucial to move through and beyond them, to critique and reclaim them, not to mind (too much) about our cultural blushes, but rather to create a new ode out of them, even in spite of them. The new piece would embody a response to Shakespeare arising out of our own culture, rather than merely praising him. One way of re-­assessing and reclaiming Garrick’s Ode (as Michael Dobson has described in the previous chapter) was to re-­stage it; another was to commission a new piece specifically in light of it. That is why we decided to ask the Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy (officially the United Kingdom’s most prominent civic poet) if she would take up the challenge. Her words would be set to music by the distinguished British composer Sally Beamish. A description of A Shakespeare Masque in performance comes towards the end of David Fuller’s essay in this volume. What now follows are some reflections on Duffy’s libretto and Beamish’s score, including some of their own words, gathered (unless otherwise stated) from private interviews. We are immensely grateful to Carol Ann and her agent Peter Straus for allowing us to print her full text of A Shakespeare Masque, and to Sally Beamish and Edition Peters for permission to quote from her score.

FIGURE 2.1  No embarrassment here: Samuel West takes on the role of David Garrick in the 1769 Ode for Ex Cathedra’s Shakespeare Odes concert, 2016. West’s portrayal was precise and serious. He spoke the words with a razor-­sharp emphasis as though we would inevitably be agreeing with their sentiments.

A Shakespeare Masque

25

Commissioning The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, co-­commissioned the words for the new piece; and the choir Ex Cathedra commissioned the music. As part of this process, Ewan Fernie and I gave Duffy a copy of Garrick’s Ode. When we next met to discuss the commission, Duffy expressed her own feelings of embarrassment (and indeed disappointment) about Garrick’s poem. She found it too nationalistic; in fact she almost turned down the commission because of this. But, following our discussions and shared deliberations, Duffy knew that she could produce a new work in light of Garrick, neither influenced by him, nor writing against him. The work became known as A Shakespeare Masque. Duffy recalls: This idea came from Sally. We’d discussed using Garrick’s Ode as a template but I wasn’t comfortable with the, potentially, pseudo-­grandeur of this model. The masque form worked better for both of us, and allowed me to write smaller texts to form a whole. A Shakespeare Masque was Duffy’s twenty-first-century answer to the problems posed by Garrick’s ode. I well recall, at an early commissioning meeting, Ex Cathedra’s conductor and Artistic Director, Jeffrey Skidmore, saying, ‘The best model is Noye’s Fludde’ (referring to Benjamin Britten’s 1958 one-­act opera for amateur community choirs, based on the Chester mystery play about Noah). Skidmore’s requirement helped to crystallize the creative brief for our new commission. The piece would be written for both children and adult performers of mixed professional and amateur standards; it would tell a story, or (as it turned out) present elements of one; it would involve home-­ spun costumes and props; it would invite the audience to sing as part of the performance (as Noye’s Fludde invites its audience to sing three hymns); and it would be available for re-­staging by amateur groups seeking to celebrate Shakespeare. Whilst Beamish and Duffy were willing to take up the commission, it was not necessarily easy, and progress was slow. ‘We were geographically apart,’ recalls Duffy, ‘and worked slowly, but this was useful as we were able to discuss the growth and direction of the piece. Sally was very good in communicating the needs of the music.’

Words Initially, Duffy thought she would produce pieces inspired by Jacques’s famous ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech. A Shakespeare Masque contains the seeds of those early intentions, but presents a progression through Shakespeare’s personal and public lives, his private and professional selves.

26

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

‘I was interested in the human,’ says Duffy, ‘in his childhood, schooldays, garden, relationships – particularly as the piece was to be premiered in Stratford. Shakespeare seems always to be disappearing round a corner, so I was keen to catch what glimpses I could – but seeing him always as a writer.’ Duffy’s project was, therefore, largely biographical in its scope. A full text of her words appears at the end of this chapter. The premiere took place in Holy Trinity Church, within a few yards of Shakespeare’s grave, and on the ‘eve’ of his birthday and memorial day (22 April 2016). The opening of A Shakespeare Masque incorporates four lines from Duffy’s sonnet ‘Shakespeare’, and returns to these words at the end when the audience themselves are invited to sing them along with the performers. According to Duffy’s sonnet, Shakespeare knew of his own immortality, ‘And so, you knew this well, you do not die’. The repetition of these lines provides a cyclical quality to the structure of A Shakespeare Masque; Shakespeare does not die, but continuously reappears, reborn. Encouraging the audience to take ownership of these words through singing them turned the performance into a liturgy, even a corporate statement of belief, as well as a shared celebration. Shakespeare, according to Duffy’s metaphor, is ‘a great Cathedral’ and needs the people to be present in order to realise his ‘genius’, needs us, his audiences, in order to establish his ‘this place’. The words of Duffy’s libretto are direct but supple; her diction is modern, but effortlessly incorporates allusions to Shakespeare. The first poem, ‘Adsum’, evokes Shakespeare’s experience of being drilled with Latin grammar at the King’s New School in Stratford-­upon-Avon. It imagines the boys answering ‘Adsum’ (‘I am here’) in response to their names being read

FIGURE 2.2  From towards the end of Sally Beamish’s score for A Shakespeare Masque: the phrase from Carol Ann Duffy’s sonnet ‘Shakespeare’, which the audience are invited to sing with the performers.

A Shakespeare Masque

27

from the school’s register. Along with the memories of Shakespeare’s Latin lessons come his day-­dreams. Christopher Marlowe’s lovely line – ‘melodious birds sing madrigals’ (from his famous lyric ‘Come live with me and be my love’) – serves as a touchstone for Shakespeare’s poetic context, but it is formational training in Latin that, Duffy suggests, makes all his poetry possible. Hamlet (‘Here’s Rosemary for Remembrance’, recalling 4.5.173), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (‘I know a bank where the wild thyme blows’, 2.1.249), and As You Like It (‘shining morning face’, 2.7.146) are all alluded to, as well as the Stratford-­upon-Avon locale of Shakespeare’s boyhood, the swans on the Avon, his walking to school, the ‘local accent’, his father John Shakespeare’s glover’s workshop in their Henley Street home: genius can even make itself expressed through ‘one odd glove on a glover’s shelf.’ A Shakespeare Masque opens with a reminder of the boyhood behind the works; the presence of Shakespeare’s hometown runs through his plays and poems. Shakespeare’s overarching artistic project was identified in the next poem: ‘Please One and Please All’. He is identified as the Poet of Nature with a special interest in forests, flowers and birds, as well as a poet who is locally rooted, and part of the ordinary and parochial. The song mentions ‘Henley Street’ and ‘Shottery’ from Shakespeare’s own time, and Stratford-­uponAvon’s ‘Old Thatch Tavern’ and re-­named ‘Market Place’ from later periods. But his ability to ‘please’ also expresses itself through the range of his works, from ‘Be comical’, ‘Be magical’, the lyrical nostalgia of Twelfth Night, or what you will with its ‘cakes and ale’ (2.3.114) and the ‘fairy dell’ antics of Puck, the ‘merry wanderer’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2.1.43), to the mortality of ‘golden lasses, / golden lads’ of Cymbeline (‘golden lads and girls all must’, 4.2.262). These are some of the public-­facing ‘pleasures’ of Shakespeare’s works, no more or less than common or inevitable human experiences. ‘This Wooden O’ calls to mind the theatre with which Shakespeare is most associated, The Globe, and alludes to the ciphers mentioned during the invocation of the muses of fire, poetry and drama at the beginning of Henry V (Prologue, line 17). Crammed into Duffy’s ‘Wooden O’ are many more of Shakespeare’s works, and moods. Soprano Katie Trethewey sang the haunting line about Cleopatra – ‘her visiting moon the gaping loss of O’ (Antony and Cleopatra, 4.15.70). Appropriately, Trethewey would return as the voice of Anne Shakespeare. Duffy’s repeated ‘O in forever’ again conveys a cyclical sense of immortality. ‘In Your Heart’, with its opening assonance of ‘swans’, ‘Thames’, and ‘rhymes’ reflects on the biographical trope which presents Shakespeare’s personality and life experiences as being submerged in his works. The death of his son Hamnet aged eleven in 1596 is alluded to in ‘a living childhood and a dying child’. Shakespeare’s religion, traditionally the cause of much debate and discussion, is presented as Roman Catholic ‘an old religion and a coded faith’. The echoing (but lost) laughter of the professional theatres,

28

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

and the echoing (and lost) love of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, are both evoked in the final stanza (there is reference to the biographical tropes with ‘darkest lady and the fairest youth’). Throughout this song, Shakespeare comes and goes, and vanishes into poetry; forever challenging biographical endeavour, he is only ever poetically (and intermittently) present. ‘Anne Hathaway’ originally formed part of Duffy’s 1999 collection The World’s Wife. In A Shakespeare Masque it becomes a virtuosic soprano solo (an image of Katie Trethewey singing it in Holy Trinity Church is included on the cover of this book). In the context of Duffy’s celebratory commission for 2016, ’Anne Hathaway’ provided the opportunity for a song to be cast from a non-­rhyming sonnet (apart from the closing couplet). This was the moment when A Shakespeare Masque presented the most important woman in Shakespeare’s life. Part of the poem’s power, like Shakespeare’s own sonnets, comes from the fact that it is about the making of poetry, here made synonymous with the making of love: my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. It is in this poem that Duffy seems most to identify her own endeavour as a poet with Shakespeare’s, but through the imagined perspective of his wife; as Anne Shakespeare makes poetry about loving, being loved, and writing, Duffy seems fully to possess those experiences as her own. Duffy, as it were, marries Shakespeare in this poem, eliding her own persona as poet with that of a sexually fulfilled and empowered wife. The short poem that forms part of ‘Galliard’ was mystically portrayed at the premiere. Sally Beamish was clear that she would like part of A Shakespeare Masque to include an invocation of Shakespeare around his grave, and asked Duffy to write something especially for this. The lighting suddenly changed and the chancel of Holy Trinity Church ahead of us became our focal-­point. Duffy’s words which portrayed Shakespeare speaking from beyond death were sung hauntingly by five singers at his graveside. ‘Do not seek to scan my bones’ reminded many in the 2016 audiences of the then recent archaeological endeavours to do precisely that. The results of the infra-­red scanning investigation in 2015 found evidence that Shakespeare’s corpse was buried directly in the earth, wrapped only in a woollen shroud, and only three feet below the surface. The same is true of his wife and the other members of the Shakespeare family buried just in front of the high altar. The phrase ‘Do not seek’ alludes to Gertrude’s ‘Do not for ever with thy vailèd lids / Seek for thy noble father in the dust’ (Hamlet, 1.2.70–71), but I also hear in it a faint rebuke for our seeking to patronize the past. The scanning of Shakespeare’s grave had been partly motivated by doubts that there would even be a corpse beneath the stone slab traditionally supposed to mark the place of Shakespeare’s burial. But the fact that evidence for a skeleton was discovered

A Shakespeare Masque

29

there should not be surprising. The words in this short poem are significantly reminiscent of Duffy’s poem Richard, which she wrote for Richard III’s re-­ interment in Leicester Cathedral in 2015. It begins: My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil, a human braille.3 and goes on, in line ten, to name ‘the Resurrection of the Dead’. During ‘Galliard’ we heard the enigmatic ‘Death has atoned Servant to Life in my words’, a reminder perhaps of Shakespeare’s recurring use of resurrection narratives in his plays. ‘Under the Mulberry’ also helps to root A Shakespeare Masque in Stratford-­upon-Avon, by specifically alluding to New Place. Like the short poem which preceded it, this work, too, is cast in Shakespeare’s imagined voice, again from beyond the grave. It was sung with a spiritual solemnity in the pulpit by baritone Greg Skidmore as Shakespeare. As an aria, ‘Under a Mulberry’ complements ‘Anne Hathaway’, and follows on from the phrase ‘Life in my words’ heard during ‘Galliard’. The deep blood-­red of the mulberry juice is likened to Shakespeare’s ink, as well as to the pages printed for his readers; Shakespeare’s act of writing, and our reading, enjoy a mystical union (like marriage) under his mulberry tree. In the next stanza, the poem reminds us of Shakespeare’s shipwrecks: my time was a sea between you and my verse Verse (sibilant and echoic here, like the sea) is heard as well as seen, and can transform even a civic garden into a coastline. Shakespeare’s mulberry tree at New Place is where the two main centres of his life – Stratford-­upon-Avon and London – meet, but it is also where he meets visitors who ‘walk quoting now’, and where they might encounter him. The poem takes us back to Holy Trinity Church, to Shakespeare’s bones, and there is a subtle allusion in the final stanza to Sonnet 81, especially its couplet: You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen, Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men. (Sonnet 81, lines 13–14) ‘If you breathe English now’, then you are breathing Shakespeare’s poetry implies Duffy. As the Poet Laureate, thinking about Shakespeare as a poet of the people, Duffy believes that he has come to embody not only our voices, but also the language we use: ‘he practically is the English language,’ she said to me, a comment which also inevitably acknowledges Shakespeare’s international currency.

30

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

The libretto ends with Duffy’s sonnet ‘Shakespeare’ (originally commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to mark the end of the World Shakespeare Festival in 2012). Her reading this poem, on the occasion of it being unveiled on the walls of the Swan Theatre, Stratford-­upon-Avon, was the first time I met Duffy.4 We began a conversation which would eventually lead to the commissioning of A Shakespeare Masque. As a climax to the piece, her sonnet acts as a culmination of what has gone before: Shakespeare’s schooling, his rootedness in Stratford-­upon-Avon as ‘dear lad, local’, his poetry ‘the living human music’, London (‘Two rivers quote your name’ hints at the Thames, as well as the Avon), his career, and the transforming power of his poetry. But Shakespeare’s poetry, says Duffy, is about more than transformation; it is about redemption. At the unveiling of ‘Shakespeare’ in 2012, she told me that her phrase ‘redeemed in poetry’ was almost going to be ‘alive in poetry’, but that she needed ‘something more remarkable’: ‘alive’ became ‘redeemed’, a late revision. Part of poetry’s redemption, like Shakespeare’s propensity to reappear and be reborn, is that it is never-­ending; poetry ‘ends here, begins again.’ By singing the final lines, we, the audience not only participated in making A Shakespeare Masque come full circle, but took upon ourselves the role of ‘pilgrims, redeemed in poetry’. The religious discourse at work in ‘Shakespeare’ (‘word-­blessed’, ‘a thousand written souls’, ‘you do not die’) makes the overall impact of

FIGURE 2.3  ‘One of Britain’s very best choirs’:5 Jeffrey Skidmore conducts Ex Cathedra in A Shakespeare Masque (Holy Trinity Church). The broken consort are seated in front of the choir. The ribbons worn by the schoolchildren echo the rainbow ribbon commissioned by Garrick for the 1769 Stratford Jubilee.

A Shakespeare Masque

31

Duffy’s words for A Shakespeare Masque compellingly complicit with (if not directly influenced by) Garrick’s 1769 Ode: ‘’Tis he! ’tis he! “The god of our idolatry!”’ – Shakespeare – ‘The lov’d, rever’d, immortal name!’ (see p. 14). Whilst Duffy had originally expressed embarrassment about Garrick’s ode, her new work takes her beyond the conventional taboos of current criticism and provides instead the basis for a non-­dogmatic, ritual redemption of the human.

Music Sally Beamish has long admired the work of the choir Ex Cathedra and its artistic director, Jeffrey Skidmore. She was excited to be working with them, especially on a project which would require such a range of musicians: professional, professionally-­trained amateur, youth choir and primary schoolchildren. Her score became no less than a community gathering in the name of Shakespeare. Her main challenge with A Shakespeare Masque was writing for a broken consort (an ensemble of instruments from more than one family, in this case wind and strings). The idea had been mooted early on in the commissioning period, and Skidmore himself had referenced Thomas Morley’s The First Book of Consort Lessons, published in 1599 and for the same instruments that Beamish would use. Although she had composed for the recorder and viols, the broken consort would include instruments that Shakespeare had certainly known but for which Beamish had never before composed: three plucked instruments from the lute family – the cittern, the lute itself, and the bandora (a low-­pitched instrument). She recalls: In a kind of denial, I began setting the poems for voices and piano – thinking I could sort out the scoring later. This certainly allowed me to work freely, but of course I was then faced with seemingly insurmountable problems in accommodating the restrictions of the Renaissance instruments. However the unique, delicate and expressive sound of these instruments was very much in my ears as I wrote, and to some extent I found I had already taken them into account in the writing.6 In order for the broken consort to be reasonably balanced with the singing, it would need amplification, which Beamish says was ‘one way of taking the Renaissance sound and atmosphere into the twenty-­first century’. The broken consort was ideal when it came to writing the dances and interludes from Shakespeare’s time – the Almain, the Morris, the Pavan, the Galliard. ‘I wanted to write the piece simply, for people, especially the children, who might not be used to listening to music, but who might recognise the rhythms and shapes of the dances.’

32

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

FIGURE 2.4  Sally Beamish’s ‘Morris’, A Shakespeare Masque. The children are directed using the Dalcroze method, which involves the whole body in the perception and feeling and memory of music.

Britten’s Noye’s Fludde remained an important inspiration even though Duffy’s words did not themselves form a dramatic piece. ‘Carol Ann sent me seven incredibly beautiful poems, all of which touched on a different aspect of Shakespeare. I began to see them in terms of colours,’ says Beamish, ‘and to think of them like a rainbow’s seven colours, which took me to the colours that Garrick used for his Jubilee ribbon. Those colours also influenced our choice of lighting.’ The children’s costumes for the concert were formed of pale yellows, blues, pinks, and greens (their T-shirts, garland-­like headbands, the ribbons around their straw boaters), so the 1769 Jubilee was visually echoed throughout. In addition to her setting Duffy’s songs, Beamish produced seven interludes in order to move the children around the performance space (they were directed by James Farrell and guided by Monica Wilkinson, a Dalcroze practitioner). She composed the piece entirely with Holy Trinity Church in mind, but it could be adapted for other venues, as it was during its five other performances through April and May 2016.7 ‘I was naturally and instantly inspired by the music of Carol Ann’s words. She knew that she was writing songs, and I was able to set her words quickly. I knew how they went.’ A Shakespeare Masque was not a collaboration; Duffy gave Beamish free rein in the setting of her poems. As

A Shakespeare Masque

33

soon as she had received Duffy’s words, Beamish sought a composer’s residency at Snape, near Aldeburgh, in Suffolk. From the upper room in a converted dovecote there she looked out onto the bright blue autumn skies and golden reed beds, full of associations with Benjamin Britten: ‘I couldn’t help but be influenced by Britten’s works for mixed forces, particularly Noye’s Fludde, with its use of different choirs and different age groups, as well as audience participation and percussion.’8 She recalls how ‘the tourists would mill around but I remember noticing that not a single one of them seemed to look up as I sat there composing. I especially remember the morning when I realised that ‘Please One, Please All’ would be chanted rather than sung, with percussion. Carol Ann’s words set me off every time.’ But two of the pieces, the sonnets ‘Anne Hathaway’ and ‘Shakespeare’, were not written as songs. These Beamish treated as arias, and they were more difficult to set, though the atmosphere of the former made it the easier of the two. Beamish’s commissioning for A Shakespeare Masque also included her having to produce the music for two choruses for Garrick’s Ode, since Thomas Arne’s music originally composed for them no longer exists. She took the decision not to try to write in the style of Arne, but instead to introduce the audience to the recurring theme of A Shakespeare Masque, which they would be invited to sing at the climax (see Figure 2.3 above). Composing the missing parts of Garrick’s Ode therefore served as an opportunity for Beamish to bridge the eighteenth and the twenty-­first centuries. She also made sure that, by the time the audience were invited to sing, they had already heard the refrain several times. Beamish hopes that A Shakespeare Masque encompasses many feelings and senses. ‘It’s not in any way prescriptive, like Garrick’s Ode. In fact, it’s definitely not an ode; it’s a celebration.’ And, I might add, a significant one, which gestures towards the community-­creating scope of art in general, and Shakespeare in particular. When I mentioned to Carol Ann Duffy that Robert Burns’s birthday is celebrated in specific ways, and then asked her how might we celebrate Shakespeare’s, she replied: ‘along with many people, I think his Birthday should be a national holiday, complete with readings and performances.’ This was very much the spirit in which both she and Sally Beamish took up their commissions for A Shakespeare Masque. On the day following the concert, both of them took part in the Shakespeare Birthday Procession to present flowers at his grave. For Duffy, having heard the children’s voices singing her words, ‘the performance had had a moving and holy quality’, and the procession through Stratford-­upon-Avon – from the Birthplace to the grave – resonated with ‘the sense of joy and gratitude.’ In A Shakespeare Masque both artists have, in the words of Beamish, presented ‘fragments of light and observations about Shakespeare, very much celebrating him as a person’.

34

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

FIGURE 2.5  The day after the world premiere, on the morning of the Shakespeare Birthday Procession, 23 April 2016: Dame Carol Ann Duffy and Sally Beamish on the site of New Place (then under development), Stratford-­upon-Avon.

A Shakespeare Masque

A Shakespeare Masque9 Words by Carol Ann Duffy 1.  INTRADA And so, you knew this well, you do not die – courtier, countryman, noter of flowers and bees, war’s laureate, magician, Janus-­faced – but make a great Cathedral, genius, of this place. 2.  ADSUM Melodious birds sing madrigals, but England’s poet is in school. Shakespeare, William; William Shakespeare. Adsum. Here’s Rosemary for Remembrance., The lad sits on a wooden bench. Shakespeare, William; William Shakespeare. Adsum. I know a bank where wild thyme blows. Shakespeare his Latin grammar knows. Amo. Amas. Amat. Et cet. Adsum. Adsum. Adsum. I am here. The swans ride on the Avon’s back. The world is this boy’s living book. Shakespeare, William; William, Shakespeare. Adsum. With shining morning face he walks And in a local accent talks. Shakespeare, William; William, Shakespeare. Adsum. One odd glove on a glover’s shelf. Who knows where genius finds itself? Shakespeare, William. William, Shakespeare. Adsum. Adsum. Adsum. I am here.

35

36

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

3.  Almain 4.  PLEASE ONE AND PLEASE ALL Please one and please all – son of forest, son of town. Words in flowers, verse in birds. Please one and please all. Please one and please all, in Henley Street, Shottery, Old Thatch Tavern, Market Place. Please one and please all. Please one and please all. Be comical – cakes and ale – Be magical – fairy dell. Please one and please all. Please one and please all – gentle watcher in the light, merry wanderer of the night. Please one and please all. Please one and please all – golden lasses, golden lads. The charnel house waits for all. Please one and please all. 5.  MORRIS 6.  THIS WOODEN O The O in Love, the O in Comedy – and in Ophelia, Othello, Oberon –

A Shakespeare Masque

an endless circle in this wooden O. O. So much ado about round Nothing’s O – found in Olivia, Orlando, Orsino – and who will call you now an upstart crow? O. Antony’s O, the O in Romeo and in Verona, Windsor; Cleopatra’s O, her visiting moon the gaping loss of O. O. In Errors, O; thrice in Love’s Labour’s Lost. O in forever when we hear your living voice and do rejoice within this wooden O. O in forever when we hear your living voice and do rejoice within this living O. O. 7.  PAVAN 8.  IN YOUR HEART The Queen’s swans on the Avon and the Thames, distant rhymes. In your heart, a living childhood and a dying child. You come and go. You vanish into poetry. The dead heads on the Tower and the bridge, tragic masks. In your heart, an old religion and a coded faith. You come and go. You vanish into poetry. The King’s men in the Theatre and the Globe hear you laugh.

37

38

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

In your heart, the darkest lady and the fairest youth. You come and go. You vanish into poetry. You come and go. 9.  AIR ‘COME LIVE WITH ME AND BE MY LOVE’ 10.  ANNE HATHAWAY The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-­tops, seas where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. Some nights I dreamed he’d written me, the bed a page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love – I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head as he held me upon that next best bed. 11.  GALLIARD Do not seek to scan my bones. You find truth in my verse. Death has atoned Servant to Life in my words. 12.  UNDER THE MULBERRY By force I was fixed by fancy to write and through the dark ink I was led by a light, by a light where you lie reading now. You cannot find me except in my words; my time was a sea between you and my verse, my verse which you sit hearing now. Under the mulberry – Stratford-­on-Avon –

A Shakespeare Masque

weary of London, I sat in my garden, my garden where you walk quoting now. My name and my dates, a puzzle of bones, are there in the Church. Your breath has my poems, my poems, if you breathe English now. 13.  CORANTA: SHAKESPEARE . . . courtier, countryman, noter of flowers and bees, war’s laureate, magician, Janus-­faced – but make a great Cathedral, genius, of this place. Small Latin and less Greek, all English yours, dear lad, local, word-­blessed, language loved best; the living human music on our tongues, young, old, who we were or will be, history’s shadow, love’s will, our heart’s iambic beat, brother through time; full-­rhyme to us. Small Latin and less Greek, all English yours, dear lad, local, word-­blessed, language loved best; the living human music on our tongues, young, old, who we were or will be, history’s shadow, love’s will, our heart’s iambic beat, brother through time; full-­rhyme to us. Audience Refrain: And so, you knew this well, you do not die – courtier, countryman, noter of flowers and bees, war’s laureate, magician, Janus-­faced – but make a great Cathedral, genius, of this place. Two rivers quote your name; your journey from the vanished forest’s edge to endless fame – a thousand written souls, pilgrims, redeemed in poetry – ends here, begins again. Audience Refrain: And so, you knew this well, you do not die –

39

40

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

courtier, countryman, noter of flowers and bees, war’s laureate, magician, Janus-­faced – but make a great Cathedral, genius, of this place. And so, you knew this well, you do not die – courtier, countryman, noter of flowers and bees, war’s laureate, magician, Janus-­faced – but make a great Cathedral, genius, of this place. 14.  EXEUNT

3 Shakespeare Unbard: Negotiating Civic Shakespeare Hester Bradley and Richard O’Brien

FIGURE 3.1  Two sides of Shakespeare: the Fairy Queen (Kate Alexander) sings David Garrick’s bardolatrous ‘Thou soft-­flowing Avon’, while Young Falstaff (Ronan Hatfull) – a spokesman for the cynically commercial Shakespeare industry – looks on scornfully. Still from Shakespeare Unbard, a civic performance in the Front of House areas at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

42

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

In December 2013, we formed part of the first cohort of students on the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare and Creativity MA programme, a collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the Library of Birmingham, part of whose ethos is to study and re-­create Shakespeare not just in the seminar room and the theatre, but in the civic world beyond. In this capacity, we devised and performed a half-­hour piece, Shakespeare Unbard, in the front-­of-house areas of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre which explored the value and cultural implications of celebrating Shakespeare. This performance, and the conversations behind it, formed part of an ongoing conversation about the stakes, functions and potential pitfalls of ‘Civic Shakespeare’. In what follows, we will attempt to situate and define that term as it had meaning for us as the script’s lead authors at the time of composition, and reflect on the different valences some of the issues raised – particularly themes of cultural privilege and national identity – have taken on at three years’ distance in a time of increasing national and global division. We will also contextualize and re-­embody the process behind and the final product of a creative-­critical project which took audience members on a promenade – inspired by David Garrick’s participatory procession through the streets of Stratford – through the colourful and chequered history of spotlighting Shakespeare in civic contexts. Looking back from 2016 at our creation of a Shakespeare celebration three years prior, the problems highlighted by the cultural materialist movement of celebrating a reified and singular version of Shakespeare seem more important than ever. Boris Johnson’s shelved Shakespeare biography, Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius, which had been scheduled for release in October 2016, was a book which was promoted explicitly as a celebration of Shakespeare rather than a critical challenge to his dominance and the ideologies which gave it form: the publisher’s website described the book’s examination of Shakespeare as ‘the true British icon’ and ‘the most venerated playwright in history’, framing the history of his celebration as the reason for its continuance.1 This press copy fits Gary Taylor’s description of the ‘gravity well’ effect accruing to its subject, granting Shakespeare a self-­ perpetuating dominance in British culture and its definition.2 The publisher stated that the book would outline ‘Shakespeare’s genius in a simple and readable way’, presenting accessibility and veneration as necessarily related to one another.3 The proposed book thus presents a celebratory version of Shakespeare which is both nationalist and uncritical and perpetuates the notion that this Anglocentrism is the raison d’être of Shakespeare celebration. Johnson was unable to deliver the book because of his promotion to Foreign Secretary and his involvement with organizing Britain’s departure from the European Union. His projected celebration of Shakespeare is indistinguishable from the forces surrounding Brexit, its nationalistic undertones, and a broader increasing movement towards isolationist politics. It therefore seems necessary, in the wake of Brexit, to consider critically any celebration of

Shakespeare Unbard

43

Shakespeare, and indeed the history of Shakespeare celebration, with an eye to the operation of these forces. Returning to our own piece, we saw some elements of the script with fresh eyes: even as Shakespeare Unbard engaged with some of the nationalistic tendencies underlying David Garrick’s 1789 Jubilee performances, it was not immune from replicating them in certain respects. ‘What do we mean when we speak of remembering, or commemorating, “Shakespeare”?’ ask Clara Calvo and Coppélia Kahn.4 Bearing in mind the version of Shakespeare put forward by Johnson and his publishers, one potential answer to this question might be Alan Sinfield’s description of Shakespeare as ‘one of the places where ideology is made’.5 Both statements appear particularly pertinent when applied to the challenges involved in a public celebration of Shakespeare. We did not have Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius as an example of the common ideological tendencies underlying Shakespeare celebration when we created our own performance, but, in hindsight, the stakes were possibly higher than we thought. Taking place in a context distinct both from the theatrical performance of a work by Shakespeare and from the academic analysis of those works, a series of implications attach to Civic Shakespeare: the banner under which such celebrations fall. Calvo and Kahn also note that in commemoration, ‘the slippage between the man and his works in the familiar metonymy becomes problematic’, and this slippage and the latitude it allows creative practitioners contribute to a number of the following observations.6 Civic Shakespeare is not bound to academic expectations of coherence, completeness or truth, however contested and whatever other truth-­expectations might replace these; it encourages treatment of Shakespeare’s canon as a grouping of separable parts rather than engaging with individual plays as integral wholes, as commonly expected in the theatre; and it directs itself towards an audience which need not itself feel bound by academic or theatrical expectations.7 Examples from Garrick’s Ode to the pre-­war history pageant attest to the second of these points. In a high-­profile example from 2012, it was the fundamental separability of Civic Shakespeare which allowed Kenneth Branagh, in the opening ceremony to the London Olympic Games, to deliver a decontextualized speech written for Caliban in The Tempest in the costume of the nineteenth-­century industrialist Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Clearly, audiences were not meant to ‘read’ Brunel himself as the subjugated resident of a colonized island; instead, Caliban’s speech spoke as Shakespeare, independently of its narrative location within Shakespeare. Furthermore, unlike theatrical or academic engagement with Shakespeare, works produced in a civic context exist at a greater conceptual distance from the established texts as external referents to which the new works can be compared. This distance allows for the various kinds of distortions of those texts such works might introduce, as the Brunel-Caliban collision illuminates. Like all the factors described above, the freedom to distort can be enormously liberating for creative practitioners such as ourselves in

44

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

putting together a Civic Shakespeare celebration. It does, nonetheless, raise the question of what ethical issues might arise from infidelity to our Shakespearean sources. What percentage of the millions of home viewers of the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony will have followed the television screening by turning to a scholarly edition of The Tempest? If that percentage is low, does it really matter? Director Danny Boyle’s use of these lines (the speech beginning ‘Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises’) masks, if not obfuscates, their context in Caliban’s oppression. Is the absence of that context a form of complicity which has any consequences? On aesthetic grounds, references to Prospero as the island’s master would be at best confusing to the global audience. Withholding these references nonetheless allows for a version of Shakespeare, consumed by millions – many of whom might not pick up and read the full play – which is silent on the politics of colonizing foreign islands. By extension, it allows for a version of Britain to be globally broadcast, supported by Shakespeare, where this concept also goes unspoken. As practitioners considering a comparable appropriation of elements of the Shakespearean text to Boyle and Branagh’s, we therefore have to ask what degree of distance from the source play’s context we consider justifiable. Civic Shakespeare offers the practitioner the opportunity to make a series of choices about what Shakespeare to present (more freely than in the theatre or the academy, where a monograph’s or production’s omissions and emphases are subject to well-­established systems of critique). Because of this, it also foregrounds the process of ideological making inherent in these choices. Sinfield explores how Shakespeare ‘has been appropriated for certain practices and attitudes, and can be reappropriated for others’, and the process of selection required in devising a celebratory performance makes this appropriation visible and inevitable.8 In the historical research underpinning our performance, we needed to ask ourselves, as Calvo and Kahn recommend, ‘how [celebrations] perpetuate Shakespeare, and what kind of Shakespeare they perpetuate’, before turning this lens on our own developing project.9 In so doing, we found ourselves negotiating not only the history of civic appropriations of Shakespeare, but also a diversity of ideological viewpoints and perceptions of Shakespeare’s political resonance among the seven members of the devising group. Unsurprisingly, the result was a mixture of voices and performances which was not entirely consistent in its ideological focus. Our piece began with a largely kind, upbeat (though nonetheless steely) character, the Fairy Queen (Kate Alexander), distributing flowers to children while singing ‘Sweet Willy-O’, a song from Garrick’s Jubilee which took a fairly traditional view of the Swan of Avon. Her regal ‘fit of rhyme’ extolling Shakespeare, heralded by a Minstrel (Georgie Cockerill) on the trumpet, was interrupted by a loud, crass character, Young Falstaff (Ronan Hatfull). He dismissed the cultural capital of Shakespeare and the history of his veneration as ‘boring’, while gleefully announcing his intention to make literal capital from the

Shakespeare Unbard

45

Bard business: to, as he says, out of context, ‘put money in [his] purse’.10 Young Falstaff went on to tear up a copy of the Complete Works and stick it back together out of order, declaring his intention to ‘give an old brand a makeover’. This intervention caused characters to appear in new and surprising arrangements: allowing these fictional figures to exist as independent entities created a dramaturgical space for the competing ‘readings’ of Shakespeare and his cultural meanings each offered to come into direct, embodied conflict. This was manifested in two scenes: Romeo (Richard O’Brien) serenading Richard III (Charlotte Horobin) and Hamlet (Richard O’Brien) attempting to direct the mechanicals (Alex Whiteley, Charlotte Horobin). Behind these readings, the superficially more singular viewpoint of Shakespeare offered by the 1769 Stratford Jubilee haunted the performance. The Queen attempted to introduce Garrick (Hester Bradley) near the beginning of the piece, before the audience was derailed by the chaotic actions of Young Falstaff. When she returned to his introduction later, Young Falstaff’s interjection ‘Alas, more Garrick’, reflected the emphasis on the background presence of Garrick throughout. When Garrick did appear, he was underwhelming and his attempt at presenting his ‘Ode’ was squandered. His character was outshone by the appearance of Gwen Lally (Alex Whiteley), a pageant-­master and Shakespearean actor active throughout the first half of the twentieth century whose contributions to the history of Shakespeare celebration are less well-­known. As the audience were introduced to Garrick and Lally, they were led through the front-­of-house areas of the RSC to the location of the piece’s denouement, Gertrude Hermes’s 1932 fountain surrounded by costume-­clad mannequins and a spiral staircase. Here, the full cast performed a concluding song, ‘Shakespeare Style’, whilst distributing badges and sing-­along sheets. This movement enacted a transition from performance into celebration, and the oppositions between the Fairy Queen, Young Falstaff and his Shakespearean creations were sublimated within the participatory atmosphere. In the rest of this chapter, we will pay particular attention to the ways in which we navigated the relationship between Shakespeare celebration and nationalism, and between criticism and affirmation. Our observations will follow the structure of the performance, moving from the ‘idolatry’ represented by the Fairy Queen and its potential dark side, hinted at in Garrick’s Ode, through the complex and conflicting impulses involved in our presentation of the Shakespeare industry, where different parts of the canon spoke to and for a variety of heterogeneous perspectives. Our portrayal of David Garrick and the interwar pageant-­master Gwen Lally highlights some of the problems involved with the questioning of celebration that formed the basis of our project: we will consider our flattened-­out portrayal of Lally as a key example of this tension in practice. At moments, the script walked a fine line between exposing and reproducing the cultural hegemony that underscores aspects of Shakespeare’s celebration. We will

46

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

close-­read one revealing instance from our practice in the figure of the ‘foppish Frenchman’ who interrupted Garrick’s performance. Although our negotiations risked creating an unbalanced whole, the questions and oppositions, the uneasy union of disparate views, at the root our performance warned against considering Shakespeare’s works as a singular wholly positive entity: we therefore demonstrate – through our own practice and this subsequent self-­reflection – that any inclusive and impactful celebration of Shakespeare should be critical, and that such projects have a duty to question themselves. * Beginning work on our project, we felt a powerful tension between criticism (of the forms Shakespeare celebration had taken) and affirmation (of the work itself, and of the impulse to celebrate). On the one hand, the group was in agreement that a great number of people had found the works of Shakespeare to be a repository of love, compassion, humanity, redemption and beauty: this was essentially the view taken by the Fairy Queen, the character who opened our piece by staking out the well-­attested claims for the singular beauty and achievement Shakespeare represented. Many of us were nonetheless drawn to reflect on the elements of Shakespeare’s works which presented seemingly opposing qualities in equally powerful and resonant language: the impact made by characters such as Richard III and Iago, who have come to symbolize jealousy, hatred, malevolence and prejudice, was difficult to account for within the context of a work in praise of Shakespeare. What could the Fairy Queen say to, or about, these characters? How could her version of celebration find room for these destructive forces? There is something about celebration itself which continues to be regarded as innately uncritical. The words ‘celebration’, ‘festival’ and ‘jubilee’ invoke happiness, announcing and disseminating appreciation, consumption and satisfaction, triumph and victory, and uncontainable overflow of emotions.11 In this regard, Susan Sontag’s famous statement from half a century ago is still importantly incendiary: The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al., don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone – its ideologies and inventions – which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself.12 It would be disingenuous to pretend that such thoughts were occupying the minds of all members of our ensemble equally (if at all) during the devising process. Nonetheless, the challenge they offer is an important one.

Shakespeare Unbard

47

Celebration, as something which is particularly uncritical, anti-­intellectual, mysticizing and, according to Mark Thornton Burnett, ‘in denial of informing material contexts’, is an affront to new historicist and cultural materialist readings of Shakespeare.13 Using Sontag, celebration of Shakespeare in itself can be seen as disgusting, dangerous and supremacist; a desperate attempt to compensate for the terrorism of white culture – then again, ‘the terrorism of white culture’ was never raised as a discussion point in the rehearsal room. At the time of the creation of Shakespeare Unbard, we were perhaps more concerned with how a Shakespeare celebration might be embarrassing rather than how ethical it was. At the heart of our project, however, was the question of whether a celebration of the features of a dominant Western, white culture, as represented in the figure of Shakespeare, always had to be a victory march or a declaration of power, or if it could contain a concession to its most embarrassing and unsettling parts. Civic Shakespeare had begun to overlap with issues of civic responsibility. The concept of responsibility to others in our society informed another perspective – one which was especially important to the module for which we developed the piece. Celebration is a vehicle for civic engagement, a pragmatic method for wider involvement, and an escape from our own academic echo chambers. Joy and hope are arguably motivational steps towards questioning engagement. In producing our project, we felt this dilemma: whether the creation of something which was accessible, child-­ friendly, and joyful, as well as being a working piece of theatre, necessitated a condensation and de-­problematizing of the material with which we were working. It therefore felt important to us in the devising process to confront the difficult questions raised in the public presentation of Shakespeare. Holderness wryly assesses attempts by academics to distance their work and rituals from a form of commemoration which seeks ‘to shape a sense of “English” national identity by reference back to a sanitised and de-­ historicised past [. . .] a nationalist, patriotic, nostalgic, heritage Shakespeare’.14 These were aspects of the history of commemoration that we did not wish to repeat – they embarrassed us, and risked embarrassing the audience. Would it, however, be disingenuous for our performance not to acknowledge that they existed? Would ignoring these uses of Shakespeare to promote our own be a kind of silent complicity? Wondering how to account for the complexities Shakespeare celebration was at risk of whitewashing, we found surprising encouragement in the historical example of David Garrick. Garrick’s Ode Upon Dedicating A Building, And Erecting A Statue, To Shakespeare, At Stratford Upon Avon has traditionally been held as the high-­water mark of Bardolatry in declaring its subject ‘The god of our idolatry’: a phrase, and a way of relating to Shakespeare, which hangs heavily over all subsequent celebratory projects.15 Indeed, the 1769 Jubilee has been conceived of as the Shakespeare celebration to haunt all Shakespeare celebrations: for Christian Deelman, ‘all subsequent Shakespeare festivals . . . have their roots in the first Jubilee’.16 The

48

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

Bardolatrous strain found its way into our script in lines like these, delivered in the opening sequence by the Fairy Queen: Hard to believe that mortal skin enwrapped that mind that richly wrought such substance out of pure thought, and wound it to a shimmering skein which now, we must unwind again . . . The creation of a singular culturally conservative version of Shakespeare is what Cultural Materialism tends to oppose and dismantle, but the Jubilee itself has nonetheless been singularized and canonized. Festivals and celebrations are not usually scrutinized for the same potentially radical or dissident material as Shakespeare’s ‘texts’ themselves, but conceived of as cementing a singular un-­contestable version of Shakespeare. It is therefore noteworthy that Garrick’s Ode contains a powerful countercurrent in a striking vision of Shakespeare as a figure to whom Nature has given ‘absolute command’ and ‘unbounded pow’r’. Though Garrick seems anxious to assert that these godlike abilities are harnessed for good, the poet is figured sitting upon a ‘darken’d throne’ in ‘dreadful state’, capable of commanding ‘awful silence’ and summoning ‘the Demons of the deep’ to do his bidding. Shakespeare here is capable of commanding slavering subjection from the ‘subject passions’: ‘they all foaming, trembling, own him for their Lord.’ As such, the following passage poses a disturbing moral question which it cannot adequately evade: What tho’ with more than mortal art, Like Neptune he directs the storm, Lets loose like winds the passions of the heart, To wreck the human form; Tho’ from his mind rush forth, the Demons to destroy, His heart ne’er knew but love, and gentleness, and joy. A central issue for our group thus became how, in what was meant to be a context of civic celebration, we could grapple to our own satisfaction with the ‘Demons’ Shakespeare had always been held capable of unleashing. The solution we arrived at, which informed the whole course of the performance, involved embracing the wholesale deconstruction of Shakespeare into independent, sometimes conflicting, component parts which had been so comprehensively embraced by the tourist and heritage industries. Although the Fairy Queen was neither blinkered nor elitist (‘His works belong to all of us,’ she declared at one point, turning her forcefulness towards inclusive rather than hierarchical ends), we introduced Young Falstaff as a rival figurehead who embraced the implications of an unscrupulously mercantile Shakespeare industry. His role, as a representative of venal, corporeal and

Shakespeare Unbard

49

commercial forces, was primarily to interrupt and trouble the Queen’s focus on a purely aesthetic appreciation of Shakespeare’s ‘transcendent beauty’. The first confrontation between the two allowed us to contrast two images of Shakespeare: the Fairy Queen sang, operatically and a cappella, of the ‘Sweet Swan of Avon’, to a tune composed by Thomas Arne, only to find herself interrupted by the heavily-­strummed guitar chords of Young Falstaff’s rendition of Garrick’s ‘Warwickshire. A Song’: Ye Warwickshire lads, and ye lasses, See what at our Jubilee passes, Come revel away, rejoice and be glad, For the lad of all lads, was a Warwickshire lad. . .17 In our modernized version, we wanted to emphasize the modern connotations of ‘lad’, as used in the sense first attested in the OED in 1986: ‘A young man [often] characterized . . . by attitudes or behaviour regarded as irresponsible, sexist, or boorish.’18 The lyrics were also altered in places to fit with Young Falstaff’s celebration of the commercial over the moral: for instance, ‘Be proud of the charms of your county’ was altered to ‘Be proud of the scams of your county’. This in fact followed in the footsteps of the original, which noted that ‘The thief of all thieves was a Warwickshire thief’. These two songs lent themselves to our purposes in offering competing accounts of their subject, but both originated in the context of Garrick’s Jubilee. They therefore allowed us to demonstrate that the Jubilee could simultaneously contain two conflicting accounts of Shakespeare. The platitudinous, near-­ blasphemous exaggerations in the lyrics to ‘Thou soft-­flowing Avon’ (its account of ‘hallowed . . . turf’ pillowing a blessed head reminiscent of the later carol ‘Away in a Manger’) were performed by professionals for a listening audience. The boisterous local populism represented by the ‘Warwickshire Lad’, on the other hand, was disseminated in a commercially produced songbook, Shakespeare’s Garland, sold for the express purpose of mass participation. Both formed part of the same originating event. As such, our initial opposition between a high-­minded appreciation for poetry and the sale of cut-­price tea towels and ‘authentic Elizabethan breath mints’ was a binary that kept collapsing: ‘Why would you celebrate Shakespeare with a scented candle?’, asked the Queen, even as her own text drew directly on Garrick, who himself spurred the trade in Shakespeare souvenirs. Nonetheless, it allowed for a more polyvocal, contested understanding of commemoration to emerge. For instance, Branagh’s Caliban-Brunel, to our hawker, was an example of how commercial imperatives were never merely that, overlapping with a complex web of aesthetic, national, and pragmatic values and priorities: Bit out of context, but that doesn’t matter. Split him up and sell him off, that’s what I say. Key rings and fridge magnets, tea towels and tat.

50

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

It’s all for the good of art, innit? ‘The Shakespeare industry’ . . . well, fair enough. Got any other national industries to speak of? Didn’t think so. Young Falstaff’s onstage destruction of a copy of the Oxford Complete Works of William Shakespeare was also a creative act, producing new dramatic scenes. This intervention prioritized rehearsal over remembrance. As a form of commemoration, ‘rehearsal’, Holderness comments, is keen to ‘acknowledge the constructed nature of the contemporary collision’.19 In performance, however, this particular event resulted in gasps from the audience of Shakespeare scholars and patrons of the RSC. This audible shock at the defacing of a mass-­market textual artefact suggested an underlying conception of the works of Shakespeare as a sacred text (an association explored at length by scholars including Jem Bloomfield) even among a crowd containing many with a more-­than-superficial knowledge of the constructedness of all modern editions.20 Some of the surprise we noted may also have been generated by the de-­contextualization and de-­materialization that ripping up the Complete Works implies. This was, of course, part of our aim — to bring different versions of what ‘Shakespeare’ represents in varying contexts into open conflict, and to actively foreground the question: what do we talk about when we talk about Shakespeare?21 The most sustained example of the ‘battle for Shakespeare’ this de-­ materialization unleashed in our piece came in a debate between Richard III (portrayed by Charlotte Horobin in a McKellen-­inspired military jacket and peaked cap) and Romeo (Richard O’Brien, clutching a cuddly pink pig). Richard’s argument in this scene was largely a challenge to Romeo over the extent to which Shakespeare could be said to be ‘good for you’, the sanitized sweet swan of Bardolatry: ‘Your “love” kills almost everyone you know. Do you think you’re a good romantic role model?’ At the time of writing, three years after the event, their dialogue feels somewhat gauche and on-­thenose – at least to me (Richard) as its author. Romeo’s pure love felt humourless, whereas Richard’s audience-­directed deviousness allowed him, once again, to have all the best lines: ‘I am Richard, Duke of Gloucester, misunderstood king and long-­term Leicester resident’. This in itself reveals something of the character of the problem, however – how to engage with idolatry, in its naked unselfconsciousness, without the defences of contemporary irony: romeo

But Shakespeare wasn’t like other men, was he? Shakespeare saw inside us all, inside our secret hearts. He unleashed the full tide of human feelings! richard iii

And do you think that’s a good idea?

Shakespeare Unbard

51

romeo

His words were for all time! richard iii

Well – exactly. Just because you wouldn’t put my speeches on a fridge magnet, doesn’t mean you won’t remember them. Did you know I coined the phrase ‘A tower of strength’? And do you really want to be quoting me? Do you want me on your lips? romeo

That’s one phrase! Shakespeare showed us how to love – he gave us a whole language of attraction, of affection, of forgiveness, of redemption – richard iii

– and of rage, and hatred, horror, and disgust.

FIGURE 3.2  Creative collisions: The Complete Works is torn apart and stuck back together onstage, throwing familiar characters into surprising contexts. Here, an idealistic Romeo (Richard O’Brien) is bewildered by the appearance of a pyromaniac Richard III (Charlotte Horobin) rather than his Juliet on the Royal Shakespeare Theatre balcony. Photo courtesy of Steve Horobin.

52

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

The second of the collisions Young Falstaff set in motion turned more explicitly on the tension between elite and popular Shakespeares. Throughout the piece, popular engagement was viewed from different angles at different times, sometimes negatively inflected: young falstaff

So – what would these fools pay for . . . for example, (He calls out) this very fine brooch made from the very strongest branch that was cut from the very first mulberry tree planted by the one and only Sweet Willy-O? In the second ‘mash-­up’ the character created, however, the elitist was explicitly denigrated in favour of the popular. Hamlet appeared as a mid-­ twentieth-century actor, in the mould of Olivier, trained at ‘WADA (the Wittenberg Academy of Dramatic Arts)’. He chastised Bottom, and by implication, any amateur for daring to presume to appear in a Shakespeare play: This isn’t ‘showbusiness’, you piping fool. This is Culture – though I’ve seen yoghurts with more ambitious cultures than yours. His plummy pronouncements were nonetheless dismissed by his more practical scene partner, who eventually crowned this champion of exclusionary approaches with his own asses’ ears: It’s always anguish with you. I’m worn out. If you could just get on with things, then we might have some drama, and not all this doubt. This dispute led into our performance’s most sustained engagement with ideas of participatory and popular Shakespeare: the much-­heralded appearance of David Garrick. Discussion of Garrick leading up to this point took up almost as many lines as the character himself was given: in the final script, to which there were some amendments in performance, the Fairy Queen has approximately thirty-­three verse lines introducing Garrick and the 1769 Stratford Jubilee, while Garrick himself speaks thirty-­four lines in prose and verse. On arrival, Garrick directly addressed the audience as though they were the patrons at his Jubilee. As such, the part of Shakespeare Unbard which specifically dealt with the 1769 Jubilee took place at a juncture between its more performance-­based aspects and its more celebratory conclusion: a space in which an audience could both detachedly judge Garrick’s celebration of Shakespeare and be implicitly involved in it, placed contextually, as the Fairy Queen remarked, ‘back in 1769’. Writing this section, we found a stage direction from Garrick’s postJubilee play striking: ‘Every character tragic and comic join in’, instructing

Shakespeare Unbard

53

volunteers taken from the street outside the theatre to form a procession of Shakespearean characters across the stage together.22 This stage direction attests to the problems of inclusivity in Civic Shakespeare. On one hand, it suggests an attractive and carnivalesque generic instability that might see the Nurse from Romeo and Juliet partying with Falstaff and the bear from The Winter’s Tale hand-­in-hand with Iago, or the unlikely teaming together of the characters who ideologically opposed one another in our piece. But by combining in procession disparate Shakespeare characters and creating a visual display of them walking in one direction as a single mass, Garrick’s stage direction also asks for an audience to tacitly condone each of these characters’ individual moral viewpoints and indulge in a respite from their fraught interrelations. The momentary reprieve resonates with a secondary definition of ‘jubilee’ as a year appointed for ‘remission from the penal consequences of sin’.23 The remission implied by making Shakespeare characters join in with one another indicates a neutralizing of panic, a downplaying of Richard III’s ‘rage, and hatred, horror and disgust’ and an abandonment of outrage. But although the characters are presented physically together and moving in the same direction in a celebration of Shakespeare, the eccentricity of their unity, the fact that they are from different (arguably opposing) genres, is obvious in the stage direction. It attests to troubling differences within the umbrella of Shakespeare veneration: in imagining why the individual characters might celebrate Shakespeare, it is easy to suppose (as our ‘mash-­ups’ made clear) that some or all of them might support him for the ‘wrong’ reasons. Our version of Garrick was preoccupied with the creation of this procession of Shakespearean characters (which was cancelled due to rain at the Jubilee itself). His prerogative was to bring together the contrasting elements of Shakespeare which had informed the earlier scenes of our performance. His demand for a procession involved the glorification of both the light and dark elements of Shakespeare that we found in his Ode. At the same time, although this impulse and the presence of Garrick were felt throughout the piece, on appearance he was child-­like, underwhelming and ridiculous: Good evening, sweet Warwickshire! And sweeter Stratford! Upon the sweetest Avon! And we’re here to celebrate the sweetest and most nice-­ scented work of the sugary-­est, pastry-­like, icecreamiest, most delectable, and sweetest bard of them all . . . [looks to the QUEEN for help] Garrick’s Shakespeare was in one sense a hyperbolic version of the Fairy Queen’s, exposing through exaggeration the vague, saccharine, and uncritical elements of her perspective. While Garrick presented an anaesthetized version of Shakespeare, he was also impressed by a range of Shakespearean characteristics which included the ‘demonic’ representations of ‘rage, and

54

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

hatred, horror and disgust’. He espoused a luxuriating enjoyment of the wickedness of the world that Shakespeare creates, particularly in Falstaff, who like the world, is ‘wicked and round’. As suggested in his original Ode, he especially enjoyed the juxtaposition of Shakespeare’s ‘Demons to destroy’ with his ‘gentleness, and joy’.24 When the Fairy Queen informed Garrick that there were not enough characters on stage to create a procession, Garrick turned to the audience, demonstrating a binary approach to Shakespearean character: Hmmm . . . You! [to the audience], Are any of you Shakespearean characters? . . . Aye or nay? If nay, why nay? If aye, then who and why? Are you tragic or comic? Angelic, demonic? Fat and round And wicked Like the globe itself . . .? Or hungry and lean? Generous or mean? What I’m trying to convey – Is that there isn’t half an array A great enough load To fit in an ode! Which (if I may?) [cough] I mean to say. And this ode itself begins with a question . . . a question easily answered! Questioning was at the root of Shakespeare Unbard, reflected elsewhere in our use of the Twitter campaign ‘#DearShakespeare’ to garner audience questions towards Shakespeare, which we set in a sound installation.25 Garrick’s direct questioning, geared towards the individual audience member, demanded that they identify with a character. This questioning almost became an interrogation, especially his ‘If nay, why nay?’, which insisted that the audience member must have a good reason for not making this creative leap of identification. Our version of Garrick was portrayed as someone who did not feel that anyone should be allowed to exclude themselves from the ubiquity of Shakespearean characteristics without adequate excuse. Garrick in our production went on to ask a ‘question easily answered’ with the opening four lines of the Ode: TO what blest genius of the isle Shall gratitude her tribute pay,

Shakespeare Unbard

55

Decree the festive day, Erect the statue, and devote the pile? The ease by which this question can be answered according to Garrick was part of the problem with his perspective. His inability to deal with the interference of an alternate answer offered by a ‘foppish Frenchman’ (a character planted in the audience, portrayed by Chris Gleason) revealed the narrow-­mindedness of his stance. It exposed Garrick’s anachronistic desire to unequivocally celebrate Shakespeare and his unwillingness to view the horror in Shakespeare as problematic instead of delightful. This was perhaps reflected in the way that our own performance struggled to interrogate rather than simply encourage an enjoyment of the ‘dark’ parts of Shakespeare. The ‘foppish Frenchman’ insisted on the brilliance of Voltaire instead of Shakespeare, echoing a similar planned incident at the Jubilee in 1769.26 Our version of the incident walked a fine line between highlighting xenophobic elements in the 1769 Jubilee and reproducing them, with stereotyping present in the Frenchman’s speech: frenchman

Voltaire!! It’s Voltaire!! garrick [affronted] He’s not of the isle! He’s French! frenchman

A pox on you insular English! Everything has to be about ‘Shakespeare’. If it’s not Shakespeare it’s roast beef, I mean, come on! What a culinary disaster! Overdone steak! Overdone plays! No sensitivity, just blood and guts. It makes me cry . . . yes . . . tears of laughter! The frenchman starts laughing uncontrollably Garrick’s defence that Voltaire is ‘not of the Isle – he’s French’ was obviously a weak one. Although the fop was escorted away by other characters, Garrick lost the debate: the Frenchman returned for the final song, ‘Shakespeare Style’, to advocate for the European qualities of Shakespeare (interjecting after the line ‘characters that made this country famous’ with ‘though most were Italian or Danish’). The interference of the ‘foppish Frenchman’ in the 1769 Jubilee was used as a mode to cement the superiority of Shakespeare rather than to invoke the potential validity of dissenting voices. Elizabeth Montagu’s An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear . . . with some remarks upon the misrepresentations of Mons. de Voltaire, for instance, published in the same year as the Jubilee, attests to a requirement to correct the opinion of Voltaire by invoking the worth of Shakespeare.27 The Frenchman in our performance was a crass national stereotype who also pointed out the limits of nationalism. Three

56

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

years before Brexit, he highlighted the connection between insularity and the presupposition of the cultural superiority of Shakespeare. Garrick’s failed attempt at a procession of Shakespeare’s characters was salvaged by our version of the early-­twentieth-century pageant master and Shakespeare performer Gwen Lally. Lally’s inclusive idea of Shakespeare as representative of a continuing and achievable human creativity won out against Garrick’s view of him as ‘unparalleled, unsurpassable, superhuman’: garrick

For our age and for all time! We shall never look on his like again! lally

Shall we not? I wouldn’t be so sure. What about you lads or lasses? For the new Shakespeare might be a girl. Will one of you ever write as well or as all-­encompassingly or as beautifully sinisterly as our Swan of Avon? What do you think? Can there be another Shakespeare? Why not?! Is there a Shakespeare here? Lally’s democratization of Shakespeare encapsulated some of our ambivalence. Although we did not wish to tidy away entirely the ‘beautifully sinister’, too great an emphasis on this angle was likely to risk souring the participatory atmosphere. Our praise for Shakespeare was, like Jonson’s, ‘on this side idolatry’, but it nonetheless required the collapsing of a few complexities to serve the purpose of an exhortation to future creativity in the time we had available. There was much about the discomfiting cultural freight of Shakespeare, in terms of the works’ complicity in systems of class, race and gender hierarchy, that we did not have the space or perhaps, in this context, the intellectual tools to adequately unpack.28 Some (but not all) of these issues were highlighted in Lally’s address to the audience: Who is here? And who isn’t? Who can put quill to paper, Create whole worlds from pure vapour? . . . And . . . listen . . . Should you . . . Celebrate me!? Celebrate him!? Celebrate all of those middle class men? And celebrate Britannia, What happens then? You’ve been listening to our idle chatter. But what do you think – doesn’t that matter? garrick

gazes at lally longingly

Shakespeare Unbard

57

At this point in the performance Garrick approached Lally and tied a modernized version of the 1769 Jubilee’s rainbow ribbon (originally distributed amongst festival-­goers to represent the ‘endless variation’ of Shakespeare) around her wrist. Both Garrick and Lally were played by women and the union of the two characters, emblematized by the ribbon, added a queer element to the Shakespeare celebration. We wanted Lally’s view of Shakespeare to rival (and surpass) Garrick’s, but we also wanted to show a unity between them despite their different viewpoints. Lally’s questions to the audience were an attempt to empower the viewers’ judgements, as well as to think about viewpoints that were not represented by us or within our audience (‘Who is here? / And who isn’t?’). The audiences for which the piece, in its two live incarnations, were performed – those present in the RSC bars and foyers in the lead-­up to an evening’s performance of Wendy and Peter Pan, and the invited guests of the University of Birmingham’s Annual General Meeting, chief among them the institution’s Chancellor, Lord Bilimoria – were unlikely to have represented the wide social sweep which Garrick and Lally’s projects originally sought to include. This is not in itself an assessment of the extent to which Shakespeare Unbard could truly speak to audiences outside the theatre and the academy (though we note that the audience for an RSC children’s show is not, ipso facto, a Shakespeare audience, and the attendees of a university AGM may have very little connection to academic work in the humanities). It certainly is an admission that this ambition of the piece has not been fully tested. Indeed, it is one of the major ironies of the project that it was a show about the history of public engagement conceived by practitioners with a foot in the academic camp, and a show whose own public engagement value remains partially theoretical; but we tried at least to open up academic activity to wider perspectives. Our use of Lally as character partly represented the historical figure’s engagement with questions of gender, inclusivity and citizenship. In the performance at the RSC, when Lally appeared, it was to great applause by the audience (her actor, Alex Whiteley, had to shush the crowd and then gesture for them to pick it up again), and our project almost became a celebration of her as well as of Shakespeare. The fact that she is less well known than Garrick did not seem to detract from the appreciative welcome she received. But as a historical figure she also presents an uneasy relationship with nationalism and the role of Shakespeare in articulating English national identity. The Pageant of England (1935) at Langley Park, Buckinghamshire, of which Lally was the pageant master, with 4,000 public performers, ended with John of Gaunt’s ‘this sceptr’d isle’ speech from Richard II.29 Peter Merrington describes pageantry between the wars as an active mode assuming collective and personal responsibility for a triumphant English past: ‘[t]hose who attended the performance would, surveying and approving their own past rehearsed before them, and paying active homage through the singing of national anthems, themselves be cast as players in the national drama.’30 (It is, however, worth noting here that many scholars challenged

58

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

any sense of the historical pageant movement as univocally nationalistic or politically conservative at the first major conference to address this form of civic theatre, held at University College London in September 2016.)31 We presented Lally as a national hero, boasting of her portrayal of Henry V in the First World War as an indication of how ‘women were fighting for Britain on the stage’. But by emphasizing her radical gender politics rather than her role in cementing a troubling national identity we failed to expose the nationalistic narratives she served in her historic role, propagating the tendency of a blinkered feminism which fails to account for ethnic diversity. We partially pasted over this problem by having Lally directly address nationalism and Britannia as concepts to be questioned, rather than expose those issues as endemic to an ideology that was part of the conception of her character. We could have emphasized what it was that we felt she should be celebrated for without concealing the more problematic elements in her history, although perhaps we did not have the space and time to do so. We took advantage of a lack of public knowledge about Lally to make her into a more liberal figure, and possibly it was inappropriate to use her, as a character, as a vehicle for these ideas. One redeeming feature is that she did ask ‘Should you . . . / Celebrate me!?’ putting her own heroism and veneration into question. Lally’s final question, ‘But what do you think – doesn’t that matter?’, looks at personal voice as something that is not necessarily directly correlated with ideology, but is material and individual. Unlike Garrick’s address which asked whether the audience member was a character, Lally’s address asked if they were a creator and asked them to assume an agent rather than passive role in the creation of culture. At this point, we invited children in the audience to participate by meeting the Fairy Queen, who gave them writing materials to produce their own work. Lally’s version of Shakespeare was one that called for the necessity of alternative Shakespeares and interpretations. If our celebration claimed that another Shakespeare is possible and desirable, it also insisted that there would have to be a lot of them, following on from a critical prerogative to expose the ideal construct of a singular Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare Unbard had disparate and sometimes contradictory goals, and revealed the dilemmas of Shakespeare celebration more than it provided answers to them, this was not necessarily antithetical to Lally’s hopeful message that dominant cultural forces might be dismantled and recreated by a multiplicity of diverse personal voices. Although we might not have conceived of it in such terms at the time, our route through the varying public and civic uses of Shakespeare was essentially a dialectical one – opposing versions of what Shakespeare could mean (high culture and pop; forbidding and participatory; politically radical and politically conservative; beautifully comforting and enchantingly dangerous) were brought into conflict. They were also, eventually, brought into a somewhat uneasy equilibrium on at least one front, in a truce between our two principal combatants. Defining Shakespeare respectively as ‘A steady

Shakespeare Unbard

59

stream of revenue’ and ‘An icon for eternity’, Young Falstaff and the Fairy Queen came to a mutual understanding that the subject of their debate is both unique and inexhaustible, and that from a certain distance the aesthetic argument looks a lot like the commercial one: You think you’ve squeezed the last drop out of him, but if you go back to him there’s always something more you can get. In some ways the project of celebration, however much we wished to question it, seemed to compel us to conclude on a provisionally positive note. Even though the history of Shakespeare celebration might have unleashed some dark forces that are latent in societies and in the plays themselves, to conclude a performance part-­sponsored by the RSC, in their own front-­of-house space, with a demolition of the concept of commemoration itself would have felt like a kind of sacrilege against ‘the God of [our] idolatry’. Just as the present chapter – an assessment of the strengths and failings of our prior foray into Civic Shakespeare as much as an account of its making – seems to be hard-­coded against an entirely self-­ critical conclusion, Shakespeare Unbard had to justify its own existence without gnawing off the hand that fed it. The practical nature of the devising process necessitated more than purely theoretical thought about the aims and methods of engagement with a wider audience: a concept, increasingly central to the academic career progression on which as early career scholars we are beginning to embark, which we were not only studying in historical accounts but actually pursuing in the present moment. It therefore at least opened up a conversation between the study of participatory Civic Shakespeare and its methods and effects in creative practice. It remains in some ways unusual to begin a postgraduate career with a project in which such questions as ‘Who is this for?’ and ‘How do we keep them interested?’ are inescapable, and these kinds of enquiries are nothing if not salutary. It is perhaps a testament to the usefulness of working on Shakespeare Unbard that both of our own subsequent projects as researchers have continued to operate on, and in some cases blur, the boundaries between academic study and public performance. And in this spirit, perhaps nothing more comprehensively represents the project’s conflicted attitude toward the ideals of inclusive celebration which it nonetheless pursued than ‘Shakespeare Style’. The participatory song below closed our performance, and was delivered both by the seven creators and, from sing-­along sheets, by the gathered audience of theatre-­goers, students, lecturers and interested passers-­by. It emblematizes not only the issues our project set out to confront, but also the unique contribution of a creative method where the traditional academic dialectic seems unable to resolve all of the issues raised. Where the language of debate exhausts itself in tentative, provisional conclusions, the language of artistic response begins. We conclude this examination of our own past

60

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

project, therefore, with what we feel is a representative transition from the critical to the creative. As in Shakespeare Unbard itself, our discursive impulses must eventually give way to a different tactic. Here, then, are the affirmatory, sometimes contradictory, sung words to which our audience left the performance space: the text of ‘Shakespeare Style.’ The queen leads the audience over the course of this dialogue into the fountain space between the bar and the cafe, takes up a position at a keyboard, and leads young falstaff and the audience in a song which, although he is at first reluctant to join in with, soon appeals to his mischievous nature. The song begins in a faux-­military, reverent, ‘Rule Britannia’ style, but gradually degrades into a looser, jazzier performance, becoming a more boisterous and rowdy celebration. All members of the company eventually join in. and young falstaff Shakespeare’s style – the pride of all the nation This sacred isle’s just right for veneration We like a laugh, Fathom and a half And we like commiseration So let’s do it in that good old Shakespeare style queen

Local lad, the child of a glover Absent dad, the patron saint of lovers We like craft beer And we like Shakespeare And we’re glad he’s ours, not others So let’s do it in that good old native soil Shakespeare style A son of Stratford, Birmingham and Warwick Manufactured Prince Hal and Poor Yorick We like sloe gin And we like to join in Yeah we like it something choric So let’s do it in that good old civic movement, native soil, Shakespeare style On the green in thousands see them marching One sole theme is clear and overarching If there’s no one else We must praise ourselves Since the candle left us darkling So let’s do it in that good old village pageant, civic movement, native soil, Shakespeare style

Shakespeare Unbard

61

Characters that made this country famous Though most were Italian or Danish But we’ll act their plays Dream of bygone days And we’ll quote them something shameless In that good old Merrie England, village pageant, civic movement, native soil, Shakespeare style So what now? What’s our place in the story? Do we bow before our own history? And who are we, And should that still be A question we’re exploring In that good old all-­inclusive, Merrie England, village pageant, civic movement, native soil, Shakespeare style?

PART T WO

New Places; New Forms

4 Communities in the Theatre and in the World: Three Ballets and a Masque David Fuller

Prelude 1: the arts and the civic In the theory of history that Tolstoy shows in action in War and Peace, it is not what leaders of society do and say that counts, not what orders are issued by Napoleon or Alexander I, but rather what ordinary people do at the individual level, how that influences their personal and social contacts, and how that prompts the responsive actions of others, that counts. It is by this that the large movements of history – seen by the illusions of the ‘powerful’ as given direction from above – are really brought about. No understanding can hope to perceive how this complex process works at the level of its total effect: its sources are too diffuse. But at the individual level one can see its working, and it is multifarious aspects of this that Tolstoy’s fiction shows. Tolstoy’s theory of the relation of art to society,1 written when he had largely turned from novel-­writing to assume the role of prophet and religious leader, is quite different, and much simpler. The social effects of art derive from the moral stances of authors as promulgated by their works. Novels dealing seriously with Christian values (Dickens, Dostoevsky) are good in their social effect; poetry that is obscure or infected with scepticism (Baudelaire, Verlaine) is bad. But there is a theory of art congruent with Tolstoy’s view of history: it is not through intended or overt social aims that art operates, but through much more oblique effects on individuals. ‘Poetry makes nothing happen’, says Auden;2 and in a sense this is true, of poetry and of all art. Yeats may lie awake wondering ‘Did that play of mine send

66

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

out / Certain men the English shot?’.3 Auden is sure it did not. But poets are also ‘the unacknowledged legislators of the world’;4 and in another sense this is true as well, and true of all art. By engaging the whole person in what Thomas Mann calls ‘zweifelnde Liebe’ (scrupulous love),5 love capable of both total commitment and sceptical critique, art affects how we feel, how we think, who we are – and so how we act. Art makes things happen – and more, much more, than we can see. So much read and so often performed in theatre and cinema worldwide, Shakespeare is a legislator infinitely more powerful than Solon,6 but no calculus can identify the effects of his real-­ world-making presence. While muting the clarities and evading the downrightness of What is Art?, theories of art’s social effects often tend to the Tolstoyian – not now in judging art by how far it promotes Christian values, but judging by congruent criteria known from outside art – approved views on race, gender, cultural diversity or other contemporary shibboleths.7 But if the effects of art lie in its potential to be transformative for individuals, a form of revelation, and its mode of operation is oblique, not through opinions derived from who we have been, but through experiences challenging who we are and bringing into being who we might become, then the Tolstoyian theory, though it may be made by transmutation into contemporary terms less visible, is not substantially improved by this deflection from Tolstoy’s bracing rigour. Art involves experiment. It is part of the value of art to be disruptive, to engage us beyond opinions that constitute a comfortable consensus of the right-­ thinking. Effects of art on society come about in substantial part unpredictably, through what art does for and through individual lives – which may include prompting a valuable alienation from consensus. The effects of art are Tolstoyian not – or not primarily – in the ways suggested by Tolstoy’s theory of art but in the ways suggested by his historical fiction. Those for whom Shakespeare’s plays – poetry, characters, myths – have been carried alive into the heart by passion, in the fullness of what that phrase expresses, see the world, as Emerson puts it, ‘Shakspearized’.8 The social effects of that cannot be calculated.

Prelude 2: cultures of ballet, from the Romanovs to YouTube Dance is potentially one of the most international and inclusive forms of expression. It is a language which has its own conventions, but conventions based in the fundamental expressive potential of the body, with which anybody who has taken pleasure in moving their body to music can potentially associate. Ballet, however, associated through its history with the Russian Imperial theatre, may once have been thought among the most elite and exclusive forms of art. But even in the 1890s ballet had alternative

Three Ballets and a Masque

67

cultural associations: with the painting of Degas, the sculpture of Rodin, the commentary of Mallarmé, and the prints of Toulouse-Lautrec executed in the manner of his work for the Folies Bergère, ballet was ahead of its time – experimental, unorthodox, scandalous. Throughout the twentieth century, the cultural place of ballet combined this gamut. Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes brought the inheritance of the Imperial Ballet to the Western European avant garde, with the most advanced composers (Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, Prokofiev), visual artists (Picasso, Bakst, Miró), and dynamic and scandalous choreographies – (Le Sacre du printemps, and most famously Nijinsky’s masturbatory gestures in L’Après-­midi d’un faune) – all this associated with ‘advanced’ social mores and Bohemian lifestyles. The association with aesthetic experiment and socially liberal modes of being was developed by the 1960s’ ‘bad boy’ star mode of the Soviet defector, Rudolf Nureyev; and differently in the early twenty-­first century by Carlos Acosta, with his on-­the-streets Cuban background, re-­associating ballet with its origin in popular as well as courtly dance, implying (like Nureyev) greater social inclusivity, and providing a different model of ballet’s class associations. The effect is comparable to that of star tenors (Caruso, Gigli, the ‘Three Tenors’ [Domingo, Pavarotti, Carreras]), readily re-­inserting Italian opera into popular culture because opera of the verismo school is connected to the popular canzone napoletana. The 1990 FIFA World Cup anthem, ‘Nessun dorma’ (from Puccini’s Turandot), epitomized apparently elite art finding a natural home in popular culture. In Britain the movement towards giving ballet a more socially inclusive cultural position has come from many sources: the touring of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet (later the Royal Ballet) to theatres all over the country throughout the Second World War; English Youth Ballet, with its socially inclusive teaching and touring programme; the potential relation to boys in working-­class culture indicated by the popularity of the film and musical, Billy Elliot; popularizations of classical ballet by Matthew Bourne, particularly his all-­male Swan Lake; the widely effective out-­reach activities of major ballet companies: and public-­space (‘big screen’) and cinema screenings and video recordings, which provide ready access to the highest levels of performance. The movement of ballet into popular culture evinced by the Nike ‘Just do it’ advertisement (2007), in which a dancer in pointe shoes competes with a rival in Nike trainers, or by the Levi stretch jeans advertisement (2012) made with the National Ballet of Korea, including classic Petipa choreography danced in jeans, is epitomized by the much-­ tattooed former Royal Ballet star Sergei Polunin as YouTube icon: some sixteen million viewings of a classical ballet solo choreographed to the Hozier LGBT ‘anthem’ and Grammy award nomination for ‘Song of the Year’ 2015, ‘Take Me to Church’. The ways in which classical ballet has absorbed elements from highly diverse aspects of contemporary culture is exemplified by Wayne McGregor’s Carbon Life (2012): choreographed for the Royal Ballet, the music was by the Brit and Grammy Award winning

68

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

singer-­songwriter Mark Ronson, the designs by Gareth Pugh (who in 2012 had recently dressed Kylie Minogue, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé), and performers (singers) included Boy George and the rapper Wale. This is ballet in contemporary society, the cultural context in which the 2014/2016 anniversary balletic adaptations of Shakespeare take their place – accessible through DVD (The Winter’s Tale), cinema broadcasts (The Taming of the Shrew) and dedicated touring (The Tempest). The Russian Imperial Ballet is still in the background, but ballet’s cultural associations have been substantially transformed.

Jean-Christophe Maillot, The Taming of the Shrew Music selected from Dmitri Shostakovich The Bolshoi Ballet, 2014, 2016 The Taming of the Shrew is a play with evident social implications, although what these are can be seen in opposite ways. Is it a brutal and misogynistic affirmation of traditional gender hierarchies? Or is it a subtle undermining of these – the release of an independent woman from the put-­down category, ‘shrew’, by an unacknowledged liberator whose assumption of the role of brutal misogynist is a see-­through extravagant performance? Over the last forty years, some such alternative readings have made the play one of the most performed and discussed of all Shakespeare’s comedies. In the very first Shakespeare ‘talkie’, with the husband-­and-wife team of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks (1929) – as in the Zeffirelli-Burton-Taylor version (1967), with the most famous Hollywood couple of a later age – cinema seized on these controversial social implications. Cole Porter’s Musical adaptation, Kiss Me, Kate, makes central the moment of release from convention (the heroine accepts a sexual freedom – kissing in public – that contravenes her role as ‘shrew’). The best-­known adaptation as a ballet, by John Cranko (1969), choreographed in the wake of Zeffirelli’s film, Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique, 1963), and second wave US feminism, is a relaxed comedy that leaves extrapolating social implications to the audience. Jean-Christophe Maillot’s version for the Shakespeare anniversary of 2014 is distinctly twenty-­first-century in its treatment of the central gender issues. Maillot describes his idea of the gender-­trouble lovers, Katherine and Petruchio, in terms of parts of a divided whole, as in the myth of separated male-­female beings described by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium.9 How far this idea is really embodied in the choreography is questionable, but it gives an appropriate sense of heterosexual love as at once both comic and exalted. More straightforwardly embodied in the presentation is Maillot’s view that Shakespeare’s play shows ‘an encounter between two forces of nature, who recognise one another at last’ (programme of the Bolshoi’s London season, July/August 2016). Katherine and Petruchio recognise each

Three Ballets and a Masque

69

other as unconventional, not wishing to be bound by social rules: in this they are genuine counterparts. It is simply more difficult for Katherine to recognise this because as a woman she has more powerfully imprisoning conventions to overcome. She needs help, which comes in forms that excite her opposition as well as, at a deeper level, release her assent. Maillot changes the dramatic mode and temperature of the play by entirely cutting its multiple disguise elements – which, in this play, unusually, all relate to men, and so do not involve the cross-­dressing gender complications of the later comedies. Maillot concentrates on the central couple and their multiple partial reflections – the Romantic myth of the gender-­differentiated beautiful couple (Bianca and Lucentio); a sub-­romantic version of this, gender-­differentiated but more accommodated to circumstance (Hortensio and the Widow); and a pragmatic adaptation, marriage for money and status (Gremio and an added character of Baptista’s Housekeeper). The gender implications, enforced by the elegant wit of the géométric-­sportif costume designs, are modern in a culturally specific way – mutedly feminist, French chic, a form in which some traditional views of sexual roles (the mistress, the woman whose power lies in concealed manipulations) maintain a subterranean life. A debate about the place and value of the arts in society is implicit in the choreographer’s selection of Shostakovich’s music. Some of this is work written in broadly popular styles (from Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite, from his satirical operetta Cheryomushki, from his sometimes post-Romantic film scores, and his witty arrangement of ‘Tea for Two’ from the 1920s Broadway musical No, No, Nanette) – that is, including music contrived under pressure from Soviet authorities to create ‘art for the people’, though also (with jazz and musical comedy) risking Soviet opprobrium as ‘decadent’. Some of it is Shostakovich’s most serious work – the 8th String Quartet (1960; in the string orchestra arrangement by Rudolf Barshai), an intensely personal piece written immediately after the composer had unwillingly joined the Communist Party; and the 9th Symphony (1945), ostensibly written to celebrate the Soviet victory over Nazism, which led in 1948 to official denunciation – that is, work attempting to engage with real situations of his society and falling foul of its official views of the arts. This musical gamut, from Western popular music styles and a post-Romantic mode transmuted from Tchaikovsky to the most experimental forms of Shostakovich’s peculiarly Soviet Modernism, is reflected in the range of the work’s dance styles: jazz and swing; classical dance inherited from the Imperial Ballet and Marius Petipa; modern dance ballet modes that are evidently twenty-­first-century. The ballet begins with a woman (later identified as Baptista’s Housekeeper) smartly dressed in Capri pants (the only woman to wear trousers), alone, in front of the stage curtains, changing into ballet shoes – establishing the centrality and authority over stage, orchestra and audience of a woman violating convention. A woman is in charge – partly a Katherine figure (Katherine, this implies, is a type), but also opposite to Katherine, dominating

70

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

by conforming to and manipulating accepted social mores (the ‘housekeeper’ as mistress; and later she marries for money). The opening sequences indicate fundamental characters and relationships: Katherine athletic and dominant, Bianca graceful and apparently timid, shy and pertly flirtatious; Katherine aggressive to Bianca and her mode of being; Baptista seeking to control Katherine and protect Bianca. Lucentio is decent and romantic, Hortensio sexy and self-­absorbed, Gremio young (there is no senex plot) and flashing signs of wealth: these suitors to Bianca demonstrate their attractions. By contrast to Bianca’s classicism, Katherine is all kicks and leaps. The sisters are Odette–Odile (Swan Lake), Nikiya and Gamzatti (La Bayadère), a classic ballet opposition that allows a gamut of women’s dance styles. The usual good-­passive/bad-­active implication of this contrast is here indicatively reversed – a choreographic move suiting twenty-­firstcentury gender assumptions, but also derived from one way of reading the play itself. Maillot’s Katherine and Petruchio treat each other roughly, but also with affectionate humour and mutual appreciation. Her sensual response to him – a mixture of delighted discovery and internal resistance – indicates the possibility of a fully positive response to love. Gremio matched with the Housekeeper, Hortensio with the Widow, Lucentio courts Bianca. Shostakovich at this most Romantic (the ‘Romance’ from The Gadfly) sets the tone: myth-­making romance, the woman passively dominant, a contrast to the wilder, ultimately less role-­playing investigations of Katherine and Petruchio. The choreography of the conventionally romantic couple is genuinely beautiful, but finally they contrast with Katherine and Petruchio – elemental forces, incorporating a greater range of feeling, including the vigorously, even violently, erotic. Their wild wedding, full of comic aggression, climaxes in an extended mime built from Petruchio’s suddenly serious rage at Katherine’s violence towards him. As Katherine sinks in a gesture of submission, he lifts her above his head, apparently by one hand on her throat, and initiates an extended kiss. Even more than in the fluidity of verbal theatre, in dance meaning is unfixed. Multivalent and ambiguous, this mime includes eros, violence and struggle for domination – which can also be construed as a struggle to release Katherine from her self-­inhibiting posture of rejection. Dominance or release from stereotype? What follows is an extended portrayal of the Katherine–Petruchio relationship in its mixture of tenderness and conflict. As in the play, the violence is at times seriously sinister. Katherine is attacked by masked men, and, although she is defended by Petruchio, it becomes clear that the attack was arranged by him as part of a strategy of intimidation. While this might be understood as either to establish his dominance or to liberate Katherine from her self-­imprisoning ‘shrew’ persona, the effect of Petruchio’s apparent protection is to unlock her tenderness towards him. She joins him in co-­operative role-­playing, which includes a mime offering him tea. Extended mimes, ambiguously alternating affection and aggression, keep the relationship on edge. Comic co-­operation

Three Ballets and a Masque

71

gives place to unguarded aggression: lifts, throws and tumbles suggest abandoned erotic feeling in which release of violent energy is finally a passage to tenderness. The relationship spans a gamut: role-­playing and contained, unguarded and open. The final scenes affirm the comprehensive complementarity of the Katherine–Petruchio relationship. After a formal duet (to the classical pastiche, ‘In the Garden’, from Shostakovich’s Hamlet film music), conforming to but obviously performing conventions, they revert to their tea mime, now in perfect co-­operation. When the other couples all do this in turn, the women in some way resist. Only Katherine and Petruchio achieve real harmony. The effect is as in the final scene of Shakespeare’s play, but without issues of sovereignty and dominance – a comic conclusion conforming to twenty-­firstcentury ideas of gender equality, though the stratagems, power struggles and erotic explorations by which this mutuality is achieved leave the audience with something more complex than a harmonious happy ending. The most serious scene of the ballet between Katherine and Petruchio uses the Funeral March from Shostakovich’s music for The Great Citizen, a film made in 1938 by Fridrikh Ermler (associated with the Cheka, original of the Soviet secret police, the KGB), about the assassination in 1934 of the Leningrad communist party leader, Sergei Kirov – an assassination, quite possibly arranged by Stalin, which was used to justify the purges of the later 1930s. Shostakovich used this music again (it is generally thought with irony) in his 11th Symphony (1957), subtitled ‘The Year 1905’ (with reference to the Russian Revolution of that year). In the context of the Khrushchev ‘thaw’ post-1956 (which included critique of Stalin’s personality cult and reinvestigation of Kirov’s assassination), Shostakovich was awarded the Lenin Prize for the symphony, rehabilitating him from the 1948 denunciation. None of this is made present in the ballet, or was perhaps known to Maillot when he made his choice of music, but its complex ironies, arising almost inevitably from the range of Shostakovich’s music used and the social relationships of art in the Soviet Union, are in their way congruent with the ballet’s uneasy resolution.

Christopher Wheeldon, The Winter’s Tale Music by Joby Talbot The Royal Ballet, 2014, 2016 ‘Every poem is a poem within a poem: the poem of the idea within the poem of the words.’10 This is most true of Shakespeare in his late plays: Shakespeare without language, without that by which he is most himself, is here still Shakespearian. In these plays, ‘the poem of the idea’ is in part a dramatic structure, and with The Winter’s Tale fundamental keynotes can represent its

72

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

broad drift: tragedy, comedy, reconciliation; winter, spring/summer, autumn; sin, repentance, forgiveness. While no simple terms register all elements of the pattern, and are downright misleading if they are mistaken for doing so, still some such structure is present beginning with an inception of darkness and moving through light and affirmation towards partial purgation. The precise ways in which this pattern is articulated take effect through all the elements of drama as embodied sequence as well as through the words. In working without words dance renders these fundamental patterns peculiarly visible. Christopher Wheeldon intensifies contrasts of movement, music and colour between his Act  1 (Sicilia) and Act  2 (Bohemia), drawing these together in Act 3, set in Sicilia but incorporating the colour and movement language of Bohemia. He also simplifies by cutting characters. In this Winter’s Tale there is no Autolycus, so the pastoral is more purely idealized, smoothing out Shakespeare’s startling mixture of high romance and vaudeville, and not connecting with ordinary life beyond the play – pedlars, petty thieves, fairs, bear-­baiting. And Antigonus supplies the place of Camillo, with some loss of Shakespeare’s residual realism of motivation (Florizel and Perdita flee to Sicilia prompted by Camillo, who wants to revisit his homeland), but mainly with no second marriage for Paulina to mitigate the irreconcilable losses. The close also refers back more intensely to the irreparable harms caused by Leontes, ending with a statue of the dead Mamillius and final reminders of all that is irrecoverable. This, with an extended representation of Leontes’ penitent grief, means that the ballet’s last Act blends Acts 1 and 2 with a final effect more tragi-comic than in Shakespeare. There are other significant changes. With no oracle of Apollo, there is no religious endorsement of Hermione and no violation of divine authority by Leontes. Since nothing can be reported as happening off-­stage in ballet, the reunion of Perdita and Leontes is presented, albeit kept clearly subsidiary to the final reunion. And the effect of Hermione’s ‘resurrection’ is more purely supernatural. Shakespeare offers, without insisting on, the possibility of a quasi-­realist explanation: Paulina has been going to her house twice a day for ‘some great matter’ (5.2.97); Hermione tells Perdita that ‘knowing . . . the oracle / Gave hope thou wast in being’ she preserved herself (5.3.126–27); Leontes and Polixenes observe how the ‘statue’ has aged.11 But in the ballet, the coming to life of the statue without explanation appears (whatever a programme note may say) purely as a resurrection miracle. Wheeldon’s shifts of emphasis begin with the presentation of Leontes. With Leontes spying on them, Polixenes and Hermione perform the erotic actions he fantasizes. Lighting and orchestral colour indicate changed levels of reality: normal lighting for real actions; lower lighting for the erotic engagements of unfounded suspicion. But Leontes’ vividly choreographed agonies, with a new style of movement, more angular and contorted, opposite to the free, exuberant style of Polixenes; a distinct orchestral colouration for the agonized distortions of his jealousy (bass drum, gongs, low brass, muffled trumpets and shrieking soprano clarinets); the

Three Ballets and a Masque

73

presentation of fantasies that are vividly erotic – which, while their ‘unreal’ status is registered, are also seen by the audience: all this induces greater sympathetic engagement with Leontes than the play’s vivid but more distinctly diseased fantasies, experienced through report. The audience is taken, visually and aurally, into Leontes’ mind. The scene also initiates a series of tortured solos for Leontes, so that in total the ballet gives a more extended Othello-­like presentation of his experience. With no narrative beyond the intervention of Polixenes and the flight of Florizel and Perdita, Act 2 is almost pure dance, much of it for the corps de ballet. A contrast to Act  1’s presentation of destructive self-­engrossed isolation, it is an exuberant celebration of community – shared delights of an unsophisticated culture, a festival celebrating pleasures of love and natural fertility. In context it reflects on the etiolated and corrupt state of the more sophisticated society of courtly Sicilia. Though the pastoral is not simply ideal – it too has a tyrant – its problems are unthreatening. The audience fears no repetition of the tragic plot’s disaster because the resolution – that the supposed peasant girl is a princess – is always apparent. Perdita’s identity is clear, in the ballet as in the play: in the play her nature manifests itself even to the prejudiced eye of Polixenes (‘Nothing she does or seems / But smacks of something greater than herself, / Too noble for this place’ [4.4.157–59]); in the ballet her choreography is sophisticated beyond that of anybody else from her social group. The connection of Perdita with Hermione is also established visually: an emerald pendant, presented to Hermione by Leontes and left among the jewels identifying her exposed baby, is presented to Perdita by her shepherd ‘father’ as a marriage gift. It becomes the key to the recognition of Perdita by Paulina which initiates the reconciliations. Without Autolycus, Act 2 is more of an unalloyed picture of a harmonious community. Act 3 is the healing of Sicilia, insofar as it can be healed, under its influence: the wedding of Florizel and Perdita replicates in Sicilia the ethos of Bohemia. Wheeldon’s final inflection of Shakespeare’ emphasis comes in his placing of this: the community celebration of renewal, centred on the marriage, with the full corps de ballet and the vibrant colours and sounds of Bohemia, forms the penultimate scene. The final scene – for the Sicilian group of Leontes, Hermione, Paulina and its new member, Perdita, only – is sparse, private, drained of colour. While the play foregrounds the reunion of the whole social group (and leaves the problem of the dead son largely tacit), the ballet, using gestures recalling their first commitments to each other, focuses on the painful and still tentative reunion of Hermione and Leontes. The final tableau is of the lonely figure of Paulina mourning by the statue of Mamillius. The music supports Christopher Wheeldon’s choreography magnificently, and widens its reach. Joby Talbot is a composer with a highly varied musical background. Having played keyboard with the 1990s orchestral pop band, The Divine Comedy, he wrote scores for television and film (The League of Gentlemen; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and was inaugural

FIGURE 4.1  Christopher Wheeldon/Royal Ballet, The Winter’s Tale, Act  2: Pastoral dances, a community celebration of the festival of spring underneath a great tree decorated by the villagers with amulets; with on-­stage world-­music band including (back left to right) bansuri, accordion, hammered dulcimer and drums.

Three Ballets and a Masque

75

composer-­in-residence with the UK popular classical radio station Classic FM. He has also written a cappella works, most notably Path of Miracles (2005, about the pilgrimage route to Santiago), orchestral commissions, including an additional movement for Holst’s The Planets for the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad, and most recently (2015) a one-­act opera. His first ballet score, for Wayne McGregor’s Chroma (2006), included arrangements of music by the American guitarist-­singer-songwriter Jack White III. It is difficult to imagine a more eclectic musical career. Much of this can be heard in the score for The Winter’s Tale: memorable melodic inventiveness for motifs associated with the principal characters; striking uses of orchestral colour to articulate individual states of feeling; moments of special intensity and fundamental blocks of dramatic material; rhythms invented out of a long engagement with dance that beautifully enable and project Wheeldon’s choreography. The musical characterization of Bohemia is especially striking. Bohemian music is part of the on-­stage drama, a small band visible to the audience, complementing the ways in which the drama is articulated by the orchestra in the pit. This sound world is present in the court of Sicilia: when Polixenes and his retinue dance, their more folk-­dance style of movement is matched by the music of their on-­stage band. They introduce a non-Sicilian exoticism, Hermione’s relaxed participation in which seems to be part of what unhinges Leontes, adding a cultural motive to his paranoia. The contrast of cultures is developed in Act  2, which, like Shakespeare’s ‘Bohemia’, is not set in any historicised location. Bohemia is characterized by a colouration of world music – the bansuri (Indian bamboo flute), African and South American drums, wind chimes, a hammered dulcimer and an accordion, played on stage, presented as though folk music, apparently performed in a collaborative and improvisatory way. This is sound for an imaginary country, in the manner of what Jacobeans called a ‘broken consort’ – different kinds of instruments playing together, not here plucked, bowed and blown, but from different musical traditions, suggesting several, not identified with any one. The scoring indicates a connection with musical worlds almost as unusual in the Royal Opera House as Mark Ronson and Boy George, a way of articulating Shakespeare that merges diverse cultural registers, and re-­situates his work in contexts to which, as a writer with global reach, he now properly belongs.

David Bintley, The Tempest Music by Sally Beamish Birmingham Royal Ballet, 2016 ‘One year, seven ballets, ten theatres, eighty performances’: David Bintley’s The Tempest was mounted as part of an anniversary season of Shakespeare ballets with which the Birmingham Royal Ballet toured England, as it does

76

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

annually, from the South West (Plymouth) to the North East (Sunderland) – tours which make it what the founder of the Royal Ballet, Ninette de Valois, wished: a ballet company for all England. The season included two full-­length revivals, John Cranko’s The Taming of the Shrew and Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, the black American classic, José Limón’s The Moor’s Pavan (based on Othello), and one other new work, Wink (based on the Sonnets) by Jessica Lang. Distinguished from the Royal Ballet by its national touring programme, the Birmingham Royal Ballet also has a different place in its communities – at home, where it shares a theatre not with a resident international opera company, but with pantomime, musicals and popular stage shows; and throughout England, where it performs, not to international ballet and arts cognoscenti, but to mixed audiences, among them people who simply go to whatever is playing in their local theatre. In Birmingham and throughout its touring venues the BRB’s aim is actively to engage with the widest possible community, to be for anybody able to take an interest in dance. The Tempest’s use of the supernatural and the marvellous enforces the quasi-­magical nature of all theatre – not the response of the over-­acculturated critic inured to the power of illusion, but of the wonder-­struck child who sees the curtain rise for the first time. This child remains a part of everyone who submits to the power of live performance, responsive to the performer as re-­creative artist in-­the-moment, the performer living all-­absorbing experiences that are taking place in the here-­and-now. Like Yeats’s poet, while performing the dancer is not the bundle of accident and incoherence who sits down to breakfast, but a living instance – organized and intense – of that experiencing beyond the limitations of the everyday self that art offers.12 Perhaps because ballet has to a peculiar degree this magic-­of-theatre power, perhaps because for post-­modern perspectives The Tempest is appealingly open to such different ways of reading, the play has recently been attractive to dance makers, with choreographies by Alexei Ratmansky (2013) and Krzysztof Pastor (2015), and Crystal Pite’s epic fantasia, The Tempest Replica (2011). Compared with Pite, David Bintley’s aim is straightforward – ‘to do [the play] homage . . . to capture its spirit and follow the contours of the narrative’.13 His reading is fundamentally moral, even religious: understandable though Prospero’s anger at his usurpation is, he has brooded on it too long; the action shows him overcoming the desire for revenge and exercising the virtue of forgiveness – a journey in which he is assisted by the love modelled by Miranda and Ferdinand and the penitence induced in his enemies by the exercise of magic arts. As in the play, the sinners are differentiated: Alonso repents because the supposition that Ferdinand has died as a result of his sin forces him to confront his guilt; Antonio and Sebastian repeat their sin in proposing to murder Alonso, and are turned not by repentance but by power. The ballet has no Gonzalo, so there is no pointer (through whatever comic lens) to new world possibilities of new ways of organising society (The Tempest, 2.1.138–63); and, beyond what is implicit in the action, no extrapolation of a Fortunate Fall pattern to

Three Ballets and a Masque

77

Prospero’s sufferings (5.1.200–14). However these things are understood in their contexts – comic, lightly touched – they suggest possible meanings in the play which in the ballet are at most implicit. The ballet follows the contours of the play’s narrative, sometimes down to its detail – Caliban’s response to the beauty of his environment (‘The isle is full of noises’ [3.2.128]); Ariel’s tricks played on Stephano and Caliban and blamed on Trinculo (3.2); Miranda’s amazement at Alonso and his company (‘O brave new world’ [5.1.183]). It also fully accepts Shakespeare’s variety of tone, including the clowning of Trinculo and Stephano (with wonderful comic contortions, for example, for the four-­legged, two-­headed Trinculo-Caliban). Caliban is presented ambivalently, as in Shakespeare, his flesh-­and-earth movement language a complement to the spirit-­and-air mode of Ariel. Creeping under a large seashell he is comic; erotically attentive to Miranda he is threatening. Responsive to natural beauty he is finer than his clowning allies; in vividly choreographed hatred and rage towards Prospero he is more sinister. That Prospero has wronged him, as in the play he claims (1.2.331–44), is suggested only by the close: as he gestures in submission Prospero meditatively bequeaths him his broken staff and places on his head his ducal coronet. Ferdinand and Miranda are more central to the ballet than the play, with two extended duets and an expanded wedding masque. Partly this follows from expectations of ballet: a romantic couple offers attractive choreographic opportunities. Partly it follows from David Bintley’s view of the play: the lovers are not presented as a political match engineered by Prospero (‘It goes on . . . / As my soul prompts it’ [1.2.418–19]), a dynastic reversal of his usurpation (‘Was Milan thrust from Milan that his issue / Should become kings of Naples?’ [5.1.205–6]). The chaste tenderness of Shakespeare’s lovers, figures who do not threaten to disturb the conventions of Romance, is expanded: from child-­like joy expressed in seashore playfulness to the youthful rapture of discovering reciprocated affection, the lovers embody forces that run counter to Prospero’s anger, and they act independently of his will. Similarly with the masque: it is the play fully realized, and more. Like Shakespeare, David Bintley is a professional creating with what is prescribed by the structure of a company: with any full-­length work there must be roles for the corps de ballet. As with Shakespeare’s fixed number of boys, the need for a Clown’s part, and so on, the choreographer must put the group scenes required by a company’s composition to creative use. David Bintley’s solution is to use the corps de ballet to bring out the full form of Shakespeare’s dramatic structure, missing in productions that fail to realise all that is implicit in stage directions and dialogue: the opposition between the juxtaposed arraignment of sin (3.3, the Harpies’ banquet) and blessing of love (4.1, the wedding masque). With the banquet the stage directions call for two dances (3.3.20, 83), as well as all the devices of the feast’s delivery and disappearance, ‘salutations’, ‘mocks and mows’, and much else. Bintley stages this fully, with a banquet descending from the heavens, Ariel as Harpy,

78

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

the corps de ballet first seducing then tormenting the sinners, and a re-­ enactment of Prospero’s deposition (with duchess, nurse-­maids, and a puppet-­child Miranda). For the complementary wedding masque, dialogue and directions again imply elaborate staging: special effects (the descent of Juno in a peacock chariot or throne), singing goddesses (musically grander than a singing clown), dancing nymphs (‘naiads of the . . . brooks’) and reapers (‘sunburned sicklemen’) – with more if necessary (‘bring a corollary [extras] / Rather than want a spirit’ [4.1.57–58]). David Bintley builds on this prompt, adding male water-­spirits, female reapers, and corresponding deities: Neptune for the nymphs, Pan for the rustics – gods added as athletic contrasts to the more delicate and stately goddesses. Prospero imagines (and his agents present) a human community, a quasi-­harvest festival, somewhat in the manner of the pastoral of The Winter’s Tale, presided over by a beneficent pantheon. With its banquet and masque the ballet draws out ways in which the play is embodied movement, a sequence of tones, tableaux and emblematic stage pictures. Dance reveals what more naturalistic presentation often misses: the shapes of Shakespeare’s stagecraft. The choreography is supported in this by pointers provided by the specially composed score by Sally Beamish. Each main character has a characteristic instrument: Prospero, cello; Miranda, violin; Caliban (for his mixed nature) a hybrid (saxophone-­like), bassoon and horn; Trinculo, trumpet and clarinet (comic); Stephano, trombone (with slides for drunkenness); Pan, flute and piccolo. More generally the scoring aims to suggest a magical environment, with resonances of the sea and some imitation of natural sounds. Characters also have characteristic themes or motifs: grandly melancholy for Prospero’s cello; innocently perky for Trinculo’s clarinet; for Stephano a wordless shanty (suggesting ‘The master, the swabber, the boatswain and I’ [2.2.43]); for Neptune an energetic brass fanfare; for Pan a Morris-­dance dotted rhythm (inexhaustible jauntiness); for Ariel a leitmotif identifying his sometimes invisible presence in magical effects. There are repetitions: the ‘Ghostly Galliard’ of the Harpies’ Banquet is transformed (more regular rhythms, more diatonic harmonies) into the galliard for Juno of the wedding masque (both scenes devised by Prospero). And there are contrasts: in the masque popular and courtly dance modes jostle and combine, reapers and nymphs, gods and goddesses. And beyond these particular effects, themes and motifs transformed in rhythm and scoring complement appropriateness to particular characters with the cross-­referencing of a symphonic texture. A ballet company is a theatrical community in many of the ways in which the King’s Men were and few modern verbal theatre companies are – people on-­stage, back-­stage, in the orchestra pit or musicians’ gallery, with different functions but interdependent and working together, often in the most intimate ways, over many years; reviving and adapting old favourites, constantly creating new work. One result of this is that in performance the company communicates the delight of a diverse community in creative co-­operation. This is everywhere present in a diffused way in any ballet performance, but

FIGURE 4.2  David Bintley/Birmingham Royal Ballet, The Tempest: David Bintley (choreographer) and Sally Beamish (composer): final choreographed curtain call (left to right: Neptune, Ariel, Ferdinand, Miranda, Caliban, Juno): the diverse community celebrates creative co-­operation.

80

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

in David Bintley’s The Tempest it has a magnificent focus – an elaborately choreographed curtain-­call modelled on musical comedy and other forms of popular theatre: each corps de ballet group and each principal takes a bow by performing some characteristic aspect of their role, so that each dancer’s contribution to the whole is acknowledged and celebrated. For the audience too this is an integral part of their experience: its structured acknowledgements allow their appreciation (applause, cheers, stamping, whistles) to become part of the celebration; it joins the stage and the auditorium into a single community, united in its pleasure in the work and the performance.

Carol Ann Duffy and Sally Beamish, A Shakespeare Masque, 2016 A Shakespeare Masque was commissioned for a civic celebration. Written to be performed alongside David Garrick’s Ode to Shakespeare, composed for the origin of all Shakespearean civic celebrations, the Jubilee of 1769, it was premiered in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-­upon-Avon, where Shakespeare is buried, on 22 April 2016 as part of the Stratford 400th anniversary weekend.14 The performance initiated a sequence of public events. The following morning the Shakespeare Birthday Parade, with civic dignitaries, representatives of the worlds of literature and theatre, students from Shakespeare’s and other local schools, processed with marching bands through the streets of Stratford to Holy Trinity. That evening the Royal Shakespeare Company mounted a special performance, relayed on national television, involving some of the most famous contemporary Shakespearean actors, but also a huge variety of Shakespeare-­ related performances, from opera, ballet and ‘classical’ theatre to jazz, country, rap and hip-­hop.15 From street parade to TV, from opera to rap, the new Shakespeare Masque could scarcely have appeared in the context of a wider cultural embracing of its great subject. The structure of the work is partly narrative. Shakespeare appears as an actual historic individual – a schoolboy more responsive to nature than to books; with ‘small Latin’, not the product of an elite education; the lover of Anne Hathaway; the father of a child that died; perhaps a closet adherent to the proscribed religion of Roman Catholicism; perhaps seeing, in the exhibited heads of executed traitors, ‘tragic masks’; if the speaker of the Sonnets, then the lover of a ‘Dark Lady’ and a ‘lovely boy’ – but also a historic self who disappears when transmuted into poetry. Fragmentary quotations, keynotes to ways of seeing his work (‘please one, please all’, ‘cakes and ale’), also suggest how awareness of Shakespeare is diffused, often unrecognized, through English culture.16 The work is modelled broadly on the Stuart masque, with which Shakespeare was familiar, a courtly form with popular theatre spin-­offs (as in

Three Ballets and a Masque

81

The Tempest). This united professionals (actors, often the King’s Men; court and theatre musicians) with ‘amateur’ performers – the aristocratic participants and audience, for whom dancing was a normal accomplishment. It was, therefore, a form that drew together courtly and popular theatre through a community of professionals and amateurs to produce a ‘total art work’: poetry, drama, music, dancing, costume and scenery. The Duffy–Beamish Masque reflects this variety in its musical layout: the choral group, Ex Cathedra; the Renaissance band, The City Musick, modelled on Elizabethan theatre ensembles and city groups (Waits): a mixed (‘broken’) consort of lutes, viols, and a recorder; children from local primary schools singing and dancing; and (like a Bach cantata) a participating audience. The music also moves beyond an otherwise Elizabethan sound world with some colourful percussion: cymbals, crotals, tambourine, tom-­toms, tubular bells and maracas. Sally Beamish worked on the composition partly during a residency in Aldeburgh, and she acknowledges the influence of Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde and Saint Nicholas – works which are also communitarian in their use of mixed professional and amateur performers including children. One final significant aspect of the work is its use for the choreography of Dalcroze technique – a way of learning music through the physical experience of rhythm that is less mind-­based, more through the body and intuitive, and so associated with passing on popular or demotic traditions.17 The singers move around the church with movements (between stepping and dancing) responsive to the rhythms of the music, or miming meanings of the text, so that movement, dance, music and singing are integrated, drawing into a single community professionals and amateurs, performers and ‘audience’ – which thereby becomes something more like a congregation. Dramatic interest is generated by having a different location for each piece: musicians are spread through the church, with different layouts of the choirs, soloists, and various groups of children. All move around the church, so that the audience, as well as joining in the performance by singing, choral speaking, and clapping rhythms, is included physically by the movement of the performers. That there is no normal stage–audience division is a physical embodiment of the inclusivity conveyed aurally by the music’s mixture of styles. This ranges from simple unison melodies that can be sung by children and readily learned by a participating audience to the rich textures of a double four-­part choir singing complex polyphony, harmonies, and rhythms; popular and courtly dance forms, from the repeated lively rhythms of the Morris to the stately elegance of the pavan; dance tunes from Shakespeare’s time and the option for performers to exercise their own creativity in the choice of dance melodies, rhythms and instrumentation. Even the most complex music retains a connection with song and dance: the mysterious pulsations of ‘Under the Mulberry’ quietly making the central claim of Shakespeare’s ubiquitous presence in English culture, ‘Your breath has my poems / If you breathe English now’; the vigorous ‘Coranta’, noisily affirming Shakespeare as genius loci and all-­embracing presence, and uniting the

82

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

whole assembly of choirs, instrumentalists, children, and audience in a single performance community. *  *  * On YouTube, in advertisements, with music by Mark Ronson sung by Boy George, in the twenty-­first century ballet is in the world in new ways. When the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 400th birthday celebration includes rap and hip-­hop, the comedian Rufus Hound and the rapper Akala, Shakespeare too is finding new ways into the world. Categories of high and popular culture are confounded. While in ballet it may be that the inheritance of the Russian Imperial Theatre is still dominant, here too new work interacts in new ways with its audience communities. Adaptation of Shakespeare to twenty-­first-century gender expectations; a score that mixes symphonic writing with operetta and musical comedy; world-­music scoring for European pastoral; a musical comedy trope to embody a company’s cooperative and non-­hierarchical ethos; a dramatic layout and musical textures that absorb the audience into the performance: aspects of all of these works show elite arts interacting with their audiences in ways responsive to and engaged with the temper of the times. These are the parts we can see, the parts that will also satisfy arts-­andsociety commentators that the right things are happening, the parts that might persuade philanthropists to disburse funding, that will assure public bodies that the Arts are facing in the directions in which the world is choosing to travel. But those who see in the Arts dissent, alienation, a valuable sickness, need not fear: the Tolstoyian theory of history is at work in the Arts as well, with an unseen power to undermine all conscious direction of choice.

Performance note Each of the discussions here is based on performances seen live and studied in recordings, as follows. The Taming of the Shrew: live performance (in London), August 2016; video recording, Bolshoi Theatre, 2014 (DVD, Bolshoi Ballet, BBDV024, 2016). The Winter’s Tale: live performance, April 2014; video recording, 2014 (DVD, The Royal Ballet, Opus Arte, 2015). The Tempest: live performances, October 2016; video recordings from the BRB archives: final dress rehearsal (30 September 2016; camera with lateral movement and close-­up); public performance (8 October 2016; fixed position camera). A Shakespeare Masque: live performance, 22 April 2016; available thereafter (to September 2016) through BBC online (‘Shakespeare Lives’).

l

l

l

l

5 Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love: A Liturgy for Voices Based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream Paul S. Fiddes and Andrew Taylor

Introduction The antecedents of this liturgy lie with an earlier and similar project, sponsored through the Religion and Society Programme of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, called ‘The Faerie Queene Now’, and published as Redcrosse: Remaking Religious Poetry for Today’s World.1 Upon its completion, the intention developed to build upon that first intertextual liturgy with one based upon Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream as the primary text. The resulting liturgy takes a different turn from the previous Redcrosse experiment, and is deliberately more ecclesial in structure and tone. Composed by a team of five, four of whom are clergy used to leading worship,2 it seeks to take seriously what might be regarded as the four major components of good liturgy, understood here as gathering, disturbance, reconciliation and dismissal. Such elements are characteristic of Shakespearean comedy as well, enabling the kind of intertextuality that we have sought to create with our use of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.3 Crossing the boundaries like this is intended to make liturgy accessible to those unfamiliar with it, as well as to administer a surprise – even a shock – to those who are too familiar. We had resolved that the idea and realization of love would be the guiding motif for the liturgy, and to this end decided (as had the authors of Redcrosse)

84

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

that we would commission original poetry as integral to it. Five contemporary poets (Sinéad Morrissey, Lawrence Sail, Michael Symmons Roberts, Micheal O’Siadhail and Jenny Lewis) were commissioned to choose one of eight characters in the play and then to compose a poem that allowed that character to reflect in some way upon his or her changing experience of love through the course of the plot. This was their only brief, and in turn our five poets chose Puck, Titania, Demetrius and Helena as their characters, with Jenny Lewis interpreting the brief in a novel way by composing a poem that has Bottom’s wife as its heroine. We were also convinced that we would wait upon the poetry before embarking on the writing of the liturgy, in the belief and trust that it would serve as a sure guide to how that might develop. In this our intuition proved correct, and it was a delight to discover five poems that lent themselves so easily to the overall concerns of the liturgy. At the same time that we were seeking new poetry, we also commissioned Myra Blyth, Chaplain and Fellow at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, to compose new music for the liturgy. Of one thing we were quite sure, however, and that was the need for the liturgy to incorporate specific actions for the congregation that would have a ‘sacramental’ character but be accessible for all, regardless of their belief or lack of it. Given our theme of ‘seeing more clearly. . . . .’ and the fact that so much of the play centres on misunderstood intentions and mistaken identities, the idea of erring love-­sight restored and barriers of misunderstanding dismantled presented us with our way forward. At particular points, therefore, members of the congregation are invited to come forward to participate in the act of washing their eyes as an expression of a desire to see clearly once again, and a little later to take part in the dismantling of the wall that features in the rude mechanicals’ unintentionally catastrophic presentation of the two star-­crossed lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe. Our own version of the wall was present from the beginning of the liturgy, hidden deliberately behind a screen that referenced in its design the dual symbols of the eye (that appears in Elizabethan art as both illuminating and intimidating) and the leaves of the forest within which much of the play is set, until the moment in the liturgy when the wall is ‘discovered’ and the invitations are given, first to clear one’s vision, and then to take the wall of division down. It might be asked at this point, however, why we might presume to embark on such an exercise at all, bringing Shakespeare directly into an act of Christian worship. We have done so because Shakespeare engages in the very kind of intertextuality that we have sought ourselves. This he does in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at two particular moments in the play, quoting (or, in the first case, misquoting) verses from the Pauline corpus in the New Testament. The first of these is the most famous (4.1.209–12),4 where Bottom, having emerged from his night of ecstasy with Titania, seeks to convey to his fellow workers the depth of an experience that he cannot fully understand. This he does through muddling, to comic effect, words of the

SEEING MORE CLEARLY wITh ThE EYES OF LOVE

85

FIGURE 5.1 Members of the congregation begin to come forward to ‘wash’ their eyes, while singers and musicians provide a setting of Psalm 36, in the presentation of the liturgy at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2.9–10, beginning ‘eye has not seen. . .’.5 The second moment comes towards the end of the play (5.1.337) where, overhearing Theseus’ comment that the (absurdly personified) wall was left – with moonshine and the lion – to bury the dead after the rough workmen’s hilarious rendition of the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, Bottom assures the Duke that ‘the wall is down that parted their fathers’. Here is an echo of words in Ephesians 2.14–16, where ‘Paul’6 writes of the death of Christ as breaking down the wall of hostility that has divided the ancient fathers of the races, Jew and Christian.7 In using such allusions to the Bible, Shakespeare is not purveying Christian doctrine, but rather opening out the imaginative possibility that all drama echoes a larger drama, that illusions of art can point us towards a larger life. Shakespeare was writing out of a situation in the English Reformation when there were blurred boundaries between Catholic and Protestant, and when those in the pews scarcely knew which they were: over a mere thirty years they had oscillated twice between being Catholic and Protestant. At the same time, the new Church of England was aiming at comprehensiveness. The uncertain religious identities of the time offered a propitious moment for expressing, through drama, a kind of general spirituality in which love plays a major part, in place of dogmatic belief.

86

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

FIGURE 5.2  Students from Regent’s Park College, Oxford perform the ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ interlude, prior to the dismantling of the dividing wall, in the presentation of the liturgy at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-­upon-Avon.

These two uses of the Bible within the play thus serve as the inspiration within the liturgy for the two ‘sacramental’ acts that are described above, so that one act of intertextuality creates another in its turn, over 400 years apart. These particular ‘Pauline’ texts are not the only biblical verses, however, to find a home within the liturgy below. Elsewhere it uses the two liturgical canticles that appear in the early chapters of Luke’s Gospel, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, at deliberate moments of response and commitment on the part of the congregation, as well as part of Psalm 36 (celebrating the steadfast love of God) in responsorial mode. And throughout there are quotations from the Hebrew Song of Songs, familiar within monastic worship but regarded with a certain suspicion in some conventional Christian circles because of its deliberate erotic imagery. The liturgy, then, is a mingling of ‘voices’: characters of the play are brought into conversation with different voices from the Bible, and speakers show differing understandings of love, reflecting tensions between agape (self-­giving love) and eros. The play itself explores the confusions and life-­ giving properties of both sexual desire and a political ‘commonwealth’ as shaping motivations of society, and the liturgy takes up similar concerns to allow alert worshippers to see how they might contribute to the fullest understanding of life in relation to God. So passages from the play about failing to see with the eyes of love, heightened by the confusion caused by

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

87

the love potion laid on lovers’ eyes, are interwoven with injunctions of Scripture to see clearly and love truly, with its exposure of people pretending to see when they are blind to the truth. We referred above to the similarities between a Shakespeare comedy and a liturgy, in that both follow four key phases: gathering; disturbance; reconciliation; and dismissal. In the comedies there is already disorder in the characters’ relationships at the very moment of their gathering. It is Shakespeare’s comedic technique to heal these disorders of life through further disorder: through comic confusions, mistakes, deceits, disguises and mistaken identities, disorder is turned into order. It seems that such confusion and disturbance is necessary to break open the surface of things and reveal the truth of the situation underneath. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream this is the story of what happens between both the human lovers and the fairy lovers in the wood at night. In Christian liturgy, as the congregation gathers, prayers of confession acknowledge that lives are disordered. Often, as in this liturgy, these are expressed with the traditional Kyrie Eleison. Following this, a Christian liturgy does not aim for confusion, but it does intend disturbance of prior assumptions, which is often achieved through hard reflection on the word of God in biblical reading and exposition, wrestling with those words in the confidence that they will, in time, create the possibility of spiritual growth. This stage in the liturgy expresses the ‘divine comedy’ in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, witnesses to which ‘turn the world upside-­down’ (Acts 17.6).8 The intention is to move to the next phase of the liturgy, as in comedy, when some form of reconciliation is enabled. The play achieves this in the coming together of all parties in the light of day, preparing for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, and the gift of the rude mechanicals’ play within a play, heralding the feast that will follow. Within liturgy reconciliation is achieved through a sacramental act and intercession on behalf of God’s world; what Theseus calls (in 5.1.60) ‘the concord of this discord’ – a phrase that acts as a motif in the liturgy – will become a reality beyond the immediate confines of the liturgy. Thus we move to the final part of any liturgy, the dismissal. In the play this happens as Puck and the fairies bless the home of the newly married Duke and Hippolyta, and Puck bids the audience to depart the play in friendship. In Christian liturgy the dismissal is effected by blessing those present and commissioning them to ‘go in peace to love and serve the Lord’, and in this liturgy the commission is accepted by using the words of the Nunc Dimittis, following an actor’s farewell by Demetrius. Thus people are sent out, their gathering having created a new understanding of what God calls them to be in service to the world. Words are ended and action takes its place, and here this aspect of the dismissal is highlighted by allowing the words of Bottom to his fellow actors, ‘No more words. Away! Go, away!’ (4.2.142), to be the final words of the liturgy, should the performers so choose. This echoes the original ambiguous ending of Mark’s Gospel (16.8),

88

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

where the women, the first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus, flee the scene in dismay and uncertainty. It is a reminder that words, as important as they are, are never enough, that the call is always to act in and for the world. For those who find this open-­ended conclusion to be too difficult, we have supplied additional, more conventional wording. This liturgy is included as part of a volume dedicated to civic creativity. We hope that it is obvious, in terms of its structure and content, that it does justice to that concern. Prayers of intercession for the civic realm, for example, mirror the social and political context that can be glimpsed in the play. Thus it was appropriate that the first productions of the liturgy, when the five poets performed their work, took place in churches that had very deliberate civic connections. We are grateful to the clergy and wardens of Holy Trinity, Stratford-­upon-Avon, and St Martin-­in-the Fields, London, for hosting the event. Both are parishes with a long history of engagement with their immediate environment and in serving the world that happens to be on their doorstep, through the performing arts, liturgical affirmation of the civic structures that enable good community, educational opportunities and – in the case of St Martin’s – many decades of serving the homeless of London. This service is always an embodiment of love, and it is to a clearer vision of love that we believe we are called.

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

89

The liturgy A screen stands before the assembly, decorated all over with eyes, petals and leaves. Behind the screen stands a wall. Music plays beforehand. Those present in the gathered assembly are invited to add their voices where the type is bold under the heading ‘ALL’. At two points they are invited to come forward to share in a symbolic action. Coming together in search of love 1 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.

voice

(1 John 4.7) 2 Is all our company here?

voice

(MND 1.2.1) all

Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4.7–8) 3 O hell! To choose love by another’s eyes.

voice

(MND 1.1.140) 4 Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. the flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff . . .

voice

90

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

all

Let me see your face, let me hear your voice. (repeat) (Song of Songs 2.10–14) 5 My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies. Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle, or a young stag on the cleft mountains. Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer. I will arise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares . . .

voice

all

I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but found him not. . . . I sought him, but found him not. (Song of Songs 2.16–3.2) Music setting phrases: ‘Arise, my love, my fair one, come away’. ‘The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come’. ‘Let me see your face, let me hear your voice’. ‘I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him but found him not’. Failure to see with the eyes of love 6 Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia. . . . . I beg the ancient privilege of Athens: As she is mine, I may dispose of her.

voice

(MND 1.1.22–3, 41–42) 7 Prepare to die

voice

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

91

For disobedience to your father’s will, Or else to wed Demetrius! (MND 1.1.86–88) 3 I would my father looked but with my eyes.

voice

7 Rather your eyes must with his judgement look. . . . . fit your fancies to your father’s will; Or else the law of Athens yields you up. (MND 1.1.56–7, 118–19)

voice

8 Love sees not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

voice

(MND 1.1.234–35) 1 Jesus said: ‘I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind’. Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see”, your sin remains.’ (John 9.39–41)

voice

7 This is hot ice, and wondrous strange snow! How shall we find the concord of this discord?

voice

(MND 5.1.59–60) all

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is made perfect in us. (1 John 4.12) 7 Love, therefore, and tongue-­tied simplicity In least speak most, to my capacity.

voice

(MND 5.1.104–05) Music, setting phrases: ‘Love sees not with the eyes, but with the mind’.

92

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

‘Those who do not see may see’. ‘How shall we find the concord of this discord?’ ‘No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us’. Poem: Helena (by Micheal O’Siadhail) You’re watching Will’s mid-­summer lovers’ dream Where I, Helena, love Demetrius; You’ll see how I remain the way I seem – Am I the earthiest of all of us? Demetrius for Hermia shuns me, Puck’s juices make Lysander jilt his girl; Though spurned I am a sign of constancy, My love stands firm as all the plots unfurl. I picked my love and loved by will alone, Desire’s no fiction, truth no fantasy; Demetrius I choose to be my own – My choice won’t change by playing puck with me. But in the end it’s tenderness that tells; Love won’t depend on potions’ wake-­up spells. Through Athens I am thought as fair as she, But Hermia’s the soul both men pursue; Though luckier, more lovable than me, I’m higher than she is and humbler too. She’d seen how she could charm and so enthrall Men’s dreams and lives so they both blend and blur Before Puck’s potions would confuse us all, And saw two sober men could fancy her. When I in turn start turning heads I think That both the men and she are mocking me, Behind my back I wonder if they wink, Yet don’t lose touch with sheer reality. Awareness of our charms can often pull; Unwitting beauty proves more beautiful. Although my love stands firm I must confess I blench when Hermia’s cat rage turns blind; I have no gift at all in shrewishness, A foolish heart that I now leave behind. So spurned, Demetrius’s spaniel pup, Do I demean myself, diminish love? Though others say that I must harden up, Do lovers have to be more hawk than dove?

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

93

Though anger and love’s passion seem akin, Yet, unlike rage, my love is never blind But sees how patience in pursuit will win; Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind. Though spurned in ways that many may despise; My weakness foolish, yet my love was wise. The Song of Mary (‘Magnificat’) becomes the Song of Helena all

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his handmaiden. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me and holy is his name. His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. Music, setting phrases: ‘Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind’. ‘My weakness foolish, yet my love was wise’. ‘He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts’. ‘The rich he has sent empty away’. ‘He has lifted up the lowly’. Dark forces are active among those who fail to see clearly 9 But we are spirits of another sort.

voice

(MND 3.2.388) Poem: Call Me Hobgoblin (by Sinéad Morrissey) You are, Oberon. Robin is not. Robin’s how he’s been saying it off and on for aeons, before you shut him up: sick to the back teeth with nectar of fairies’ breath,

94

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

ankle-­bells, lace, moonshowers of magic dust, incessant flowers – Lord, couldn’t you have shown just a smidgeon more imagination? While you were making eyes at wan Titania and practising your sighs, Puck went AWOL, snapped his girdle round the shivering world and pitched up in the churchyard – out of bounds to you and your lily-­livered sun-­sworn entities, but not to him. And it’s amazing, to see the end-­in-waiting for all the poor lost mortals, up close and personal: their skulls licked clean of eyes and cheeks and tongues, their guts a stewing heap of fat and iron. It’s better there than hanging out on village backroads to make tramps start or in butter churns for a cheap laugh at the expense of a stout housewife. This stuff is real. You may not like it, Sugared King, but every chance he gets he’ll mention it: screech owls, wolves, bats, shrouds, slid-­open graves and their festering contents, lions as unlike Snug the Joiner’s sweet depiction as smallpox to a cold—Puck’s in on the actual deal and you’re in dreamland. You know that bit at the end when he claims he’s not lying? Most of the time – bowing to you, running your stupid errands, he is. Listen to when he’s not. It’s serious. A moment of silence 7 This is hot ice, and wondrous strange snow!

voice

all

How shall we find the concord of this discord? all

Lord, have mercy,

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

95

voice 1 Christ have mercy, all

Lord have mercy. Music, setting the words: ‘Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.’ The same music continues, during the following words: 1 Listen to the new law of the Christ: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment, and a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ (Matthew 22.37–39)

voice

Music swells louder, setting the words: ‘Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.’ 1 The Christ says: ‘Your sins are forgiven you.’ ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ (Luke 7.48; John 15.12)

voice

Petitions and intercessions for the well-­being of civic life. Biddings are either written for the occasion or the following may be used: 2 Is all our company here?

voice

(MND 1.2.1) 1 O Christ, who will pray for those who are not here? who will pray for a city where relations of love are broken? Who will cry for those who work out their promises of faithfulness in face of unemployment? Who will notice those who have lost their homes and friends through legislation they scarcely understand? Who will pray for councillors, civic managers and politicians who take up the mantle of Theseus and strive to govern justly?

voice

96

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

all

We will see and we will pray: Lord, have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. 15 Why should I then not prosecute my right?

voice

(MND 1.1.105) 1 O Christ, who will pray for a city with laws that are unsoftened by love? Who will see places where dark forces lurk beneath the smooth surface? Who will notice when powers in high places are tempted to serve only themselves? Who will pray for those on the edge, at the margins of society, excluded because of their race or gender or poverty? Who will speak for those who cannot make sense of official forms and fail to claim what is rightfully theirs?

voice

all

We will see and we will pray: Lord, have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. The mysterious gift of seeing with the eyes of love 10 The testimony of Paul to the Church at Corinth: When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness, and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my words were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

voice

‘The eye of man has not seen, nor the ear of man heard, nor heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him’ –

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

97

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. (1 Corinthians 2.1–13) 2 The testimony of Bottom to his fellow-­players: I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was – there is no man can tell what. Methought I was – and methought I had – but man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called ‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom. (MND 4.1.204–15)

voice

Poem: The Tale of the Weaver’s Wife (by Jenny Lewis) They said I’d married down, to a jackass weaver who couldn’t tell trestles from threads – me who had always been such an avid reader – but when he asked, I was two moons from my fortieth, no time left to dream of Greek heroes, so we went to the woods at midsummer and while we were wading through the heartsease I showed him my assets. Well! What happened next was more like a dream. I’d washed my hair in lemon juice and threads escaping from my cap shone in the moonlight. He turned me so I couldn’t avoid his mouth and, like a story from Ovid, I changed from a lass with a somewhat wide beam to Diana, goddess of the moon – a retinue of fairies to assist me, with a crown of flowers and gold threads like a queen starring in her own drama. Nine months later, our first born made my dream complete, but childbearing wasn’t over, and after three more umbilical cords were cut it was time to announce I would

98

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

sleep in our second-best bed. A slapped arse his face was; until he started to moon over the joiner’s girl with the big moon face, going round as if half in a dream, prattling of lions, a chink and an ass, misquoting Saint Augustine to avoid discussions about our need for new wood shuttles or patches for the children’s threadbare clothes. Thinking to catch him, I threaded my way after him one night at full moon, and was shocked when he went not to the wood but the palace. Amateur dramatics! Barring a slight tendency to overact my Nick was the star turn! Or near as. I’d been an ass to doubt him! False threads our minds weave (Ovid’s moon-­struck dream?) So when he next said ‘Come to bed, love?’ – I said I would. Music, setting phrases: ‘I have had a most rare vision, I have had a dream’. ‘False threads our minds weave’. ‘Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love’. The healing of sight through a willingness to be disturbed 9 Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-­white, now purple with love’s wound: And maidens call it ‘love in idleness’. Fetch me that flower. . . .

voice

(MND 2.1.165–69) 1 It’s true that Oberon’s ointment blurs the vision;   his love-­juice turns the world quite upside down;   exquisite havoc, bitter-­sweet confusion follow on. But close your eyes one moment, blink and see: already,   all the while, the world has been the wrong way up.

voice

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

99

The Christ said: ‘I have come that those who see may become blind’. Others said: ‘those who have been turning the world upside down have come here’. (John 9.39; Acts 17.6) 9 What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite And laid the love-­juice on some true love’s sight; Of thy misprision must perforce ensue Some true love turn’d and not a false turn’d true.

voice

(MND 3.2.88–91) 11 Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream.

voice

(MND 4.1.192–94) all

This is hot ice, and wondrous strange snow! How shall we find the concord of this discord? 1 The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of God’s creation: ‘I counsel you to obtain from me . . . . salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. (Revelation 3.14, 18–20)

voice

The cleansing of eyes The screen is removed to reveal the wall. Servers stand in front of the wall with bowls of water. Servers stand in front of the wall with pitchers of water. As music plays on, those assembled are invited to come forward if they wish, and hold out a cupped hand to receive a little water, with which to wipe their eyes.

100

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

Musicians play and sing a setting of verses from Psalm 36, in which those assembled are invited to join if they wish. When all have returned to their seats, the congregation stands to say verses from Psalm 36 responsively, voices alternating between left and right hand side of the building: L. Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens your faithfulness to the clouds. R. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgements are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O Lord! L. How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. R. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. L. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. With clearer eyes, we see that walls of division remain 5 I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love.

voice

(Song of Songs 7.10–12) 12 (female) But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport . . . the green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard; The fold stands empty in the drowned field And crows are fatted with the murrion flock . . . The human mortals lack their winter cheer: No night is now with hymn or carol blest . . . And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension. (MND 2.1.87, 94–8, 101–2, 115–16)

voice

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

all

This is hot ice, and wondrous strange snow! How shall we find the concord of this discord? Poem: Titania, later (by Lawrence Sail) There must have been a wall in my head – with every idea or affection assigned to one or the other side of it. I thought I knew where I was. There were only two seasons, then – one of moonlit snow, the other of sand seared by heat. I watched these weathers build to a climate: dreams and history, a taper lit against the dark, accusing words against absolving blankness, the garment of praise against heaviness. Even in the squint dream within the dream of the wood at night, I could easily distinguish the ash from the oak, the key from the cup, reason from love: and when the divisions became too long I could always conjure the boy with the arrows, or his spitting image, the child with his glittering wound of need. I thought I knew where I was, in the shade of the wind-­stirred wood, under the moon that set the tides seething. I saw too clearly and misunderstood: what I thought would be exploration had been there all along, a known place – as if I had been holding the right map the wrong way up. Only at some dazzling moment of forgiveness, dreamt or bestowed, could I know acceptance as a true mystery and, with lips closed, find the way on:

101

102

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

only then could the wall be unpicked, brick by rasping brick, until I recognized where I was – and ahead the land lay shimmering, single, wide open. 2 Where are these hearts?

voice

(MND 4.2.25) The players in the tragedy of ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ come forward. 13 (stands in front of the wall) In this same interlude it doth befall That I, one Snout by name, present a wall; And such a wall as I would have you think That had in it a crannied hole, or chink, [holds up two fingers] Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, Did whisper often, very secretly. This loam, this rough-­cast, and this stone doth show That I am that same wall; the truth is so: And this the cranny is, right and sinister, Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper. (MND 5.1.154)

voice

7 Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?

voice

11 It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse. . . . (MND 5.1.164–66)

voice

Music plays while a dumb show is briefly performed by those representing Pyramus, Thisbe, lion and ‘moonshine’. Kept apart by the hostility of their families, and meeting under the light of the moon, Pyramus mistakenly thinks Thisbe has been killed by a lion and stabs himself with his dagger. Thisbe finds his body and in turn kills herself. 7 Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.

voice

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

103

voice 11 Ay, and Wall too.

(MND 5.1.335–36) 2 (‘Pyramus’ jumping to his feet): No, I assure you; the wall is down that parted their fathers. (MND 5.1.337)

voice

The four players repeat three times with increasing volume: ‘The wall is down that parted their fathers.’ Breaking down the walls that divide Appropriate music is played, as the players enter the assembly and encourage people to come forward and help them demolish the wall, each person taking down one ‘stone’ and laying it to one side. 10 A reading from the letter to the Church at Ephesus: Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups of people into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God. (Ephesians 2.14–20)

voice

7 I pray you all, stand up. I know you two are rival enemies: How comes this gentle concord in the world?

voice

(MND 4.1.140–42) 14 ’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of . . .. . . . all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigured so together More witnesseth than fancy’s images,

voice

104

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

And grows to something of great constancy; But howsoever, strange and admirable. (MND 5.1.1, 23–27) 9 Come, my queen, take hands with me . . . . Now thou and I are new in amity.

voice

(MND 4.1.84–86) 5 Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.

voice

(Song of Songs 8.6–7) Prayers of intercession for the city where walls separate. Biddings are either written for the occasion or the following may be used: 2 And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays. (MND 3.1.138)

voice

1 Who will pray for the city where walls do not protect but divide? Who will see the woman suffering violence in her own house? Who will cry for the parents and children who cannot understand each other? Who will speak for the former prisoners who cannot find a job in a world without trust?

voice

all

We will see and we will pray: the wall is down, for love is strong as death. 16 Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend.

voice

(MND 5.1.415)

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

105

voice 1 Who will pray for the city divided against itself? Who will see the cleaners in wealthy offices, supporting their children on less than a living wage? Who will speak for the refugees and the migrant workers, enduring suspicion and insults every day? Who will cry for the young people who are alienated from all figures of authority? Who will pray for the leaders of ethnic communities, working for reconciliation across the barriers of race and religion? all

We will see and we will pray: the wall is down, for love is strong as death. 2 Let me play the lion too!

voice

(MND 1.2.66) 1 Who will help each and all to understand their roles? Who will help them to play their parts with skill, from greatest to least, from the last to the first? Who will seek to understand the other and to see the other with new eyes? Who will accompany their fellow-­players on the way to concord?

voice

all

We will see and we will help: the wall is down, for love is strong as death. Music, setting phrases: ‘There must have been a wall in my head’. ‘I thought I knew where I was’. ‘I saw too clearly, and misunderstood’. ‘The wall is down that parted their fathers’. ‘He has broken down the dividing wall’. 14 I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

voice

(MND 4.1.116–17)

106

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

The coming of peace to those who will dare to see clearly with love Music again, setting phrases: ‘Peace to those who are far off and peace to those who are near’. ‘How comes this gentle concord in the world?’ ‘Love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave’. Poem: Demetrius to the Audience (by Michael Symmons Roberts) Look at me, framed by the safety curtain. Those offended by full-­frontal nakedness may leave the theatre now, but no returns. Remember, when the curtain rose, how I disdained that woman, tried to shake her off, then caught the fluence and was lost? Now our play is done, I stand before you, shrunk and shivering as a half-­drowned cat. To the sceptics I say: does this do the trick? Do you see me in another light? Where could I hide a lie in here? A smuggler of roles, drug mule at an airport? Will you demand a scan? Cavity search? You have the naked facts, embodied here by mine. So stare. But as you stare, consider that when every trace of fakery is gone, it’s still a desperate mystery to you and me, how this stripped wretch, a man, is left catastrophized by love against his will. Helena breaks character, goes home, waits for her agent to call, and I’m left gasping like a tide-­torn fish. My every cell in thrall to her. I’m sick. You think I’m still in role? I wish. I want to face you without artifice – defenceless I would flay myself in front of you if it would help me prove my case.

Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love

107

But even flensed would not ring true for those determined to see guise where there is none, a feint in skin, an after-­show. I knew that the dismantling of skies, enchanted forests, glades and mirror pools would not convince you if the witness of your eyes said man-­in-costume, so I broke the spell: house-­lights up and all revealed as painted flats, racks of lights, seats for sale. All gone, except this stripped wretch, yes a man, this sacred flesh, enchanted piece of meat. Your silence chills me. I must get my clothes on. The Song of Simeon (‘Nunc Dimittis’) becomes the Song of Demetrius all

Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of your people Israel. 16 Give me your hands, if we be friends.

voice

(MND 5.1.423) all

We have listened. We have watched. We have spoken. What did we hear? What did we see? What did we say? Past and present. These and those. Here and now. We reached across space and time. We touched. Us. Concord. We are blessed. 2 No more words. Away! Go, away!

voice

(MND 4.2.42) [Optional further ending]

108

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

1 Go now, and as you go know this: in grace you were created, in mercy you have been sustained; in love you will be held for ever.

voice

all

Amen. In our coming and going, the peace of God; in our seeing of the world, the wisdom of God; in our end and new beginnings the love of God to welcome us and bring us home. Music plays: ‘Peace to those who are far off and peace to those who are near’

Appendix: a key to the voices (for those who would like it) 1. Leader of liturgy; 2. Bottom the Weaver (and Peter Quince, first quotation); 3. Hermia; 4. Bridegroom in ‘Song of Songs’; 5. Bride in ‘Song of Songs’; 6. Egeus; 7. Theseus; 8. Helena; 9. Oberon; 10. St Paul and the Author of Letter to the Ephesians; 11. Demetrius; 12. Titania; 13. Snout the Tinker; 14. Hippolyta; 15. Lysander; 16. Puck. Original poetry by: Micheal O’Siadhail, Sinéad Morrissey, Michael Symmons Roberts, Lawrence Sail, Jenny Lewis. Poems are all © 2016 to the poets; rights of reproduction and performance belong to Regent’s Park College, a Permanent Private Hall of the University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2LB. Regent’s Park College also retains reproduction and performance rights for the liturgy. Permission will be given without charge to use and reproduce the text, but application must be made. The musical score can be obtained on application to the College. A video recording of the production at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-­upon-Avon, can be viewed online on YouTube, under the title ‘Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love’. Quotations from the Holy Bible are generally from the New Revised Standard Version ©1989, Division of Christian Education Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

6 The Marina Project Katharine A. Craik and Ewan Fernie

Introduction Civic Shakespeare, in England at least, tends to be affirmative, consolidating a sense of belonging through an appeal to a shared and familiar past. Rooted in responsibility to a participating community, Civic Shakespeare facilitates communal well-­being and security, even self-­celebration. Shakespeare’s work is of course surpassingly well-­known and thus (for those in the know) uniquely capable of functioning like a home, a refuge, a warm embrace. It is important not to underestimate this cosy tendency, which has its subversive aspect in the colder environment of individualistic, bureaucratic and instrumentalized Western capitalism.1 To that extent, Civic Shakespeare plays against social distinctions and rivenness. But inasmuch as Shakespeare’s plays are central to an increasingly inflexible system of educational assessment which determines ‘who loses and who wins, who’s in, who’s out’ within a context of alarmingly reduced social mobility, Shakespeare fundamentally operates as a vehicle of social division that shores up the status quo.2 We wanted to know whether a civic mobilization of Shakespeare could work against this conservative tendency. We also wanted to know whether an engaged approach to the plays could open up avenues of protest, opposition and dissent, helping to forge new freedoms within civil society for its nay-­sayers and outsiders, those who explicitly wish to challenge the way things are. It all started with Marina. We were gripped by the magnetic starkness of her story in Pericles. For when her father lapses out of the play which bears his name, into his iconic posture of hirsute self-­abandonment, it’s Marina, we observed, who really becomes central. At the beginning, Pericles recoils from a surreally intense experience of sex trauma and corruption, but it’s Marina who – militantly, persistently, and ultimately victoriously – fights off such corruption, and does so from the vulnerable and unlikely position of a

110

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

FIGURE 6.1  Thusitha Jayasundera improvizes a veil during the Marina workshop on radical chastity at The Other Place, Stratford-­upon-Avon.

young girl sex-­trafficked into a foreign brothel. At the same time, we were struck by the fact that, in Pericles as a whole, Marina’s story isn’t ultimately her own. Her extraordinary (truly almost unbelievable) victory over sexual slavery and predation formally compensates for what her father suffers at the beginning. Since that original suffering takes the form of an obscure involvement with incest – when Pericles recognises that the bride he is seeking is already married to her own father, Antiochus – it can only be resolved and redeemed by the extreme, unassailable innocence his own daughter then enacts and proves. Marina gets Pericles off the hook of incest; she is an uncomfortably sexualized Cordelia, raising her father from specifically sexual sin and suspicion. Marina is realized, since the play is a romance, as much by mythical, poetic symbolism as by realistic characterization. In this sea-­faring drama, she is born at sea. And nomen est omen: in the symbolic economy of Pericles, Marina is the sea, her turbulent life at once suffering and expressing the consequences of her father’s primal scene, sin and trauma. But Marina also washes Pericles clean, she baptises him. More than a little water is needed – after all, Antiochus had taken his own daughter as a bride, and Pericles came close to incest. But Marina is the sea, well able to redeem such sin, and therefore Pericles gets back his wife and daughter. In this now re-­ hallowed environment, Marina’s militant refusal has served its purpose and the family romance is extended when she is married off to Lysimachus,

The Marina Project

111

governor of Mytilene. Since Lysimachus had earlier come to her in the brothel for sex, another patriarch is thereby sexually redeemed. The redeemed Lysimachus reconfirms the redemption of Pericles and helps dissipate the stink of original sin. We felt the beauty of this cleansing restoration, this extraordinary achievement of Marina’s. But what of the girl herself? Why should she so completely serve the needs of a guilty patriarchy? The amazingly self-­possessed ‘no’ she speaks, we felt, could not so readily be parleyed into a meek and submissive ‘yes’. ‘O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right!’: Hamlet cavils with the patriarchal mandate of a destiny which he nevertheless makes his own.3 Something similar, surely, is owed to Marina. The play powerfully suggests this, but doesn’t finally deliver.4 We wanted to give Marina her life. We wanted to know who she could be if she could be herself, we wanted to know who she might be or become now – and how her story might make a difference to the world outside the play. In the context of the wider project which this volume represents, we wanted to know what difference a nay-­sayer like Marina could make to Civic Shakespeare. * We had an extraordinary opportunity to explore these questions as part of the University of Birmingham’s five-­year collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company at their new studio theatre and laboratory, The Other Place. The overriding aim of this collaboration is to bring academic criticism and scholarship together with creative experiment in the hope of making something new – something which opens fresh possibilities for both theatre-­making and academic work in the Shakespearean spirit of what TOP’s Artistic Director, Erica Whyman, calls ‘radical mischief’.5 Radical is key here, mining Shakespeare’s four-­hundred-year-­old achievement in line with Buzz Goodbody’s original, activist vision and work for The Other Place in its first 1974 ‘tin-­hut’ incarnation: ‘a brief, shining moment’, according to Alycia Smith-Howard, ‘in the long history of the Royal Shakespeare Company’.6 Indeed, Whyman announced the affinity of her project with Goodbody’s specifically feminist objectives by staging ‘four radical new plays’ by women writers as the Midsummer Mischief Festival at the Courtyard Theatre in 2014 before its physical transformation into the new Other Place. Contemporary scholarship has emphasized that Pericles is already a collaboration – and this fact seemed to us to invite further collaboration.7 Our idea for exploring the political unconscious of Pericles, extending the power of the ‘absolute Marina’ to say ‘no’ – not only to the predators in the brothel at Mytilene, but to patriarchy in general and her own father in particular – seemed its own kind of radical mischief. And Whyman seemed to like the idea.

112

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

So we had a meeting in the RSC offices on Chapel Lane in Stratford. Whyman put us at our ease, welcomed our thoughts, and we started to sit back and enjoy the conversation. But then, genially but firmly, she hit us with her big question. ‘But Pericles?! I mean, really, how can it possibly speak to today, how are you going to make an audience believe it?’ Suddenly it seemed the most ludicrous proposition. Whyman’s Midsummer Mischief plays had all been written in response to ‘an initial provocation’: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s remark, ‘Well-­behaved women seldom make history’.8 And you could hardly imagine a better-­behaved girl than Marina: a gratifyingly absolute innocent to save dad from himself. Marina was patriarchal wish-­fulfilment in its purest form. She might have inspired an achingly beautiful poem by T.S. Eliot, but her conversion of every sex-­hungry customer to ecstatic piety was pathetically unbelievable.9 Whyman was right; no-­one would buy it. And so we told her we were going to blow the gaff on what really happens to young girls like Marina who are trafficked into sexual slavery. Our play would expose the dirty truth of their suffering. And it would make Pericles face up to it. We agreed to talk again, once we’d had more time to think and talk it all over. And we got out of the room. We weren’t happy with what we’d said, nor with the plan to do Pericles as ‘dirty realism’. But still, there was something in it to hold on to. It spoke to the extreme peril of Marina’s predicament, and to the important fact that it echoes the predicament of so many sex-­trafficked women now.10 As Shakespeareans interested in how the past can speak to contemporary civic life, we felt it was surely right, however difficult it was, to be imaginatively responsive, even responsible to such suffering. And there seemed to be something worth keeping, too, in making Pericles recognize what he requires from Marina, and the damage it arguably does her, a question the play seems to raise but then deliberately defuse through the conventions of romance. But so much, we felt, would be lost in our prospective dirty realism Pericles – and the most grievous loss of all, the one that even made us feel faintly treacherous and ashamed, would be the wonder and power of Marina’s chastity. That for us, we now recognized, was Marina in the play, a heroic refusal to which we wanted, somehow, to lay more positive claim. We recognised, too, that we had been embarrassed to speak up for chastity in our meeting with Erica, but that our reluctance was a pointer to the really vital and emotional heart of the matter as we were starting to conceive it. We knew that all of this was counter-­intuitive. Chastity has, for centuries, served the interests of men, assuring their possessive power over their wives and daughters. Feminism is right that this has – it still has – to change. And yet, Marina’s power of saying ‘no’ to life in the degrading form it is offered to her suggested that chastity could be a sexually and politically liberating thing – a form of resistance to life in the name of a better one. Certainly chastity, we reflected, seemed ‘radical’ in the sense of going to the

The Marina Project

113

root of something. Chastity is not the opposite of sexuality as it is sometimes crudely assumed to be, since sexual experience and identity depend as much upon active refusal as availability. And yet, in Western liberal culture, chastity is perhaps the last component of active sexuality that it’s possible to confess or articulate. Our embarrassment in speaking for Marina’s chastity in a fairly formal meeting suggested that to share a chaste impulse or emotion today might be an extraordinarily raw and exposing thing, and therefore potentially a dramatic one. Extending such feelings to a young prostitute – as Pericles does – seemed a salutary challenge to respectable prejudices. Marina’s scenes started to shape and reshape in our minds. The ‘absolute Marina’, we realized, had started to disclose a sort of radical chastity to us. Of course many before us have identified chastity’s unique weight and consequence, and scholarship has long recognized sexuality – including withdrawal from sexuality – as a powerful means of engaging with the world. In her study of physical and spiritual virginity, for example, Marie H. Loughlin described the sealed female body as a site of epistemological flux which allowed the Jacobean state to assert itself in erotic terms.11 More recently, Bonnie Lander Johnson has identified chastity and unchastity as singularly effective kinds of Stuart polemic, but also as potent metaphors which emboldened writers towards creative experiment. And Tanya Pollard has found in Marina a reconfiguration of the sacrificial virgin (familiar from Euripidean tragedy) capable of transforming passivity into eloquent, persuasive agency.12 Our own hunch, however, perhaps had more in common with Philippa Berry’s earlier Of Chastity and Power, which revealed how men envisaged Elizabeth I’s chastity as ideal, perhaps even redemptive, even while they feared its recalcitrant potential and the particular threats it posed to patriarchal sovereignty.13 Shakespeare, we felt, explores this same recalcitrance in Pericles – but not through the body and soul of a queen. Instead Marina embodies chastity as a young girl, lost to her family and far from home. The threats she faces come not through veiled allegories, diplomatic salvos or ambassadorial sleights of hand, but rather from the brutal advances of pimps and punters. Despite or perhaps because of the direct violence Marina must face, we saw Pericles evolving deeper, more active, and more subversive forms of chastity, even though the play brings this subversion obediently back to heel through Marina’s marriage and blessing of her father. That Shakespeare’s collaborator, George Wilkins, was, as a matter of public record, a violent sex-­trading misogynist, seemed to make the play’s abortive efforts to scope out an alternative sexual politics the more urgent and compelling.14 We wanted to see Marina’s subversive energy grow to its natural conclusion; we resolved to imagine a play within which Pericles’s own radical, unfulfilled promise might belatedly be fulfilled within our present civic context. In particular, we wanted to recover, in Marina’s name, the surprising prospect that chastity might today be capable of disrupting the structures

114

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

designed to control and curtail female sexuality. In our culture, we realised, there is almost no way of conceptualising chastity except in terms of its loss: being ‘married off’, entering the taintedness of sex . . . At the same time, chastity tends to be read as a cover for sexual immaturity or incapacity, and as such pitied or despised. If the virtue of chastity thrives at all today, it thrives in religion; but beneath the respectful lip-­service, liberal, secular culture perhaps regards religious chastity as a delusive bargain where the pleasure of life is lost on the fake assurance of a medieval superstition. And yet, it is through chastity that Marina finds strength to contest the ways in which religion and family define relations between men and women, and to defy the cruelty and coercion, the shame and the fear, that such intimate forms of policing give rise to. And so we found ourselves challenged by a question which Shakespeare gives to the Bawd, and which for us had powerful resonance in today’s living present: What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with us? (4.2.141)

Pericles now We took this question seriously as a contemporary provocation. We began to see Marina’s chastity as a rich channel for re-­thinking Shakespeare’s civic purposefulness in today’s world – and this became our point of departure in our bid to rework Pericles with the RSC now. ‘Radical mischief’: Marina’s rejection not just of her own sexual subjection but, for the larger part of the play, of ‘fallen’ sexuality as such now seemed begging to be taken seriously as an extraordinarily radical sort of mischief. Marina outwits Boult and the fallen others, needling and out-­facing them with her ultra-­obedience. The keenness of her chastity outgrows the conventions of comedy, and outdoes even the imaginative wonder and hyperbole of Shakespearean romance. Ideologically speaking, her radical mischief may appear less than festive, but perhaps is much more than this – forsaking available life and pleasure for a higher life and pleasure. ‘Radical tragedy’: growing up intellectually when we did, we found it impossible to evade the way in which our emergent notion of ‘radical chastity’ strikes lights with the title of the most insurgent intervention within 1980s Shakespeare criticism. Jonathan Dollimore’s influential book encouraged us to pursue our own comparably paradoxical and tendentious notion, since Radical Tragedy first pits a recalcitrantly subversive spirit against tragedy’s assumed defeatism, and second insists that really radical action will inevitably entail confrontation and loss.15 ‘Radical mischief’, ‘radical tragedy’: this was the context in which ‘radical chastity’ allowed us to think the unthinkable. The very thing that typically secures oppressive patriarchy might offer grounds for resistance. What looks

The Marina Project

115

like a sad abdication from life might signal the most passionate rediscovery of it, a fiercely principled refusal to accept cheap imitations. The ‘absolute’ Marina, as opposed to Marina-­the-good-­daughter, posits radical chastity as a pro-­active choice rather than a form of escape from an intolerable situation, a principled refusal of patriarchy rather than another vehicle for its continuance. The ‘absolute’ Marina rediscovers chastity as the most intimate and surprising form of revolt. But then we realized we had been leaving something out. The word ‘radical’ in ‘radical mischief’, ‘radical tragedy’, and ‘radical chastity’ (as we construe it) signifies a progressive political commitment, even if those two latter phrases speak to the struggle and privation which this will entail. But ‘radical’ and its connotations have changed significantly since the 1980s, to the point that in contemporary media and popular discourse ‘radical’ and ‘radicalization’ are associated above all with Islamist violence towards Western culture. Over the same period of time in an increasingly globalized world, the Muslim veil has become the most visible and prominent symbol and marker of chastity – and the most potent sign of displacement within, and resistance to, the culture of the West.16 Such resistance cannot be interpreted as straightforwardly progressive, of course, to the extent that it derives from a more traditional, religious and patriarchal culture. But as so often, sexuality – perhaps especially female sexuality – is the immediately visible and felt terrain upon which vast geo-­ political struggle plays out. Our preliminary work on Pericles began to resonate in complex, unexpected and distressing ways with the media response to the continuing global migrant crisis which was intensely focused, for a time, on high-­profile cases of sexually motivated aggression understood as attacks on Western liberal values.17 Such crimes certainly have to be roundly and unequivocally condemned, but that condemnation mustn’t disguise the remarkable fact that Western culture recognizes the phenomenon of forced displacement via the psycho-­sexual disturbance which is one of its unhappy consequences at home. The Western world, as much as the East, thereby reveals its continuing cultural investment in issues of chastity and sexual integrity – and this applies as much to men as to women, albeit in different ways and for different reasons. Chastity reveals its cross-­ cultural potential as a shared existential, political and spiritual challenge – one capable, perhaps, of initiating a new and creative inter-­cultural conversation. In Pericles itself, we increasingly recognized, the dramatization of radical chastity calls for a geopolitical reading. Pericles is Shakespeare’s Middle Eastern play. Set in Syria, Turkey, Greece and the surrounding seas, it tells a story of political tyranny, migrancy and trauma through the plight of a scattered family whose flight from terror casts them adrift in hostile lands.18 This tale of woeful physical displacement is very deliberately crossed with the play’s equally troubling story of psycho-­sexual interruption. Pericles’ initial experience in the city of Antioch, in ancient Syria, phases directly into

116

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

his and his family’s forced displacement by war, terror and atrocity. Rootlessness and homelessness involve not just literal, physical displacement, but equally dislocation from the rules and norms of sex, marriage and fatherhood. Moreover, Shakespeare structures the story as a series of unsatisfactory sexual encounters counterpointed by a number of natural disasters which seem simultaneously to proceed from, impact upon and mirror Pericles’ political and psychological predicament. And it is as a consequence of all this that Pericles’ daughter Marina undergoes her own sequence of displacements, which culminate in her being sold into the brothel where she militantly refuses sex. Of course this refusal to be abused needs no further justification, but it is dramaturgically redoubled as a wholly understandable resistance to a world in which she has been serially and violently displaced. We went back to Erica Whyman, and fortunately she too thought that there was something in the idea that a new play about radical chastity might be born from bringing Pericles together with contemporary global and gender politics. As a result, in April 2016, we workshopped the idea at The Other Place with a group of six non-­white British actors (Kae Alexander, Philip Arditti, Paul Bazely, Vincent Ebrahim, Thusitha Jayasundera and Aysha Kala) and the former international director of the Royal Court, Richard Twyman, whose projects have included work in the migrant ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais. To this core creative team, we brought a cross-­disciplinary group of experts, all of whom were interested for different reasons in exploring the idea of ‘radical chastity’. These were Syrian-British BBC and Al Jazeera journalist Rana Haddad, who had recently returned from working on the ground with displaced Syrian migrants; educator and journalist Abdul-Rehman Malik from the Radical Middle Way, a place where young Muslims can connect with their spiritual and cultural identity; psychologist Mark Williams, expert in depression and suicide; medievalist and medical humanities scholar Corinne Saunders; the experimental literary critic David Fuller; painter Tom de Freston; and composer David Knotts. After the workshop, we sought out world-­leading expert in Far Eastern displacement and migration Dawn Chatty. Bringing these partners into dialogue for the first time, we aimed both to remake Pericles for Marina – and to open up Shakespeare’s civic possibilities beyond the University and the theatre. We had in mind the particular challenges posed by the calamity of the war in Syria, and the pressing international crisis of mass migrancy and displacement which has ensued. We knew we were entering treacherous territory. Our experts came from a variety of backgrounds in the creative arts, humanities and social sciences, and our shared methodology was therefore more or less untried. And we were tackling a complex, sensitive and potentially divisive subject which involved speaking about and even for people and experiences that were utterly beyond us. At the same time, we felt an increasingly urgent responsibility to reimagine Shakespeare’s Middle Eastern play about

The Marina Project

117

chastity in contemporary terms. Surely it would be evasive and irresponsible to keep the play for and to ourselves given its extraordinary resonances with the contemporary geo-­political situation? Pericles itself seemed to be challenging us to adopt a wider humanitarian perspective.19 Working collaboratively with people who knew more about the current global crisis than we did, we therefore sought the deepest possible imaginative engagement with our characters and their stories. Doing them justice would involve moving between Shakespeare and today’s complex political and civic situation, between traditional literary criticism and more experimental, creative and practice-­based approaches to theatre research. Above all we hoped to foster an experimental conversation which might break through the habits of thought which typically keep our disciplines so cleanly separate from one another, and aloof from the wider world. Together with our collaborators, we worked through our synopsis and drafted scenes. The setting of our new play started to crystallize in present-­day Seven Sisters, in East London – in a supermarket (Sainsbury’s), a mosque, and a brothel which are all found on the same street, Narrow Way. We had originally set the play in Brixton, but Malik persuaded us that Seven Sisters, where the Sheikh Nazim Sufi Centre had been established in St Mary’s Priory, a Roman Catholic convent dating back to 1871, was more appropriate for the sort of inter-­faith scenes we’d written. It gave us something extra that the mythical Greek seven sisters or Pleiades, companions of Artemis (Diana), were themselves icons of chastity. We were inspired especially by the way in which Pericles develops an idea of chastity progressively, through its family of principal characters. In our play, Pericles, Thaisa and Marina are secular Syrian Christians dispersed by war who make their separate ways to England and somehow all wind up on Narrow Way. They are each traumatized by London, and preoccupied with chastity as a way of navigating a strange new world. Somewhat as in Shakespeare’s play, chastity expresses angry rejection for Pericles. For Thaisa, it suggests an alternative religious commitment; and for Marina, it becomes a more active and militant response to life.

Marina: towards a new play, three extracts I Pericles is making a scene at the meat-­counter in Sainsbury’s. He has picked up and is wildly flourishing a pack of lamb. What is it? So bloodless, and so cold: this once was life – life, I tell you! What body was it from, and where is that body now? What part of the body is it? Look at it, my dear! Feel it on your cheek! [A passing mother

118

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

with her trolley, her toddler inside, shrinks from him – but he presses it on her.] No, I insist! The old religions understood the holiness of meat, girl; but this is not whole, it is not holy; is it not mortal – it is demonic! [He is shouting now, the young woman transfixed, her toddler crying.] It is a demonic denial of suffering, and there is so much suffering in the world! It is a pretence that our flesh does not corrupt and will not die! But it did die, this – whatever it is – it did die! These were once, perhaps, vital organs! And they will corrupt! They deny the dying life in England, but that’s where the passion is! Better your brothel, eh, than such passionless meat? [He now has tight hold of the young woman’s arm.] Passion means suffering, d’you know? We suffer beauty, we suffer love – Christ’s PASSION isn’t so absolutely different from ours, do you see? But they can’t see that here. They think religion is singing silly insipid songs while the world goes to hell in a handbasket – while the wretched of the earth take to the seas and die, as I nearly did – as I so very nearly did! You English think passion is getting and spending, don’t you? You ask if I want to pay ‘contactless’. I tell you, there is no such thing! There is contact and corruption, however tight we wrap it in plastic! And you know it, you liars! You have your brothels, and your brothels of the mind; and people across the globe suffer for your corruption; but you English will not own it in your lives. And you think you don’t need chastity. You imagine you have done away with it! You imagine a sort of perfect, plastic wrapped intercourse with the world, you passionless pigs! That is the meaning of this! [Again he thrusts the meat in the young woman’s face, but she rushes away.]

II Thaisa is talking quietly to an imam in an otherwise empty mosque. Thaisa:

Imam: Thaisa:

Imam: Thaisa:

It was your stillness that drew me here, and your prayers that brought me back. At least I thought it was your prayers, but it wasn’t. It was the prostration. Is that weird? It was the fact that you prostrate yourselves, that you prostrate yourselves together. Somehow you look like. . . birds when you do it, birds casting yourselves upon your breasts. As one. It’s so strange, so touching . . . Yes, I see that it might be; I do see that, Thaisa. [gently] You prostrate yourselves voluntarily and with dignity. I am not happy, not at all, but you seem beyond even thinking of happiness. Perhaps in that you are most happy! You prostrate yourselves – We do, we submit. Islam: it means submission. Submission? Oh, I know all about that! But you’re a man and you submit – and your brothers, they submit with you.

The Marina Project

119

[spreading his hands] Of course. We lower ourselves in God, we lower ourselves into Him – Thaisa: Him! [The Imam bows his head.] Thaisa: Still, perhaps it’s the answer! I need an answer; I’m getting old. Oh, I don’t know! I don’t really know why I’m here. Except that I’m desperate, except I have nowhere to go, except that this getting and having country is getting me down. Imam: Yes, you are naked, you are spiritually naked, my child. It is a good condition in its way; it brings you closer to God. But it is hard to bear. Very hard! You must veil yourself in God. Thaisa: Christ (sorry!) – not the veil! I’ve seen veiled women on the streets covered from head to toe. And will you take the veil too, Mister? And will the other men? Imam: Yes, I am veiled. Can you not see that? I am veiled before you, in my bearing and my speech. There is no shame in the veil, Thaisa. Even the prophet, he took the veil before God. Thaisa: Oh what am I doing? I’m all at sea again. I’m so lonely! But your God, he’s too much for me! I want your certainty, your quiet peace – yes, it’s you I want; and I don’t even know you, I don’t even know your name. Imam: My name is Islam, Thaisa. You are a child of God, you are an ardent child of God! And your desires shall come home in Him. Don’t screw up your face and scowl! We shall be married; yes, I see it shall be so! With you and in you I shall be unveiled. And you, Thaisa, shall be veiled in me! In our marriage, we will hide in God; and in the world we shall be veiled in Him together. Our secret life will be a bird – a beautiful bird – behind the veil, fluttering; but this side of that veil we shall do great good in the world! Ours shall be a happy life, it shall be a happy married chastity, blessed by God whom it honours and proclaims! Imam:

III Marina is in the brothel, which is itself called The Seven Sisters. Like all the sex-trafficked girls there, Marina is drugged. It is not clear whether the Chastity Bird she is talking to is a flamboyantly made-up prostitute or a figment of Marina’s imagination. Chastity: No, no, Marina, your old-­fashioned, story-­book, prefect-­withpig-­tails kind of chastity, it just won’t do, Marina, nice though it is! Not here in this brothel world, in this international-­sex-traffic world, where one half of the world is fucked by the other, fucked and fucked over and over and over, and without so much as –

120

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

FIGURE 6.2  Tom de Freston’s rapid realization of the figure of Chastity who emerged out of the Marina workshop, The Other Place, Stratford-­upon-Avon.

Stop it! Stop it, Chastity! You’re making it worse! Do you think I don’t know all that? Do you think I don’t feel it, in the most secret, intimate, defiled part of my self! I’m the one who suffers it, I am – Chastity: You are the sea, Marina! Marina:   What? What do you mean, you – Marina:

The Marina Project

121

Chastity: You are the sea, my girl! You will roll over all of. . . this like a wave! You will bury this dying old brothel world full fathom five, Marina – as though it had never been. Marina: I’m just a girl, Chastity. Chastity: Yes, that’s quite true; that too is true. Sorry dear, I had forgotten in all the excitement! Marina: I want, I want to go to University. . . I want a house and a husband and a baby. I do want a little baby, Chastity, one who will never know anything of this. Chastity: Of course you do, dear. Marina: I’m not the sea, Chastity; I’m just a girl. Chastity: There, there. Marina: Stay with me, Chastity. Chastity: Of course. Marina: Hold me. Chastity: That too. [They sit and Chastity embraces Marina] Marina: Never go. Chastity: While you remain here, Marina, I solemnly promise I shall never forsake you, Marina. And when you are gone from this dark place – that is when you truly will become yourself and show the world a better way! And remember what they say: watch the birdie! If ever you should need me, Marina! But hush, girl, now sleep; rest.

Going forward It is impossible, within the constraints of this chapter, to do justice to the range of contributions made by our collaborators in a week of cross-­cutting conversation and creative experiment at The Other Place. Together we wrestled with the problem of chastity’s meanings in contemporary Western and Eastern life, testing out our theory that radical chastity – as a deliberate form of displacement from the status quo, albeit one with complex roots in a tangled political and cultural history – might just cut across the different allegiances which separate people along racial, cultural and religious lines. A breakthrough came when RSC actor Philip Arditti suggested that chastity is powerfully normative, or even sacred, within families – since it is foundational to our relationships with our brothers, sisters, parents and children. This helped us not only to shape our new play but also to see deeper into the trauma suffered by chastity itself during Pericles’ experience at the beginning of Shakespeare’s play. We have mentioned already that Abdul-Rehman Malik gave us our Seven Sisters setting. He also assisted in our characterization of Thaisa by exploring with us the place of chastity within Islamic culture, where chastity within a hallowed relationship is

122

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

valued over sexlessness, for both men and women, and privileged as a licit form of sexuality. More surprising to us were Malik’s assurances that, within the Islamic tradition, chastity is not lost forever if it is rashly squandered; and that there is no need to confess sexual transgression to anyone except God. Malik, Richard Twyman and the actors all helped us to imagine how our own Marina, Pericles and (especially) our Muslim-­convert Thaisa might, as displaced secular Christians with origins in a predominantly Islamic culture, find chastity a purposeful way to negotiate contemporary London. And with their help we began to see how that same London might respond. We wanted to dramatize chastity as a direct and effective kind of agency, and this posed particular challenges. Twyman had cast Aysha Kala as our Marina, and she especially prompted us to ask how a young woman can guard or reclaim dignity in a patriarchal world. By now we understood Pericles as a profound analysis of chastity, but we also wanted to move beyond its patriarchal purpose by reimagining Marina’s chastity as a radical form of action. But this reclaimed dignity, Kala insisted, must surely involve a positive action – especially if it is to lie at the heart of a new play. Through improvisation, Kala tried out ways of asserting Marina’s creative refusal: by talking more, by challenging her father, by leaning imaginatively into a new world. But she also left us with the challenge of finding a powerful means of expressing radical chastity as culminating action. This led us to think of – among other things – the joyous and tragic ending of the movie, Thelma and Louise. Our psychologist Mark Williams took up this same question by suggesting that our Chastity character was functioning in part as a ‘transitional object’ for Marina, a coping mechanism which she relies upon but must jettison in order to reach maturity. Williams observed that the Chastity Bird was, however, a transitional object with a difference. She wants to empower rather than merely comfort Marina, and so talks back at her – sometimes raucously – reminding her of old certainties that must be abandoned, and naive fantasies that must be dismantled. Following the workshop we started to think of her as partly a projection of Marina’s psychological need and loneliness – but also as a prostitute called Chastity who embodies the inseparability of chastity and sex, as well as the possibility of corruption, transformation, and even transfiguration. We started to experiment more with Marina’s developing relationship with the Chastity Bird as a way of dramatizing her relationship with chastity itself – not just as a way of saying no, but also as a way of achieving dramatic agency. Our Pericles, Paul Bazely, obliged us to face up to the peril of radical chastity, as we had conceived it, by sharing with us a story about a group of four tourists (two men, two women) who were confronted by a group of heavily armed soldiers in a house in Chile. One of the four, a French woman, was taken away and raped. Throughout her ordeal, she spoke to her aggressors: ‘What is your name? Do you have a father? Do you have a mother?’ Afterwards the armed men left the other three unharmed, and parted from the French woman with the following words: ‘Bless you.’ Like

The Marina Project

123

Shakespeare’s Marina, this woman was an almost inconceivably heroic victim of sexual aggression, empowering herself through crisis and becoming somehow inviolable. Unsettling and moving, Bazely’s story raised some crucial questions about gender, sex and ethics. This prompted Hester Bradley, a PhD student at Oxford Brookes who observed some of the workshop, to share some concerns about Marina’s capacity to convert others. Why, she asked, is it Marina’s responsibility to ennoble and humanize others rather than explore what it is to be noble and human herself? Are women who display a child-­like vulnerability that has the power to transform others more worthy than those who don’t, or can’t? Bazely’s story and Bradley’s questions went to the vexed heart of things, suggesting that it might be more difficult than we thought to overturn the patriarchal politics of Shakespeare’s ending, and to re-­claim Marina’s story. Could we imagine a scenario where Marina remains integral and authentically realised, even as her chastity challenges the world’s complacency? Our medievalist, Corinne Saunders, encouraged us to dig deeper into our own Western culture, speaking of medieval female saints as empowering and empowered figures whose sexlessness was a form of transcendence rather than passivity. Such women escaped patriarchy, and sometimes reaped the rewards, but did so by making powerful cultural capital out of established patterns of fantasy and fulfilment. We were struck by the resonance between such figures and Shakespeare’s Diana in Pericles. We remembered in particular Marina’s evocation to Diana – ‘If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep’ (4.3.138) – which implies pure and holy violence, rather than violence in and of the world. Painter Tom de Freston did some rapid ‘realizations’ (such as the one of Chastity worked up above, Figure 6.2) which helped us all to see what we were thinking. Composer David Knotts set to music one of the songs we had drafted for Marina, allowing us to hear as well as see our new play’s cross-­cultural timbre. Critic David Fuller and our director Richard Twyman were excellently helpful in bringing us back to plot, scene and rhythm – urging us to be as experimental with dramatic form as we were prepared to be with language and character. As we worked on the project beyond the workshop, one story in particular stayed with us. Rana Haddad had recently returned from Eastern Europe where she had been embedded with displaced Syrian migrants who were travelling to find a better life in the West. One young woman had lost everything in the war. She was ambitious to reach British shores, and had showed Haddad a British coin with its image of a queen. A female ruler! From this, the young woman had concluded that the UK legal system must be fair, and would surely see the justness of her and her husband’s claim to asylum. We were all touched by the emblematic significance of the coin – but more by the pathos and irony in the young woman’s confidence. Haddad’s story also prompted a conversation about whether integration is ever possible for those who have suffered such catastrophic loss, or whether host communities will always either require assimilation from the displaced, or

124

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

threaten them with exclusion. We began to consider more deeply the links between forced displacement and gender, especially the cross-­currents which might lead displaced people to identify with, or resist, unfamiliar customs and practices of gender. In the context of the present Syrian migrant crisis, Haddad encouraged us to think about how chastity might help to mark a civic space for new, more open and liberal forms of community which allow for and perhaps even honour cultural difference: a world where a queen on a coin and a woman in a veil could creatively coexist. With Haddad’s story at the forefront of our minds, we kept talking to those who knew what we did not, and who had experienced life in ways we had not. In particular, we contacted social anthropologist Dawn Chatty, former director of the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford, whose work centres on forced migration and displacement from and within the Middle East. Through Chatty we learned that displacement is still generally defined territorially, with refugees recognised, and their experiences articulated, through their use of marginalized spaces such as camps and ghettos. Although social scientists acknowledge that the needs of displaced people may be better addressed through social networks – rather than encampment policies, or the application of inflexible structures of humanitarian aid – they have not, Chatty suggested, yet fully explored the connections between political and personal forms of displacement.20 In particular, the challenging subject of migration and sexuality remains more or less untheorized. We wanted to explore, through radical chastity, the disturbance of gendered and psycho-­ sexual identity as a major consequence of forced displacement, and as a different version of ‘gender trouble’ with global implications.21 At the same time, we wanted to consider whether Marina might embody a still more radical chastity that could function beyond any patriarchal imperative as a progressive, critical, and questioning contribution to the shared life and culture both of the displaced and of the host society. And we still wanted to write the play. Indeed, the play seemed to us our best chance not just of thinking through but even of modelling the vexed but promising position of radical chastity in a changed and changing globalized society or city. As we were completing this chapter in December 2016, the government published The Casey Review of opportunity and integration in Britain. Its author, Dame Louise Casey, especially recommends greater integration of Muslims into a culture she portrays in terms of essentialized ‘British values’. She emphasizes the repression in some Muslim communities of women and women’s sexuality as an obstacle to this.22 These are real and serious issues, but our work on the Marina Project leads us to believe the situation is somewhat more complex than Casey suggests. Shakespeare’s Pericles dramatizes a broken world and offers a wishful, reactionary, and (in our time) frankly unworkable solution: a redeemed, reinstated patriarchy. But the radical chastity of its ‘absolute Marina’ exceeds this, challenging us to imagine how the different cultural, political and religious positions which define and divide today’s civil society might be brought into more dynamic,

The Marina Project

125

indeed dramatic reciprocity. Our existing categories for discussing these divisions – East/West, refugee/host, immigrant/British, repressed/liberal – only reinscribe the stand-­off between cultures and cannot account for the fact that they increasingly occupy the same place, not just within any given city or nation-­state but also within a complexly interrelated global system. We want to seek, through the Marina Project, our own ‘radical middle way’ between such polarized categories. This, ideally, would do justice to the complex and contested meanings of chastity now, opening the culture of the West up to the knowledge and experience of those others who live among us – and at the same time opening that knowledge up to critical questioning and remaking. Indeed, we suggest, the spectacle of a dissident, racially othered chastity inside Western liberal culture is already opening up both establishment and immigrant culture in this fashion. The Marina Project is our ongoing, at once tentative and driven attempt to respond to that challenge.

PART T HREE

New Places: Europe

7 Shakespeare’s German Place: Weimar and the Jubilees, 1864/2014 Tobias Döring

Introduction Germans get short shrift in Shakespeare. Unlike the many French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Gothic, Greek or even Viennese protagonists that populate his plays, no single German character ever makes a stage appearance in Shakespearean drama – with the possible and quite intriguing exception of Shylock. And when a German happens to be mentioned, like the Duke of Saxony’s nephew, the terms are hardly complimentary: ‘When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.’1 A drunken, monstrous and obnoxious figure, according to such testimony, the German beast is better quite forgotten. Germans have responded, or perhaps retaliated, by making Shakespeare glowingly into a god and, at the same time, remaking him as one of their own. ‘Shakespeare is German,’ declared Patrick Spottiswoode in a serious BBC 4 radio feature in December 2012, presenting evidence from many well-­known German actors, theatre directors, Shakespeare lovers, activists and academics (including myself).2 And Kenneth Branagh, in his Weimar acceptance speech as honorary president of the German Shakespeare Society in April 2014, paid tribute to the greatest honorary German of all times, ‘Wilhelm Shakespeare’, whose forays into foreign territory he said he was proud to follow.3 Accidents of birth and language notwithstanding, then, Shakespeare has been claimed a natural German for more than two centuries. But even if we are today more wary and resent such nationalist rhetoric as in nineteenth-­century Bardolatry,

130

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

we can surely say that Germany ranks very high among Shakespeare’s new places. What good, then, is German Shakespeare? How good is Germany at Shakespeare? And what good is Shakespeare to the Germans? These are the questions we have had to raise with our recent jubilees. When the German Shakespeare Society – one of the oldest still extant literary societies in the world – was founded in Weimar at the tercentenary in April 1864, this act was just the culmination of a century-­long Shakespeare cult, and one with as yet no end in sight. So when our society reconvened in the same place 150 years later to celebrate and commemorate this remarkable event, we certainly continued and confirmed a venerable tradition while also facing a contemporary agenda. As the then president, who held responsibility for the conception, planning and eventual hosting of the 2014 jubilee, I felt that our task was both to appreciate, or if possible renew, the founding fervour of our forefathers and to find ways forward into the twenty-­first century. But how? Can we sincerely, in our day and age, adopt the language, attitude and gestures of nineteenth-­century German poet worship? Kunstreligion – the religious veneration of art and artists – is the appropriate term to describe the attitudes and aspirations of the cultured German middle classes after the Napoleonic wars, who found themselves without national grandeur just as they found themselves deprived of political participation in the restored German monarchies; by way of compensation, they elevated artists into godlike rulers in an alternative realm of some higher cultural order. Above all, iconic national figures like Schiller and Goethe were made to serve this purpose, with Shakespeare added for good measure to form the celebrated triumvirate of this canon. The society’s foundation was a direct consequence. Are we then today, as latter-­day inheritors of Kunstreligion and its curious rites, really willing, or even able, to go through the motions of this questionable cult? To be sure, even in more recent years the German Shakespeare Society has not resolutely shied away from ritual acts. At our biannual Weimar spring conferences, distinguished international visitors often find themselves astonished – or perhaps amused – to see dozens of German delegates, early on a Saturday morning, go on a pilgrimage to the Shakespeare monument in the local park, opposite Goethe’s garden house, and bring roses to lay at the Bard’s feet: a veritable re-­enactment of devotional practice, complete with music, song and speeches – and quite clearly at odds with the sober business of academic conferencing (see Figure  7.1). But then, the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft – unlike, say, the Shakespeare Association of America – has never simply been a professional body. It is a literary, rather than an academic association, and while of course comprising many university teachers and researchers, its main membership are self-­confessed enthusiasts or amateurs, in the original meaning of this word as devoted lovers, i.e. enjoyers and appreciators of Shakespeare’s work, theatre goers and general culture vultures who like to gather twice a year with like-­minded people. When Andrew Dickson, the intrepid traveller and ethnographic

Shakespeare’s German Place

131

FIGURE 7.1  The Shakespeare monument by Otto Lessing in Ilm Park, Weimar, with Frank Günther giving his memorial speech in April 2014; roses brought by conference delegates.

132

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

writer, came to Munich on his global Shakespeare tour to attend our 2013 spring conference – or rather to immerse himself, as a participant observer, in native German Shakespeare rites – he was surprised to note the mixed attendees: ‘accountants, insurance agents, physicists, vets’, and wondered why on earth should ordinary people spend their time and money to come to such a conference. ‘I was used to attending events like this for work, but for fun? Shakespeare as a hobby, like basket-­weaving or bell-­ringing?’4 The answer is that German Shakespeare has always been far more than just a hobby:5 he is a focus point and flag bearer of public and political affairs. When Enlightenment literati like Wieland and Lessing in the mid-­eighteenth century first propagated Shakespeare as their cultural hero and when, a generation later, the writers of the so-­called Sturm und Drang (i.e. storm and stress) movement, including the young Goethe, discovered Shakespeare as a star and conduit for their new creative energies, they also used him as a battering ram against French neoclassicism and the dominance of normative rule-­governed poetics, a form of cultural resistance that quickly translated into political resistance against the powerful ancien régime in literature as well as public life. Ever since, German Shakespeare has been substantially a civic figure: highlighting the crucial contributions that Shakespearean engagements can make to the political culture of a given place and time. The word civic, which, interestingly, appears nowhere in the Shakespeare corpus, was used in early modern English to designate a crown or garland as a mark of distinction (according to the OED); it also designates affairs of citizenship and urban life and so concerns the welfare of communities, however these may be imagined.6 In their classic 1963 study The Civic Culture, Almond and Verba described civic culture as ‘a third culture, neither traditional nor modern but partaking of both; a pluralistic culture based on communication and persuasion, a culture of consensus and diversity’,7 clearly relating this notion – both as a historically existing formation and as a goal still to achieve – to the political situation of a world then at the height of the Cold War. A generation later, in a new world order, Thomas Bridges revisited their argument and raised a question that has remained topical: ‘Can a new form of liberal civic culture arise out of the ruins of modernist liberal doctrine?’8 Whatever answers one may find, Almond’s and Verba’s analysis still stands: ‘if a new nation is to create a civic culture’ it needs both ‘unifying symbols and system affect’ to do so; there ‘must be a symbolic event’ or ‘some other means of creating commitment and unity at the symbolic level’.9 Such unity at the symbolic level, I would like to suggest, is what Civic Shakespeare may provide. With a focus on the 1864 and 2014 anniversaries, my chapter argues that the German jubilees have worked in just this way. The Weimar Shakespeare celebrations, then and now, different though they clearly were, can both be seen as prime occasions of such civic creativity. The rest of this chapter will try to defend this claim. There is no doubt that Shakespeare worship is a pervasive phenomenon, culminating in the various jubilee festivities yet by no means confined to

Shakespeare’s German Place

133

them. Nor is it confined to German culture. If in Britain, according to Jonathan Bate,10 Shakespeare worship has served as an ersatz constitution for the state, for most of nineteenth-­century Germany it may well have served as an ersatz for the elusive nation, i.e. the much desired union of all the various German states which, before 1871, could form a common fatherland only on an imaginary level, staked out in symbolic ways, resorting to Shakespearean plots and figures as the main means to do so. What may sound curious or weird was, in actual fact, achieved in 1864: a powerful example of Civic Shakespeare, i.e. Shakespeare staged and used as the true model of civitas in the German public sphere. The point was prominently made with the first-­ ever staging of a complete cycle of the eight history plays – or, more correctly, the reinvention of Shakespeare’s histories as integral parts of one great artistic whole – by the Weimar Hoftheater at the tercentenary. It was a true world premiere, resulting from the effort and artistic vision of a man called Franz von Dingelstedt (1814–1881), theatre director, stage manager, writer and adapter. Even in England, no-­one had ever before mounted such a venture; the Shakespearean histories had simply never been strictly conceived of, let alone performed, in one great cycle. So Dingelstedt’s epochal project deserves attention as a prime example of Shakespeare’s civic productivity and part also of a concrete political agenda. In the 2014 jubilee we set out, from our present-­day point of view, to revisit and reconsider this agenda and its legacy. In what follows, I shall therefore briefly sketch what kind of events took place in Weimar in 2014, before discussing Dingelstedt’s history project in some detail. On this basis I shall then try to assess its significance, and consider its creative or critical potentials in contemporary German Shakespeare.

Celebrating Shakespeare The German jubilee in April 2014 entitled ‘Celebrating Shakespeare’ was part of a year-­long programme of events in Weimar, Bochum11 and beyond, with stage productions including theatre, opera, music and dance, film screenings, lectures and workshops, readings, exhibitions, school projects and competitions. The main festivities, however, took place between 23 and 27 April to mark and commemorate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the Society’s foundation. Our programme opened with readings by two writers, Albert Ostermair, a poet, dramatist and novelist who recently engaged, for instance, with the problematic legacies of The Merchant of Venice,12 and Feridun Zaimoglu, a Turkish-German novelist and dramatist known also for his provocative translations and stage-­ adaptations of Shakespearean plays like Othello.13 Further readings on the following days included new poetry by Ulrike Draesner and Ursula Krechel, who, together with ten other German writers, responded to a special commission for Shakespeare-­inspired poems presented in a jubilee anthology

134

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

alongside classic works like David Garrick’s Ode and other international poems to or about Shakespeare and Shakespearean characters.14 The Weimar programme also featured talks with theatre directors of recent Shakespeare productions, classical as well as contemporary music on Shakespearean themes, an exhibition of book art, film screenings, workshops and lectures by internationally renowned scholars – among others, Peter Holland spoke on Garrick, Ewan Fernie on civic flourishing, Diana Henderson on the legacies of Shakespeare’s history play, Philip Mead on the Australian tercentenary, and Heinrich Detering on Bob Dylan and Shakespeare15 – as well as a festive banquet with performances. The week-­long programme climaxed with a ceremonial act on the stage of the German National Theatre, formerly the Weimar Hoftheater, where Sir Kenneth Branagh was awarded the honorary presidency. We also featured two theatre productions: Twelfth Night directed by Alice Buddeberg, premiered at the National Theatre, and a new production by the Bremen Shakespeare Company entitled Shakespeares Könige. Mord Macht Tod, i.e. ‘Shakespeare’s Kings: Murder, Power, Death’, a three-­hour version of the history plays adapted and directed by Johanna Schall, granddaughter of Bertolt Brecht. It was this latter stage project which, above all, constituted a thematic link to the 1864 jubilee with Dingelstedt’s history cycle and so purposefully offered us the chance to review and rethink the historical legacies of our foundational act. What then was the cultural context that inspired Dingelstedt’s remarkable venture and vision? Before 1864, despite pervasive Shakespearomania, the histories were hardly known in Germany and rarely performed. Henry IV and Richard III formed some exception – in 1792 Goethe in fact staged both parts of Henry IV in Weimar – because they offered strong attractions for virtuoso stage performers, but even so had never held a regular place in the theatre repertoire. Still, Shakespeare’s histories had quite some influence on German theatre and culture because they clearly gave the inspiration, perhaps even the actual model, for some of the most cherished plays by canonical national writers, like Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen (1773) or, even more so, Friedrich Schiller’s historical dramas. His Wallenstein trilogy (1799) on the wayward military leader of the Habsburg armies in the Thirty Years War would be unthinkable without Shakespeare’s precedent, as would Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801) on Joan of Arc and her campaign against the English in fifteenth-­century France, i.e. a play about essentially the same historical events which Shakespeare dramatized in The First Part of Henry VI. Though Schiller’s ‘romantic tragedy’, long his most popular work in Germany, is not a stage chronicle but a drama of ideas, based on philosophical principles the author expounded elsewhere at some length, it owes a great deal of its dramatic technique to Shakespeare and so pays eloquent tribute to the histories’ impact on the German classics. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that it was also Schiller who is the first on record to suggest a complete cyclical performance of Shakespeare’s Lancaster and York tetralogies. In November 1797, he wrote to Goethe in

SHAKESPEARE’S GERMAN PL ACE

135

Weimar that he was reading Shakespeare’s plays on the War of the Roses and was struck by what he saw as the intricate knitting of plots and individual destinies, all combined with a most sublime idea and brought to a powerful conclusion in the final play, Richard III, which he praised as a classic tragedy of ancient stature. He continued: ‘it would truly be worth the effort to treat this sequence of eight plays, with all prudence we can currently muster, for the stage. A new era could thus be inaugurated. We really ought to talk about it.’16 Goethe responded cautiously, never taking up Schiller’s suggestion of a joint theatre project and instead referring to Schiller’s work in progress, the Wallenstein plays, as essentially an exercise along these lines. Indeed, almost seventy years later, in November 1863, a complete staging of Schiller’s Wallenstein in a twelve-hour marathon performance at the Weimar Hoftheater formed something like a trial run or prelude to the week-long marathon of seven evening performances in April 1864 with Dingelstedt’s adapted versions of the histories. These were based on Schlegel’s canonical translation, but their texts were extensively rewritten and structurally reshaped; Dingelgstedt had cut much Shakespearean material but also added freely by inventing and inserting entire scenes he felt were necessary for the plot. By way of compensation, he skipped The First Part of Henry VI almost entirely, arguing that German audiences were sufficiently familiar with these historical events from Schiller’s Joan of Arc drama. What then were Dingelstedt’s principles of adaptation? What were his stakes and interests in this project? And what made him even choose to champion the history plays for the jubilee, hitherto without a real German stage life, and ranking among the least popular of Shakespeare’s works? Clearly, Dingelstedt and his directorship at Weimar’s Hoftheater are the key to understanding civic creativity in nineteenth-century German Shakespeare. He came to Weimar from Munich in 1857, then in his early forties and at the height of his legendary creative powers. In 1859, he took an active part in the nation-wide Schillerfest, commemorating the centenary of Schiller’s birth and, even more importantly, the ten years since the major European revolution that had failed to fulfil the ardent hopes for civic liberty and national unity that German liberals still held. In 1848/49 neither constitutional reforms nor serious moves against the scattered regionalism of German states materialized. Germany continued to exist merely as an idea, in political reality a confusing patchwork of single states, without a shared or overarching structure, but fragmented into many little sovereign units, a loose alliance of separate, often rival dukedoms or kingdoms, some of which, like Prussia, were veritable powers, while others, like CoburgSaxon-Gotha with Weimar at its centre, were politically negligible. National unity remained a distant goal. This is where Civic Shakespeare and the histories come in. Dingelstedt’s cycle opens with a Chorus-like prologue, 150 lines he wrote to introduce his project and explain its rationale. It opens with an invocation of the ‘muse of fire’, cribbed from the prologue to Henry V, and goes on to evoke the various

136

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

historical heroes like Wallenstein, who all once received life on this very stage. Its main point is, however, to spell out the topical lesson we are to draw from watching the bloody spectacles of old warfare and civil strife: The red rose and white rose and their thorns, Let them reopen all the wounds That had old England bled for thirty years When brothers fought against their brothers, Just as it happened in the German Reich. Everyone should see and learn Where injustice and division lead us. But we may also be consoled and see How a healthy, viable people By its own strength can rise above Internal conflict and against foreign pressure, If it manages to come together and unite.17 In the German original, the last line is even more explicit: literally, it calls on the German people – the Volk – to ‘collect’ its strengths and to ‘collect’ itself, i.e. to bring together and unite all scattered bits and parts. In April 1864, fifteen years after the revolutionary hopes for national unification were quite lost, this call held strong contemporary resonance. Even though the earlier allusion to thirty years of civil strife refers to the seventeenth century, the context makes it unambiguously clear what this prologue speaks about. The German Reich is here at stake: the mid-­nineteenth-­century dream of ‘collecting’ the scattered tribes, that is to say, the coming or bringing together of all the separate German states into one great national union under a central sovereign power – just as, and this analogy is crucial, the Shakespearean histories show us the eventual reconciliation and reunification of the warring houses York and Lancaster under Henry Tudor. And just as, to continue the implied analogies, the eight separate parts of Shakespeare’s two tetralogies are no longer random, unconnected plays but now collected and, for the first time ever, staged as a complete cycle, thus constituting a single dramatic unity which stands for the aspired political unity, too. Dingelstedt’s cycle therefore topicalizes Shakespearean history drama so as to produce a theatrical whole symbolic of the national whole still to be achieved. The stage pre-­empts reality. The purpose of playing is, not to hold up a mirror, but to provide a model for Germany’s future politics. In April 1864, this future had already begun. The elusive national unity was about to be produced by military means, not by liberal revolutions, over the following few years. Strife and warfare, therefore, were not far away when Shakespeare lovers gathered for their celebrations. Indeed, the Weimar jubilee was punctuated by news from the German-Danish war over the dukedom of Schleswig, later known as the first of three so-­called unification wars (which eventually enabled Bismarck, in 1871, to proclaim the

Shakespeare’s German Place

137

Kaiserreich under Prussian leadership). Five days before Shakespeare’s birthday, on 18 April 1864, Prussian troops won a decisive, bloody victory over Denmark, with more than 5,000 losses on both sides. Dingelstedt’s prologue openly refers to this ongoing campaign and to the current enmity with Denmark – declaring with Hamlet that ‘something is rotten’ in that state – a military conflict all the more precarious and significant because England was backing the Danes.18 The Weimar celebrators, then, found themselves in a dilemma. As German Shakespeareans, they had to hail England as the country which had (to quote the prologue) ‘sent us Master William’ while at the same time, as German patriots, they had to condemn it. England was both model and devil. Dingelstedt’s prologue tries to address this quandary by constructing the notion of a shared Germanic mother country, comprising both Anglo-Saxons and Germans, and scolding England for having turned away from this shared ancestry – thus also adding another topical analogy to the story of reconciliation and reunion staged in the history cycle. For the time being, as long as Shakespeare’s birth country forgets this origin and goes astray, the implication is that Shakespeare finds a new and true home in his place of second birth: Shakespeare becomes German.

Questioning Shakespeare What are we to make of this today? How may we reassess Dingelstedt’s jubilee performance and reconsider his agenda? A century and a half later, much of the aggressively nationalistic and belligerent rhetoric at the Weimar jubilee sounds utterly unpleasant, not just because of its contemporary military context. The entire project to found a German Shakespeare Society might in fact appear as the attempt to save Shakespeare’s genius from his current English corrupters. Six years earlier, Dingelstedt wrote a memorandum in which he announced Shakespeare’s wholesale Germanification – or, as the term then was, ‘nostrification’19 – which is to say: making him ours, i.e. noster, neck and crop, naturalizing, appropriating and annexing him in full, an act of cultural colonialism curiously propagated, however, as bringing Shakespeare home to his true place of belonging. The notion was reiterated in one of the first programmatic statements from the newly founded Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, when Hermann Ulrici, its first president, announced in no uncertain terms: ‘We want to de-­anglicize the Englishman Shakespeare, to Germanize him in the widest and deepest sense of the word; we want to do everything in our powers to make him even more and in the truest and fullest sense what he already is – a German poet.’20 That is to say, Shakespeare’s Germanness is paradoxically both a given and a product, both a birthmark and a consequence of current cultural endeavours – he is to become what he has been all along. The curious logic of such statements demands further discussion.

138

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

The point is closely related to the central idea, propagated throughout the German tercentenary and beyond, that Shakespeare’s true sphere of belonging should be thoroughly defined in cultural as well as social terms as anti-­elitist. Let us briefly consider, for instance, a German tercentenary speech delivered in Schidlitz, today Siedlce, a suburb of Gdansk. Here a certain A.L. Lua told the congregated Shakespeare lovers that this festive occasion was ‘a celebration in particular of the people, motivated by some deeper reason. For Shakespeare himself emerged from the people; his father was a tradesman, first glover, later butcher and wool merchant. His modest wealth did not permit his son to enjoy higher education. This son, who in the realm of the spirit was to have such a glorious future, just attended local school in his home town.’21 Apart from the biographical fiction, what is remarkable here is the emphasis on a lowly social background as the true and only origin of Shakespeare’s art, a poet who emerged from outside academic institutions, outside also of the higher strata of society, of aristocratic or upper class mentalities, a genius rooted rather in the daily life of straight honest folk, who continue to form his genuine constituency: the people, or das Volk. This proved a lasting and recurrent figure. In the many German speeches delivered in April 1864 in Weimar and elsewhere, Shakespeare’s innate Germanness was emphasized and justified with his alleged essential bond to ‘the people’: an assumed and deep connection with a given fundamental unity, conceived of both in natural and national terms, allegedly transcending or predating accidents of birth and language. Volk, in German, is an ominous word, deeply resonant and deeply problematic. At best, it has a romantic ring to it, as in Herder’s Auszug aus einem Briefwechsel über Ossian und die Lieder alter Völker, his 1773 celebration of Macpherson’s Scottish epic as genuine expression of an ancient people and their wisdom, but the word has often been employed for mythic-­ethnic claims of soil-­and-blood togetherness. In adjectival usage, it means both ‘popular’ and ‘demotic’, ‘folksy’ and ‘vernacular’, yet frequently suggesting a kind of fateful connectedness on grounds of doubtful genealogical constructions which lends itself in political discourse to formulate aggressive right-­wing attitudes, racism and antiSemitism, right up to the Nazis, in whose lexicon the word was highly treasured and often used in loaded compound nouns, from Volkswagen to Volksgerichtshof.22 Its prominence in nineteenth-­century Shakespeare rhetoric, therefore, serves as a painful reminder of the deeply worrying ideological legacy we must acknowledge and work through in German Shakespeare. And yet, this difficult word and the violent tradition it has come to indicate could perhaps be reinterpreted, for Volk may also hold rebellious, unruly, anti-­establishment and anti-­authoritarian potentials which, according to Andreas Höfele, were in fact dominant in its earlier, eighteenth-­century uses where it originated ‘in the more radical strata of the Enlightenment’.23 Reconsidered and reframed, the loaded legacy of Volk might therefore

Shakespeare’s German Place

139

perhaps lead us from nineteenth-­century German Shakespearomania to more recent political Shakespeare readings. When, for instance, Ulrici in his monumental study on Shakespeare’s dramatic art, first published in 1839, considers the peculiar features of Shakespearean drama, he cites Hamlet’s instructions to the actors – ‘suit the action to the word, the word to the action’ – to argue that Shakespeare’s agenda is fundamentally realistic, following nature, staging the realities of life and history as they truly were and thus taking sides with English popular theatre.24 Such a line of argument connects this nineteenth-­century German scholar with one of the most powerful and internationally renowned critics in the second half of the twentieth century: Robert Weimann, doyen of East German Shakespeare Studies and, from 1985 to 1993, the last president of the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft during the decades of division. Weimann’s life-­long interest in the plebeian energies of theatrical performance, in the physical forces of improvisation and sheer playing, the creative powers of acting over and beyond an author’s scripted words, is what he famously discussed with reference to Hamlet’s instructions and analysed as Shakespeare’s renewal of a popular theatrical tradition, the Volkstheater.25 For all its problematic legacies, the Volk in Volkstheater indicates a heterodox, resisting and perhaps redeeming perspective, articulated in the speeches of the lowly characters, the gravediggers or clowns or louts or servants that appear on the platea (Weimann’s term) of the Shakespearean stage, heteroglot language users who communicate often directly and outside the dramatic fiction with the groundlings that surround them in the pit. Political Shakespeare, then, is a Shakespeare of the polis who speaks to all the people, not just to the elite, a popular Shakespeare who is of and for the people. This is the cultural and social place where Germans, at the tercentenary and after, liked to see their Shakespeare. And this explains the motivation for the German Shakespeare Society, as one of its first and perhaps most lasting projects, to plan and support the publication of a Shakespeare Volksausgabe, i.e. a popular edition of the plays in German (based on the canonical Schlegel-Tieck translations), inexpensive, easily available, widely accessible and so for everyone to read and enjoy. It is in such a sense of the extended, widened and inclusive participation in contemporary cultural life, I suggest, that we may tentatively reinterpret the term ‘Volk’ as ‘civic’ and appreciate the civic creativity that positions Shakespeare outside academia, outside professional networks or institutions of scholarship, teaching or professional theatre production,26 outside also of the industries of publishing, editing, marketing or merchandising. Civic Shakespeare in this sense is essentially a product as well as an agent of amateur appreciation among non-­vocational readers, spectators and enthusiasts who make Shakespeare part of their own sphere of interests and activities, to cite Andrew Dickson once again, like basket-­weaving or bell-­ringing. The Weimar jubilee in 1864 arguably contributed a great deal to this trend. Even though the creative energies, artistic vision and organizational

140

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

skills came mainly from theatre professionals like Dingelstedt, the emphasis still lay on popular participation. Not least his staging of the history cycle, as introduced above, clearly emphasised the constitutive role of common people in bringing about political developments and change. According to an early twentieth-­century study, Dingelstedt’s textual additions to the play just as the mise en scène of his directing were especially focussed on mass scenes, i.e. on dramatizing and staging the power of the people, whom he understood as active historical protagonists and gave a far more visible role than Shakespeare seems to have done in his plays, where only the Jack Cade rebellion in Henry VI, Part 2 is a noteworthy exception to the otherwise almost exclusive focus on aristocratic protagonists. By contrast, Dingelstedt conceived of the people, das Volk, as a central and a necessary agent in historical drama, just as historical paintings could not work without the multitudes. He is reported even to have spoken of his ‘inbred inclination’ to mass developments and mass influence, and staged his finely choreographed mass scenes with great care.27 Thus giving the people centre stage, the Weimar history cycle produced theatrical evidence of Shakespearean inclusiveness. However, it also produced the idea of cyclical connectedness, closure and wholeness in the two tetralogies which clearly is not Shakespeare’s but a latterday invention. The adaptation therefore tried quite hard to make the history series appear consistent, adding scenes and speeches to provide motivated links and interrelations and, with a stronger cause–effect dramaturgy, to impose a teleological structure upon the eight single plays to emphasize their innate unity. But even when we look once more at the letter cited earlier, in which Schiller first suggested that the histories form a cycle, we may feel that all such unity lies more in the beholder’s eye, i.e. is less a matter of compositional or authorial dramatic design than of reading and reception. Richard III, for instance, praised by Schiller as the crowning part of the entire series and consummation of historical destiny, was never of course planned or written as the apex. What is more, the entire notion of fulfilment propagated at the end with Henry’s hollow closing speech, arguably, is just the kind of ideological triumphalism which the rest of this play works to question. In the same way, the alleged togetherness of Shakespeare’s history cycle can and should be seen for what it really is: a union essentially constructed, not simply, naturally or necessarily given. So it is in the construction of political, artistic and dramatic unity, based on popular participation and conceived in national terms, that we may see a most important consequence of the 1864 Weimar jubilee. A hundred and fifty years later, we invited the Bremen Shakespeare Company to Weimar to show us their current adaptation of the history plays. This company, based in the north of Germany but frequently on tour, was founded in the 1983/84 season with the explicit aim to renew the popular tradition in contemporary theatre performance and stage

Shakespeare’s German Place

141

FIGURE 7.2  Tobias Dürr as Richard II in the macabre pageant Shakespeares Könige: Mord Macht Tod, Bremer Shakespeare Company 2013/14, directed by Johanna Schall, designed by Heike Neugebauer.

Shakespeare ‘for all’, i.e. in accessible, enjoyable, entertaining as well as artistically challenging productions. In three decades, the company has presented forty-­eight productions of Shakespeare plays and roughly the same number of other plays, often from their own workshop tradition. For their jubilee season, the company premiered a history project, based on the two tetralogies but scaled down to the bare necessities of plot, with an emphasis on the theatricality of power and the mechanics of monarchical rule. This version, devised by Johanna Schall and Grit van Dyk, used the German translation by Frank Günther but was, on the whole, less textually centred than performatively inspired: it showed the succession of Shakespeare’s kings more like a danse macabre, with clownesque white-­ faced figures clad in grotesque costumes, a Grand Guignol of royal horrors, historical actors engaged in a parade of assumed power . . . but really just a handful of poor actors strutting and fretting for a short time on the stage (see Figure 7.2). In Schall’s skeletal version, presented by just six performers constantly changing roles and parts, history was fragmentary, purposefully incoherent, without higher destiny or meaning. So the emphasis was not on cultural completeness, but on constant ruptures, rifts and ongoing division. Much of the stage action was in fact dominated by a vast round table, somewhat too large for the protagonists as if out of proportion with their bodies, a gigantic stage item whose roundness seemed to cite the central idea

142

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

that was absent from this history production. Further calculated absences included some of the most popular and familiar figures from the plays like Falstaff, who was entirely missing, or the young Prince Hal and his verbal eloquence, who instead appeared just as a sullen teenager in a hoodie. Without a sense of cyclical togetherness and innate wholeness, the performance powerfully brought it home that any kind of unity can only be imposed or produced from without. Thus, it offered an occasion to view and review not just issues about staging history in general, but specifically the political appropriation of the Shakespearean histories in 1864. In such a way, throughout the 2014 jubilee, we tried to address our legacy through celebratory commemoration as well as reconsideration and citation. Our topic ‘Shakespeare Feiern’ was meant in a double sense: as an imperative – let’s celebrate Shakespeare! – and as the description of the historic jubilees and their cultural tradition which should be placed under scrutiny and critical analysis. With this double agenda of festivity and reflection, we immersed ourselves in a process full of self-­ reflexive and self-­referential gestures, full also of citations and self-­citations, even in the actual venues where the event was located. Most of the lectures, panels and discussions took place in the function room of the Kulturzentrum mon ami, a community centre situated in the nineteenth-­century building of a historic inn, the Gasthaus Zur Erholung, which is the very place where in 1864 the Gesellschaft was in fact founded. The climactic jubilee event on Sunday morning took place in the great auditorium of the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, formerly the Großherzogliches Hoftheater. So the stage I stood on to deliver my presidential address was essentially the wooden scaffold on which Dingelstedt and his actors had performed the histories. As the opening of my speech28 I therefore used a few paragraphs from the hymnic statement (published in the first Shakespeare Jahrbuch) by which the Gesellschaft in 1864 had declared its mission – but I used them at first without indicating the quotation marks, so as to test how their pathos might go down with present-­day audiences, an experiment to try what, if anything, is left today of nineteenth-century Kunstreligion and its emphatic language: ‘To light a fire / blazing like sunlight / unquenchable, indestructible / warming all hearts elevating the spirit: / only the poet may do so / hallowed in heaven / to act as a herald of eternal life.’29 The poet as a divine herald: in the twenty-­ first century, can anyone really hear or utter this without blushing or giggling? Certainly, the idiom sounds strange, possibly pompous or ludicrous – but the sentiments expressed I think are valid to this day. Why else should anyone still care for Shakespeare outside expert circles, why else should anyone be reading a book about Shakespeare and civic creativity, if not for just such a glowing interest that burns like fire? Why indeed bother with Shakespeare, in 2014, 2016 or beyond, unless we strongly feel that he still warms, inspires and disturbs us?

Shakespeare’s German Place

143

Talking Shakespeare One of the most powerful and moving tributes to Shakespeare’s civic creativity was published in German in 1780, as a short dedicatory verse to a volume entitled Etwas über William Shakespeares Schauspiele von einem armen ungelehrten weltbürger, der das glück genoß, denselben zu lesen, i.e. ‘Something about William Shakespeare’s dramas, by a poor, unlearned citizen of the world who was fortunate enough to read the same’. The author, Ulrich Bräker, was Swiss, known from his diary as The Poor Man of Toggenburg, son of a peasant family, a goatherd who was press-­ganged in the Prussian army from where he managed to escape. Almost entirely self-­ taught in literacy and basic education, he was motivated by a deeply pietistic faith in self-­improvement. His discovery of Shakespeare, in Johann Joachim Eschenburg’s pioneering prose translation, opened up a new world for him, to which he gave testimony through diary-­like commentaries on the plays. His dedicatory poem30 pleads with the ‘great man’ to grant him the favour of a ‘short conversation’, even though he feels painfully inadequate to ‘cite’ or discuss Shakespeare’s work in any proper way, as all the great minds – Lessing, Goethe, Schiller – at the time were doing; so he says if others overhear and mock the imagined conversation between bard and peasant, he volunteers to play the Rüpel (clown or lout in a Shakespearean scenario), i.e. accept the part of any of the low-­class characters familiar from the plays. Thus, the inclusiveness of Shakespearean drama encourages Bräker to start his daring dialogue with Shakespeare and so include himself into a larger community of readers, lovers and enjoyers from which his social circumstances would seem to have excluded him. Now he can indeed take part in a cultural conversation that is neither academic nor elitist but invites everyone to join. This, more than anything, seems to me the perfect spirit and perhaps the only true justification of the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft: to provide a place for precisely such a dialogue to happen. Our 2014 Weimar jubilee was an occasion to renew such an agenda and to rethink, not just what Shakespeare’s German place may be, but more fundamentally what a national epithet like ‘German’, after all, might mean. For the traditional semantics of Volk are compellingly challenged through Shakespearean engagements. If we contemplate, for just a moment, the memorable fact that Shylock, Shakespeare’s Stage-Jew, is the only character in this Italian play with an Anglo-Saxon, i.e. Germanic, name; if we place this figure into the cultural community to which it obliquely belongs, the Venetian Ghetto, whose quincentenary was commemorated in 2016 with a great Shakespearean event (discussed elsewhere in this volume); and if we recall that Shylock’s nationality in this historical community would have surely been referred to as ‘German’, namely natione tedesca – then we begin to understand that identities, like places, are never one-­dimensional nor simply given, but performative and multifaceted, that is historically, socially and culturally

144

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

produced, hence changeable, renewable, redoable. For this reason, if for no other, Shakespeare is never exclusively English nor German nor anything else, but as versatile, variable, culturally manifold and nationally polymorph as anyone who ever enters into the long conversation and engages with him in whichever way: that is what civic creativity enables all of us to do.

8 On Romeo and Juliet and Civic Crisis in Contemporary Verona Silvia Bigliazzi

Towards crisis point That Verona ‘likes to consider itself the Italian Stratford-­upon-Avon’1 is something renowned in the town, and was first officially sanctioned by the inauguration of the Shakespeare Summer Festival in 1948. By that time, plans had been put in place to construct a civic myth around Shakespeare and, in particular, the characters of Romeo and Juliet. In the 1930s the municipality of Verona had completed an extensive renovation of the supposed vestiges of Capulet’s house which had been initiated a few decades earlier in the attempt to revitalize a myth perceived as crucial for the area’s civic life. Local poet Vittorio Betteloni, who in 1905 had penned a poem in the local dialect entitled Giulieta e Romeo, was a strenuous defender of a story which he claimed the town should revitalize and promote by preserving the cult of the urban memories of the Capulets and Montagues, no matter how fictitious they were. His argument was that Romeo and Juliet inhabited the heart of the local citizens, and therefore it was for them a question of common belonging to an imaginary space of memories which made those two characters real beyond historical accuracy.2 They belonged to the people and the people belonged together thanks to them. Since then, the city of Verona has grown into a brilliant specimen of a postmodern hyperreal town,3 sharing in a Disneyland-­like quality of fakeness that confounds reality and fiction, while playing upon historical ambiguity in ways that Disneyland does not.4 Scattered with simulacra of mythical memories turned into tangible and visual urban loci, it boasts a fake balcony and a fake tomb inscribed with countless signatures and messages from visitors from all over the world who come to fulfil their own secret dreams of love and faithfulness in the name of Shakespeare.5 It is

146

NEW PL ACES: SHAKESPEARE AND CIVIC CREATIVITY

extraordinary how this place has intercepted the spontaneous need of millions of people (two million in fact) who every year visit the balcony and touch Juliet’s statue, which is oddly situated in the house’s courtyard. Her myth transcends the local Veronese community, prompting a global response to its local materialization. What is also extraordinary is that what is promised meets the expectations of people worldwide, and is taken to heart by visitors, who are perfectly gratified to see the courtyard and – as it were – touch Juliet’s naked breast. The specific civic power of this narrative in Verona resides in its potential to semioticize the town. The ‘Juliet promenade’ carved within its central area marks an urban itinerary that incorporates narratively the touring visitor within its own fictional space. That path provides the boundaries of a miniature city within the broader urban context, sprinkled with architectural reminders of her story. Indeed, Juliet, even more prominently than Romeo, is a symbol upon which the town thrives both civically and commercially. On the one hand, it has inspired communal practices, such as marathons and literary festivals, and, on the other, it has supported tourist and commercial initiatives, dissolving the boundaries between civic memories and civic business. A privileged ‘Shakespace’, or Shakespeareinfluenced space of text, performance and civic culture,6 and a living environment for people to experience the ‘real thing’ behind Shakespearean monuments to love-fuelled self-sacrifice, Verona strives to achieve a balance between the two. The so-called ‘Letters to Juliet’ phenomenon, made popular by Gary Winick’s 2010 romantic movie which was in turn inspired by Lise Friedman and Ceil Friedman’s 2006 non-fiction book Letters to Juliet,7 involves people sending missives to her from all over the world, in search of a ‘therapeutic consultant’ for grievances and cares. Answers are given by the so-called ‘Secretaries of Juliet’. The phenomenon has spread internationally, confirming the power of this imaginary construction at a global level. It also raises questions about the very notion of Civic Shakespeare in Verona, for at the same time as it shares its ‘local’ vision of Shakespeare with the ‘globe’, it also involves different levels of communal participation and private or corporate interests across the city. Officially founded in 1985, the ‘Juliet Club’8 takes care of the ‘Letters to Juliet’, and while it is largely based upon voluntary work, it also relies upon the City Council’s support as well as on private funding. ‘Casa Shakespeare’9 (Shakespeare’s House) is another case in point: it is a very active cultural association which advocates the city’s Shakespearean patrimony as a crucial civic asset for the life of the town and its tourist industry, but it also contributes to the reshaping of theatrical life in the ‘Juliet-space’ of the city. Like Verona itself, it is cultural and commercial, local and global; the civic is caught up in international capitalism in this perhaps most Shakespearean of non-English towns. Walking the streets one perceives the ‘Juliet atmosphere’ everywhere, in the shops, in the squares, in the monuments themselves. One wonders if

ROMEO AND JULIET AND CIVIC CRISIS IN VERONA

147

there is room for more; if there is room for difference; if the city wants a different version of its Shakespearean inheritance, or if this has reached saturation point. The year 2016 was a real testing ground. When Shakespeare was celebrated all over the world, naturally Verona too played its part. Celebrating Shakespeare civically meant also celebrating the town, and that had its pros and cons. There were at least three main areas of intervention and, albeit independent, they belonged to the same civic frame. The local associations and the Teatro Nuovo – the main theatre for the winter season, significantly adjoining the Juliet house – joined forces to make the most of the local Romeo and Juliet myth during the anniversary year. The Shakespeare Festival did its best to please the local audience by bringing in popular celebrities. Our Skenè research group10 from Verona University did not pitch in, but instead attempted to unhook Shakespeare from commodified models of romantic love, sublimated femininity and their urban extensions. Our aim was not to eradicate those symbols, but rather to invite a positive rethinking of them through ideas of multiplicity and integration suggested by the not one but two plays which Shakespeare set in Verona. We tried to subtly defamiliarize and refresh Romeo and Juliet via a civic recovery of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in what we called the ‘Verona Plays Project’. These three events were all supported by the City Council, which proved very flexible and open to collaboration. How our project positioned itself within Civic Shakespeare and its mainstream activities, what its scopes were and what the results will be discussed in the following pages. But before then, its civic frame: new practices of monumentalization of the Bard and reconfiguration of theatre activities in town played an important role in Verona in 2016; their ideological implications and the impact of the ‘Disneyfication of Shakespeare’11 upon staging Romeo and Juliet had to be taken into account. These factors stood behind our project and spurred us to deal with what we perceived as a crisis, leading us to re-evaluate what Romeo and Juliet would mean in Verona beyond the anniversary.

23 April 2016 In 2016, when Shakespeare celebrations were enjoyed across the world in countless forms, it was natural for Verona to chime in jubilantly, celebrating itself via its special relation to Shakespeare. New events complemented the usual civic athletic events and literary awards; a radicalization of Shakespeare as a living monument very much in line with the spirit of the city’s established ‘Shakespeareanification’ was promoted. New targets were agreed and focused squarely on performing Shakespeare. Behind them there stood the old wish to construct memories from nought. Tangible artefacts – such as Shakespeare’s book – were produced and city areas were assigned new cultural meanings; all of these efforts did the trick very creatively.

148

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

The big day was the 23 April, the anniversary of both Shakespeare’s birth and death. ‘Shakespeare’s Book’ was the first important event. It was organized by the Juliet Club with the support of the City Council and UNESCO and consisted in the composition, over the course of several months, of the so-­called ‘Verona Romeo and Juliet manuscript’, containing an Italian and an English version of the play in the handwriting of ordinary people, students, citizens, tourists and whoever happened to be interested in leaving a trace. It was claimed that since no authorial manuscript is extant, Verona could have its own. The people wanted it and it could be the symbolic product of a gesture of true collaboration in bringing about the missing thing, finally made solid, stable, certain, even more eloquent than the play’s vestiges in the streets. The advertised message was that of fraternity and peace which, the Council said, was contained in the reconciliation scene of the play itself.12 It was begun on 14 February – another symbolic date for lovers (it being Valentine’s Day) – and the first line was written by the Mayor; it was finally offered to the city at the Verona Civic Library on 23 April. On that same special day, in the afternoon, the Teatro Nuovo presented a free performance by the students of the Accademia Teatrale Veneta, who interpreted a selection of Shakespearean passages under the direction of local director Paolo Valerio. At the same time, the ‘Casa Shakespeare’ association organized a ‘Shakespeare walk’ with an actress reciting Shakespearean pieces along a route corresponding to the Roman Decumanus Maximus, which runs today from Corso Porta Borsari to Corso Sant’Anastasia across the central Piazza Erbe, and is one of the most salubrious areas in town. The walk wound through commercial areas where shop-­owners who had bought into the project hoped to ply their trade. In the evening, Casa Shakespeare hosted a Shylock event on its own site, ingeniously called ‘Cantina Shakespeare’, and located in the cellar of a bakery at the corner of Corso Porta Borsari and the central Piazza Erbe (Panificio Rossi). In all this, the civic, commercial and cultural organizations of the city showed considerable creativity and inventiveness; they proved alert to possibilities of co-­working; they were very dynamic – each in their own distinctive way. The advertising campaign for the whole programme, which ran for the duration of both the summer and the winter seasons and listed a variety of activities catering for students and tourists alike, was intriguing. As was the case for the several short performances Casa Shakespeare set in a number of beautiful period palaces in the Veneto region,13 the target on 23 April was mainly tourist entertainment – except that the Walk was a free event. It too was presented as a ‘fringe’ activity, like those the association situated in what they described as ‘off-­theatre sites’ or ‘alternative performance spaces’, such as the ‘Cantina Shakespeare’ mentioned above, or the cloister leading to Juliet’s tomb. Not originally designed for performance activities, these places were alternative only in so far as they were adapted to hosting actors,

Romeo and Juliet and Civic Crisis in Verona

149

FIGURE 8.1  Sloganizing Shakespeare in the Juliet space: 23 April 2016, the Shakespeare Walk.

but they were perfectly suited to the ‘Juliet-­space’ and its ideological programme in town; in fact, they enhanced it. The Walk, planned in close cooperation with local businesses, blurred the divide between civic spontaneity and financial security. Although technically free of charge, it was designed to generate revenue for Verona. The performance itself featured a beautiful girl in a gorgeous costume reading Shakespearean lines in front of a shop window displaying expensive summer dresses, shoes, hats and other accessories, as well as, on the window pane, Romeo’s lines on his own passion for Juliet (‘With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, / For stony limits cannot hold love out, / And what love can do, that dares love attempt; / Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me’).14 On that window pane, those lines promised female purchasers everlasting love. While no one could reasonably expect a shop in an affluent Italian city centre to do anything other than sell its wares, in adroitly commingling the English idiom visibly printed on the window pane with the Italian voice of a dark-­haired Veronese girl, the quotation became an effective slogan. One might wonder what distinguished that delicate figure reading in front of a lectern from the buskers in centurion costumes posing for pictures near the Arena theatre in Piazza Bra, but the former was an undoubtedly more complex icon. It played upon a more ingrained civic myth than that of Romanitas, and as such triggered different cultural and commercial implications. And yet the issue at stake was not dissimilar. All of

150

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

a sudden Verona seemed to have moved a long way away from the sentimentalized Betteloni perception of the Romeo and Juliet story as a founding civic narrative that remained deeply ingrained in the heart of the people.

The summer In July, ‘Casa Shakespeare’ made other, similarly creative proposals, including a ‘drink and think’ event programmed at cocktail time at one of the most famous osterie in town (Osteria Sgarzaria), once again located in the historical and commercial centre of Verona. This innovative take on Shakespeare consisted of an audacious combination of Romeo and Juliet with David Bowie, proposing what the programme advertised as ‘encounters, collisions, anomalies, and amazing similarities between the White Duke’s music and the Bard’s words’.15 In the same month, the mainstream Shakespeare Festival at the beautiful Teatro Romano by the Adige river was surprisingly heading in the same direction. It advertised a bold take on Romeo and Juliet by director Andrea Baracco – famous for his Julius Caesar presented at the 2012 Globe to Globe Festival. His choice was to cast the last scene of the play as a youthful transgressive self-­sacrifice incorporating Bowie’s ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’. That tune accompanied the moment when, with a Garrick-­like wish to present the two lovers witnessing one another’s deaths, Baracco had them smoke a last cigarette (or joint?) before enjoying a shared Liebestod. If this was meant to be provocative, as some described it, it was not disquieting. The well-­meaning middle-­class audience were not troubled but rather moved, and this confirmed the effect of containment. Even closer to those well-­trodden Juliet-­paths was the area where slightly more experimental and non-­mainstream productions were scheduled for the summer season. The Corte Mercato Vecchio (Old Market) is where other performances are normally put on by local companies. This is a square not far from Juliet’s house surrounded by impressive late medieval and early Renaissance striped façade buildings with arches, showcasing the imposing staircase ‘della Ragione’ that leads to the Achille Forti Gallery of Modern Art, and surmounted at the back by the majestic Torre dei Lamberti. Here the Verona-­based Teatro Scientifico company, led by Giovanna and Isabella Caserta and known in town for their engagement with social issues and experimental interests, approached Shakespeare from the point of view of women oppressed in a male-­dominated society. The title of their production from The Taming of the Shrew, 5.2 (Cosa desiderate che mi avete fatta chiamare?, ‘What is your will, sir, that you send for me?’) was meant to suggest an interrogation of the female position. According to an article published in L’Arena local newspaper shortly after the premiere, the spectacle was described as a parade of select famous Shakespearean female characters, from Juliet to Desdemona, Lavinia,

Romeo and Juliet and Civic Crisis in Verona

151

FIGURE 8.2  ‘. . . resisting acting temptations’. Romeo and Juliet, Scala della Ragione, Corte Mercato Vecchio, Teatro Scientifico Company, 25 July 2016.

Katherine and Lady Macbeth, displayed on stage as ‘ghosts or brides coming out of the pages of Othello, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth, wearing red shoes to remind us that women continue to die because of love, jealousy, power or possession’.16 The actress playing Desdemona was deaf and also unable to speak, and so her silence was meant be a radical gesture making visible Othello’s own deafness. Possibly not immune to gender stereotypes, the journalist noted the directors’ ‘entirely female’ approach to Shakespeare, manifested in the ‘delicate brushstrokes’ of ‘the bridal veil and those wedding dresses left hanging at the end’. In the writer’s view, that same female approach had actively prevented the actresses from yielding to the ‘temptation’ of reciting Romeo and Juliet, so that the ‘play’ remained ‘an extraordinary apparition’:17 no more than a postcard kiss on a beautiful staircase. Still, the reviewer evidently resented words without gestures more than the excision of words, and therefore felt relieved by the company’s choice to dispense with stage readings. He praised the fact that Katherine of Aragon and Lady Macbeth were reduced to a fleeting voice (‘un tocco di voce’) and a twisted body dancing, respectively.18 The experiment had apparently worked: the drastic excision and iconic renderings were received as aesthetically revealing as well as a great relief, and the journalist’s stunning sincerity in admitting satisfaction at the

152

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

directors’ decision not to do Romeo and Juliet gave refreshingly candid voice to what must be a widespread frustration with the general omnipresence of the Romeo-­and-Juliet narrative in town. This gives an idea of how difficult it may be to propose creative approaches to Shakespeare in an established urban ‘Shakespace’, and at the same time how challenging it may be to do so. It also raises the question of whether Romeo and Juliet can be reinvented to Verona, or whether it is just doomed to become a cynical money-­spinning cliché.

Almost ‘fringe’ in the heart of town The Summer Festival offered mainstream Italian Shakespeare for Italian summer audiences who want their Shakespeare, and want it from contemporary Italian celebrities. In bridging the town and the nation in the name of the Bard, it created a space where the people could recognize themselves as part of an ongoing cultural process that has Verona as its centre of interest and attraction; it reinforced a feeling of cultural identity through shared memories of what has these days become a tradition in town. But that was not all. For the 400th anniversary celebrations, the City Council also extended their support to new creative initiatives, accepting the invitation to collaborate with the University and the Teatro Scientifico company on a more experimental, practice-­based research project open to students, residents and visitors. The Council was not new to this kind of commitment, since in 2013 it also generously gave financial support to a number of free events organized in partnership with the University.19 These were offered to conference delegates and citizens alike, and included a multilingual public reading of European Romeo-­and-Juliet novellas in the Castelvecchio courtyard, accompanied by music and live painting prompted by the actors’ performance.20 A lengthy Lindsay Kemp workshop on Romeo and Juliet completed the project and concluded in a public masterclass at the central Teatro Nuovo.21 A renowned performer, international choreographer and important collaborator of David Bowie’s, Kemp was not new to translating Shakespeare into extremely innovative and provocative theatrical dance performances, as shown famously by his surreal rendition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1985), which he scripted with David Brandon (David Haughton), and where he played Puck. We knew that Kemp’s reinvention of Romeo and Juliet for Verona in 2013 would infuse the play with a fresh energy, and be unlike any other offering in the town: his name alone would promise that. All events were free, including the actors’ workshop. The Council, the researchers and the theatre practitioners all contributed to incorporating Shakespeare into civic life in a variety of ways, away from the pressures of commerce and the tourist industry. Above all, we at the University of Verona wanted to go beyond the single Romeo-­and-Juliet

Romeo and Juliet and Civic Crisis in Verona

153

narrative which dominates the city, opening it up to multiple readings and the possibilities of cultural exchange and integration, translating what we were doing as researchers into civic action.22 In 2016 we revived this formula and organized a bigger event. We decided to experiment more with the possibilities of performance and explore their civic impact. Much remained to be done in Verona, we felt, in terms of pushing the envelope of civic creativity, and what we particularly wanted to push was the idea of multiple Romeo-­and-Juliet stories suggested by the 2013 multilingual reading and inter-­art performance we had conducted already. We wanted to offer alternative views on this canonical – and perhaps as viewed in Verona – rather stale play by bringing it into creative dialogue with another play sharing the same setting, The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Shakespeare was to be perceived not only as a Veronese forefather, but as a genuinely European ancestor who could speak to us in different languages, albeit with a strong link to Verona’s own past and present. We were not new to this way of thinking. In a previous project on The Tempest (2011), we looked for intertextual and transcultural performative practices and worked on the play’s links with commedia dell’arte, which were then staged by the Teatro Scientifico company and freely offered to the town.23 In 2013 we devoted part of the project on Romeo and Juliet to the play’s filiation from a thread of European stories initiated by Luigi Da Porto. In 2016 we looked at the comic–tragic contiguities between the two Verona plays, dialoguing with the Italian novella tradition and focusing on the motif of a sudden change of events, from potentially tragic to comic and vice versa. We realized how closely related they are. They provide mirror images of the comic and the tragic as unstable categories, disclosing disturbing affinities between them as well as the fluidity and mutability in our own lives. What we offered to the city was meant to invite reflection upon conflict and reconciliation as two crucial questions at the core of both. At the same time we emphasized an idea of narrative mobility and openness to reinvention.24 Thus we concentrated on Romeo and Juliet’s textual instability on the one hand, and on the possibilities of doing something almost fringe at the heart of town on the other. The direction of one of the two workshops by Kemp – an international star famous for original, if sometimes controversial, projects – was meant to be symbolically relevant and stimulate fresh thinking about the city. The direction of the other workshop by Pierpaolo Sepe, an emerging Neapolitan director, would allow for an experimental approach in other ways. In short, our ideas were as follows: 1 Textual variation: a less well-­known play than Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona could be experimented on in ways palatable to a town which remains proud of and intrigued by the play’s title. This could be done through an acting workshop run at a fringe venue. 2 Textual instability: if Shakespeare himself was responsible for more than one version of Romeo and Juliet, we could work on this

154

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

alternative narrative and incorporate it civically, affecting the town’s own awareness and vision of the play and how it may speak to us. Simplified conceptions and stereotypes made visible and tangible in town were to be questioned. The choice was daring: the meaning of ‘bad quarto’ (might Shakespeare have written something “bad”?) would have to be explained to the Company, who, although versed in experimental theatre, had no knowledge of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ versions of Shakespeare’s plays. 3 Performative encounters: the 2013 Lindsay Kemp workshop and masterclass, based on Quarto 2, could be revived and set against the programmed Quarto 1 Romeo and Juliet performance. This time Kemp would collaborate with Jaq Bessell, who would concentrate on the acting so as to investigate the play’s ideological and performative implications in the context of its interlingual translatability and double focus on gesture and voice. All three ideas, we hoped, would work together to destabilize, pluralize and creatively unsettle the over-­familiar Romeo-­and-Juliet story in Verona. Close cooperation with the Council and the Director of the Shakespeare Festival, Gianpaolo Savorelli, was crucial in planning this project of thinking Shakespeare from outside the souvenir chocolate-­box. It was agreed that these events should not be part of the main playbill of the summer season, but should pave the way to it a few days before the official opening of the Festival. They were included in the programme, but staged at alternative venues: the Ristori Theatre – a central, very fashionable and recently restored traditional proscenium playhouse – and a fringe-­like smaller theatre situated at the former Arsenale Asburgico near the Castelvecchio Museum, where the Teatro Scientifico company is based. The latter site consists of a bare acting area closed on two sides, while the other two look towards a few rows of seats. For the performance a table and a few chairs were on stage. And that is where the Verona Plays Project started.

Stage 1: The Two Gentlemen of Verona In this space at the Arsenale director Pierpaolo Sepe ran a five-­week spring workshop organized by the Teatro Scientifico company, which was free to young performers selected from across Italy. Sepe was given the freedom to do whatever he liked. Researchers were not actively involved, but the Italian translation of the playtext was done by Lisanna Calvi, who also planned the project with the Skenè research group. We were told that Sepe’s one proviso was that he would enhance the young actors’ physical energy and individual approach to the text. He wanted the play to speak today’s language through the actors’ own life experiences.

Romeo and Juliet and Civic Crisis in Verona

155

The actors derived from the play’s superficially delicate and refined language a pervasive sense of cruelty, which they translated on stage into violent body language, erotic and otherwise. There was mutual touching, jostling and chasing after each other, over-­excited yelling and homoeroticism, all actualizing energies they felt to be latent in the text. The result was a dynamic performance powered by the sheer youthful stamina of the actors, a display of exuberantly naked bodies and vocal vigour, which mislaid the subtle shift of performative registers, including irony.25 Much to my surprise, the show met with civic acclaim. The performances were fully booked and reviews were positive. The production had a cathartic effect, suggesting a violent rite of passage. But this posed several questions, including why young men and women, most of whom were in their twenties, concentrated so insistently on the manifold possibilities of physical and sensual conflict, and forgot entirely about the power and meaning of Shakespeare’s words. Their response was not local: as noted, the performers came from all over Italy and included second-­generation immigrants. Aesthetically, and thematically, the result was uneven, not only ironing out nuance but ironically downplaying the only outright violent scene in the play: Proteus’ attempted rape of Silvia. A radio interview with the actors and Sepe gave some hints as to what had gone on behind the scenes. The actors did not know the play. Sepe encouraged them to find its meaning within themselves – a process of self-­ inquiry which turned out to be very painful. One actress talked about deciding where the division was between searching and finding as a troubling experience, leading to absolute uncertainty. What emerged was an unremittingly bleak view of humanity driven by individual desire for self-­ satisfaction and self-­affirmation. It was shared by everybody, the director included. Love as possession, arrogance, prevarication; abuse was seen as a side-­effect of individualism in contemporary society, unveiling the mechanics of violence through erotic competition. This exposed the other side of the honeyed Romeo-­and-Juliet icons of romantic love scattered so liberally through the streets of Verona.

Stage 2: R&J Q1 The real challenge, however, was Romeo and Juliet. The venue was not neutral: the Ristori Theatre is a fashionable playhouse regularly attended by the affluent. The production was not meant to be violently unconventional, but it was certainly meant to be different; it was supposed to strike its audiences as alternative to both the Juliet-­performances in town and the mainstream Festival. It set out to prompt reflection on the potential for multiple, sometimes unexpected, narratives. This ‘bad’ version was to challenge the ideal ‘monument’ construed in the town, and expose instability at its roots; it was to be the other side of the ‘Verona Romeo and Juliet

156

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

manuscript’ that had been celebrated in grand style only a couple of months before as the final tangible reconstruction and appropriation of ‘the Book’. It was meant as a symbolically civic gesture as well as a performative experiment. I did the translation and sent it to the Bologna-­based Teatrino Giullare company, who had been chosen for their innovative theatrical work, including puppet and figure theatre. We met once and exchanged ideas over email a few times. I pointed out some of Q1’s main differences from the version everybody knows, namely its distinctive performative features and their possible emergence through abridgement and reconfiguration in the light of its theatrical workability, detectable in a tendency towards verbal simplification and discursive reduction in favour of stage action and gesture. They made a few interesting comments on the prospect of reducing the number of characters and enhancing meta-­theatricality. But something went wrong, and interestingly proved that, at least in Italy, the ‘version we know’ of Romeo and Juliet dies hard, both in Verona and beyond. The Teatrino Giullare company largely ignored, or perhaps misunderstood Q1’s peculiarities, although they did offer an experimental illumination. As director and actor Enrico Deotti said in a public meeting after the premiere, the aim had been to challenge the audience’s horizon of expectations, and to tailor the text to a three-­actor performance revolving around a group of musicians (presumably those who appear at the wedding feast). It is probably more appropriate to say that they told the story, rather than enacted it. Long narrative passages were interspersed in the dialogues read by one actor changing masks, to the accompaniment of an accordion, and occasional further acting on a small stage located upon the main stage. The fairly large proscenium stage of the Ristori Theatre was not a fit venue for a performance of reduced action and sparse scenery, probably better suited to a smaller and perhaps even open area – a street theatre or a rehearsal room such as the one at the Arsenale Asburgico would have done beautifully. The contrast was not as productive as expected and rather than prompting reflection simply appeared awkward. The story-­telling style, with the handling of masks reminiscent of puppet theatre, and the visual allusions to vaguely Beckett-­like figures emerging from a generally dark space had a positive estranging effect, though. Equally engaging was the sparing visual magic, but only by contrast with the technicolor, ebullient performances we are accustomed to and which took place a few days later at the Shakespeare Festival. What was especially lacking, however, was the Q1 text, and that was a missed opportunity. Despite the passages that were retained from the text, many of its lexical and stylistic peculiarities were erased, the secret marriage scene (significantly different from Q2) was cut, and words were occasionally borrowed from my own published translation of Q2,26 while Juliet’s differently nuanced relation with Romeo, Lady Capulet and the Nurse and the overall more ‘comedic’ dimension were done away with. What was preserved – and in

Romeo and Juliet and Civic Crisis in Verona

157

fact emphasized – was Q1’s brevity: this entailed further textual excision and insertion of brand-­new narratives and comments to speed up the action. The reaction of the conference delegates was of tacit disappointment, as they did not get what they expected – Q1 on stage! That of the town residents was tepid. They did not feel let down like the delegates, because they did not know the text and were unable to judge what they missed. But they did sense that they had not been given the ‘alternative Shakespeare’ they had been promised. Their expectations had been betrayed, not challenged, and that was not entertaining. In this respect Teatrino Giullare failed to exploit the ideological potential of the ‘bad’ narrative offered by Shakespeare himself. They missed the mark because they ignored both text and audience, assuming that Q1 was not central, which was precisely why we wanted to do it in an up-­scale civic context. What remained provocative was the incongruity of a very unconventional spectacle at a very conventional venue, bringing street theatre within the boundaries of a rich playhouse in the heart of a rich town. That was civically creative and radical; it shook the town’s certainties about performing Shakespeare in general, and that play in particular. But it was also out-­of-focus and unconvincing.

Stage 3: R&J Q2 No one expected fidelity to Q2 from the Kemp–Bessell version. Bessell added to Kemp’s 2013 work bilingual acting of individual pieces, weaving words into the dance texture so as to connote the characters’ belonging to the two households. This emphasized conflict and difference linguistically, while carefully preventing moral judgement from being stuck within one language, and was marked by individual, studied shifts that prevented a clear-­cut divide between the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’. As Bessell argued, the 2013 show dialogued with Zeffirelli and MacMillan,27 and, in turn, this 2016 version also dialogued with that 2013 version. This produced a sense of familiarity and raised memories of a recent past when Kemp had been warmly welcomed by the people, beyond our wildest dreams, after the city’s initial hesitation about inviting him.28 But the revival also raised new provocative questions about the dialogue between body and verbal language and the ideological implications of bilingualism, as well as the dramaturgical effectiveness of its use in a context mostly relying upon ‘visual magic’ and gesture. I attended rehearsals several times. They first took place at the Circus Academy on the outskirts of the town, and later in a much more central dance school, closer to the theatre.29 But I found the first site more inspiring; less beautiful but more radical. I remember arriving there the first time when the workshop had just begun and finding Jaq Bessell surrounded by a group of young dancers who had met her only recently but were already forming a ‘company’, as Jaq passionately insisted. Laura Weston was there too to help Jaq with the dance. That day they had learned by heart a few lines from

158

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

the Prologue and then pronounced them with high and low pitched voices, different expressive intentions and gestures, each coming out of a circle in turn. On the walls Jaq had stuck some sheets of paper with lines from the play text and a few notes. In her own words: those sheets of static-­wrap were a portable solution to the problem of bringing text into the rehearsal space. Rather than encourage actors to have books in hand for the Viewpoints exercises, for example, I wrote out a handful of lines from the play in both English and Italian in parallel, so that the actors could easily refer to them, memorize them, and see the rhetorical patterns in the text – repetitions, figures of expansion, figures of contraction, antitheses/figures of balance, imperative forms of verbs – as we were finding the same structures in our shared physical vocabulary. Gestures created to communicate a speech-­act (and reinforce meaning in this linguistically-­tentative working environment!) needed likewise to be repeated, to build, to contract, to be balanced/set against one another. Technical vocabulary, such as Laban’s effort actions in English and Italian, to support Laura’s work, and Bogart and Landau’s Viewpoints – tempo, durata, risposta cinestetica, ripetizione, relazione spaziale, topografia, forma/gesto, architettura – were there to support my work. These were the words I learned in Italian before arriving, they were the starting point, and using these we started to build the company. Other sheets were used as a means of recording discoveries in the rehearsals, of course, so that we moved forward as one, and could retrace our steps as necessary.30 That day the actors repeated the lines on the sheets obsessively with a crescendo of intensity and sudden unexpected diminuendos along improvized lines of action, and this brought them physically and vocally together. Neither Jaq nor the Italian actors could speak each other’s languages fluently, but they understood each other beautifully, and relying upon Laban methodologies focused on how to describe, visualize and interpret movement through an understanding of the body and its relation to space, shape and inner intention, they worked together, as a company would, on the intersections between voice and gesture. Over the course of just a few weeks, they explored in depth the boundaries of expressiveness, limbering up in terms of self-­control and body awareness, but also in terms of acting, while probing with their bodies the meaning of those few passages selected for performance. As translator of the Q2 text, I was called in to discuss a few lexical variants, and it was at that point that I perceived how deeply these performers, who were not trained dancers, were led to test the expressive potential of their bodies and compare it with the power of their voices, which too needed discipline and schooling. I was delighted to hear that these

ROMEO AND JULIET AND CIVIC CRISIS IN VERONA

159

FIGURE 8.3 At the Circus, ‘the company’: togetherness.

young women and men liked my translation. They eagerly asked questions and tried the lines out in the rehearsal room, looking for my approval. They were perfectly integrated, and even staging conflict, as they did by duelling, dancing and acting it out on the floor, brought them together. Violence was not pervasive, but selectively prominent, producing choreographic modulations that were studied to translate the passages omitted from the text. Drastically reduced, words were peculiarly foregrounded from the start of the performance, when Kemp himself, and utterly unexpectedly, decided to recite Shakespeare’s words, not to perform them bodily: his part as the Prologue was offered as a gift to the audience, and the audience perceived and appreciated it as such. In the light of Civic Shakespeare, Kemp and Bessell managed to make an alternative Romeo and Juliet palatable to the people of the city. No matter whether it was better aesthetically than other mainstream spectacles, it offered a different perspective on the play from both what could be seen at the Festival, hooked as it was on popular TV stars, and the civic performances targeting visitors in the Juliet-space of the town. It opened to multilingualism while enhancing the focus on conflict and reconciliation and sharing it with the people in the playhouse. Deeply ingrained in contemporary society, and in Verona in particular, civic tension31 was magnified in the performance but also resolved in its finale and in Kemp’s and Bessell’s generous act of public and civic donation of their work. Although it was a largely danced performance, acting was not resisted and words stood out from the Prologue

160

NEW PL ACES: SHAKESPEARE AND CIVIC CREATIVITY

and throughout the performance. A ‘Disneyfication of Shakespeare’ seemed a thing of the past, as did the need to reduce the play to a kiss on a city staircase.

The Verona Plays Project Was this complex, composite Civic Shakespeare project in Verona successful? What did it bring about and what did we learn? How did it affect Civic Shakespeare as such? It succeeded in many ways: above all, it spurred reflection on non-mainstream possibilities within a Shakespeare-saturated space. It also showed how powerfully the two Verona plays could open up to unexpected narratives, and this stressed and perhaps even enabled multiplicity and dialogue. As researchers and translators we once again confronted the difficulties of interdisciplinary collaboration. Academics and performers are often on opposite sides. They must be mutually ready to transcend their roles if they wish to work together and, as a result, do new things. In the case of The Two Gents and R&J Q1, this did not happen. But it was very instructive precisely for this lack of co-operation. The two different, non-collaborative experiences with Sepe and Teatrino Giullare taught us how the text could function as a pretext for experimentation inspired by other than academic motivations and purposes, and how it might become civically relevant in the process. With Bessell and the ‘company’, not to mention the generous and extraordinary presence of Kemp, things went very differently. I remember practising passages from Romeo and Juliet Q2 in English and in my Italian translation with Jaq, and sensing together the entirely different potential in pronouncing voiced guttural and voiced labiodental fricatives while stamping our feet on the floor to keep the rhythm of the lines: ‘Come night, come Romeo, come thou day in night’ and ‘Vieni notte, vieni Romeo, vieni, tu, giorno nella notte’. But that is another story. The Verona Plays Project does not stop there. In November we held another practice-based research project, this time on Shakespeare and Classical theatre on the topic of the ‘Tyrant’s fear’32 – an issue which we perceived as being urgent and topical in these days of resurgent popular nationalism. That project too was generously financed by a local foundation (Cariverona) and had the support of the City Council and Verona’s Education Agency. It involved scholars, citizens and schools. But that too is another story; its name is Thespis.33 Civic engagement is hard and necessary. We all need to keep on trying.

9 Shylock in the Thinking Machine: Civic Shakespeare and the Future of Venice Shaul Bassi

In memory of Napoleone Jesurum

FIGURE 9.1  The Colombari company rehearsing The Merchant in Venice in the Ghetto, July 2016.

162

NEW PL ACES: SHAKESPEARE AND CIVIC CREATIVITY

There is a certain irony and a modicum of poetic justice in describing the first staging of The Merchant of Venice in the Ghetto as a model of Civic Shakespeare. The Ca’Foscari/Colombari promenade production of July 2016,1 staged 400 years after the death of William Shakespeare and 500 since the establishment of the Ghetto of Venice as a segregated Jewish quarter, brought Shakespeare to an area that was created with the intention of removing the Jews e corpore civitatis, ‘from the body of the city’.2 This chapter reflects on the civic import of the encounter between two fundamentally ambivalent documents of Western civilization, a place and a play that have been both instruments of intolerance and catalysts for crosscultural understanding, vehicles of anti-Semitism and portals of positive knowledge of the Jews. To consider whether this theatrical event made Shakespeare good for a city like Venice, warrants a preliminary question: is Venice still a city?

Shakespeare and the future of Venice Why that’s the lady, all the world desires her. From the four corners of the earth they come To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint. The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now For princes to come view fair Portia. The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar To stop the foreign spirits, but they come, As o’er a brook, to see fair Portia.3 (MV, 2.7.38–47) Replace the name ‘Portia’ with ‘Venice’, and the Prince of Morocco’s flattery will make perfect sense in the present moment. Echoing the propaganda that the city fostered in the Renaissance to enhance its international prestige while its actual political power was on the decline, even the Venice of today is always trying to seduce more and more people towards itself. Today we call this pilgrimage ‘tourism’, an activity which is indubitably beneficial for the economy and the international outlook of the city, but which is also threatening its existence. When today ‘foreign spirits’ assuming the shape of towering cruise ships are left to ride through St Mark’s basin ‘as over a brook’, aiming at an easy profit, while ignoring the aesthetic and environmental damage done to the city, the ‘Queen of the Adriatic’, in the words of cultural historian Salvatore Settis, is reduced to ‘a Disneyfied shopping mall’.4 In his impassioned manifesto If Venice Dies, he argues that the crisis of the city would have far reaching, global consequences:

Shylock in the Thinking Machine

163

the processes currently under way in Venice, like the degradation of the historic city center and its loss of inhabitants, the rhetoric of a standardized modernity, and the blind pursuit of profit, can be found everywhere else on the planet. . . If Venice dies, it won’t be the only thing that dies: the very idea of the city – as an open space where diversity and social life can unfold, as the supreme creation of our civilization, as a commitment to and promise of democracy – will also die with it.5 Venice’s forma urbis (city shape) is for Settis a unique forma mentis (mindset), which needs to be safeguarded against becoming a modern megalopolis, where millions of people live either in serialized skyscrapers or in sprawling slums. This would entail both ecological disaster and the social death of a place which retains extraordinary global significance: ‘A city with a long history of cosmopolitanism, Venice [. . .] is a thinking machine that allows us to ponder the very idea of the city, citizenship practices, urban life as sediments of history, as the experience of the here and now, as well as a project for a possible future.’6 In his last chapter, Settis crucially invokes the Ghetto as a paradigmatic space of this thinking machine, and, in a surprising rhetorical gesture, also uses it metaphorically: ‘these days a blind presentism under the yoke of the market marginalizes every kind of dissent by relegating it to new ghettos.’7 The production was called The Merchant in Venice, with a small change of preposition that emphasized the importance of location. It was part of the official commemoration programme of the Ghetto’s quincentenary and was an attempt to offer a form of cultural dissent from the dominant political and economic trend that is closing down theatres and devoting ever more historic spaces to tourist-­oriented sites of conspicuous consumption. I propose that this particular production of Shakespeare was both an artistic event and a civic ritual, complementing other rituals that routinely take place in the Ghetto, re-­activating its forgotten tradition as a performing space, and symbolically re-­enacting in a secular vein the civic ceremonies that, as described by Edward Muir, characterized the early modern city: in Renaissance Venice, a particularly glittering temple to civiltà, an intense community life seems to have been fostered by an intricate design of civic rituals, which succeeded in melding parochialism and the tendency to hold certain offices and institutions sacred into an unusually vibrant and durable civic patriotism.8 In other words, for one precious week, Shakespeare (and his emissary, Shylock) made a symbolic contribution to Venice as the ‘thinking machine’ of civic culture as such. If Romeo and Juliet are everywhere in Verona,9 then, in contrast, Shakespeare is invisible in Venice. Other than a few scattered allusions, no museum,

164

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

monument or business marks the liaison between the writer and the city.10 Othello and Shylock are no Romeo and Juliet; they are unsettling figures, not romantic icons. The city that expels them in Shakespeare’s plays remains silent about these fictional inhabitants who lost their Venetian citizenship, identity, life; the Venice that exploited their services does not need them anymore. In the Ghetto, one finds today a small exhibition space in the premises of the Banco Rosso (Red Bank), one of the pawn shops through which the Jews carried on their moneylending service. Like modern banks, these were financial operations that were allowed to make small loans against the deposit of some form of pledge or collateral. The charter of 1624, which restated rules established half a century earlier, authorized the German Jews as follows: ‘for the greater convenience of the poor, the Jews shall be bound to provide them with loans of 3 ducats or less in each pawn ticket, upon interest of 1 bagattino per lira per month and no more (=5 per cent per annum)’, a far cry from Shylock’s 3,000 ducats. About two years prior to the time of writing, the Banco Rosso was transformed into a small pawnbroking museum, displaying fine reproductions of original documents and objects, even a life-­size, black-­clad dummy representing a moneylender at his counter, and a ten-­minute documentary relating the history of this economical activity. But no reference to the most famous moneylender of all time. Admittedly, the Ghetto is not even mentioned in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and yet it is presup­ posed by it. In a way the site enabled Shylock, since in Shakespeare’s source text, Ser Giovanni Fiorentino’s Pecorone, the anonymous mon­­­­ey­­­ lender lives in Mestre, on the mainland, and not in Venice, where Jews were not authorized to reside for longer than two weeks until the constitution of the Ghetto. Symbolically The Merchant in Venice, here discussed less in its artistic contents than in its civic dimension,11 brought the play home. However, this production was not conceived as an imaginary journey back in time, a philological attempt to restore Shylock’s story to its true origin. On the contrary, it was a contemporary intervention, a deliberate attempt to generate a creative tension between the most famous fictional Jew in modern Western culture and a Jewish quarter that has coined the very name and concept of ‘Ghetto’. In this light, it is less relevant to analyse the possible similarities between the events of the play and the actual history of the Venetian Jews in the late sixteenth century than to consider the various layers of history that have accumulated in the Ghetto over half a millennium.

A critical history of the Ghetto of Venice A concise, critical history of the Ghetto of Venice can be framed by two axioms formulated by Roger Friedland and Richard Hecht in their study of sacred places:

Shylock in the Thinking Machine

165

Axiom 6 – Central places, holy places, sacred places, memory places are those in which time is concentrated, thickened. They are places where the beginning of time presses into the present and the present bleeds into the end of time. Beginning and end are there, but central places, holy places, sacred places, and memory places are intensely present. Axiom 9 – They can be mapped through the geographer and cartographer’s skills, but they are the territory of imagination, enwrapped in the ribbons of memory, a territory asymmetrical with maps.12 Peripheral in the topography of the city, Venice’s Ghetto is a central place insofar as its name has become, to quote Mitchell Duneier’s illuminating study, ‘an idea’.13 It continues to be a sacred place for the Jews, local and international, who pray in its early modern synagogues; it is a ‘memory place’ for its connection to the Shoah and the Italian anti-­fascist Resistance. It is, to the surprise of many, a very small place: it takes less than five minutes to walk its breadth and length. It is deeply ironic that the name of this cramped area has turned into a global metaphor, now used by millions of people who have no real, direct knowledge of this inconspicuous square in the northern Venetian district of Cannaregio. Perhaps a key to its future lies in its resistance to any single and seamless narrative: for instance, the Ghetto does not, as we might expect, demand silent veneration. The least ostentatious landmark in Venice, it is its most opaque, intractable, and least legible monument. The Ghetto is a ‘territory of imagination’, constantly reinvented by the Jews who have been the main inhabitants since 1516, and by the numerous travellers who have visited this place over the centuries. Here it is true that ‘the beginning of time presses into the present and the present bleeds into the end of time’. Its quincentennial was an exceptional year: five centuries of existence as a focal point of Jewish life in Venice and beyond were commemorated in a concerted civic effort, championed by the historic Jewish community and endorsed by the Municipality and all the major political and cultural institutions. It was a unique occasion to revisit the past in multiple symposia, to present it to large audiences with official ceremonies, exhibitions, and artistic reimaginings. It was also an opportunity to envision the future of Venice at a time of crisis and uncertainty for the city, Europe and the world.14 In 1516 the Venice Senate decreed that the Jews, who had fled to the city after the rout of Venice at the battle of Agnadello, should be confined to the former ‘Public Copper Foundry’ (Geto), used in the past to manufacture ordnance, securing their economic services but keeping them safely at the margins. It is not clear whether it was the early German foundry workers or the incoming German Jews who, by gutturalizing the initial ‘G’, turned the Getto into the Ghetto (and it is a curious fact that a lot of alternative etymologies continue to be offered in the face of evidence).15 Other Jewish isolated areas had existed before Venice, but in 1555 Pope Paul IV decided

166

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

to model new segregated Jewish quarters located in his territories after this Venetian area; from there the name Ghetto started to spread in space and time to other ethnic enclaves and countless other physical, psychological and metaphorical forms of limitation and confinement. Constrained within the narrow limits of an island, the Ghetto became at once a place of segregation and a safe haven for refugees, possibly one of the best compromises for the Jews in Europe at the time. When they entered the Ghetto, rents immediately skyrocketed and the residents had to become very creative. Buildings became taller and the headroom in apartments much lower: six- or seven-­storey structures had to accommodate as many as ten apartments. The new arrivals were given permission to build their places of worship as long as they were not immediately recognizable from outside, which explains why the older Venetian synagogues are incorporated into residential buildings. In a city like Venice, known internationally for its architectural and artistic beauties, the Ghetto still presents itself as the only large square in the city without a church or any arresting façade. The community was a mosaic of different Jewish traditions, with Italians, German Ashkenazim, Sephardim from the ports of the Levant, and the descendants of Iberian Marranos coming together in the same small quarter. Despite the strict regulations which forbade Jews to leave the area during the night and prescribed the wearing of a yellow badge during daylight excursions, the Ghetto saw considerable incoming and outgoing traffic and became a vivacious social and cultural melting pot. In Arnold Zable’s felicitous phrase, this ‘minicivilisation’16 provided, among other things: a theological response to Henry VIII for his divorce from Katherine of Aragon; helped the rabbis of Amsterdam build a community that dared expel Spinoza; and enabled the publication in Venice of one third of all the Hebrew books printed in Europe – including the first complete edition of the Talmud (the body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law).17 Many of these cultural achievements, due to the severe professional restrictions imposed on the Jews, were collaborative enterprises with Christian printers, architects and artisans, making of the Ghetto, counterintuitively, a productive zone of cultural exchange, as vividly portrayed by Shakespeare’s contemporary Thomas Coryat.18 In 1797 Napoleon’s troops burned the gates of the Ghetto and the Jews began their journey to emancipation. As a new Romantic and decadent Venice was created out of the vestiges of the old empire and forged in the pages of Byron, Wordsworth, Ruskin, Henry James, Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust, the Ghetto became a repressed memory, an accidental encounter at best. When he stumbled upon the now dilapidated quarter, Théophile Gautier projected onto its poverty an elaborate racialized, Orientalist fantasy, imagining that inside ‘those cracked and rotten houses streaked with filthy ooze [were] Rebeccas and Rachels of an orientally radiant beauty, rigid with gold and precious stones as a Hindoo idol, in the midst of dishes of gold and of incalculable riches amassed by paternal

Shylock in the Thinking Machine

167

avarice; for the poverty of the Jew is only on the outside.’19 Although the French writer probably alluded to the Rachel of Jacques Halévy’s popular opera La Juive (1835) and Walter Scott’s Rebecca, two of the best known examples of the nineteenth-­century stereotype of the beautiful Jewess,20 the references to the paternal avarice and the imprisoned daughter are also reminiscent of Shylock and Jessica. Gautier was misguided, among other things, because the more affluent Jews had left the Ghetto behind to become active members of Venetian society, as testified by the American consul in Venice William Dean Howells, who also visited the Ghetto and was probably the first explicitly to describe the area through a Shakespearean lens: As I think it extremely questionable whether I could get through a chapter on this subject without some feeble pleasantry on Shylock, and whether, if I did, the reader would be at all satisfied that I had treated the matter fully and fairly, I say at the beginning that Shylock is dead; that, if he lived, Antonio would hardly spit upon his gorgeous pantaloons or his Parisian coat, as he met him on the Rialto; that he would far rather call out to him, ‘Ciò Shylock! Bon dì! Go piaser vederla.’21 This vignette of bourgeois cordiality captures the historical phase in which the Jews made a prodigious effort to integrate into the nascent Italian state, founding schools and art collections, serving as doctors and councilmen, making public display of their patriotism and loyalty, praying for the king in the synagogues, and celebrating the memory of their soldiers fallen in the trenches of the First World War. Not unlike other Italians, they were divided in their opinion on and allegiance to the new Fascist regime. Some Venetian Jews were in attendance when Max Reinhardt staged his historic performance of The Merchant of Venice for the inaugural theatre Biennale in 1934. For this outdoor production, a Venetian square that could not be more different from the Ghetto was chosen. Bordered by a canal and overlooked by a church with two façades, San Trovaso made for a spectacular setting, which contributed to the event’s historic reputation for the wealth and flamboyance of its scenery, celebrated as the triumph of art over adverse political circumstance. It was the eleventh year of the Fascist era, according to the regime’s palingenetic calendar, four years before the illusion of the integration of Jews into Italian society was shattered with the promulgation of laws that declared that the Jews were not only unworthy of Italian nationality, but constituted an altogether different ‘race’. Their exclusion from the public sphere and the withdrawal of most of their civil rights paved the way for the mass arrests and deportations of the last years of the Second World War, with approximately 8,000 Italians and 243 Venetians deported to Auschwitz, many of whom were elderly people who lived in the Ghetto’s care home. After the war, the survivors found in the Ghetto a comfort zone of religious domesticity, which the lower-­class Jews significantly called hasèr, a Judeo-Venetian word deriving from the Hebrew hatzer, ‘courtyard’.22 For a

168

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

few decades the Ghetto and its Jewish community defined each other, and no-­one else had any particular desire to claim the place. The 1980s marked the beginning of a new phase and a new public function: the Ghetto became a site of memory, to use Pierre Nora’s definition,23 with two Holocaust memorials placed on its walls dictating a new civic narrative that also entailed a civic commemoration every year on 25 April, Italian national liberation day. The institution of International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2000 consolidated this role as a civic arena where, at key public moments, the seminal stories of Italian antifascism and multiculturalism unfold in ceremonies and demonstrations, and where sometimes tension emerges between shared anti-­totalitarian feelings and divided sentiments over the Israeli-Palestinian question. The Ghetto figures in the recent Guide to Rebel Venice as the symbolic focus of anti-­fascist resistance, with no reference to its Jewish component.24 In the same period the place was also becoming an ever more popular tourist destination, and writers such as Erica Jong and Marek Halter included the Ghetto in their fiction, the former putting Shakespeare at the centre of her novel, Serenissima (1986).25 The most original reinterpretation came from Caryl Phillips, who visited the area in the early 1980s, an experience that inspired from him first an essay (‘In the Ghetto’) and later the novel The Nature of Blood (1997).26 His perspective exemplifies the gradual (re)transformation of the Ghetto from a site of local memory to a place for the global consideration of such issues as toleration and cohabitation, interweaving the true history of Venetian Jews and the fictional story of Othello, with his unnamed character based on Shakespeare’s moor walking into the Ghetto as Phillips himself had done. As a witness of the increasing visibility of the Ghetto, and its entanglements in different commemorative and literary narratives, I was sobered up one morning when I received a phone call from a very amiable person who had invited me to speak about my family at his institution on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. He thanked me for the informative talk, but he also wanted to seek my advice: ‘A friend of mine needs to buy a big quantity of gold. Since I know Jews deal with gold, I thought you may be able to help.’ I was dumbfounded: this man was not an anti-Semite; he had performed his civic duty of commemorating the Shoah. It shocked me into realizing that the long shadow of Shylock still shrouds and obscures the history and reality of actual Venetian Jews. The civic work of memory is then not only a matter of public ceremonies, but also the patient and often frustrating labour of unravelling of deep-­seated prejudices even in well meaning and educated citizens. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is the text that contains and dramatizes the two most entrenched anti-Semitic clichés, the theological notion of the Jews as pursuing vengeance over mercy and the economic notion of the Jews as inextricably linked to the domain of finance. Struggling with Shylock in the Ghetto means also struggling with these persistent poisons.

Shylock in the Thinking Machine

169

The Ghetto as performing space It is a curious and not irrelevant coincidence that in studying the form and everyday life of the typical Venetian campo Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard compares it to ‘an enlarged Shakespearian theatre’.27 The few public objections against The Merchant in Venice came as part of an overall rejection of the very notion of ‘celebrating’ the Ghetto anniversary, a protest against a positive, even festive note supposedly introduced in the programme. This protest was based on a very univocal interpretation of the Ghetto as a site of oppression and Jewish victimhood, a view which disregards its role as a contact zone and as a site of Jewish creativity – which although it was paradoxically provoked by the undeniable restrictions imposed on the residents, still often disrupted and complicated the exclusionary and segregationist logic of the Serenissima. Judging our Shakespearean performance an alien intrusion into a space of mourning also glossed over the long tradition of performance in the Ghetto, a dimension that has been neglected. Historian Gabriele Mancuso has pointed out that the original document establishing the Ghetto makes reference to the disturbingly attractive power of Jewish liturgy, which initially prevented the Jews from building their shrines in the Ghetto:28 ‘it is a shameful thing and a dire example that these Jews have made synagogues throughout the land where Christian men and women end up and they sing their prayers out loud with universal exclamation.’29 If Christians were concerned about the seductive power of Jewish music, some Jews were very anxious about the intrusion of alien cultural forms in their midst. In the seventeenth ­century, Rabbi Samuel ben Abraham Aboab excoriated a prominent member of the Jewish community for funding a theatre in the Ghetto: He [the wealthy funder of the theatre] has degraded the crown and pride of the Torah to the earth. Within the holy camp [i.e. the Ghetto] he has built theatres and circuses, where men and women and children come together. Modest and chaste Jewish daughters sit together with profligate women of the streets, and all, great and small, violate the law of Moses [. . .]. If at least only adults went there. But what do they want of the little lambs? A great punishment awaits those who bring little children there. They lead them into temptation by having them sit with actors and listen to their obscene talk which poisons their young souls.30 It is precisely the attractive power of Jewish art, religious and secular, its ability to speak to both Jews and non-Jews (as testified by Coryat31), that is key to the future. Though Shylock derided the ‘shallow fopp’ry’ (2.5.34) of the Christians’ masking, which enabled them to carry off his daughter Jessica, it is also true he would have taken part in Purim, a form of Jewish carnival that celebrates the Hebrews’ deliverance from the massacre planned

170

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

for them by the evil Persian minister Haman, as told in the Book of Esther. We have precise information about how Purim was celebrated in the Venetian Ghetto and the historian Brian Pullan tells the story of a young Christian sailor, Giorgio Moretto, being accused by the Inquisition of failing to observe the abstinence of Lent by celebrating Purim along with the Jews. Moretto’s defence was to state that he had wished to court a Jewess, Rachel, the daughter of Isaac ‘the Deaf Man’, who like Shylock, locked up his doors and stopped his house’s ears. Moretto’s submission was not believed and he was given a light sentence. But he was unable to keep away and when he was again caught in the Ghetto he was sentenced to three years in the galleys; ‘So this Lorenzo’, writes Pullan, ‘never managed to elope with his Jessica’.32 In very recent times occasional theatrical performances have also taken place in conjunction with the European Day of Jewish Culture in early September. However, there is a more fundamental level in which the Ghetto is a daily site of performance: that of verbal and visual narratives. The quincentennial made it even more ‘intensely present’, not only because of the self-­conscious evocation of its many historical layers in the official programme, but also on account of the multiple reports in the media, which rehearsed various narrative arcs, some guided by nostalgia for a dying world, others sounding the more hopeful note of a living heritage. The most commonplace phenomenon is that of the tour guides that ply the area with small or large groups and offer very different concise explanations of the place, the range of which one can particularly recognize when comparing, say, the difference between the average local guide with Italian (Christian) visitors and the Israeli groups. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the more recent literary responses to the Ghetto, interesting artistic nuances can be appreciated in the performance of the photographic gaze.33 A telling example comes from Bosnian photographer Ziyah Gafic´, whose images appeared in major outlets such as National Geographic and CNN. Concentrating mostly on quiet and empty moments of the area, with a typical emphasis on the Holocaust memorials and the conspicuous Lubavitch community, he invited the following comment from CNN journalist Helena Cavendish de Moura: ‘All Gafic´ found was an overwhelming silence – an element that became central to the photographs he made there.’34 Ironically, she was totally oblivious to the enormous number of tourists and the liveliness of a square routinely teeming with schoolchildren. What she also missed is that Gafic´ had deliberately tried to depict silence and emptiness, self-­consciously projecting his own memories of war-­torn Sarajevo as a waste land, a powerful reminder of how many Ghettos, real and metaphorical, are superimposed on the original one. On this recurring mechanism, Mitchell Duneier has written: In failing to contrast places such as Warsaw under the Nazis with the famous ghettos of the early modern era, social scientists missed a golden opportunity to develop a way of thinking about the ghetto that does

Shylock in the Thinking Machine

171

more than highlight the amount and consequences of segregation. They missed a chance to give due recognition to the variations in both flourishing and social control that are found in wherever people are restricted in space. [. . .] Calling Venice and Warsaw by the same name without drawing strong distinctions between them paints over these kinds of crucial differences rather than elucidating them and helping us to understand them.35 In the last analysis, performing Shakespeare in the Ghetto was an intervention in a place saturated with oral and visual narratives, many of them dictated by misleading stereotypes or by compelling metaphorical interpretations. It was also an unambiguous celebration of the flourishing of human spirit, the creative resistance to the limitations and constrictions applied to this square for centuries.

The Merchant in Venice In the foregoing historical contextualization, I have tried to summarize the considerations that informed the project and were discussed with the company for their artistic elaboration. Promoted by Ca’Foscari University of Venice, and officially approved by the Committee for the 500 Years of the Ghetto of Venice (which guaranteed also the ‘blessing’ of both the Municipality and the Jewish community), the first ever promenade production of The Merchant of Venice in the Ghetto was based on a few basic principles. It had to be a site-­specific production, made in Venice and created in close conversation with the Ghetto residents and institutions. It had to use the original Shakespearean text to engage an international audience and recognize the cosmopolitan complexion of the area. It had to be preceded by in-­depth exploration of the critical and theatrical history of the play and of the historical and cultural stratification of the place. Last but not least, it had to envision and achieve an artistic and educational afterlife for the project beyond the moment of performance. This ambitious plan was finally made possible by Compagnia de’Colombari, the theatre company invited to perform the play.36 A New York ensemble with an Italian name, a multi-­ethnic cast, and the visionary director Karin Coonrod, Colombari was founded in the Italian city of Orvieto in 2004, where it re-­imagined the medieval mystery plays and performed them in the streets and piazzas. With a mission to ‘generate theatre in surprising places’ and to ‘intentionally clash cultures, traditions and art forms to bring fresh interpretation to the written word – old and new [. . .]’ Colombari presented itself as an excellent choice for its vocation to bring ‘performers and audiences together, thereby transforming strangers into community’. It also held the conviction that ‘the magic of great theater can happen anywhere and be made accessible to everyone’.37 The first (preparatory) stage, in 2015, centred on research and

172

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

experimentation. Forty international scholars and twenty students were convened to Venice for the ‘Shylock Project’, a summer school where the play and the Ghetto were analysed and discussed with students and other scholars, and where the company came to work on the playtext, familiarize itself with the context and rehearse a few scenes on site.38 If the Ghetto from the very beginning generated a dialectic between the limits imposed by its unique condition and the creative response of its inhabitants, we could say that this production was honouring that tradition by trying to work artistically with the completely different sets of limits – physical, legal, financial – enforced by the current time and place. A strong proponent of an exuberant participatory theatre, Karin Coonrod tried hard to remove as many barriers as possible between the stage and the audience, between the performers and the passers-­by. Critical, zoning, safety and security reasons led to a careful demarcation of the space, but the final compromise – a key word in many theatrical productions, one imagines, but even more so here – left both ample designated seating for the spectators, a sense of seamless visual merging of the performing space into the urban backdrop (including the thrilling use of a real window for Jessica’s elopement from Shylock’s house), and even enough of a view for the curious bystanders. The scrupulously cultivated dialogue with the residents created an atmosphere of engagement and collaboration that saw local businesses and neighbours being invited to the show, with many of them participating with anticipation in the anxious and adrenalized rehearsal process. Stress and comedy mixed when the company resigned themselves to a very low-­tech rehearsal in the dusk of the last Saturday before the premiere, agreeing not to use any electricity to respect the rules of the Shabbat. It was not an obligation – the Ghetto is a secular space – as much as a gesture towards those observant Jews who like to enjoy the rare moment of peace in a place that is usually bustling with tourists visiting the area and its Jewish museum. But if the towering spotlights were respectfully inoperative while the company gradually disappeared in the dark, the assistants were gazing anxiously at the sky in the hope of spotting the three stars that signal the end of the holy time of restriction, while all sorts of small electric lights and even a torch (lit by a Jewish actor) imperfectly illuminated the square. This inconsequential episode is nevertheless a good example of the incidental cross-­cultural exchange that took place, negotiating the difference between Italian and American, Jewish and Christian, and so forth. Community involvement was certainly a relevant civic component of the show, with the actors and musicians dressing in an elementary school provided by the neighbourhood committee, eating at the restaurants, visiting the Jewish museum and other community facilities, renting apartments; with musicians performing on high terraces and a frantic Jessica walking every night past a casual family dinner to open the window for her yearning Lorenzo. In an enormously complex effort, which required considerable professional compromise and many volunteer contributions, there are two

Shylock in the Thinking Machine

173

other crucial civic aspects which demand attention. Coinciding with a profound economic crisis in the Venice Municipality, The Merchant in Venice received all the precious and indispensable permits but not a penny of public money. Success thus depended on individual donations, collected mostly in the United States, where the passions for Shakespeare and Venice have a long and distinguished record. It depended on one enlightened entrepreneur from Venice, whose brand name – The Merchant of Venice – echoed the Shakespearean title and who recognized the importance of living culture for the welfare of the city. It depended on the enthusiasm of many distinguished Shakespearean scholars, who volunteered their expertise to the cause. The second salient contribution I wish to mention, was that of the police. The Ghetto as sensitive area and the presence of many significant international personages called for particularly tight security measures in a place that is routinely under strict surveillance, and was even more so in the months following fatal terrorist attacks in various European countries. The professional but very discreet presence of dozens of heavily armed servicemen was a sad reminder of the political contingencies, of the uncanny and circuitous reverberations of history in a place historically marked by religious separation, but it also made, as it were, dramatically plain the importance of those protecting the civic community. Receiving an embarrassed apology from the organization for having caused such a massive deployment of people and resources, the officer in charge said simply, ‘We cannot let them dictate what we do in our public space and everyday life’ – a heroic statement implicitly supported by all the city and

FIGURE 9.2  Five Shylocks (Andrea Brugnera, Ned Eisenberg, Adriano Iurissevich, Jenni Lea-Jones, Sorab Wadia) bewail the loss of Jessica, July 2016.

174

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

Jewish community representatives who had endorsed the project, but rendered even more meaningful by someone who was explicitly and knowingly putting his and other lives on the line. Even Shakespeare sometimes needs bullet-­proof vests. As indicated, this very local and site-­specific project was designed from the beginning not only to attract an international group of players and spectators to the Ghetto, but to also outlast the time and place of its Venice performance through multiple related activities and media. A day after going on stage in more conventional surroundings within an important theatre festival in Bassano, the company was invited to perform an abridged version of the play for the inmates of a prison in Padua. Another important civic dimension of Shakespeare unfolded. The law was also mobilized at a different level with a prestigious collateral event, a mock appeal where the US supreme court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg presided over a court that reopened the case, debated the legal implications of the play with real lawyers and famous scholars and finally nullified the sentence against Shylock. The civic component of this specific performance was given a broader international dimension through various activities as part of the EU-funded research project ‘Shakespeare in and beyond the Ghetto’, designed to use the production as a springboard to produce various activities (a summer school, ten artistic workshops and two symposia, programmed across three years and four countries) and make multiple resources available for future scholars, students, and performers of the play,39 generating substantial transnational mobility, cultural exchanges and conversation. It is a bitter irony that the planned diffusion of such activities in Britain and the United States followed a cultural logic diametrically opposed to the two major political decisions in both countries since the inception of the project, namely Brexit and the election of Donald Trump with his isolationist politics. This makes it even more important to underline the final and crucial component of the project, the dissemination of its outcomes by way of different digital media: film, radio and an online portal aimed at becoming a reference point for all future subjects wishing to engage with this theatrical masterpiece. In the final analysis, while the aesthetic merits of the productions will be judged elsewhere and by more objective critics, I feel it is safe to state that The Merchant in Venice project generated a temporary heritage community, capable of adding a new and important layer of culture to an already deeply stratified place such as the Ghetto. According to the definition of the Faro Convention, ‘a heritage community consists of people who value specific aspects of cultural heritage which they wish, within the framework of public action, to sustain and transmit to future generations’.40 Embracing Shakespeare and the Ghetto with all their complexities, all the scholars, actors, hands, volunteers, donors and so on demonstrated a profound commitment to understanding the cultural heritage of the place and the play and the importance of transmitting this to the future, in always renewed

Shylock in the Thinking Machine

175

figurations. The Merchant in Venice used Shakespeare and participatory art to address prejudice creatively, using the first Ghetto and its history to reflect upon modern ghettos and the walls and fences which modern political regimes continue to erect.

A new Belmont: Shakespeare as civic capital What news on the Rialto? (3.1.1) At the beginning of the new millennium, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, another Venetian heritage site linked to an ethnic community, that of German merchants, underwent a significant metamorphosis.41 Familiar to Venetians as the main post office for most of the twentieth century, the Fondaco was sold by the impoverished State to a large corporation in a blatant example of the public yielding to the private in the ownership and management of historic landmarks. Any civic appeal to reimagine a different civic use of the space was dismissed as naive and sentimental, because – we were reminded – where is the money? (As if the cultural industry had not also proved it can generate financial as well as cultural and symbolic capital.) In 2016 the Fondaco reopened, after a massive restoration by archistar Rem Koolhass, as a luxury shopping centre. While the old edifice had fulfilled a key civic function – people sent their mail from there, cashed their pension, paid their bills – its new incarnation is the mirror of a social divarication that projects us back towards the early modern world of aristocrats and plebs. A cynical view would suggest that, after all, this has always been a city of merchants, and a shopping centre is the postmodern equivalent of the medieval trading post, the extreme consequence of the mercenary culture and global trade championed by Antonio, with ‘an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies; I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath squandered abroad’ (1.3.17–21). The rebranded Fondaco T is thus a glitzy new Belmont, the quintessential non-­place of global neoliberalism. Entering this historic building once frescoed by Titian and Veronese, you could be in a duty-­free shop in Dubai or Hong Kong or Dallas. Supporters underline how the new enterprise employs several hundred people, mostly young, workers. The necessary attendant question, however, is: how much of the profit and how many of the employees actually stay in Venice? All that glisters is not gold. The Fondaco T is a very limited and unimaginative answer to a real question. It is very difficult for the external observer to imagine how a city that radiates wealth at every corner can be socially impoverished. Shakespeare pictured Venice in his two plays less as a collection of beautiful monuments than as a vibrant and problematic community of people, with bustling streets, heavy trading, political and juridical manoeuvring, social and

176

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

cultural traffic. How many people are aware that since the 1960s the city has lost half of its resident population, as the number of tourists has steadily grown, nearing 30 million presenses per year? ‘Venice runs the risk of soon becoming devoid of Venetians,’ warns Settis. ‘Should we not want this to happen, even non-Venetians such as us must become part of that city’s people, become the custodians of its beauty and memory and devote ourselves to nurturing its future.’42 It would be disingenuous to deem realistic the proposal that large numbers of people can take permanent residence in Venice in the near future. It is more conceivable that more people may come to form new heritage communities. At a time when undiscriminating, quick-­ buck commercialism is on the rise, there is an urgent need for more sophisticated and respectful forms of experiencing Venice and I propose that Shakespeare can be good for the city. It may be unorthodox to end an academic essay with a plea rather than a synthesis, but it would be hypocritical to discuss the civic capital of Shakespeare in the context of Venice’s current needs without proposing practical solutions that target specifically the academic community and the potential readers of this volume. So any university with a Shakespearean course, any secondary school with a theatre programme, any company interested in experiential and cultural tourism, should, please, be aware that organizing a Shakespeare-­ related programme in Venice would offer a welcome alternative to current, destructive forms of mass tourism, and could bring Venice an inch closer to the international city that Shakespeare staged, dramatized, and also importantly criticized. The Merchant in Venice had no ambition to become a model for civic activism, but in our time it has become a symbolic gesture in that direction. What about the Ghetto? Musing on the relationship between architecture and the unconscious, the psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas observes (with reference to Venice) that ‘remarkable edifices are etched in our mind like psychic structures; each seems to possess its own small universe of emotion and meaning’ and a monument that bears death in its mass, supposed ironic triumph of the inorganic over the organic, of the creation over the creator, may transcend its terminability with evocative suggestiveness. It intends, in other words, to stimulate the imagination as we walk about in the shadow of death.43 The Ghetto is a monument that bears death not only as memorial to the Shoah. Nothing and nobody should ever erase that, especially not at a time when anti-Semitism and racism haunt and threaten today’s Europe. Yet it would be fatal to be defined exclusively by the anti-Semites and the racist, to let them dominate the story. The future of the Ghetto is key to the future of Venice, and by extension to the very idea of the city. Let then the Ghetto also ‘stimulate the imagination’, be a thinking machine, as it was in The Merchant in Venice. The Ghetto has been reimagined and reinvented many times,

Shylock in the Thinking Machine

177

internally and externally. It has had many names – Geto, Ghetto vecchio, Ghetto novo, ghetto novissimo, hasèr, neighbourhood of the reunion . . . – and many functions – control zone, comfort zone, danger zone, contact zone, civic zone, site of memory, sacred place, palimpsest of narratives, contested space, religious battleground, thinking machine. In the worst-­case scenario, it will become just a tourist destination, deprived of a living heritage. In an optimistic prospect, it will maintain its ability to embrace simultaneously the resident community, the religious communities during the Jewish holidays, the civic communities on important political moments, and the tourist communities on weekdays. It will also attract and stimulate new heritage and creative communities, some carrying Shakespeare with them and transforming him in the process.

10 Mastersinger Shakespeare! Paul Edmondson

and all men’s ears grew at his tunes (The Winter’s Tale 4.4.187–88)1

Anniversaries A crowd is gathering in the meadows on the outskirts of Nuremburg. It is the Feast of St John the Baptist, 24 June, popularly known as Midsummer Day. The year is 1564. The city’s annual song competition is about to take place. There is singing, and flag-­waving, even country dancing. Beer is being drunk; the sun is shining; the moment feels eternal. A fanfare of trumpets sounds and a procession enters from one corner of the meadow. These are the Mastersingers of Nuremburg, the civic experts on the writing of poetry and how it might best be set to music. Leading the procession is the much-­ loved cobbler, and prolific poet and playwright, Hans Sachs . . . * A crowd is gathering in Stratford-­upon-Avon. It is 6 September 1769. The townsfolk and their many visitors have been awake since 5.00 a.m. because of the cannons that fired to sound the official start of actor David Garrick’s Stratford Jubilee. From 8.00 a.m., some of the young men of the town, after having first paid their respects to Garrick, the president of the occasion, serenade some of the young women, looking up to their windows from the street like so many Romeos seeking a glimpse of their Juliets. People are wearing specially commissioned rainbow-­coloured ribbons. There will be a fancy-­dress ball in the newly opened Town Hall, more singing, flag-­waving, horse-­racing and country dancing over the coming days, but the high point will be the recitation of a new ode for Shakespeare, by the masterly David Garrick . . .

180

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

* A crowd is gathering in Stratford-­upon-Avon. It is Saturday 23 April 1864. The town is full of flags, people are wearing ribbons specially commissioned for the tercentenary of Shakespeare’s birth. The church bells are ringing. A full programme of events is well underway: public readings of Shakespeare, a performance of Handel’s Messiah, horse-­racing, country dancing, and fireworks. At 2.00 p.m. the Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire, the Earl of Carlisle (who is also Lord Lieutenant of Ireland), and the Archbishop of Dublin arrive at the Town Hall in a carriage drawn by four grey horses for a reception. The banquet in the temporary pavilion is due to commence in an hour. But first, there is presented to the honourable assembly a special delegation from Germany (still seven years away from unification and the Second Reich) . . . * A crowd is gathering in Munich, at the Königliches Hof und Nationaltheater (home of the Bavarian Court Opera). It is 21 June 1868. Richard Wagner, aged fifty-­five, steps out of his carriage and joins the excitement generated around the premiere of his Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The production has been made possible by Wagner’s loyal patron, Ludwig II of Bavaria. Franz Strauss, father of another mastersinger-­composer, Richard Strauss (1864–1949), is playing the French horn. Perhaps Strauss’s son, who would produce his first musical composition at the age of six, is even in the audience for some of the evening. The sun is still shining at curtain-­up; the longest day has been chosen to stage Wagner’s longest opera, set during the Midsummer festivities, sounding his music of hope for German unification . . . * A crowd is gathering on the edge of the Cotswold village of Longborough. It is 24 June 2013. For the last few years, a small but increasingly significant opera house has been staging separate parts of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. To mark the bicentenary of Wagner’s birth, the whole operatic cycle will be presented over several days. From the outside, Longborough Festival Opera, perched on the edge of a meadow overlooking a valley, is a little reminiscent of the opera house in Bayreuth, designed by Wagner, which opened in 1876, the tercentenary of the death of Mastersinger Hans Sachs. Longborough’s was to be the only fully-­staged Ring cycle to take place anywhere in the world during Wagner’s bicentenary . . . * These celebrations for Wagner and Shakespeare help to illustrate what I have come to understand as civic creativity, and share several points of departure and connection. There are the anniversaries (Shakespeare and Wagner); the civic recognition of poetry; international appreciation; the

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

181

FIGURE 10.1  Saturday 23 April 2016 was no exception: this is what Shakespeare’s grave (one in from the left), and bust (half-­way up the left-­hand wall, decked with hanging laurel wreaths), and surrounding chancel area look like after the town’s Shakespeare Birthday procession to Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-­upon-Avon. Just as the laurel wreath is awarded to Hans Sachs at the end of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, so too, as it were, is the Mastersinger’s Crown awarded annually to Shakespeare in the form of hundreds of international floral tributes.

politics of nationhood; and the history of Shakespearian celebrations. All of the scenarios are historically true, except for the first one, which partly describes the staging possibilities at the end of a production of Richard Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. My description is based partly on Sir David McVicar’s 2011 Glyndebourne Festival Opera production, but I have decided to imagine the story taking place in 1564, the better to relate the historical Hans Sachs (1494–1576) to Shakespeare. McVicar’s production was set, like Wagner’s story, in the sixteenth century. Both men were born and brought up as sons of tradesmen: Sachs a cobbler, Shakespeare a glover. Sachs’s oeuvre (which he estimated as comprising 4,275 pieces) includes sixty-­one tragedies, sixty-­five comedies, and eighty-­ five festival plays, as well as poems, songs and stories.2 The words Wagner gives to Hans Sachs’s apprentice David in Act 1 of his opera about learning the craft of poetry at the same time as learning to make shoes have resonance for how we might imagine the young Shakespeare in his father’s workshop,

182

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

learning the practical skills of glove-­making at the same time as his intellect and sensibility were developing around his love of poetry: When I’ve beaten the leather smooth I learn to enunciate the vowels and consonants; when I’ve waxed the thread till it’s firm and stiff I really understand what makes a rhyme.3 In the hometowns of Sachs and Shakespeare – Nuremberg and Stratford-­ upon-Avon respectively – their fame as poets and playwrights is deeply connected to a civic pride which celebrates them as natural geniuses, their extraordinary ability to shine in spite of the ordinariness of their upbringings.

Inspirations One of the ways I celebrated Shakespeare in the quatercentenary year of 2016 was by producing an unabashed homage to him in the form of a libretto, my own words set to the final fourteen minutes of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. I am not alone in finding the music to be astonishing, beautiful and climactically overwhelming; it is generous, exhilarating, enlarging and all-­embracing. It seemed exactly the right music through which to celebrate Shakespeare’s exceptional place in world culture. There were three main sources of inspiration. The first was Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-­upon-Avon. Like countless others, I have frequently stood in front of Shakespeare’s grave and given thanks for his genius. For over twenty years I have taken part in the Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations, proudly walking in the procession from the Birthplace on Henley Street to present flowers for Shakespeare’s grave. We like celebrating the people we love, and our celebrations in their name are a way of sharing that love. The mood and tone of Virginia Woolf’s account of visiting the grave on 9 May 1934 had their own inspiring part to play: And we went to the Church, & there was the florid foolish bust, but what I had not reckoned for was the worn simple slab, turned the wrong way, Kind [sic.] Friend for Jesus’ sake forbear – again he seemed to be all air & sun smiling serenely; & yet down there one foot from me lay the little bones that had spread over the world this vast illumination.4 She goes on to muse: ‘& then the little bones lying there, which have created’, and then breaks off. It was during 2016 that Woolf’s reflective, even humbling sentiments were proved to be literally true. Non-­intrusive archaeological investigation into Shakespeare’s grave revealed that he was

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

183

buried just three feet below the surface, his corpse laid directly in the earth and wrapped only in a woollen shroud.5 The anniversary of a death brings scope for a solemnity among the celebrations, an opportunity to consider the influence and achievements of the person’s life, to pay homage, and to create fresh eulogies. The second source of inspiration for me was the 1623 Folio, itself a memorial volume for a friend and colleague, as well as a testament to Shakespeare’s art. I was increasingly struck by the title of Ben Jonson’s poem, an ode for his friend, and printed as the major, creative tribute at the front of the 1623 volume: ‘To the memory of my beloved, the author, Master William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us.’ In Jonson’s sentiment, I found something of my own: an elegy and thanksgiving for ‘what he hath left us’ (‘and then the little bones lying there’). My libretto is named after Jonson’s poem, except that his ‘my’ would become ‘our’ in recognition of an ever-­expanding sense of Shakespeare being the ‘beloved, the author’ of many people and cultures. The third inspiration was David Garrick’s Stratford-­upon-Avon Jubilee of 1769, its ebullience, its unblushing sentiment, its gathering alongside the town’s own civic pride, and indeed its centre-­piece: Garrick’s ode to Shakespeare. And then there was Germany itself. An important context for my project was the coincidence of Shakespeare’s quatercentenary with the five-­yearlong centenary of the First World War (1914–18). Germany loomed large in my school curriculum. We were taught something of the First World War, its literature, and I learned more about my great-­uncle, Edward Johnson, who was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916). We studied the rise of Nazism and the Third Reich. Later, as an undergraduate I began to visit Germany. The first occasion was during the summer of 1993 when I went to stay with my brother in Nuremburg. There, over two summers, I was taken to see the site of Hitler’s infamous rallies – ruinous on the edge of the city. I had scarcely heard of Wagner, but I had read E.M. Forster’s Howards End (1910). Its strong evocation of the English people’s love and affection for Germany in the decades leading up to the First World War was something with which I began to identify: ‘The German is always on the look out for beauty’, says Margaret Schlegel in chapter nine.6 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was first produced for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1884 (the year after Wagner died) and has been regularly performed there except during the First World War and between 1939 and 1948. It is easy to imagine Forster’s Schlegel family attending a performance. As a post-­graduate student, I came to learn about Germany’s own love affair with Shakespeare, already in full bloom by the time Wagner started thinking about his opera (his first draft of the story is dated 16 July 1845). Johann Gottfried Herder’s important essay, ‘Shakespeare’ (first published in 1770), which set out ‘to bring him to life for us Germans’, was followed by

184

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

an evolving and ever more comprehensive cultural acceptance, and ownership.7 This, too, can be illustrated by Howards End (Chapter  5): ‘Frieda, you despise English music. You know you do. And English art. And English literature, except Shakespeare, and he’s German.’8 The great German Shakespearian August Wilhelm Schlegel is evoked at every mention of the novel’s Schlegel family. A.W. Schlegel himself commented in 1796 ‘that there is no nation besides the English to whom [Shakespeare] belongs so particularly as to the Germans, because nowhere else [. . .] is he studied so deeply, loved so warmly, admired so judiciously.’9 This German love of Shakespeare has, over the years, been exemplified through the many kindnesses of my German Shakespearian friends. I have twice had the honour of addressing the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft in Weimar (whilst appreciating Weimar’s similarities to Stratford-­upon-Avon), and I continue to admire the exchange of wreaths between The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s house in Frankfurt on their respective birthdays (23 April and 28 August). This tradition began with the arrival of that aforementioned German delegation who presented themselves at the Town Hall on 23 April 1864. They represented the German Hochstift, the association which had purchased Goethe’s birthplace in Frankfurt: a ‘Goethe Birthplace Trust’. Speaking on their behalf were Professor Max Müller, Professor of Modern Languages at Oxford, and Professor G.W. Leitner, Professor of Arabic at King’s College, London. But the German contributions to the celebrations continued a week later (the festivities themselves took place over nine days). On 3 May, the secretary of the English Circle in Frankfurt, Sebastian Alexander Scheidel, presented a wreath to the Mayor of Stratford-­upon-Avon. The wreath is made of oak leaves, making it a corona civica, a high military honour in the Roman Republic and distinct from the laurus nobilis or laureate, more usually associated with poets and athletes. Within the wreath can be seen acorns, evoking something mighty growing from humble origins. The collections of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust also contains several examples of the greetings cards which have accompanied the wreaths sent to Frankfurt. The one sent in 1898 bears the inscription ‘From the Trustees and Guardians of Shakespeare’s Birthplace to the Free German Hochstift’, with the quotation ‘His fame lives in the world’ (Henry VI Part 1, 4.4.46). Then, in 2005, I started to love the music of Wagner. Passionately. Helplessly. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was very important during the period leading up to German unification in 1871, and was performed in Dresden, Dessau, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Weimar and Hanover within a year after its premiere, and in Berlin and Vienna in 1870. It re-­opened the Bayreuth Festival after the First World War in 1924; the audience stood for Hans Sachs’s concluding tribute to ‘Holy German art’ and sang their national anthem at the end. Four years later, on 3 June 1928, Act 3 of the opera would be staged by John Christie in the organ room of

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

185

FIGURE 10.2  A wreath for Shakespeare from Germany, presented on behalf of the English Circle in Frankfurt at the 1864 Shakespeare Birthday celebrations, and now in the collections of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. It bears the inscription: ‘In the name and on behalf of the English Circle of Frankfurt (a society of Germans having for their object the study of the English language and English literature) I beg to transmit to you a wreath and inscription which was placed on a bust of Shakespeare at the Festival held here to his honour by the English Circle and their friends, on the occasion of the Tercentenary Commemoration, and respectfully request, that, the same may be deposited in the house of Shakespeare and there remain as a memorial – small indeed in itself but presented with loving admiration and grateful homage of the sentiments entertained by a Society of Germans to the most illustrious Englishman.’

their family home, which, by 1934 had become Glyndebourne Festival Opera. On the day that marked the official founding of the Third Reich, the first day of spring, 21 March 1933, there was a special performance of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg attended by Hitler (his favourite opera). It would be staged during some of the Nazi Party’s Nuremberg

186

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

rallies (which took place exclusively in Nuremburg from 1933 to 1939), and from 1943 to 1944 it was the only opera performed at the Bayreuth Festival. The Nazis appropriated Shakespeare, too, and the Fascist sympathizer A.K. Chesterton (1899–1973, second cousin of G.K. Chesterton) regularly combined Shakespeare and Wagner, by referring to Shakespeare as ‘the master-­singer’.10 I certainly do not love Wagner because of his politics and anti-Semitism (so terribly appropriated by the Nazis), but I cannot help loving his music. Margaret Schlegel (Howards End, again) expresses the feelings of many people about its power: ‘Every now and then in history there do come these terrible geniuses, like Wagner, who stir up all the wells of thought at once.’11 I love Wagner’s sound, his words, his orchestration, his exploration of the human voice, its vocal strength, his stagecraft, and, in the case of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, the way his words and music transfigure a cobbler’s workshop in Act Three into what the poet-­priest George Herbert would recognize as ‘heaven in ordinary’.12 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s poem about Hans Sachs (itself expressive of the German Romantic retrieval of ‘authentic’ German art) ‘begins with the master in his cobbler’s shop, surrounded by the tools of his trade one fine Sunday morning’ which, as the opera critic Sarah Lenton goes on to remark, looks ‘for all the world like the opening to Act III of Die Meistersinger’.13 Wagner’s music wants to be admired. It is strongly rhetorical and sets out to arrest the listeners’ ears, guiding us through carefully contoured and coloured scenes, and textures of emotion. Making us fall in love with his sound is, Nicholas Spice submits, ‘what [Wagner] set out to achieve: he wanted his listener to abandon himself unresistingly to the work’.14 If Wagner’s artistic project was to win his hearer’s affection, as well as attention, then I submit, too. He has more than won me over.

Ecstatic dreams Shakespeare can be the stuff that ecstatic dreams are made on. I recall most distinctly listening to Herbert von Karajan’s 1971 recording of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in September 2014. I had listened to it many times, but on this occasion, when Sir Walther von Stolzing started to sing his winning song, I was seized by the realization that I wanted to produce an ode for Shakespeare: my own words set to Wagner’s music. There would be no connection to Wagner’s German, except that where the German rhymed, I would seek to rhyme. Whether consciously or not, I was following the advice that Hans Sachs gives to Walther himself in Act 3 Scene 2: walther How do I begin according to hans sachs You make them yourself,

the rules? and then follow them. Think of

your beautiful dream this morning.15

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

187

Wagner, too, had moments when his imagination was seized, when his next project made itself palpably clear. He was obsessed with Beethoven (whose music echoes throughout Howards End), and recollects: ‘an image [of Beethoven] of the highest originality, beyond comparison with anything. This image melded with that of Shakespeare: in ecstatic dreams I met both, saw and talked to them; upon awakening I was bathed in tears.’16 On another occasion: ‘stopping in London, he visited Westminster Abbey to see Shakespeare’s monument in Poets’ Corner, and standing before it was “led to a train of thought” in which his friend Ferdinand Prager was later convinced he “could discern the germ of [Wagner’s] daring revolution in musical form.”17 Wagner’s expression of German Romanticism includes his visiting of monuments and shrines, and paying homage there (like so many secular, Shakespearian pilgrims over the centuries). It is exactly this same kind of civic spirit that decks statues on anniversaries, covers the graves of the great with tributes, and re-­imagines and presents writers’ houses and birthplaces. Wagner himself had absorbed the German love of Shakespeare, one of the founding fathers of which was Goethe, another ecstatic Shakespearian dreamer. This is from 22-year-­old Goethe’s speech that he gave on a Shakespearian occasion, his German ‘name-­day’ (‘Wilhelm’), 14 October 1771: The first page of [Shakespeare] that I read made me his own for life, and when I was finished with the first play I stood like someone born blind whom a magical hand had suddenly given sight. I realized, I felt most vividly my existence expanded by an infinity; everything was new, unknown to me, and the unaccustomed light hurt my eyes [. . .] I jumped high into the air and felt at last that I had hands and feet.18 Goethe’s ecstasy of liberation is also specifically Christian. On Shakespeare’s name-­day Goethe is recalling his own name-­day (Johann), since it is only in St John’s gospel that we find the account of Jesus giving sight to the man born blind (John 9.1–41). One hundred years on from Goethe’s confessional memoir would come German unification. Werner Habicht comments that: ‘it was in the founder years of the Second Reich [from 1871] that the Germanization of Shakespeare was postulated vigorously, and that numerous books, pamphlets and articles both learned and popular (not to mention the Shakespeare-Gesellschaft’s own Jahrbuch) stylized the story of his eighteenth-­ century German “discovery” into a national myth.’19 The rise in popularity of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg coincided with Shakespeare becoming even more firmly rooted and growing into the growing national identity of a unified Germany.

188

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

Mastersingers Here is the text of my libretto in full. It is referenced by line numbers in the discussion that follows. The bar numbers in the discussion relate to the vocal score, printed at the end of this essay.

To the memory of our beloved, the author, Master William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us Dedicated to The German Shakespeare Society Tenor solo Look upon this solemn procession, full of grace That comes our way This April day: A family funeral, One we knew as The poet of New Place – It’s Master Shakespeare whom we loved; We used to call him sweet and gentle; He learned the music of a beating heart, And writing soon became his passion; In London, there he found his fame – A playwright, Who bore a lasting light. Chorus He died too young. What a great loss! He died too young, And all who knew say how he listened and deeply loved. Yes, he died much too young. How much he meant! Yes, he died too young, died too young. Baritone solo Shakespeare’s life was brightly lit! Tenor solo Look! Can you see how his words pour from his bier On to the street, Around our feet, So as we mourn We see new worlds being born; His living lines running free Into the world creatively

5

10

15

20

25

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

So that his great variety Of readers see another muse of fire Ascend a heaven of invention, Igniting language with desire, On every page To make the world a stage! Chorus See what he has left; read all his works. And all the world’s a stage where all the men and women play. Tenor solo He makes kings speak, Finds a journey’s end in lovers’ meeting; His dead can talk, He makes them walk, An act as lawful as is eating; Naming with joy Even horns on cockled snails, A wren’s eye of pity; The spring’s voice is speaking, Is rhyming and seeking A bank where wild thyme blows, Where babbling gossip flows Into his verse and his prose; His words are reaching higher, And ever will inspire Our songs that will never tire – For Shakespeare of Warwickshire! Chorus Enchanted by his generous strain We read and act its meaning plain. The poets’ crown, The poets’ crown, poets’ crown, Thank you, William, you deserve The poets’ crown, Poets’ crown, poets’ crown, Thank you, William, for all you have left us. Soprano solo Our hearts are full of thanks for William Shakespeare.

189

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

190

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

Baritone solo His mind was open to all men; We shall not look upon his like again. Chorus Shakespeare, yes! All was finely penned! All was finely penned! How shall we sing your praise and memory?

65

Ah, Master Shakespeare, We want to sing, Sing your memory and your praise! Baritone solo Now open up his works and see: His writing makes us all feel free.

70

Tenor solo All people – all – He dared to see all people lit with truth. Baritone solo Go carve on every tree, my friends, In witness of our love! For all he sings and all he says We have our favourite ways, Admiring his genius, That’s living yet, generous – But what’s his hope for us? That he will entertain, Encouraging us to think again, And taking up both points of view In how we see and what we do, Our ways of loving may be true. Recall his family and his friends, Who read and saw his plays; In sugared sonnets love transcends Wastes of Time, Love’s ways; Find there a talent unsurpassed For words and worlds which prove to last; Think of his colleagues who

75

80

85

90

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

Published his plays; happy few – Who had to learn and to rehearse, First brought to life his universe, Those shadows now melted into air Who live in actors who still dare! Look there! You’ll find deep darkness too; There our brooding seems tough and new – Though ravens murder in the night, At break of day the lark takes flight; Our Avon’s swan’s sweet, dying strain, Calls back life’s blood and braves with birth: Forgiveness filling full the earth, While mercy falls, soft and gentle rain. Our play is done; now hear the play again. What work is there like Shakespeare’s? Let’s each hold him close in our heart, So that after the next four hundred years We’ll want to sing, to thank God for his art! Chorus What work is there like Shakespeare’s? Let’s each hold him close in our heart, So that after the next four hundred years We’ll want to sing, to thank God for his art! Shakespeare! England’s brightest star!

191

95

100

105

110

115

The final fourteen minutes of Wagner’s opera can be regarded as a succession of stages. Walther sings, the people and Hans Sachs react, a pattern which then repeats itself until the music changes pace and tone. Hans Sachs then starts his own powerful oration about ‘holy German art’. The people’s stirring reaction to his words and sentiments take us to the end of the opera. I decided to begin my libretto with Shakespeare’s funeral procession setting off from New Place and making its way to Holy Trinity Church, alluding to the historical moment, ‘April day’ (Shakespeare was buried on 25 April), and the observations of Shakespeare’s contemporaries ‘we used to call him sweet and gentle’ (for example Ben Jonson’s reference to him as ‘gentle’ under Martin Droeshout’s engraving of Shakespeare at the front of the 1623 Folio, and Ingenioso’s ‘Sweet Mr Shakespeare’ in the anonymous play The Return from Parnassus20). The subject matter was encouraged by the music at this point, which sounds like a lament as well as a love song.

192

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

I imagined words pouring out of Shakespeare’s coffin, generously and overwhelmingly, filling the world, hence the allusion to Ben Jonson’s ‘living line’ (‘To the memory of my beloved’, line 59),21 and John Heminges’ and Henry Condell’s ‘great variety of readers’ (‘Commendatory Poems and Prefaces’, p. lxxi). Shakespeare’s words spilling onto the street became associated with the theatre being like the world, and vice versa, so there is mention of Henry V’s ‘muse of fire’ (Prologue, lines 1–2) in lines 29–30 (bars 50–51), and the allusion to As You Like It (2.7.137) in line 33 (bars 57–58). This overflowing of words epitomizes Shakespeare’s legacy, Ben Jonson’s ‘what he hath left us’, and the allusion to Heminges’ and Condell’s ‘read him, therefore’, (‘Commendatory Poems and Prefaces’, p. lxxi). Shakespeare’s outpouring of words leads into the next section which alludes to several plays. In order of appearance these are: ‘a journey’s end in lover’s meeting’ (line 37; bars 67–69, a combination of Othello 5.2.267 and Twelfth Night, or What You Will 2.3.43); ‘his dead can talk, he made them walk’ (lines 38–39; bars 69–71) alludes to Shakespeare’s many ‘resurrections’ among his characters,22 but especially The Winter’s Tale with the allusion to King Leontes’ phrase (on seeing his resurrected wife) ‘If this be magic, let it be an art / Lawful as eating’ (5.1.110–111; bars 71–73). Shakespeare is referred to as ‘naming with joy’ (line 42; bars 74–75), just as Walther’s song is christened by Hans Sachs in act three of the opera. In giving ‘to airy nothing / A local habitation and a name’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 5.1.16–17), and by bodying forth those words on stage, poetry (when considered in a Christian context) can be regarded as incarnational (the ‘Word’ becoming flesh, and dwelling among us, John 1.1–14). Shakespeare’s ‘naming with joy’ evokes the power of his words which, creatively, often draw attention to the particularities of his subject, its uniqueness, whether a name, attribute, or distinctive characteristic. The ‘horns on cockled snails’ (line 43; bars 76–77) allude to Berowne describing what it feels like to be in love in Love’s Labour’s Lost: Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockled snails. (4.3.334) In Cymbeline (alluded to in line 44; bars 77–78), Imogen looks to heaven for   as small a drop of pity As a wren’s eye, fear’d gods, a part of it! (4.2.304–5) Shakespeare’s snail’s horns and wren’s eye incarnate a sense of the divine in the natural world. This is followed by his authorial voice being compared to springtime (line 44; bars 78–80, with a glance at Sonnet 98), and leads on to

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

193

an allusion to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2.1.249, line 46; bars 82–83) and Twelfth Night, or What You Will (1.5. 267, line 47; bar 84). The final part of this section appropriately localizes Shakespeare (bars 91–97), and (in line 52; bars 94–97) alludes to Charles Dibdin’s musical refrain ‘the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad’ which formed part of Garrick’s 1769 Jubilee (and was subsequently adopted as the slow march of the Warwickshire regiment).23 Lines 63–64; bars 127–29 allude to Hamlet recalling his dead father (Hamlet, 1.2.188). The introit into the equivalent of Hans Sachs’s oration (lines 67–69; bars 136–39) became a self-­referential moment and effectively asks: why do we celebrate Shakespeare, and how should we do it? Then, in the spirit of the opera, Sachs’s oration turns into an impressionistic Shakespeare lecture. Lines 70–71; bars 148–153 ask us to open up Shakespeare’s works in order to experience his freedom of spirit (an allusion to Jonson’s comment that Shakespeare was ‘of an open and free nature’24). This is followed (lines 74–75; bars 163–67) by asking us to become like Orlando in As You Like It, running through the forest and marking our love on the trees (3.2.9–10). This leads on to a characterizing of Shakespeare’s genius, his project as a writer, and how that might make us think and feel (lines 76–85; bars 171–92). His friends and family are evoked and we are encouraged to imagine them seeing and reading the plays for the first time (lines 86–87; bars 193–97). In 1598, Francis Meres referred to Shakespeare’s ‘sugared sonnets among his private friends’25 (line 88; alluded to in bars 197–98). Sonnet 12’s ‘wastes of time’ are evoked in line 89; bars 199–200, as is one of the Sonnets’ great themes: that poetry will survive time (lines 90–91; bars 201–05). Shakespeare’s colleagues – his fellow actors and publishers – are referred to as those ‘happy few’ (line 94; bars 205–09, like Henry V’s ‘band of brothers’, 4.3.60). They knew how he worked and were the first to bring his plays to life (lines 94–5; bars 210–12). Like Prospero’s masque in The Tempest, they have now ‘melted into air’ (4.1.150), but somehow echo through performances in our time (lines 96–97; bars 212–16). The music suddenly shifts in tone and becomes much darker in the final moments. King Lear’s ‘Look there!’, spoken twice over his dead daughter, Cordelia (5.3.310) seemed appropriate here (line 98; bar 217), as did an evocation of the fateful raven from Macbeth (1.5.37; line 100; bars 223–25). But in the next line arises the lark from Sonnet 29 (line 101; bars 225–27). A sense of resurrection is again invoked with Ben Jonson’s ‘sweet swan’ (line 102; bars 228–89) and Emilia’s self-­comparison to a dying swan (Othello, 5.2.247–48), reminding us of life, even in death; the poet is always giving birth, even when writing about death (line 103; bars 229–30). The music then becomes lighter in mood, even ethereal. It sounds like rain, hence the mention of forgiveness (line 104; bars 231–33; ‘Pardon’s the word to all’, Cymbeline, 5.5.423), and mercy (line 105; bars 233–35) with the allusion to Portia’s famous speech ‘the quality of mercy’ (The Merchant of Venice,

194

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

4.1.182–84). This long section of Sachs’s eulogy ends cyclically; reading, performing and thinking about Shakespeare, like the end of Twelfth Night, or What You Will (5.1.399–400), is a constant cycle of repetition (line 106; bars 236–40). Once the play is done, it is time to read and perform the play again. The climax asks us to hold Shakespeare in our hearts (line 108; 244–47). Those words are closely based on Wagner’s German about holding the values of ‘Holy German art’; the standard version of the English libretto (from 1903) reads ‘let each hold them deep in his heart’.26 At the time I was writing the libretto it seemed possible to hear in Wagner’s music the expectation of at least another 400 years of Shakespeare (line 109; bars 248–51). By mentioning ‘God’, the libretto finally expresses a prayerful intention in its closing moments (line 110; bars 252–56). The music then expands further in scope from solo to full chorus for a wonderful crescendo (lines 111–14; from bar 260). Wagner’s ‘Hail, Sachs! Nuremberg’s poet Sachs’27 becomes ‘Shakespeare! England’s brightest star’ (lines 115–16; bars 291–95). The wording was originally ‘Stratford’s brightest star’, which, though perhaps powerfully specific, seemed too parochial, even limiting. For a while, that line was ‘Europe’s brightest star’: better, especially given the anniversaries of the First World War. Printed here is ‘England’s brightest star’ (which alludes to Henry V being ‘this star of England’, Epilogue, line 6), but that does not exclude Shakespeare’s wider, European outlook and influences. European unity remains utterly present in an English libretto set to German music.

Dedications Andreas Höfele’s No Hamlets: German Shakespeare from Nietzsche to Carl Schmitt begins with Horace Howard Furness’s dedication of his New Variorum Hamlet in 1877: To the ‘German Shakespeare Society’ of Weimar Representative of a people whose recent history has proved once for all that ‘Germany is not Hamlet’ these volumes are dedicated with great respect by the editor.28

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

195

Furness probably liked Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, too. I was not aware of his dedication before I decided to dedicate my libretto to the German Shakespeare Society. In doing so, I was recognizing the status and goodwill of the oldest Shakespeare society in the world, and making my dedication from my perspective at The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust on to international Shakespeare studies. The libretto was performed on Twelfth Night (5 January) 2016, and formed the conclusion of a celebration of Holy Communion at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-­upon-Avon. It therefore automatically took up the intention of an anthem with a prayerful intention of thanksgiving. It was sung by a ‘scratch’ choir made up of amateur and professional singers. Baritone John Lofthouse sang Hans Sachs; tenor Nick Smith sang Walther. The music was arranged and conducted by Stephen Dodsworth (co-­founder and regular conductor of the Stratford-­upon-Avon Chamber Choir). In arranging it, Dodsworth simplified the score a little by removing the voices of the individual Mastersingers who are named in Wagner’s original, some of whom sing interwoven solo parts. The orchestration was adapted for the organ and performed by Benedict Wilson (Director of Music at Holy Trinity Church). The event formed a beginning of the quatercentenary celebrations in Stratford-­upon-Avon. We were honoured to welcome Professor Dr Claudia Olk from the Free University of Berlin into our midst, the President of the German Shakespeare Society. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is, she told me, one of her favourite operas.

Unions ‘We are living in a Mastersingers age, whether we know it or not. When the curtain goes up at Covent Garden, the audience will be faced with five hours of apt questions for the age of Brexit, Pegida and Trump.’ These comments, by novelist Philip Hensher, were in anticipation of the 2017 production by the Royal Opera.29 Hensher reminds us that ‘the idealistic fervour leading up to [German] unification in January 1871 propelled Mastersingers into the forefront of the national spirit [. . .] By 1876, Wagner had his own theatre at Bayreuth, intended as a temple of the German spirit’. Wagner’s ‘temple’ at Bayreuth is similar to David Garrick’s temple to Shakespeare on the riverside at Hampton, Middlesex (erected in 1756). Perhaps the kind of ‘idealistic fervour’ that propelled Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg out among a newly unified German people was similar to the intentions that propelled Shakespeare to the forefront of international culture in the run-­up to the much anticipated quatercentenary of 2016. Hensher (writing in the context of the ongoing negotiations about Brexit) concludes: ‘it is not just a question of being German. At this moment, we don’t just know what British nationality consists of, and what it will consist of in five years’ time. Mastersingers debates the possibilities of unifying a culture.’ Even though a

196

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

definition of Britishness might continue to elude us, I know that I believe in David Garrick’s belief that Britain’s national poet is Shakespeare. My ‘new place’ for Shakespeare, my own creative, civic expression – Romantic, sentimental, amateurish (as things ‘civic’ usually are) – set out to celebrate Germany’s, Europe’s, and England’s Shakespeare. It is, I hope, a testament to a mutual European understanding and union – in spite (and perhaps because of) the rising forces of divisive nationalism. As early as 1833, Ferdinand Freiligrath said that ‘Deutschland ist Hamlet!’ (‘Germany is Hamlet’).30 Perhaps one mantra for our own troubled times might be ‘Europe is Shakespeare’ – not only in so far as Europe in general, and Germany, in particular, have made Shakespeare their own, but also in recognition of a wider Europe, as well as England, being responsible for the cultural and intellectual formation of Shakespeare himself. * Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg appeals to a yearning for unity and civic solidarity. For me this transcends any national or racial prejudice, very much including that which Wagner himself infamously articulated. * It is 6.00 a.m. on 24 June 2016, the Feast of St John the Baptist, Midsummer Day. From my hotel room in Verona, during a conference exploring the civic aspects of Shakespeare’s Verona plays (written about in this volume by Silvia Bigliazzi), I join the crowds gathering across the world’s social media. The results of the United Kingdom’s referendum have been declared. Its people have voted by a majority of 3.78 per cent to leave the European Union. In the aftermath of my libretto and in the middle of the quatercentenary, it feels as though England and Europe need Shakespeare more than ever before: I therefore will begin. Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise. (JONSON, ‘To the memory of my beloved’, lines 17–19) *

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

To the Memory of Our Beloved, the author, Master William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us

Paul EDMONDSON

Soprano SOLO

Tenor SOLO

Bass SOLO

Soprano

Alto

Tenor

Bass

° 3 &4

Sehr mässig

3 &4 ‹

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

T. Solo

= T. Solo

Pno.

TENOR

∑

∑ œ œ œ Look up - on

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

3 &4

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

3 &4

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

3 &4 ‹

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

?3 ¢ 4

{

œœ

p

? 43 œœœ

œœ

œ œœ

j œ œ ˙œ˙˙

œœ ‰ ˙˙ ™™™ ˙˙ ™ œJ

˙ ˙˙

œ

3

œ œ œ œœ ‰ œœ œ œœ œ J œ 3

œœ

j œ œ ˙œ˙˙

œœ ‰ ˙™ œJ ˙™

˙ ˙˙

più p

œ œœ ‰ ˙™ ˙™ J

p dolce

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ˙˙™™ œ œ

7 f œ™ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j j ° œ œ œ œ3 œ œ œ œ J œ œ œ™ œj œ œ œ ™ œ œ œ ™ œ œ & œ ¢ ‹ this so - lemn pro - ces- sion, full of grace That comes our way This A-pril day: A fam-'ly fu - n'ral One we knew as the

&

Pno.

∑

? 43

Sehr mässig

=

Richard WAGNER adapted by Stephen Dodsworth

∑

3 ˙™ & 4 ˙˙˙ ™™™

Piano

197

{

?

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑ cresc.

∑

∑ molto cresc.

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

p (in ecstasy) j ° œ œ œ œ 3œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ ¢& J ‹ po - et of New Place; It's Mas-ter Shake-speare whom we loved; We used to call him sweet and gen - tle; He 14

&

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

?

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

{

FIGURE 10.3  The following presents the vocal score of the libretto only. If you would like to hear how the words fit a fully orchestrated rendition of the music, then Herbert von Karajan’s 1971 recording was the one that I followed most closely. It can be found online. The music for the libretto in Karajan’s version begins at 4 hours, 11 minutes and 8 seconds, and goes from there until the end of the opera.

198

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

2

mf cresc. œ #œ nœ œ œ ° œ œ œ œ œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ ‰ œJ œ œ œ œ œ œ ¢& œ œ J ‹ learn'd the mu- sic of a beat- ing heart, And wri- ting soon be- came his pas- sion; In Lon- don, there he found his 19

T. Solo

∑

&

Pno.

=

{

?

∑

° œ ‰ œ œ™ œ ˙ & J ‹ fame - A play - wright,

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

œ J ‰

f

24

T. Solo

∑

Œ œ

Œ œ œ™ œ

œ

Who bore

˙

a last - ing

∑

Œ

light.

S.

&

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

A.

&

∑

∑

∑

∑

Œ

& ‹

∑

∑

∑

∑

p

œ

œ

˙

He p

died

too

young,

œ

œ

pj ‰ œ œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ

He died too young. What a great

T.

B.

Pno.

=

¢

?

∑

cresc. ? #œ nœ n#œœœ œ œ

30

B. Solo

œ™ œ nœœœ œ

˙ & œœ # ˙œ

{

∑

°?

∑

A.

j & œ ‰œ œ œ œ

T.

œ & œ ‹ much

loss!

B.

¢

{

?

œ

˙

œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ œ 3

t'nd

he

meant!

3

Yes,

œ

meant,

he

he

œ

œ

œ

died

too

œ

˙ died

too

œ

young,

œ

How

∑ ∑

œU ‰ œJ œ™ œ was bright-ly lit!

Œ

Œ

∑

Œ

Œ

∑

Œ

Œ

∑

Œ

∑

and dee- ply, deep - ly loved.

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ #œ

œ

mf

too

Shake - speare's life

‰ œ œ J

He lis -

˙

much he

Pno.

BASS

∑

died

œ How

˙

j œj ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ Jœ ™ œœ œ‰ œœœ œ œ J ˙™ ˙™ He

He died tooyoung, and all who knew say how he lis-t'nd and deep

? œ ˙ &

œœ œ œœ n œœ

∑

œ

∑

n˙ ˙˙ ™™ Œ ‰ #œJ #œ œ ˙ ™ Ÿ 3 3 ˙˙ œ ˙˙˙ ™™™ œ ˙ œ œ Œ œœ™ œ nœ œ nœ ∑ ∑

∑

&

S.

f

∑

œ

œ

nœ œ -

ly

œ œ

œ loved.

œ

young, died too young.

œ ˙

œ œ œ

young,

˙˙

too young.

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

199

3

T. Solo

TENOR

œ™ #œ œ œ j j ° mfœ œ œ œ œ œ 3œ œ œ œ œ j œ œ ™ œ œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ ™ œ œ œ J ¢& ‹ Look! Canyou see how his words pour from his bier On to the street, A- round our feet, So as we mourn We see new 36

&

Pno.

= T. Solo

{

?

° œ ¢& ‹ 43

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

f j j œ ™ œ œ œ œ œ œ3 œ œ œ #œ #œ #œ œ #œ ™ #œ œ #œ#œ œ œ#œ #œ œ#œ ‰ œ J #œ#œ

œ

worlds being born; His liv-ing lines run-ning free In -to the world cre - a- tive-ly

&

Pno.

= T. Solo

{

?

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

49

{

?

Of

∑

™ ° œ œ #œ nœ œ #œ ¢& #œ #œ #œ ‹ read- ers see an - o - ther muse of fire &

Pno.

So that his great va - ri - e - ty

∑

œ nœ œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ J J A - scend a hea - ven of in - ven - tion,

Ig - ni - ting lan-guage with de -

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

FIGURE 10.3  (Continued)

œ œ

200

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

4

° œ & ‹- sire,

On

ev

-

‰ œJ ˙

œ

f

œ œ œ™ #œ ˙

To make

'ry page

∑

&

S.

œ ˙™

‰ œJ œ™

54

T. Solo

∑

Œ

the world a stage!

∑

∑

mf ‰ œj

Œ Œ

See

A.

&

∑

∑

∑

∑

T.1

& ‹

∑

∑

∑

∑

& ‹

∑

∑

∑

∑

Œ Œ

∑

∑

∑

∑

Œ Œ

> > œj œ œ œœ œœ œ #œœœ & œœ œ #œ nœ

œ œœ

T. 2

B.1

Pno.

=

¢

{

° & œ™ & Œ

Œ

See what

world's

B.2

Pno.

¢

?

read all

p

f

n#˙˙ ™™ ˙™ ‰ œj œ™

œœ œ œ Œ J his works.

And all

œ J

˙™

has

left.

a

∑

Œ Œ

œ œ œ

˙

œ

˙

The

world's

œ

œ

œ œ œ

all

the

men

and

œ

œ

stage where

all

the

men

and

all

˙™

˙

œ

˙™

See

what

he

left.

˙

all

œœ œœ J ‰ œœj ‰ œJ ‰

˙˙ ˙

nœ

#œ what mf

‰ œj

œ œ œ

mf ‰ œJ

The

j œœ ™ nœ œ # œœ œ

mf

˙™ ˙™

œ œ œ œ œ

the world's a stage where all the men and

he has left; read all hisworks. And all theworld's a stage

œ œ #œ

j œ™ ‰Œ & œœ™œ œnœ œœ œ œ œ ? œœ œ œœ#œ nœœœ Œ Œ ˙

{

3

# ˙˙ #˙˙

j j j ‰ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ œ ˙

& œ œ œ #œ nœ œ œ ‹ world's a stage where ? œ œ œ #œ nœ œ œ

B.1

3

‰ œj œ™

he has left;

™ & ˙ ‹ he

T. 2

3

œ œ n ˙˙ ™™ œœ J ‰ ˙™

‰ œ œ œ #˙˙˙˙ ˙™

f

nœ #œ œ ‰ œ ‰ œœ œ œ Œ J

what

T.1

Œ

The

?

? #œ ‰ œ

A.

mf

See

59

S.

∑

where

œ œ œ a

œ œ

˙™

œ the

all

the

œ œ œ œ œ

stage where all the men and

œ

œ

œ

wo

-

the

wo

-

œ

Where

œ #œ œ bœ

#œ

œ

œ #œ

œ

œ #œ

men

men

Ϫ

j œ

all

do

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

65

T. Solo

° & ‹

TENOR

∑

He

œ bœ œ &

S.

wo - men

œ

mf

œ

makes

kings

5

f

cresc.

Finds a jour-ney's end in lov- ers' meet - ing; His dead can

speak;

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

play.

& nœ œ œ œ œ œ œ

A.

p œ Œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ nœ œ œ œ œ œ œ

œ

œ ‰ J

201

Œ

Œ

men and all the wo-men play.

œ #œ n˙ & ‹ wo - men play.

T.1

™ & ˙ ‹ play. ˙™ ?

T. 2

B.1

play.

B.2

Pno.

=

¢

? ˙™ play.

&

∑

?

∑

{

œ ˙

œ Œ #œ n˙œœ œ ™ ‰ mp 3 œ 3 œ œ œ 3 œ œ œœ ∑ œ * ° œ

œ œ ° œ œ œ œ ™ #œj œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ Œ ¢& œ™ J ‹ talk, He makes them walk, An act as law - ful as is eat- ing; 70

T. Solo

Pno.

=

Nam-ing with joy

ev-en

horns on cock-l'd

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

?

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

{

° œ™ œ œ œ œ œ #œ ¢& ‹ snails, A wren's eye of &

Pno.

œœ œ œœ œ œ

˙

&

77

T. Solo

œ œ œ

f

{

?

œ

œ

œ

œ

œ #œ

pi - ty; The spring's voice

is

nœ

Ϫ

speak - ing,

œ œ J

mp

œ #œ

Is rhym - ing

and

nœ

Ϫ

œ J

seek - ing

A

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

FIGURE 10.3  (Continued)

202

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

6 T. Solo

83 f ° œ œ œ #œ nœ œ œ œ œ #œ nœ œ œ œ ˙ & ¢ ‹ bank where wild thyme blows, Where bab- bling gos - sip flows in - to his verse

&

Pno.

=

{

?

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

&

S.

∑

œ

Ϫ

And

ev

∑

Œ

T.

B.

Pno.

¢

Œ

œ

˙™

∑

Œ

Œ

‰ œj œ œ

∑

Œ

Œ

pj ‰œ œ œ

-

ed,

& ‹

œ

˙

En - chant

p

ed,

∑

p

En - chant

∑

Œ

Œ

œ

œ

En œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ#œ nœ œœ œnœœ œ œœœ #œœ œœ œ œ œ œœœ œ ˙™ œ œœ & #œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ ? œ #œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œ œ œ

{

His

œ œœ œ #œœ œ œœ #œ œœœ

#œœœ

œœ œ

- er, ev - er will in- spire Our songs that will nev- er tire For Shake p cresc.

&

?

#œ

ff œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ ™ œ œ œ œ œ œJ ‰ œ ˙ ™ J J J

En - chant

A.

mf

Œ

and his prose;

∑

° œ™ nœ œ œ œ Œ & J ‹ words are reach- ing high'r,

œ

œ œ #œ

∑

88

T. Solo

œ

œ

œ

cresc.

œ œ

œ œ œ

˙

ed by his

gen

˙

en cresc.

chant

œ œ œ

-

ed

en cresc.

chant

-

ed mf

œ

œ œ

chant œ œ œ œ ∑ Œ Œ œœœ œ Œ Œ

˙™

ed

œ ˙™

-

˙™ œ

We

'rous strain mf

œ ˙

˙™

œ

-

mf

We read

œ #œ ™ œ J

We read and

œ œ œ ˙ read and

act

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

T. Solo

95 ° ˙™ & ‹

œ -

7

œ œ ˙

œ

poco ritenuto

speare of

-

-

& œ #œ nœ œ #œ œ œ bœnœ œ œ and act

B.

Pno.

=

its

¢

? œ

its

œ #œ

?

∑

{

œ

œ

œœ œ #œ ˙

mp

˙™

The po - ets'

crown,

mf

∑

& œ œ ‹ En - chant - ed

B.1

?

B.2

?

∑

Pno.

œ œ œ & œ ? œ œœ œ

{

œ #œ œ œ

∑

∑

3

Œ

The

œnœ œ œœ œœ œ œnœ œ œnœ œ œ n # œ œ Œ œ. œ. œœ œ 6più f œœ œœ œ ˙ nœ œ

Œ

Œ

po

œ

œ

œ

the

po

-

œ

j #œ nœ œ œ œ œ #œ nœ ets' crown,

-

˙™

by his gen-'rous strain We read and act

œ his

˙™

œ

œ gen

œ

-

read

œ œ œ

œ

En - chant - ed

by

œ

œ

'rous

strain

œ

and

œ

œ

his

œ

œ

its

œ

We

œ

act

œ its

œ

œ

gen

-

œ

'rous

œ

po - ets' crown, Thank you,

œ

mean- ing plain, Thank you,

œ read

œ

and

œ

mean

œ

#œ

œ

œ

ing

-

œ

œ

strain

We

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

FIGURE 10.3  (Continued)

œnœ

ets'

œ œ œ œ #œ nœ œ œ œ œ #œ nœ œ œ œ œ #œ nœ J

œ œ™

by mp

mf

∑

∑

j #œ nœ œ œ ™

Ϫ

We

¢

˙ #˙˙ ˙™

j œ ‰ Œ

En - chant - ed

œ

mf

T. 2

∑

crown,

& œ œ #œ & ‹

p

nœœ

˙™

The po - ets'

T.1

∑

a tempo 3 3 œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ#œnœ œ œ#œ

f

mp ° œ œ œ &

A.

∑

∑

poco ritenuto

99

S.

ing plain. p

p

plain.

mean - ing

&

Œ

plain.

˙™

#œ

∑

nœ

mean-ing

its

œ

∑

mean - ing plain.

nœ

& ˙ ‹ act

Œ

œ œ nœ œ

3

T.

a tempo p

3

We read and act its mean

A.

Œ

War- wick- shire!

œ bœ œ œ œ 3œ œ œ œ &

S.

a tempo

poco ritenuto

mf

203

204

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

8

j #œ nœ œ

104

S.

° & œ™ crown,

& œ

A.

bœ œ #œ œ œ œ

cresc.

the po - ets'

crown, po - ets' crown,

bœ œ #œ œ œ œ

œ œ #œ nœ œ

B.1

& œ ‹ act ? ˙™

B.2

? œ

T. 2

#œœ

œœ

Pno.

=

{

?

ets'

-

b˙

you

Will

œ

œ

œ

œ

œ

ing

plain,

Thank

you,

œ

Will

œ

T. 2

B.1

& œ ‹ serve

crown

? B.2 ¢ œ

po

&

Pno.

{

?

œ

œ #œ

-

iam,

you de -

œ

œ

œ

œ ets'

the

po

-

œ

œ

œ

-

ing

œ

plain.

The

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

œ œ œ œ œ

˙

#œ f œ œ n˙ J

Ϫ

the po - ets'

œ ˙ J

the po

œ

œ

you

de

œ -

you

˙

-

-

For

serve

œ

œ

ets'

crown

you

you have left

œ ˙

you have left

us.

˙™

˙™

For

all

all you have left us, have left f

œ œ œ ˙™ for

serve

œ ˙™

˙™

˙™

For mp

˙

œ

for mp

˙

œ

For

˙

œ

mp

For

œmp

˙ us,

˙™

all

mp

œ œ™ œ J

us.

œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙™

crown f

de -

all

œ ˙

ets'

œ

œ œ œ#œ n˙ ™

œ ˙ œ ˙

f

for

œ

˙

œ œ

the po - ets' crown For all,

œ ˙

crown,

œ ˙™

#œ n˙ #œ n˙

de - serve

˙

œ ˙™

˙

ets' crown, the po - ets' crown,

-

#œ œ œ n˙

you, Will - iam,

Thank

-

œ

iam,

-

œ

œ œ œ ˙

œ J

Ϫ -

∑

& œ œ œ™ ‹ You de-serve ? œ

ets'

∑

f

& œ

-

iam,

mean

° œ œ ˙™ & œ œ œ #œ nœ #œ œ œ œ œ

crown,

T.1

-

œ

po - ets' crown, Thank you,Will - iam, you de-serve the po f

A.

œ

Will

108

S.

˙

Thank

its

act

po

crown,

œ

œ

œ

the po - ets' crown, The

#œ

you,

œ

de - serve The po - ets' crown,

œ

œ

Thank cresc.

and

&

-

mean

œ

read

œ

˙

plain,

¢

œ

cresc.

its

œ

œ

œ nœ œ #œ nœ #œ

œ œ nœ bœ #œ

œ

po - ets' crown, you de - serve cresc.

œ œ #œ nœ œ œ & œ ‹ Will - iam, you de - serve the po

T.1

Thank you, Will iam you

cresc.

Will - iam, you de - serve the

œ œ nœ bœ #œ

œ

For

mp

˙™

you

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

SOPRANO

° œ Eva &

116 mf

œ œ ˙

œ

Our hearts are full

& ˙

S.

& œ

A.

all

& ‹

T.1

B.1

B.2

¢

you have left us, for

˙

œ ˙

all,

For

you have left

˙™

Pno.

{

?

˙™

Sehr mässig

Shake

-

rallentando

˙™

˙™

4 4 ˙

˙™

have

˙™

˙™

˙™

4 4 ˙

Ó

˙™

˙™

4 ˙ 4

Ó

us.

left

œ ˙™

˙™

˙™

left

œ ˙™

have

Ó

us.

˙™

you

Ó

speare.

˙™

us.

4 ˙ 4

˙™

left

˙™

œ Œ Œ

˙™

˙™

Ó

us.

∑

4 4

∑

Sehr mässig

us.

˙™

have

iam

-

you've

all

œ ˙

all

all

-

#œ n˙ ™

you

œ ˙ for

Will

4 ˙ 4

have left

œ ˙

all

? œ

&

have left,

œ #œ nœ œ œ ˙

œ œ ˙™

?

for

9

Ÿ rallentando Ÿ ˙™ œ ˙

œ ˙

#œ nœ œ œ ˙™

you

& ˙ ‹ all,

T. 2

˙

of thanks

œ ˙

all

œ ˙™

205

˙™

˙™

left

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

˙™

rallentando

œ˙˙™™ ˙

˙˙ ™™ ˙™

˙™ ˙™

˙™ ˙™

4 4 #˙

Ó

us.

œœ ‰ 4 w œœœ J 4 w w œ w œ 3 pp 4 Œ œœœ 3 4 # w #œ #w

=

124

B. Solo

Pno.

°? ¢

∑

?

BASS

Œ

mf œ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ™ œ ˙ ‰ J His mind

& ˙w™ w

{

Ó

#w #w

œ

œœ Œ œ

œw ˙™ w w ˙

œJ ‰ Œ

FIGURE 10.3  (Continued)

œ Œ

was o- pen to all men;

Ó Ó

?

˙ Œ ˙ Œ #˙ #˙

œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ œ ™ #œ ‰ J J We shall not look up - on his like

a -

œœ ‰ Œ J

œœ

œ Œ #œJ ‰

j œ ‰ Œ œ

cresc.

j Œ nœœ ‰

œ œ

&

206

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

10 B. Solo

129 Schnell °? ˙

∑

&

S.

∑

&

A.

T.1

T. 2

& ‹

∑

& ‹

∑

B.1

?

B.2

?

¢

∑

. . . œœ. œ. œ œ nœœœ œœœ œœœ œœ. œ œ & . . f. œ œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ œ ?

{

∑

w w

f

˙™

Shake f

-

-

Shake f

-

-

Shake f

-

-

Shake f

-

-

Shake

-

-

speare,

˙™

w

speare,

˙™

w w w

œœ. œ J . œ

œœ. œ . œ

˙

œ‰ Œ J

˙

œ‰ Œ J

˙

œ‰ Œ J

speare,

œ‰ Œ J

speare,

Ó œœ. œ . œ

œ‰ Œ J

œœ. œ . œ

œœ. œœœ ™™™ œ . œ w

œ ‰ J

yes!

yes!

œ ‰ J œ ‰ J

yes!

˙™

∑ œœ œ œ œ œœœ ™™™ œ . . 3 œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ w

∑

speare,

˙™

∑ Schnell . .

Pno.

∑

Ó

gain.

f

˙

Shake

˙ -

˙ yes!

˙

yes!

œ ‰ J œ ‰ J œ‰ Œ J

speare,

œœ. œœ. œ. œ. œ. œ œ œœ œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ œ. œ. œ. œ. J œ œœœ œœœ œœœ ∑ ˙™

œœ œœ. bœœ. œœ . 6 œœœ œœœ œœ œ

œœ

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

207

11

° œ™ &

œ ˙ J

133

S.

All

All

& ‹

T.1

T. 2

B.1

B.2

¢

=

ly

-

j œ œ™

j œ œ™

was fine - ly

All

was fine - ly penned,

œ œ™ J

penned,

fine

œ œ™ J

œ œ™ J

‰ #œ ™

was fine - ly

was fine - ly

{

your

& Ϫ

A.

shall

& ‹ shall we

T. 2

& œ™ ‹ shall

B.1

? œ

B.2

?

sing

¢

&

Pno.

{

?

was fine

-

ly penned,

How shall

˙

ly penned!

we

penned!

∑

∑

praise

j œ œ™

and

œ œ™ J we

j nœ

me

your

praise,

œ J

˙™

and

me

œ J

sing

œ

œ J

praise

and

j œ ‰

#˙ how

œ

-

Ϫ

mo

-

me

-

Ϫ

-

-

j œ œ ‰ Ó

me - mo - ry?

œ #œ

shall we

œ

˙™™

mem

œ œ

mo - ry, your praise and

-

˙

your praise and

Ϫ

˙™

œ œ œ J

œ œ œ œ œ œ

sing your praise,

˙ -

œ J

ry?

How

Ϫ

mo -ry?

Yes,

'ry?

shall we

j œ œ œ

how shall we

˙

#œ

œ œ

Yes,

how

shall we

˙

˙

œ

Yes,

how

shall

œ

we

#œ

sing

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

FIGURE 10.3  (Continued)

your

œ #œ

#œ

œ

œ J

How

˙

∑ œ™

œ J

w

ly

-

-

œ ˙ J

Ó

sing your praise

your

was fine

œ #œ ™ J

œ œ™ J

∑

we sing

œ

ly penned,

How

∑

nœ œ œ œ œ ™

T.1

œ œ™ J

How

˙

Œ

-

was fine

j œ

All was fine ly penned!

œ œ #œ œ œ

∑

° œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ & praise,

shall we sing your

Ó

137

S.

Œ

œ œ™ J

œ ˙ J

all

How

was fine

‰ œ™

penned

œ œ œ œ

All was fine ly penned!

œ œ™ J

all

˙

œ œ œ œ #œ ™

penned!

Œ

œ nœ ™ J

all

penned,

œ œ™ J

œ œ™ J

n#œœ. & œJ ‰ Œ j ? œœ ‰ Œ w

penned,

penned!

ly

-

all was fine ly penned!

œ œ œ™

Œ

j œ œ

œ œ #œ œ œ ‰

œ œ J

All

all was fine ly

Ϫ

œ œ™ J

was fine - ly

? Ϫ

penned,

œ nœ ™ J

& œ™ ‹ All ? œ™

œ œ œ œ œ

Œ

‰ Ó

#œ ™

All

Pno.

was fine

& Ϫ

A.

œ œ œ œ œ

œ œ

your

208

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

12

° œ™ &

œ œ œ œ œ

œ J

140

S.

Yes,

praise and me-mor - ry,

˙ & ‹ sing œ œ & J ‹ sing

T.1

T. 2

œ J

sing

Pno.

= B. Solo

praise and

œ™ œ J

praise and

me

œ praise

and

me

∑

œ Œ ffœ œ ™ œ ˙

me - mo - ry?

œ™ œ J œ

mo -

-

œ

mo -

-

œ œ

œ Œ

Ah, Mas - ter Shake - speare, ff

œ œ™ œ ˙ œ Œ

ry?

Œ

Ó

œ Œ

Ah, Mas ter Shake - speare,

œ œ™ œ We want to

Ó

Ah, Mas- ter Shake - speare,

ff œ Œ œ œ™ œ ˙

ry?

Œ

Ah, Mas- ter Shake - speare, ff

œ Œ œ œ™ œ ˙

me - mo - ry?

œ nœ ˙™ and

∑

me - mo - ry?

œ

œ nœ ˙™

∑

œ œ™ œ We want to

Ó

œ œ™ œ

We want to

Ó

œ œ™ œ

We want to

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

?

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

145

B.1

your

your

œ

∑

&

°?

T. 2

œ bœ

praise

{

T.1

œ

your

praise, your

praise and

œ œ

? B.2 ¢ œ œ #œ

your

œ

#œ

j nœ ™ œ œ Œ Ó

#œ œ nœ #œ

nœ

your praise,

? œ

B.1

œ Œ Ó

how shall we sing your praise and me - mo - ry?

& œ œ œ bœ nœ

A.

œ œ œ™ œ J

∑

∑

∑

Ó

BASS

Œ

œ

œ œ œ œ

Now

op - en up his

f

& ˙ œ œ œ™ œ œ œ™ œj ˙ ‹ sing, Sing your me-mo-ry and your praise!

Ó

∑

∑

& ˙ œ œ œ™ œ œ œ™ œj ˙ ‹ sing, Sing your me-mo-ry and your praise! ™ ™ ? ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj ˙

Ó

∑

∑

Ó

∑

∑

Ó

∑

∑

sing, Sing your me-mo-ry and your praise!

B.2

Pno.

¢

? ˙

œ œ œ™ œ œ œ™

j œ ˙

sing, Sing your me-mo-ry and your praise!

&

∑

œœœ œ

?

∑

œœ œ

{

bœ œœ œœ œœ b œœœ 3 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ bœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœœ œœ œœ œœ bœ œ œ œœ œœ œ œ œ 3 . . œ. œœ œ œ f- . . . . . . œœ œœœ œœ œ œbœ œ œ œ œ œ. . . . . . . . . œ œ nœ bœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ w

œœ œ œ œ

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

150 °? œ œ ˙ B. Solo ¢

Ó

Œ

œ œ œœ œ œ ˙ œ & Óœœœ bœœ œ œ œ œ œJ ‰

œ b˙ œ œ œ bœJ ‰

works and see:

Pno.

= T. Solo

{

154

° ¢& ‹ &

Pno.

= T. Solo

Pno.

= B. Solo

{

= B. Solo

œ œ b˙ ˙ bœ œ œ œ

œ

œ œ

His

wri - ting makes us

. œ œ œ œ bœœœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ . bœ œ œ ˙™ ‰ Œ™

all,

peo - ple,

œ bœ bœ nœ œ bœ J

6 b‰œ ™ b œ 8

bw w w

œ bœ œ œ œ œ bœ œJ œ œ œ b w

. œœœÓ . œ œ .

6bœ 8

œ nœ ‰ J

All

œ œ œ bœ

œ

œ

f

Œ

all feel free.

œœ œ. . œ œ .

f

™ 6 bb˙˙˙ ™™ 8

∑

3

157

mp ° œ ≈ Œ™ bœ bœ œ bœ nœ bœ bœ œ nœ bœ R ¢& ‰ ‹ He dared to see all peo-ple lit with truth. bœ nœb œ b œ b œ n œ ™ & bœ ™bœ bœ bœ œ bœ ‰ bœ nœ bœœ bœ bœ nœ bbœœ bœbœbœ œ bœb œœœœ p bœ 6 ™ b œ n œ bœ ™ œ b œ bœ b ‰ bbbœœœ ™™ ? œ œ b œ bœ ™ bœJ ‰ ‰ bœ ™

{

160

°? ¢

{

?

∑ œ ™ n œ ™ œ ™ nnœœ ™™

œœ ™™ œœ ™™

4 4

∑

œœ œœ

dim.

p

f

{

˙ ˙

Ó

Mässig bewegt

œ. œ. œ.

167 °? œ ™ œJ œ™ œ w J ¢

& ˙w w ? ˙

BASS

∑

4˙ 4 ∑

j œ™ œ ˙ j œ™ œ ˙ Œ

our love!

w w w più p w w

Œ

∑ b˙™ b ˙™ bbb œœœ bœ œ nœ bœbœbœbœ œ œ œ œ

™™ f œ œ œ œ ˙ ‰ œJ Go carve on ev -'ry tree,

4 4˙

3

r bœ ™ œ ™ œbœ œ œ œ ≈Œ 3 bœ ™ œ™ œbœ œ œ œ œ. nœ. nœ. f

wit - ness of

Pno.

TENOR

13

œ œ ˙

œ œ

œ œ œ œ bœ œ œ œœ œ. œ. . 3. . œ œ œ œ œ . œ. œ œœ œ œ œ œ . .

∑

? œ ˙™

&

Pno.

bœ œ w

? œ œ œœ œ ˙™

209

œœ œ

For

all he sings and

œ

Œ œ p

my friends,

w œ œ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ .p f cresc. w œ œ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ w .

mp

˙

œ ˙ J

w dim.

w w

Ϫ

œ #˙ J

n˙

all

he says

We

˙ œ œ#œnœœ ˙ Ó œ œ œ œ œ™ ‰ œœJ œœ œœ œœ œœ#œœ œœ n˙œœ™ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœœ œœœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ nœœ #œœJ ‰ Œ Ó

dolce

˙

FIGURE 10.3  (Continued)

Ϫ

j œ ˙

œ œ œ. œ. œ .

œ

œ

œ

œ

Œ Ó

In

210

14 B. Solo

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

173 più °? œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ™ œJ bœ œœ œ nœ ˙ Œ ‰ #œJ ¢

have our fav - 'rite

Pno.

= B. Solo

= B. Solo

= B. Solo

= B. Solo

That's liv - ing, yet,

that's liv-ing

∑

∑

∑

?

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

{

178 °? œJ œ™ œ œ œ œ™ œ œ ‰ œ œ ™ ‰J J J ¢

But what's his hope for us?

&

∑

∑

?

∑

∑

{

183 °? œ œ œ™ #œ ˙ J ¢

That he

will en

-

œ J

Ó

Œ

ter- tain,

œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ

both points of view

∑

∑

∑

?

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

{

Œ

œ

Our

œ œœ ˙

œj ? œœ ‰ Œ ˙ >

ways

of lov

. . . . œ #œœ œ œœœ œ œ˙˙

‰ jœ œ ˙ œ œJ œ œ œ ˙˙

194 °? œ bœ œ ™ œ ˙ J ¢

™ œœ œ

˙™

mp

p

œ œœœœ ˙ J -

ing may be

œ™ œ œ#œ œ œ œ œ#œ œ œœ ™™ œœj œ J Œ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ ™™ œJ œ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ™ J

œ œ™ œ ˙ Œ œ œ J

œœ˙

In how we see and what we

∑

189

œœœ œ

En - cou - ra-ging

∑

°? ¢ Ó

œ

yet

œœ œ j œ œœ œ œ#œ#œœœ#œ‰ œœ œœ#œ œœœ ‰‰ Ó œ ‰ œœJ J J ‰ J‰ J Ó œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ Ó œ œ œ œ

&

{

mf

œ™ œ œœ œ ‰œ œ œ œ œ J J

œœ

tak - ing up

˙

f

œœ œœœ#œœœœœ œœ œ œœ œ œœœœ œ

Œ œ œJ œ œ œ ˙ And

œ œ™ J

fam -'ly and his friends, Who read and saw his plays;

Pno.

nious,

-

∑

& ‰

Pno.

his ge

∑

us to think a - gain,

Pno.

Ad - mir - ing

&

gen -'rous

Pno.

ways,

mf œ œ œ œ œ ‰ più œ œ œ œ ‰ J ‰ J J

do,

∑

œœœœœ œ œœœœœ œ >

Ó

Ó

œ bœ œ ‰J

mp

. . . . . œœ œœ œœbnœœ œ b œœœ œ œ œ nœ ™ ‰ œœ œœ œ 3 j p j œ œœœœ œ œ œ œ œœœœ œ œ œœ œœ œœ

true.

Re-call his

œ œ œœ

bœ œ œ œ œ™ œJ œ™ b˙ ™ ‰ œ™ œJ ‰ œJ

œ

mp

In sug- ared son-nets love tran- scends Wastes of Time, Love's

& œœ Œ Ó

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

? œ Œ Ó œ

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

{

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

201 °? œ ™ œ bœ œ ˙ #œ ‰ œ œ bœ ™ ‰ B. Solo J ¢

œ œ™ J

œ

œ œ J

&

=

{

?

°? ˙ ¢

who

Pno.

=

last;

Think of

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

œ

œ œ ˙

hap -

py

œ œ œ ˙ Pub - lished his plays;

few

&

∑

˙ œ œ ˙w œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ

?

∑

˙

{

˙

œ ˙Œ J

œ œ œ œ #˙˙ œ

˙

Who had to learn

∑

&

= B. Solo

{

?

∑

∑

216 °? ˙ ¢

Ó

Œ

dare!

Pno.

=

? ˙˙

221

B. Solo

°? ¢ Ó

{

?

molto cresc.

œ œ

œœ

w

œ mf J ‰ Œ b˙ You'll

bœœ. ™™ œJ b˙˙˙ ™™™™

w w w

f

p

œ œb œ œ w w

There our brood- ing

seems tough and new

∑ w

FIGURE 10.3  (Continued)

∑

Œ #œ

Œ

œœœ

f

œ œ

#˙˙

mp

Œ

œ ˙ bœ ™ œ bœ ™ J J

˙˙

Ó

find deep dark - ness too,

w bw w

w

˙˙ ™™ ˙™

bœ. bœ. bœ œ . .

œ™ œ œ # œ œ œ œ™ mpœ n œ œ J J

Though ra - vens mur- der in the night, At break of

-

∑ w

∑

w bbbw w

w w

#œ ™ œ # ˙ ‰ ™ #œR #œ #œ œ œ ™ #œ J ∑

&

Pno.

b˙

Œ

Who live in act-ors who still

∑

Look there!

œ œ & œœ bœ. œ. œ. œ. œ. . . œ œ œ . œ . œ œ. . 6

6

{

œ

f

Œ Œ

f œ™ œ Œ œ œ œ#œ œ J

∑

∑

and to re -

œ œ œ J ‰ œj œ # œ ˙

œ™ ˙

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ # œ œ œ œ œ #œ ™ œJ ˙ ‰ J ‰ J

œ

°? œ ≈ œ ¢ J R

Ϫ

œ œ œ

mf œ œ œ œ™ ‰ J

Ó

- hearse, First brought to life his u - ni verse, Those sha-dows now melt- ed in - to air

Pno.

his col -leagues

∑

211

B. Solo

œ œ™ œ œ œ œ Œ ‰J J mf

∑

207

B. Solo

15

œ œ ˙

ways; Find there a tal - ent un-sur -passed For words and worlds which prove to

Pno.

211

∑

∑

∑

∑

212

16

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

°? #œ ¢ 226

B. Solo

œ

day

the

=

lark

{

?

Pno.

= B. Solo

Pno.

= B. Solo

œœ

Ó

& ˙˙˙

r ‰™ œœ œœ ™™ œ ˙˙˙ œ

j œ ˙w

cresc. sempre

Ϫ

240 ™ °? ˙ ¢

Œ

=

{

œœ œœ œœ œ œ

‰ œj œ œœ ? ˙œ œ Ó œ™ ˙ p

°? ˙ ¢ 247

B. Solo

Ó

heart,

&

Pno.

{

?

∑

the earth,

Ϫ

Our

play

œ œ œ™

mf

Œ

Œ ˙˙ ™™ ˙™ p Œ ˙™

œ™ œ ˙

mf

Œ ˙

œ ˙ J

is done;

Œ

mf

now

œ œ œ œ œ ™ œJ ˙

Œ œ˙œ ™ œ œœ œœ œœ# œœ Œ œœ ∑ œJ ˙ Ó

So

soft and gen - tle

‰™ œr œœj ‰ ‰™ œœr œ. œœ œ. . 3 ™ j œ ‰ œ œ. ‰ œ œ

œ

œ ˙

œœ ™™ œœœ œ. ™ . j œ‰ œ.

œ R

œ ™™

a-

hear the play

r r ‰ ™ œ œœ ™™ œ œœ ‰™ œr œœ ™™ œœ œœ ™™ œœ œœ ™™ ‰ ™ œœ œœœ ™™™ œ ˙˙ œ œ™ œ œ™ œ œ™ œ ˙ œ œ™ œ œ j œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ œ w w

Ó

˙

œ™ œ œ™ œ

œ J

While mer - cy falls,

Œ Œ

What work is there like Shake - speare's?

˙˙ & ˙˙

Calls back life's blood and

∑

Œ œ Œ bœœ œœ œ cresc. Œ œœ Œ œ œ

˙

- gain

Pno.

w w b#ww

For - give - ness fill - ing full

mp

{

cresc.

w

Œ &Œ #œ œ p œœ Œ Œ #œœ

235 °? w ¢

? ˙ w

œ œ nœ nœ ‰ œJ

Av - on's swan's sweet, dy - ing strain,

mp p œ™ œ œ™ œ œ ™ j Œ #œ œ œ Œ œ J J

#˙˙

rain.

Our

w

°? œ™ #œ #œ Œ ¢ J braves with birth: œ ™ # œj # ˙˙ ? #˙˙ ? ˙

œ œR œ œ #œ J ≈

bœ ™ #œ J

œ

p

p

∑

{

Œ

w ? #w w

230

B. Solo

˙

takes flight;

∑

&

Pno.

œ™ #œ J

œ ˙

Let's each

œ

˙ hold

œœ œœ ™™™ œœœœœœ ™™™ œœœ œœœ ™™™ œœœ œœ œ œ

f

œ œ

œ œ

œ œ b˙ ™

œ œ

him close

in our

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

œ œ œ™ œ œ™ œ w J J

œ œ œ œ ˙

that af - ter the next four hun - dred years

We'll want to

œ œ œ œ ˙™

sing,

œ œ

f

to thank God, to thank

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

255 °? œ ™ œ œ œ œ œ J B. Solo

˙

God

art!

for

∑

&

S.

his

213

17

Ó ∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

f Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

Ó

What work is there like

∑

&

A.

∑

∑

∑

∑

Ó

Œ

f

œ œ #œ œ œ

What work is there like

T.

B.

Pno.

¢

& ‹

∑

?

∑

˙

∑

f

∑

œ™ œ œ œ œ œ & œ™ œJ œ œ œ œ cresc. ˙ œœœ œ œ œ ˙ ? ˙ œ œœ

œœ œœ

œœ -œœ -œœœ f œœœ œ œ œ œ- œ -œ

{

What f

work

What

work

˙

œ w

œ™ œ ˙™ J

is there

œœ w

is there

œ Œ Ó œ

f Œ Œ œ œ œ œ œ

like Shake - speare's?

œ™ œ ˙™ J

œœ œœ œœ Œ œ œ œ

œ

What work is there like

f œ œ œ Œ Œ œ œ œ

like Shake - speare's?

What work is there like

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

=

Œ œ œ ˙ œ œ ˙™

-

più ˙ œ Œ Œ œ™ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ J œ œ œ

Œ œ œ ˙ œ œ ˙™

-

œ ˙ œ Œ Œ œ œ œ œ™ œJ œ œ œ ˙ ˙

Œ œ œ ˙ œ œ ˙™

262

S.

° œ œœ˙ & Shake

& n˙

A.

˙ & ˙ ‹ Shake -

T.

B.

Pno.

¢

˙

? ˙ Shake

Let's each hold him close in our heart,

più

#˙

Shake

speare's?

-

speare's?

So that af - ter the next,

Let's each hold him close in our heart,

œ œ Œ Œ œ œ œ œ™ œJ œ œ œ ˙ più

speare's?

Let's each hold him close in our heart,

speare's?

Let's each hold him close in our heart,

più œ™ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ ˙ J Œ Œ œ œ œ

œ œ œ œ œ the next

four

œ œ œ œ œ

So that af - ter the next,

the next

four

œ œ œ œ œ

So that af - ter the next,

the next

four

So that af - ter the next

four hun - dred

œ œ œ œ œ

˙ œ œ ˙™ Œ œ œ

&

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

?

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

{

FIGURE 10.3  (Continued)

214

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

18 S.

ff 270 ° œ œ œ œœ w & hun -

Ó

dred years

We'll want

& œ œ œ œœ w hun -

& ‹

T.

B.

¢

?

hun -

œ

We'll want

years

{

?

œ œ œ œ bœœ œ

to thank God

We'll want to sing

to

thank

God

for his art!

for

the next four hun - dred years We'll

want to sing

to

˙

We'll

j œ™ œ œ# œ œ œ

nœ

sing

œ #œ œ nœ

œ œ

œ œ œ œ ˙™

nœœ œ bœœ™ œ œ ˙™ J

ff Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ

Œ Ó

to sing

to sing, we'll want to

f

dred years

years,

&

Pno.

dred

œ #œ œ™

ff œ œ œ œ œ ˙™

œ œœ œ œ ˙ J

j œ nœ œ #œ ™ œ#œ œ n˙ ™

f

ff

A.

œ œ œ™

f

Œ

to

thank

œ

#˙™

œ

his

art,

to

˙

thank God,

God for his

˙

Ϫ

thank

God

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

œ J

=

° œ™ œ œ ˙™ œ œœ œœ œœœœœ & J œ

œ

276

S.

want to sing to

& ˙™

A.

œ

art,

& ˙ œ œ ‹ thank God

T. 2

B.

¢

˙

œ œ œ œ ˙™

for

˙

w for

˙

Ϫ

for

his

art!

We'll

?

Thank

˙

w

˙

{

God

art!

j œ ˙ want

œ

for his art,

to

˙ thank

œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ J

for his art,

? ˙ &

Pno.

w

his

thank God

& ˙ œ œ ‹ thank God

T.1

thank God for

œ ™ œ œ#œ œ œ ˙ ™ J

we'll want to sing, to

˙

#˙ ™

œ

his

art!

We'll

˙

#˙ ™

œ

his

art!

We'll

˙

˙

Ϫ

to

sing

to

˙

to

thank

˙ to

sing

to

œ œ nw

want

œ ˙ J

God, to

œ œ nœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

want

˙

sing

œ œ

to

sing,

˙

˙

Ϫ

God

for

his

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

j œ

Mastersinger Shakespeare!

215

19 282

S.

° & ˙ thank

& ˙

A.

thank

˙™ & ‹ thank

T.1

& ˙ ‹

T. 2

B.

Pno.

¢

? ˙ art!

œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ œ J

œ œ œ œ ˙™

God for his art!

We'll want

œ œ œ œ ˙™

God for his art,

œ œ œ #œ œ œ ˙

God

˙

for

his

art,

˙™

sing

Ϫ

œ ˙ J

We'll

sing

to sing to thank God

œ

œ #œ nœ

to

thank

˙

Œ

God

œ œ

art! We'll want to sing to

w

w

œ œœ w

thank

God,

œ bœ œ #œ œ

w

to

thank

for

to

for

for

œ

˙

œ œ œ œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ œ J J

Ϫ

God

˙™

œ

w

thank

God

for

˙

˙

thank

God

w

w

&

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

?

∑

∑

∑

∑

∑

{

=

S.

287 ° œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ ˙˙ &

thank God for

A.

& ˙™

T.1

& ˙™ ‹ for & ‹

T. 2

B.

Pno.

¢

art!

œœ

˙˙

his

art!

œ

˙™

? ˙

his

˙

˙

his

art!

œ

˙

his

art!

˙

. . . . . . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ ˙˙˙˙ & œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ ? œœ ˙ œ ˙

{

his

∑

Ó

∑

˙™

ff

Œ

Shake

Ó

∑ ∑

Ó

∑

Ó

∑ ∑ ∑

Π-

Œ ˙™

Œ

Shake ff

-

Shake ff

-

Shake

˙ ™™

-

Shake

-

™ Œ ˙ ™ Œ ˙

˙™ speare!

-

Œ

˙™

speare!

-

Œ

˙™

speare!

-

˙˙ ™™

Ó

∑

œœœ ™™™ œ™

œ œ œ œœœ œ œ œ œœ œœœ n œœœ œœœœ œœœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ # œ n œ œ œ œœœœ œ

art!

œœœ ˙˙˙ œJ ˙

j œ™ œ ˙ œ™ œ ˙

FIGURE 10.3  (Continued)

˙ ˙

∑

Œ

speare!

-

ff

˙™

œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ ff

Π-

speare!

œœ ˙ œœ œ ˙ œ

œœ œœ

216

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

20 293

S.

° Œ & & Œ

A.

& Œ ‹

T.1

& Œ ‹

T. 2

B.

Pno.

=

¢

? Œ

ff

˙

œ

land's bright

˙

w

est

star!

˙

w

Eng ff

-

Eng ff

-

land's

bright

-

est

star!

Eng ff

˙

-

land's

bright

-

est

star!

Eng

-

land's

bright

-

est

star!

-

land's

bright

-

est

star!

˙ ˙

ff

˙˙

Eng

œ œ œ œœ

-

˙ ˙ ˙ ˙˙

˙ ˙ ˙˙

. . . . œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œ œ & œœ ™™ j ˙ ? œ™ œ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ œ œœ ˙ œ

{

. . œœnœ#œ œn œœ œœ œœ nœ. . œ#œ œ œ œœ & œ

297

Pno.

˙

{

™ ? œœœ™™

œœ œ œœ ™™™ œ œ

∑ ∑

w

∑

w

∑

w w

∑

. . n œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œ n œ. . œ œ#œ œ œ œœ œœœ œ #œ œ œ œ œœ nœ œ œœ. œœ. œ œœ ™™ œ™

œœ œ œœ ™™™ œ œ

œœ œ œœ ™™™ œ œ

. . œœ œnœ œ œ œœ œœ œ œ œ œnœ#œ œ œœnœ œ œ œ Œ œ Œ œœ œ œœ œ œ œœœ œœœ™™™ œ œ Œ œ Œ œœ œ œœ œ œ

œœ œ

œœœ œ œœœ™™™

œœ œ œ Œ œ Œ? œ Œ Ó

œ œ Œ œ Œ œ

œ Œ Ó œ

œœ œ œ

PART FOUR

New Places: North America

11 New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America Katherine Scheil

Shakespeare has had a long connection to American civic life. From the many outdoor Shakespeare festivals that provide entertainment for diverse populations, to the Renaissance fairs that frequently feature Shakespearian performances, a number of non-­traditional spaces have nurtured the reading and performing of Shakespeare outside of academic and institutional settings. Also part of this history are the hundreds of Shakespeare clubs that began in the last few decades of the nineteenth century. These grass roots groups were crucial in establishing cultural amenities in new communities, and in uniting citizens under common goals of studying, reading, and performing Shakespeare. Many of these clubs existed outside metropolitan areas, and provided what was often the only cultural outlet for citizens, and especially for women. The isolated rural lumber town of Alpena became known as ‘the Athens of Northern Michigan’ in part due to the activities of the Ladies’ Shakespeare Class, which began in 1894 and met weekly to read Shakespeare. Likewise, the Shakespeare Club of Port Gamble, Washington, a mill town of fewer than 500 people, brought together women with a common interest in Shakespeare. Without their own books, this group of women had to rely on a travelling library; as one member noted in their minutes, ‘Mrs. Ames was asked to send for the books so the reading could begin’.1 For women desperate to have an intellectual life, reading Shakespeare could fill this void, and the beneficial effects of participating in these groups extended to local civic life. Most Shakespeare clubs engaged in some sort of private reading of the plays, usually held in members’ homes, but sometimes offered to the public, and occasionally performed for various charitable causes. The Fortnightly Shakespeare Club of New York, for example, performed The Taming of the Shrew in 1895 as a benefit for the Home for Blind Women.2 Most clubs were not associated with any institution, and were local, grass-­roots groups that

220

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

arose through the individual desires and inspirations of members within close geographical proximity. This type of engagement with Shakespeare, usually carried out in private, was nevertheless important in the civic life of various communities, both for community building and for civic projects and reforms. For women in particular, reading and performing Shakespeare, either in front of the club members or in public, could be a unique and life-­changing experience. In reflecting on the influence of reading Shakespeare aloud with her club for many years, Loraine Immen Pratt of the Shakespeariana Club of Grand Rapids, Michigan attested that her fellow club women were ‘better prepared to cope with life in all its various moral struggles’, and had gained ‘broader love, more charity for humanity’. After reading King Lear, for example, she felt that club members attained lifelong sympathy for the elderly: ‘whenever our eyes fall upon an aged person whether kith or kin, we shall recall Cordelia’s filial love and well-­performed duty.’3 For the women in this Michigan group, their experience with Shakespeare extended to their empathy for others in their community, or at least, that was the ideal. For other women, Shakespeare offered personal and community opportunities to develop their intellectual life. The Peoria, Illinois, Women’s Club put on an annual performance of Shakespeare in honour of his birthday, where club members were allowed to cross-­dress; one member records that even the process of wearing tights made her feel ‘bold and daring’.4 For Montana club woman Ella J. Heisey, the chance to win the part of Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream motivated her to learn the lines while scrubbing her floors, pinning the lines to her sleeves so that she could read as she scrubbed. When she auditioned for the part, she ‘got down on her knees and went at it, scrub brush keeping pace with her voice as it arose quoting Shakespeare’. Ella Heisey remarked to one fellow club member that she ‘just had to have that part, she said. Didn’t Hermia have two lovers? How exciting for an over-­worked house-­wife!’5 Countless club members testify to the sense of personal fulfilment and satisfaction derived from reading and performing Shakespeare in an organized group. Many of these late nineteenth-/early twentieth-­century clubs extended their mandates beyond Shakespeare, taking on civic projects related to education, to public welfare, and to global issues such as war efforts. The Shakespeare Round Table Club of Bowling Green, Ohio, for example, knitted for First World War soldiers and supported a French orphan. Likewise, the women of the Dallas Shakespeare Club sponsored public lectures and readings, established scholarships, and supported music, art, and theatre events. The Barnesville, Georgia, Woman’s Shakespearean Club (founded 1895) promoted travelling libraries, scholarships for women, free kindergartens, admission for women at the University of Georgia; and protested child labour laws. The Woodland, California, Shakespeare Club worked for women’s suffrage, campaigned against saloons, and helped start the local public library. Across America, dozens of public libraries were

New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America

221

established by Shakespeare clubs like the one in Woodland, and the underpinnings of these groups still exist, especially in small towns around the US.6 Black women’s clubs also combined interest in Shakespeare with civic improvements and social causes in their communities. The Ladies’ Coterie of Topeka, Kansas, began in 1904 as a group to read Shakespeare, and branched out to host a lecture by Ida Wells Barnett on ‘The Evils of Lynching’ as well as participate in initiatives for civic progress. Similarly, Carrie Still Shepperson, a founding member of the Lotus Club in Little Rock, Arkansas, organized local student performances of Shakespeare, raising money to form a school library in 1916. Civic life in Little Rock was improved by Shepperson’s performances of Shakespeare, initially spurred by her involvement in a Shakespeare reading group.7 These are just a few examples of the ways that Shakespeare has played a key role in American civic life, through marginal and nontraditional groups, where reading and performing Shakespeare has led to personal fulfilment, community building, and civic enrichment. Thus far, I have argued that the efforts of many of these early Shakespeare groups led to specific, incremental improvements in civic life in America, from the latter decades of the nineteenth century, through the first half of the twentieth century. However, most Shakespeare clubs dissipated around the time of the Second World War, due to a number of factors, including the effects of two world wars, increased opportunities for women’s education, an upsurge of women in the labour force, and a national trend away from community activities, what Robert D. Putnam has described as an ‘erosion of America’s social connectedness and community involvement’.8 What happened to the civic energy that fuelled these clubs – their passion for Shakespeare, their interest in reading and performing the plays, and their desire to form communities based on mutual interest in and appreciation for Shakespeare? Can Shakespeare still serve as one of the building blocks of civic life in America? And can reading and/or performing Shakespeare inspire participants to accomplish any kind of civic betterment? Do decentralized, non-­institutional, community-­building, grass-­roots efforts based on or inspired by Shakespeare still exist? Due to space considerations, I will investigate these questions in just one area: online Shakespeare communities. Through social media, people with common interests in Shakespeare can connect much more easily than they were able to in the past, and either pursue mutual interest in Shakespeare virtually, or meet in person. Unlike the Shakespeare clubs of the earlier twentieth century, which were confined by geographical proximity and depended on personal connections, information about online groups is readily accessible 24/7, and they do not necessarily require members to be local. One type of online Shakespeare group, though, does combine the components of face-­to-face reading and performance, with the accessibility and reach of social media, turning social-­media space into a material

222

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

gathering. The online site Meetup.com was started just after 9/11 by Scott Heiferman, who saw the potential in harnessing the Internet to connect people with similar interests and promote a sense of civic life. Heiferman was inspired by Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, to think about nurturing ‘local communities in a new era’.9 Heiferman has described his goal as ‘combining the idea that technology could improve community in America’ with the ‘network of cafes and restaurants and bars and bowling alleys around the country’ in order to ‘build a really simple tool that helps people arrange group meetings around anything anywhere’.10 For a small fee, individuals can start a meetup, and anyone can join for free. Heiferman intended his online platform to affect civic life in America through a format that was ‘decentralized and empowered locally’.11 One of his goals was to provide citizens with an ‘outlet outside of just work and family and friends’. Through organizing with others, his hope was that they would discover that ‘community is a cure for a lot of things in a lot of people’s lives’.12

FIGURE 11.1  Neville Shakespeare Club of Green Bay, Wisconsin, 1902.

New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America

223

FIGURE 11.2  Seattle Shakespeare Readthrough Group, 2016.

Shakespeare is a significant component of meetups across America as well as worldwide; a recent search of Meetup.com yielded over fifty groups connected to Shakespeare, most of which include some type of performance or in-­person reading. Unlike the first wave of Shakespeare clubs, which combined people with existing social connections like churches or neighbourhoods, these online communities draw from a vast cross-­section of people who self-­identify their interest in Shakespeare, but who otherwise may never encounter each other in the course of their daily lives.13 For example, the Chevy Chase, Maryland, group includes a retired gardener, a PhD student, an IT executive, and a lawyer with small children who works from home.14 This resurgence of Shakespeare groups is already having an impact on civic life in a number of locales in post–9/11 America.15 Although the civic needs of contemporary America differ from those in the previous century, with advancements in social services, education and other public works, the desire for community, for human interaction, and for intellectual stimulation has remained, and the ability of Shakespeare’s works to address those needs appears to have endured – and perhaps even increased, given the case that Putnam makes. While this second wave of Shakespeare groups is not involved in political causes such as campaigning for women’s suffrage, their contributions to

224

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

civic life should not be underestimated. Many of the Shakespeare meetups are at the fore of the major challenges facing civic life today: social isolation, lack of personal contact and community coherence. According to one study, ‘The number of socially isolated Americans have more than doubled over the 2 decades from 1984–2004 from 10% to a quarter of all Americans’.16 Likewise, among the key factors that determine strong civic communities are social offerings (‘opportunities for social interaction and citizen caring’) and a sense of welcome to newcomers.17 The combination of Shakespeare, social connections and mutual intellectual goals all combine to ideally position these meetups to address crucial civic needs, at minimal (if any) cost to participants. The resurgence in and testimonies of Shakespeare reading groups suggest that there is something compelling, inspiring and engaging about reading Shakespeare in a group, and that the intellectual and social experience is unifying and empowering. The Shakespeare Read-Aloud group of Lafayette, Indiana, exemplifies just such a commitment. This group of fifty-­five self-­proclaimed ‘Shakespeare Enthusiasts’ hosts play readings as well as outings to local performances. The group’s positive impact on civic life was recognized by a local news organization, under the headline: ‘Community coming together through the readings of Shakespeare.’ One member observed that she joined due to the combination of Shakespeare and community: ‘I love getting to interact with the people that are here . . . And I love getting to actually read these plays aloud.’ Shakespeare’s relevance to contemporary social issues was also part of the appeal. ‘Shakespeare is such a cornerstone of modern day culture,’ avowed this new member. ‘Even though the plays are old, they are still relevant in many ways to things that are going on today.’ Another member praised the intellectual fulfilment he gained, but also noted the group’s role in acclimating him as a newcomer to the area: ‘When you’re at work, you just do the same thing every day . . . Whereas, here, you learn new things. It’s like being at school, but it’s not boring.’18 Like many other meetups, this Indiana group unites members of diverse ages, backgrounds and occupations, around a common interest in Shakespeare, and helps create community connections through shared intellectual work. The Shakespeare Lovers of Chevy Chase, Maryland, attest to the sense of empowerment gained through connecting with Shakespeare. Several of the 149 members commented that they sought out the group for both community and for Shakespeare. One member remarked that he has ‘a deep interest in Shakespeare’ and joined because he was ‘looking for a like-­minded group.’ Another recent transplant to the area from San Jose, California commented, ‘I am interested in meeting up with other Shakespeare fans, as well as finding out about theatre opportunities.’ Other members of the Chevy Chase group confess their desire to attain knowledge from reading Shakespeare in a group. One member who runs a non-­profit organization noted, ‘I have always wanted to read “the classics,” and this meetup is helping me do so.’ Another Shakespeare Lover similarly avowed that, ‘Shakespeare is one of

New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America

225

the touchstones of my intellectual, emotional and aesthetic life. I always find myself returning to the insights and delights his plays offer.’ Members include citizens of all ages and backgrounds, as well as numerous newcomers to the area who joined in order to meet like-­minded people and who found both intellectual fulfilment and a sense of community. One meetup with an overt civic-­minded mandate is the Colorado Shakespeare Garden group, based in the Denver-Boulder area, with forty-­six ‘Gardeners and Shakespeare Lovers.’ The group meets once a month during the winter to study plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s works, and to ‘choose the plants and the quotes that we want to emphasize’ the next year. In the spring, they plant, and maintain the gardens at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, often providing food for special occasions. Their specialty areas include a War of the Roses Garden with flowers from the Henry Plays, and a Midsummer Night’s Dream Garden. One member described the experience of the group: ‘What a grand experience it is to sit with other dedicated gardeners who are committed to the study of Shakespeare and hear new perspectives applied to the most versatile and eternally meaningful body of work in the English language.’ United by their mutual love of Shakespeare’s works, this group maintains their gardens as a public display of that passion. In addition to public benefits, testimonies from other Shakespeare groups reveal the personal connections these readers frequently make with Shakespeare in their own lives. One member of the Shakespeare Lovers of Northern Colorado, founded in 2013, remarked after their reading of King Lear, ‘If you grew up in an alcoholic family, as I did, you already know the story! This is a classic dysfunctional family. But I am confident this group can put the “fun” back in “dysfunctional”! I am looking forward to this reading.’ Another member had a similar reaction to reading King Lear in the group: ‘With a slight change of characters, I literally had the opportunity to experience the whole drawn out scenario when my mother passed . . . I can certainly relate.’ In addition to forging personal connections with Shakespeare, the group also attends local performances and shares news about Shakespeare. Some Shakespeare meetups combine reading Shakespeare with other sensuous pleasures. The Albuquerque Shakespeare Lovers held a ‘Sex and Shakespeare’ poetry workshop, where they met at a local bookstore to read Venus and Adonis on Sunday afternoons. This workshop was limited to a dozen people, and included the disclaimer that: ‘We will be talking about adult situations. It is only recommended for people who feel comfortable with this mature subject matter.’ The many social drinking/reading groups include ‘Shakespeare and a Drink’ and the ‘Brooklyn Wine and Shakespeare Meetup.’ The ‘Drunk-Speare San Francisco’ even describes themselves straightforwardly as ‘131 Drunkards.’ Founded in May 2015, the group makes reading Shakespeare akin to a drinking game: Do you like drinking? Do like beer and wine? Do, or might you, like Shakespeare? Some are born drunk, some achieve drunkenness, and some

226

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

have drunkenness thrust upon ‘em – It is Drunk-Speare. We are going to put the Ham back in Hamlet. We will get together, drink, and read a Shakespeare play. The parts will be passed around to the people there, everyone will play along. Over-­acting is encouraged. Bonus points for playing up the dick and fart jokes (hint – there are plenty of these in Shakespeare . . .). Come by for 2–3 hours of drinking, and hopefully get through a new Shakespeare play each meeting. Douglas, the organizer, began the group in hopes of making social connections with like-­minded people. He describes himself as ‘a tech guy, data scientist, high energy physicist, and long-­time audience member of many many Shakespeare plays. I love drinking good beer, and I’d like to be able to investigate more Shakespeare plays with silly people.’ The resources of Meetup.com made it possible for him to connect with over one hundred fellow Shakespeare fans interested in reading the plays and socializing. In contrast to the earlier nineteenth-­century Shakespeare groups, where food and drink were frequently banned until the end of their meetings, most of the second-­wave groups welcome and even encourage nourishing the body as well as the mind, as part of the pleasure connected with Shakespeare. An intimate group with just such a purpose of social engagement, physical pleasure, and reading Shakespeare is ‘The Falstaffs of South Bay,’ composed of seventeen self-­proclaimed ‘Shakespeare Nerds.’ Founded in 2015 in Manhattan Beach, California, the group attracts members who enjoy Shakespeare and ‘love drinking like Falstaff.’ Members meet once a month and ‘try to get through a play reading, or possibly just a drunken discussion about our favorite characters/favorite scenes/favorite times Hamlet was a huge d**k’. At the time of writing, their most recent announcement stated: ‘We will assign parts and not hold back on our over-­acting and our obnoxious over-­enunciation. Folks who deliver the dirty jokes, or make a dirty joke out of something inane, in true Shakespearean form, will make everyone drink.’19 While we might be tempted to dismiss such groups as just dressed-­up drinking clubs, the motivations behind starting these groups signal a deeper civic need for community, social connections, intellectual stimulation and the sharing of physical pleasure. Such different ways of ‘doing Shakespeare’ might even – in their own playful, unpretentious way – help us recognize and perhaps rethink the limits of the traditional ways in which Shakespeare is done. New meetup groups organized around Shakespeare continue to grow around the US. The Portland, Oregon, Shakespeare Meetup, made up of ‘47 Bardashians’, started in May 2016, and within two weeks had almost fifty members. The group reads Shakespeare’s plays but also discusses ‘cultural and political topics relevant to the text’, samples Elizabethan foods and beverages, and explores period crafts. Their organizer proclaims that their ‘meetups are appropriate for beginning students of Shakespeare as well as lifelong Bard nerds. No matter what your level of knowledge is you will

New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America

227

make new discoveries and have the opportunity to share them with other Bardashians.’ The goal of the group is communal interaction and mutual appreciation of Shakespeare, and they point out that ‘No one will be pressured into reading aloud or performing. Everyone will be encouraged to participate in a way they enjoy.’ Like some of the earlier Shakespeare reading clubs, where members founded these associations as part of their establishment of civic and cultural life, so too do some of the modern groups function as ways to connect members in search of intellectual and social communities.20 And, again, the opening out of Shakespeare to popular contemporary experience that is suggested in the group’s name (which fuses the Bard with reality TV’s ‘first family,’ the Kardashians) playfully tweaks the limits of elite, traditional ways of experiencing him. Lest we dismiss these meetup groups as simply social outings for lonely people, it is worth pausing over what they contribute to civic life in America. According to the National Conference on Citizenship, civic health is ‘an essential component of vibrant communities, a strong democracy, and individual well-­being,’ and can be measured in part by ‘how much people trust their neighbors, [and] are active in their communities.’21 A closer look at three Shakespeare meetups can offer a window into how Shakespeare’s works play a beneficial role in contemporary American civic life by addressing these civic needs. The Seattle Shakespeare Readthrough Group (see Figure  11.2 above) began in 2008, and currently includes over 900 members, described as ‘Shakespeare lovers of varied backgrounds: actors and non-­actors; teachers and baristas, retirees and programmers; people who read Shakespeare all the time and people who haven’t read him in many years’.22 The group brings together a variety of people of different ethnicities, religions, races, sexualities, occupations, and ages, ranging from twenties to eighties. A recent meeting included an attorney with a PhD in literature, a mechanical engineer, two software engineers, a teacher, a marketing manager, a retired philosophy professor and a paralegal, in what one correspondent described as ‘a real mix of folks that come together in what is becoming an enriching social-­study group combination’.23 As one member remarked about the group, there is no ‘common denominator’ among the members.24 Meetings are held every other week, run for roughly five hours, and cover one play per meeting. Despite the diverse membership, the shared intellectual experience of reading Shakespeare out loud is a unifying one. ‘Since we are amateur we have quite a few not-­so-strong readers,’ attested one participant, ‘so when we come to the end of Act V at every reading I have been to, there is a very genuine sense of accomplishment and a spontaneous round of applause.’25 The Seattle Shakespeare group addresses several of the civic needs of their community. A recent study of civic life noted that Seattleites ‘struggle to master the informal, but powerful personal connections in communities’, and fared near the bottom for measures of informal participation, such as ‘talking with neighbors frequently’ and giving or receiving favours from

228

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

neighbours.26 The authors of the report recommended ‘finding ways to build community pride and belonging’, in order to ‘foster a sense of openness and welcome. Neighborliness is not our community’s strength.’27 These are exactly the attributes that have attracted members to the Shakespeare group. Many participants in the Seattle Shakespeare group are newly relocated residents, and the group avows that ‘We’re very good about making new folks passing through feel welcome’.28 Another member notes that he was drawn to the group when he moved to Seattle from the Midwest, and when he unexpectedly lost his wife to cancer, the group helped sustain him through regular contact. Likewise, group members make a special effort to carpool and offer rides to members who don’t drive. On one occasion, a member’s car was stolen, and fellow participants drove the 110-mile round trip to her home. Numerous members drive over an hour to each meeting, in part because it provides ‘a sense of community’, in the words of one.29 For many devotees, the group is the main social outlet ‘for people who love Shakespeare but don’t have much of a social circle outside of the group’ due to age or location.30 People are attracted to the group initially by the chance to read Shakespeare; as one enthusiast put it, ‘we seem to attract the attention of a lot of people to whom reading Shakespeare in the company of others has some appeal’.31 The informal personal connections, sense of belonging and community pride – the desired components noted in the civic health report on Seattle – resonate with the Shakespearian material to create a compelling and meaningful experience. One member presciently observed that ‘the group senses a mission to carry the Shakespeare flame by being available for folks who need its light at times’. The shared experience of reading Shakespeare together creates lasting bonds of connection between diverse citizens. ‘If there’s a death of someone close to a member,’ noted one correspondent, ‘some of us send cards or flowers and ask about them in the months following. When I missed a couple of meetings because my wife was near death, I received flowers and several cards and emails and appreciated being asked in the months and years after how I was doing.’ For this member, too, the ‘Shakespeare flame’ was crucial; he adds, ‘the death of my wife drew me more deeply into the plays’, and the group dynamics of Shakespeare and community provided an outlet for his grief as well as a network of social support.32 When asked about the appeal of the Seattle Shakespeare Meetup, one correspondent summed it up as an ideal combination of intellectual development and shared experience deriving from reading and discussing Shakespeare. ‘There exists a real hunger for meaningful discussion,’ he explained, ‘and that is what we provide. First we give a structure and some topics, that comes from the play itself and the characters and conflicts. Then the fact that we have all just undergone a shared experience where we had to struggle to understand and express thoughts and feelings. So there just develops, very naturally and organically, a sense of communion with your fellow readers.’ He added: ‘I think I can speak for the group when I say that

New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America

229

you just go home on a little cloud after a long afternoon and the online post-­ play evaluation fills up with effusive grateful chatter.’33 The Seattle Shakespeare Meetup is not an anomaly; others offer a similar array of civic enrichments, from connecting citizens of diverse backgrounds, ages, races and ethnicities, to providing social interactions, networks and other community-­strengthening resources. The Shakespeare Lovers of Chevy Chase, Maryland, founded in 2012, meet for three hours once a month for three months per play, using a sixty-­ page handout that combines passages from the plays interspersed with other relevant quotations. Gatherings are limited to eight people at a time, but are often repeated for different groups. Founder Afsaneh Mirfendereski designs each handout herself. When the group meets, they discuss the Shakespeare play at hand, but equally important, also cover issues of current interest and urgency. When she leads the group, Mirfendereski deliberately pauses every few pages ‘so that we could discuss not just what is going on, but the universality of the particular message at hand’. Note the way in which the universal and particular come together here. Born in Tehran and raised in the UK, Mirfendereski describes herself as ‘someone who can tie cultures together’, and she notes that she draws on her own cultural heritage to combine traditions of literary study and public engagement. Combining reading of Shakespeare with discussion of larger issues, what she calls ‘universal undercurrents,’ is ‘very Persian’. The group reads passages from the plays, discusses topics such as character development, but also ‘the all-­important universal issue at hand, often comparing to events of our day’.34 The group format gives members ‘a chance to express themselves’, and the social connections formed after such an intensive study of Shakespeare culminate in a party held at Mirfendereski’s home, where members watch a film version of the play, and ‘continue to savor’ Shakespeare’s ‘gems of beauty’ and recall their conversations about the play, over appetizers and wine.35 Several group members attest to the importance of the Shakespeare Lovers in their personal and civic lives. One member, Gillian, remarks that: As a newcomer, I have been touched by the warm welcome extended to me, both from Afsaneh, and the group in general. What connects our diverse backgrounds is a love of, and interest in, Shakespeare, while our dedicated leader works extremely hard to provide the group with plenty of organized information and insights, along with opportunities to express our own thoughts and ideas. I’m looking forward to getting to know the group better as we travel with our guide down the path of a greater understanding of Shakespeare’s unparalleled works. What a pleasant way to spend a Sunday evening!36 Another member calls the Shakespeare Lovers ‘one of those rare gems you run across where people attend regularly thanks to an incredibly

230

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

dedicated leader, fantastic members, and excellent conversation’. Praising the combination of reading Shakespeare and intellectual discussion, this member comments: ‘The conversations are insightful, engaging and just plain fun to participate with. Members come from all walks of life with a common love for the plays of William Shakespeare. Everyone is open, friendly and excited to be there.’ She notes that the combination of Shakespeare and intellectual discussion is one of the keys to the group’s success: ‘If you love the plays of Shakespeare and engaging conversation with an amazing group of people, then this Meetup is for you.’ Another member remarks on the after effects of reading Shakespeare with this group: ‘Comments from the participants are often insightful and enriching. I look forward to the meeting every time and leave feeling energized, educated and entertained.’ One member underlined the dual significance of the group, both for intellectual stimulation and for forging connections with disparate citizens: ‘It’s a great way to meet people interested in Shakespeare. I highly recommend this club for people interested in the plays. I have found a great way to have some great discussions on Shakespeare and meet some really nice and interesting people.’ One stay-­at-home mother who moved to the area from Orlando, Florida, noted the importance of the group for helping her adjust to her new home: This book club has been one of my very favorite things about moving to this area. The members are kind, thoughtful, and insightful. Each member’s passion for Shakespeare developed differently, so everyone contributes a unique perspective to the discussion, making for robust readings of each play. I’m so glad I joined, and I look forward to being a part of this club for as long as people love Shakespeare. Another member praised the Shakespeare Lovers for bringing Shakespeare into conversation with contemporary concerns, describing the group as ‘not just about the literature of Shakespeare, but about how Shakespeare relates to the rest of the world’. The Shakespeare meetup groups in Santa Fe, New Mexico, address a similar civic need for social interaction and intellectual conversation inspired by Shakespeare. Founded in 2012 and comprising over 200 members, two groups of ‘Close Readers’ meet every Sunday, for two hours each. Organizer Robin Williams, who has been leading Shakespeare groups since 2002, attributes the success of the groups in part to the resources of social media. ‘The whole Meetup site and its formation is hugely indicative of the human need for community,’ she notes.37 Members may attend readings or learn about Shakespeare films or performances from the group’s meetup site, ‘widening the Shakespeare community’. Williams observes that one of the most important functions of her meetup is community involvement, and she adds that ‘the community spirit that the meetup services have generated has

New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America

231

been quite important to us’.38 The reading group’s infectious enthusiasm for Shakespeare has even had a significant impact on the audience size of local Shakespeare lectures. A local publication profiled the group’s community contributions, noting that ‘the majority of those who gather every Sunday have had little background in the Bard’, and extolling the group for its inclusion of a ‘diverse group of people from all walks of life: teachers, artists, mathematicians, lawyers, writers and even some thespians’.39 The membership even includes ‘several homeless people, a number of Readers who have never read a book, many who have never read aloud, [and] a few who can barely read’. The sense of intellectual achievement derived from reading Shakespeare is empowering. Leader Robin Williams affirms that everyone turns out to be ‘smart’ in their own way, often in ways they didn’t even realize. They show up at first for various reasons and then realize that Shakespeare is not rocket science, that they can understand it when we go slowly and talk about it, and they get to take on the mantle of ‘intellectualism’ along the way. It’s not that only smart people can read Shakespeare out loud, but that they realize how smart they are by reading it. Williams points out that her group targets an audience that is often overlooked in formal educational initiatives: ‘There is so little attention given to grownups who want to engage with Shakespeare but aren’t sure how.’ Members of the group attest to its value in their personal and intellectual lives, and for the beneficial social connections created among readers. ‘I am always so impressed with the erudition in the room; I am ALWAYS grateful to be privy to it and also ALWAYS very humbled,’ remarked one reader. ‘In a world of Snookies and Kardashians and Mama Junes, it is very special to share a room with these people for two hours a week.’ This of course makes sense, but we might also reflect on how the Kardashians’ name evinces a desire to connect Shakespeare with just that world. Another member avowed: ‘This is like gymnastics for my brain. SO lovely to be thinking again!!’ Like the members of the Seattle Shakespeare Meetup, the Santa Fe Close Readers offer a similar experience of social connection and intellectual fulfilment gained through reading Shakespeare. One participant notes that ‘members of this group have become friends’ due to their ‘love of reading Shakespeare’ and to the ‘many other interest and activities that connect us’.40 The Santa Fe Readers attribute the success of their group to a ‘decline in civic activities’, and to ‘the identity and kinship a clan like this provides’.41 Numerous participants praise the combination of community and intellectual stimulation, what one member described as ‘like getting a PhD in Shakespeare, when I have only finished kindergarten. As if raking leaves and discovering the diamonds below. Most grateful for the knowledge and the

232

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

marvelous community shared.’42 Another member expressed her appreciation for the ‘people with lively, independent minds who share their insights and enthusiasm for the Shakespearean works.’ Together, she affirmed, they ‘have a grand time reading aloud and experiencing the writing line by line’ through a shared intellectual experience. Commending the successful formula of the group, a further participant praised the ‘delightful treasure trove of information – not just about Shakespeare but about life!’ These benefits are apparent not only to regular members, but to newcomers as well. A recent arrival to the group affirmed that she ‘felt most welcomed and was so happy to witness and participate in the wonderful things that happen when a group engages in deep reading together.’ From welcoming newcomers to engaging lapsed readers, from creating social networks to nurturing intellectual development, the Santa Fe Close Readers fulfil a crucial role in their local civic culture. In his conference paper ‘Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age’, W. Lance Bennett remarks that ‘the major puzzle’ in civic engagement in the digital age is ‘how to create the media environments in which online communities can build the kinds of social capital – those bonds of trust and commitment to shared values – that lead to participation in civic life and the political world beyond’.43 The Shakespeare Meetup groups discussed in this chapter show that engaging with the works of Shakespeare can offer an ideal conjunction of technology and civic needs. While this second wave of Shakespeare reading groups do not undertake the type of extra social service projects that earlier clubs did, such as advocating for public libraries, educational reforms and women’s suffrage, they do increasingly address urgent civic needs for community, connection, and intellectual stimulation through reading Shakespeare. ‘We believe in the power of self-­organized groups to improve lives and even change the world,’ said Douglas Atkin, chief community officer at Meetup.com.44 The meetups discussed in this chapter attest to the fact that Shakespeare still can play a role in contemporary American civic life, particularly outside of the bounds of academic institutions, in ways that extend far beyond personal intellectual goals. Further, this type of civic engagement has repercussions for the health of individuals as well as for society. According to one recent study: ‘Quitting smoking or joining a club, it’s a tough call which would improve your life expectancy more. Joining and participating in one group cuts your odds of dying over the next year in half. Joining two groups cuts it by three quarters.’45 One of the investors of Meetup.com has claimed that some of the most significant benefits to civic life come not from the groups of like-­minded people who start a meetup, but rather from the groups organized around a common interest or experience, who then share their differing political or social views with each other.46 Such connections are notoriously difficult to document, but all of these Shakespeare Meetups comprise members of different ages, occupations, backgrounds and ethnicities, who are united by their desire to read and perform Shakespeare in a group. Just by bridging the

New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America

233

gap between these diverse members, Shakespeare Meetups have already achieved a certain amount of civic progress, by creating connections among citizens based on common interest in reading and performing Shakespeare, initiated by social media but resulting in a face-­to-face gathering. They have also once more placed Shakespeare at the centre of initiatives to improve personal, intellectual, and civic life. How the phenomenon develops remains to be seen.

12 Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection David Ruiter

Shakespeare and theatre play a role at the civic intersection, which I define as a place teeming with the traffic of history and present day life, of identities and narratives built, shared and owned in a lively if sometimes challenging process of self-­authoring and inclusion. Here, that theatrical-­historical role will be examined by way of two specific civic contexts: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical, and the way in which it spilled out into American political and civic contexts; and the work of The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles and their Will Power to Youth summer programming. Explored in the light of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality, these two cases illuminate the possibility of theatre as critical civic intervention, creating a special, safe and vital place in service of a diverse American and global community.

‘We, sir, we are the diverse America’ On the evening of Friday 18 November 2016, just ten days after the US presidential election, Vice President-­elect Mike Pence attended Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical at New York’s Richard Rodgers Theatre. By this time, the musical had received massive public attention and acclaim, and had already been awarded eleven Tony Awards, a Grammy and the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Conceptually, Miranda’s Hamilton, based on Ron Chernow’s biography, Alexander Hamilton,1 might not have been expected to create the theatre stir that it has, bringing in massive audiences, prestigious awards and huge revenues. But Chernow’s thoughtful biography has been brought to larger-­ than-life status through Miranda’s multicultural concept, hip-­hop-infused

236

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

songwriting, and colour-­aware casting, which have, in effect, brought American history – from its founding to this featured present moment – into new focus, made colourful by the reality of the present. Hamilton has also been seen by its share of American politicians, including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, presidential candidate and former First Lady Hillary Clinton, as well as former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney. Therefore, despite both his socially and economically conservative personal and partisan politics, it is no real surprise that the newly elected Pence was in the audience on that autumn evening. At the conclusion of the show, Brandon Victor Dixon, who was playing the role of Vice President Aaron Burr, said these words: You know, we have a guest in the audience this evening. And Vice President-­elect Pence, I see you walking out, but I hope you will hear us just a few more moments. There’s nothing to boo here, ladies and gentlemen. There’s nothing to boo here. We’re all here sharing a story of love. We have a message for you, sir. We hope that you will hear us out. Then, reading from a paper, Dixon said: Vice President-­elect Pence, we welcome you, and we truly thank you for joining us here at Hamilton: An American Musical. We really do. We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us. Again, we truly thank you for sharing this show, this wonderful American story told by a diverse group of men and women of different colors, creeds, and orientations.2 Mr Pence stood and listened, and then exited the building with usual security, apparently unruffled by Dixon’s comments either in the moment or later. The incident, unsurprisingly, careened through social and mainstream media. Nonetheless, it might have been just an interesting moment, momentarily arresting but an otherwise unremarkable landmark at the intersection of theatre, history, and politics, handled well by Mr Pence. The overall public response to Dixon’s words to Pence was mixed, ranging from those who thought Dixon had been indecorous or over-­reaching, to others who were positive and appreciative that he had voiced the concerns of many who have been leery of the Trump presidency.3

Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection

237

‘The Theater must always be a safe and special place’ The moment likely would have been fleeting had it not been for a series of tweets from Pence’s soon-­to-be boss; then President-­elect Trump called far greater attention to the theatrical event, entering into the social media fray via Twitter. Beginning early on the morning following the Dixon/Pence moment, Trump tweeted: Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing. This should not happen! 6.48 a.m. – 19 November 2016 The Theater must always be a safe and special place. The case of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize! 6.56 a.m. – 19 November 2016 The cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior. 4.22 a.m. – 20 November 2016 Pence himself made clear that he heard the message and was not offended.4 But whether or not Dixon’s message from the stage offended either Trump or Pence, or was generally appropriate or not, is not the point of this chapter. Rather, I would like to use two of the ideas mentioned above – Dixon’s assertion that ‘we are the diverse America’ and Trump’s that theatre should be a ‘safe and special place’ – as catalysts for considering how those two thoughts together might, in fact, produce a way to consider the work of the theatre – of Miranda and Shakespeare – and how the stage might be utilized in specific civic contexts. Ultimately, the thoughts presented in this essay on the use of theatre as a ‘safe and special place’ may be far afield from what the 45th US President had in mind, and, we might argue that Dixon’s comments, while spoken from the stage, were really not part of the theatrical performance at all. The truth is that those words were not part of the regular presentation of Hamilton, but rather a conversation that went past it, beyond it, spilling into a different human and dramatic space after the show. And, in that way, they were spilling into the special place of the ‘real,’ the lived reality of shared everyday life, a civic space, as this volume defines it, where people do not so often have the ability to escape into the willed and willing theatrical zone of suspended disbelief. And, yet, there was an intersection between the two worlds here – Dixon, still in costume as the imagined Aaron Burr, speaking to Governor Pence, in Manhattan, with an audience present, about historically and contextually specific groups of real and newly re-­imagined people who exist in history, on stage, in the audience, beyond the walls of the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

238

NEW PL ACES: SHAKESPEARE AND CIVIC CREATIVITY

There was an intersection, in short, between history and present reality, between historical people, people playing historical-fictional roles, and people as themselves in New York City on 18 November 2016. There was an intersection between a theatrical message of inclusion and a national history that continues to be, at times, time and again, exclusive. And, there was an intersection between the concerns related to that exclusionary history and fears that it might recur in some typical or new way. Thinking about this inter-action that brings a portion of the story of the American founding fathers to light in a differently empowering and inclusive way allows us to consider how theatre and Shakespeare can do this, as well. To consider this theatrical world in the context of civic life, I will rely on the theory of intersectionality, especially as advanced by Kimberlé Crenshaw. I make this choice because this theory and its practice are relevant to Hamilton: An American Musical and because intersectionality significantly underpins the work of Will Power to Youth, an intervention into the realm of Civic Shakespeare, offered each summer in downtown LA by The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles (SCLA ). Therefore, my focus will be on three central concerns: 1 Crenshaw and the theory and practice of intersectionality; 2 How the theory and practice of intersectionality come to play in this theatrical moment with Hamilton and the work of the SCLA ; 3 How, by thinking intersectionally, we might imagine theatre as a ‘safe and special place’ for ‘diverse’ American and global communities and individuals.

Intersectionality The theory of intersectionality was first posited by American lawyer, law professor, critical race theorist and civil rights activist, Kimberlé Crenshaw. Intersectionality demonstrates that there are multiple and intersecting dimensions at work at all times in the formation and evolution of human identity. To make this case, Crenshaw frequently uses the example of a black woman, a member of two historically oppressed groups. In doing so, Crenshaw says: ‘My focus on the intersections of race and gender only highlights the need to account for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed.’5 And while her frequent focus is on the intersectional identities created by race and gender, other ‘grounds of identity’ include class, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, age, education, disability and many more. Many have followed in the wake of Crenshaw’s original work. In the words of Ange-Marie Hancock, intersectionality as developed from and since Crenshaw’s early writing

Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection

239

emphasizes the interaction of categories of difference (including but not limited to race, gender, class, and sexual orientation). Emerging over the past twenty years as an explicitly interdisciplinary approach, intersectionality considers the interaction of such categories as organizing structures of society, recognizing that these key components influence political access, equality, and the potential for any form of justice.6 R.S. Chang and J.M. Culp go somewhat further, saying the process begins by locating and describing these intersecting integers of identity, but that the ‘next step is to be able to prescribe or imagine points of intervention.’7 At first blush, these foundational ideas of intersectionality may seem to be obvious: we are all born into some of these categories and, over time, are likely to move into, through and out of those and into others; but Crenshaw’s theory and its evolution are a bit more complicated than that, because it is not merely the fact of these multi-­dimensional identities that warrants concern, but rather the identity-­building, empowerment or disempowerment that can and does take place as a result. For this to happen, Crenshaw and later Hancock carefully avoid elision or conflation of all forms of discrimination into one, or the creation of hierarchies that privilege one or two forms of discrimination (often race and gender) over all others. In her example of a black woman, Crenshaw says we must distance ourselves – as social, legal, or cultural agents – from ‘approaches in which experiences are relevant only when related to certain clearly identifiable causes (for example, the oppression of Blacks is significant when based on race, of women when based on gender)’.8 She argues that this ‘single-­axis analysis’ distorts the lived ‘multidimensionality’ of those it purports to serve.9 It does so, in various ways, by reducing the individual nature of those intersecting elements of identity, blurring them into one, privileging some, and thereby limiting the multiple strands of identity-­forming factors that are critical to self-­authorship.10 If we were, says Crenshaw, to focus on the intersectionality of the lived experience of real people, then the ‘praxis [. . .] should be centered on the life chances and life situations of people who should be cared about without regard to the source of their difficulties’.11 In other words, the focus would be on lived and varied realities and care rather than on overly-­generic categories of identity so ubiquitous in race and gender theory. Furthermore, says Crenshaw, if this praxis – oriented in the doing, rather than simply the thinking, necessary to instantiate social change – were to take place, allowing for the recognition and thoughtful valuation of multiple grounds of identity simultaneously, the ‘goal of this activity should be to facilitate the inclusion of marginalized groups for whom it can be said: “When they enter, we all enter”.’12 Kenji Yoshino makes a similar claim when he questions the politics of assimilation, a form of identity essentialism, saying that: ‘it is now time for

240

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

us . . . to shift the emphasis away from equality and toward liberty in our debates about identity politics. Only through such freedom can we live our lives as works in progress, which is to say, as the complex, changeful and contradictory creatures that we are.’13 He adds: ‘The aspiration of civil rights has always been to permit people to pursue their human flourishing without limitations based on bias.’14 In other words, Yoshino and Crenshaw argue against all efforts to universalize types of oppression and oppressed peoples, and for the freedom of each person to gain an authentic and therefore varied, contextually-­based, intersectional identity. In this respect, says Rita Kaur Dhamoon, the praxis of intersectionality, rather than attempting ‘to reduce people to one category at a time . . . treats social positions as relational, and it makes visible the multiple positioning that constitutes everyday life and the power relations that are central to it’.15 In terms of identity, Crenshaw and Yoshino focus on a praxis of care for the individual in her or his unique lived reality rather than on the constant refinement of thoughtful theories that are nevertheless bound by practically ineffectual or even potentially harmful essentializing categories. In effect, intersectionality, as defined by Crenshaw and later expanded by Yoshino and many others, ultimately values individual identity-­formation in its ever-­ evolving multiplicity, and values the practice of care over theoretical discourse. The remainder of this chapter focuses on this practice of identity-­ formation and care, articulated in the performances of Hamilton and Will Power to Youth, as a means to establishing that special social place, both safe and diverse.

Hamilton: An American Musical, 2016 Hamilton demonstrates the arguments for intersectional theatre practice particularly in its use of colour-­aware casting; it tells the story of America’s founding and decidedly white founding fathers by way of a decisively non-­ white cast (excepting the role of King George, originally played on Broadway by Jonathan Groff). Early in the play, when the audience hears Angelica Schuyler (whose younger sister, Eliza, became Hamilton’s wife) sing the words of the Declaration of Independence – ‘We hold these truths to be self-­ evident: that all men are created equal [. . .]’ – they can hardly miss the fact that the icons of American history whom they had always assumed to be white are not, at least not in this production, which to that extent is a far more interesting and exhilarating story than the one they had received in school, and far more intersectional: that is, the musical, in its colourful casting, empowers members of oppressed groups and underrepresented minorities, both the actors and those in the audience, making them visible and voiced as co-­creators of history. The words of that famous white founding father, Thomas Jefferson, are now powerfully delivered by a black, female Angelica Schuyler (Renée Elise Goldsberry). In Hamilton’s blending

Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection

241

of history and theatre, the traditional white space of American revolutionary history is no longer exclusively white. In terms of this intentionally diverse cast, an ‘essential’ feature of Miranda’s vision,16 Spencer Kornhaber explains that Hamilton is not colourblind – casting without regard to race and ethnicity – but rather acutely colour-­aware; Kornhaber says: Hamilton is not, by the common definition, colorblind. It does not merely allow for some of the Founding Fathers to be played by people of color. It insists that all of them be. This insistence is part of the play’s message that Alexander Hamilton’s journey from destitute immigrant to influential statesman is universal and replicable (and comparable to the life stories of many of the rappers who inspired Hamilton’s music).17 Although I might argue with Kornhaber’s sense of ‘universal and replicable’ experiences, or at least modify his descriptions of them in light of intersectionality, he nonetheless points up an important distinction here, indicating that there is a difference between a seeming effort to ignore racial difference, as can often be seen in colourblind rhetoric and casting, and an investment in the value of racial and ethnic difference, especially as it applies to American history over time and to the present moment. Hamilton’s presentation of historical (and presumably all-­white) events by a cast of non-­white actors is, in itself, one way to create inclusion in an industry – indeed as part of a country – where full inclusion has always been a struggle, always at least partly a dream, as Martin Luther King, Jr. famously indicated.18 Kornhaber says, regarding the Hamilton casting versus the reality of inclusivity in American civic life, that full inclusion ‘remains an unfulfilled promise – and that fulfillment can only come by focusing on helping the specific populations that suffer greatest from America’s many inequalities rooted in oppression’.19 Via colour-­aware casting, Hamilton presents visible forms of inclusion and empowerment, drawing from the rich diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and other grounds of identity that Crenshaw insists upon, but in some respects the musical remains the performance of an assumed white history by nonwhite actors, which makes the victory, at best, partial. The same might be said of the invigorating musical score and performance, although, combined, the casting and the music – making use of hip-­hop, other forms of rap, jazz and R & B: forms that are traditionally nonwhite – mean that both the messengers and the mode of messaging American history are now not only in but of the present moment; the history is now, as it were. And, while making history a more inclusive present event, Hamilton also presents the history of the not yet – not yet performed in an America at home with the story of its wide diversity of people and their long participation in the making of the nation. As such, Hamilton reflects both the present historical moment and that yet-­ to-be-­realized history that is inclusive of all, safe for all, honouring and

242

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

valuing the diverse and integrated work of all of its committed contributors in all of their unique and special identities.20 Hamilton, in communicating this historical message, highlights the three critical components to gaining possession of the narrative: 1 the message itself; 2 the messenger (who may or may not be the author); 3 the mode and means of messaging. Ben Brantley, chief theatre critic of The New York Times, makes this point secure when he says that Hamilton is, among other things, about who owns history, who gets to be in charge of the narrative. One of its greatest accomplishments is that it leaves no doubt that these scrappy, adrenaline-­charged young folks, with their fast way with rhythm that gives order to chaos, have every right to be in charge of the story here.21 Brantley positions the making of history as about ownership of the narrative, and this may be what ultimately makes Hamilton historically different, as it operates within an intersectional frame: the ownership of the narrative, which in this case involves the remaking of American history into Chernow’s Hamilton, then into Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical – from the events, to the documents, to the biography, to the script, to the actors – passing through so many hands that along the way possession of the narrative history changes owners, gains owners, and the story becomes empowering to not just the few but also to the many, many of whom had been previously excluded. When President Barack Obama suggested that ‘with a cast as diverse as America itself, including the outstandingly talented women . . . the show reminds us that this nation was built by more than just a few great men – and that it is an inheritance that belongs to all of us’,22 he was reflecting on the fact that Hamilton portrays the real, lived history of a diverse America. This is the history that Dixon’s words were meant to preserve when he spoke them to Pence; this was the history of ‘diverse Americans’ included in the big theatrical tent of Hamilton and the larger intersectional vision of an America at a political crossroads marked by ongoing conversation about who were or were not, should and should not be included in the narrative. Miranda and Hamilton continue to shine a light on the heavy sociopolitical traffic at this intersection, but they are, in some respects, only the most publicly luminous of the theatrical interventions into this cultural conversation, which takes place with less notoriety but potentially more life-­ changing impact in the local, community settings where real change comes more concretely to real lives. One such intervention is The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles.23

Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection

243

‘Do you call yourself a Shakespearean?’ Years ago, when I first visited The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles (then named the LA Shakespeare Festival), and first met Chris Anthony, Program Director for Will Power to Youth, she asked me if I called myself a Shakespearean. I thought for a second, and said, ‘I guess that’s what my colleagues would call me’. I was unsure if that title was a bit pretentious or otherwise off-­putting, or, on the other hand, if I approved of the boundary of knowledge that the name implied. Likely, many reading this piece are also labelled ‘Shakespeareans’ by their colleagues, and I wonder how they would reply. We are, of course, other things first: men and women, members of racial and ethnic groups (Dutch American, in my case, probably something else in yours), differently religiously (un)affiliated, gay or straight or bi- or trans- or queer, etc. What we study, teach and write about might actually be fairly low on the list of our identifying characteristics, but Anthony’s question caught me off-­guard because I suspected that ‘Shakespearean’ might also be a bit low on her list, even of noble professions. So I returned the question to her: ‘do you think of yourself as a Shakespearean?’ She said: ‘No. Social activist, yes. Theatre person, yes. Shakespeare is more just a venue to do those things with the kids.’ And so began my education into the work of The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, and to a more full understanding of the possibilities inherent in the praxis of intersectionality.

Born at the intersection: the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles (SCLA) has served the population of downtown Los Angeles since 1992, and marking that date is significant: in 1991, intense awareness concerning the intersection of race and power shook Los Angeles following the release of a video showing four white police officers brutally beating a defenseless black taxi driver named Rodney King.24 The video gained attention both locally and nationally, but in minor fashion as compared to what was to come: in the spring of 1992, a jury acquitted the four officers, setting off five days of deadly riots in Los Angeles that cost at least fifty lives and 2,000 injuries, and ultimately resulted in the deployment of more than 2,000 Marine, Army, and National Guard troops to restore partial order.25 As part of a larger response to these events – and to the city, state and federal leaders’ acknowledgement of the deep, long-­ seated and fractious realities experienced by the people and especially the youth of the city – The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles created Will Power to Youth (WPY) with support from the James Irvine Foundation and the Community Development Department of the City of Los Angeles.

244

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

I emphasize the context out of which WPY came to be, now over twenty-­ five years ago, so as to understand that its intersectional mission is not accidental, but a specific response to a lived reality that was highlighted by an historical event; to that extent, it is the forebear to the Hamilton/Dixon/ Pence/Trump sequence; as with Hamilton, we might consider WPY as a sort of ‘art in response to historical atrocity’ programme. Both deal with the under-­acknowledgement, underrepresentation and undervaluation of large communities of social, cultural and economic contributors within American history and society, groups who have, at best, been treated with uneven care within their larger contexts. As with Hamilton, WPY is much more than a celebrated statement – from stage or social media – but rather a performance of recognized inclusion; WPY is also a finely-­articulated praxis of intersectionality, not just as a message in favour of but also as a concrete contribution to social transformation. This is not to say that Hamilton is ineffectual or superficial, particularly as it presents to large audiences current and lasting issues of history, discrimination, identity and present politics. However, WPY was born out of a more locally situated context of oppression and marginalization, and the SCLA continues to make a difference, not so much in the national conversation perhaps, but certainly and explicitly in the lives of the young people it serves. It is a model for the use of theatre for social justice and change, and it does this by way of both programming and performance. For now, I will focus briefly on this programming and its results, before moving on to a discussion of how one outcome of the programming, the performance, serves to highlight the larger intersectional issues. The WPY programme is, first and foremost, 200 hours of paid employment for young people living, in general, at or below the poverty level in Los Angeles; those employment hours certainly involve Shakespeare and the theatre as a means to encourage and foreground the empowerment of unique personal identities by way of education, engagement, collaboration, mentoring and participation in the production of a play. In other words, WPY understands its ability to empower its student-­workers and their ability to recognize and develop their strengths and talents, and to articulate these positively as they pursue educational, career and community aspirations.26 The students in WPY are in high school, not yet in college or other professional training, and given their frequently low-­income, underrepresented, minority and first-­generation status, their statistical odds of moving in those directions are compromised. The WPY faculty, staff and mentors make sure that each student participates as a full member of the summer team that works to investigate, interrogate, construct and produce a Shakespeare play. And, once the seven weeks of employment are over, and the performances completed, the students are not finished with the programming, as WPY ‘graduates’ continue to have access to a wide variety of community activities and services, including college counselling, leadership

Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection

245

training, mentoring and tutoring. The focus remains on ensuring that the students are assured of their talents and abilities and prepared for lifelong success, whether or not that includes more work in the theatre, a college education, or professional training. Hamilton attempts to create inclusion by presenting a cast of actors who are ‘majority-­minority’ – meaning that the majority of the actors are also members of groups who have been historically underrepresented in American life, in this case in both theatre and history; the SCLA, on the other hand, creates inclusion by closely replicating the state (in the US, public) school demographics of the students who live in their area of the city. Hamilton, as the result of their efforts, foregrounds a mostly black and Latin@ cast, and Miranda has discussed further diversification as the play tours internationally. The schools surrounding the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, near downtown, have demographics that include an approximately 85 per cent Latin@ majority, and these numbers are closely reflected in the demographics of WPY. Additionally, it is important to remember that the audience and the cast are explicitly drawn from this same community, which allows the dramatic community to hold a familiar, sometimes even familial, mirror up to the larger, intersectional community. In some respects, therefore, the SCLA is by definition already attuned to Crenshaw’s intersectionality praxis, in that they are ‘centered on the life chances and life situations of people who should be cared about without regard to the source of their difficulties’;27 that is, the SCLA does not choose its membership on the basis of its student-­employees’ stated or perceived difficulties, but rather serves young people from their neighbourhood and works with them in the unique circumstances of the students’ shared and specific identities. In doing so, WPY is clearly ‘designed as an activity . . . to facilitate the inclusion of marginalized groups’,28 making sure they create not only opportunity but also community for their marginalized local students.

Intersectional praxis: practical outcomes Of course, intentions are not the same as outcomes, and so it is important to look more deeply into the affect of the practice of intersectionality as it relates to the WPY programme. To do so, we will first look at the statistical success that the programme enjoys, and then at how the students work with the text and performance, combining Shakespeare’s words with their own to illuminate and reflect on ideas and concerns that, like Hamilton, posit a tri-­ partite sense of history – past, present and possible futures. The integrity of WPY’s theatrical interventions is ultimately based on outcomes. The SCLA, aware of this reality and, more importantly, invested in real change and benefit for the students, has produced an impact report.29 Here is a sampling of the results:

246

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

97 per cent of Will Power to Youth students gained confidence as the result of the programme, according to their own reporting; 95 per cent realized gains in their communication skills; 83 per cent gained further understanding of diverse others; 89 per cent believed that it would have a positive impact on their other classes in school.

l

l

l

l

This report indicates that what matters most to the SCLA is the success of young people and students. Confidence, communication, community-­building/ teamwork, and classroom performance are, in many respects, recognized as the cardinal points to academic success, but these skills also translate well to the workplace and community life. The success of the programme is the success of the individual, and so what we do not see in the report is success figured as audience size, sales, or media acknowledgement. And yet, the performance does matter, and is, in fact, at the heart of the matter.

Macbeth: Will Power to Youth, 2016 Each year, WPY chooses a new play to work on, and Macbeth was the play for 2016. As with Chernow’s Hamilton, when translated into Miranda’s American Musical script, nearly all Shakespeare performances are staged using an edited script. In the case of Hamilton, the edits were mainly of three types: condensing the biography to a manageable performance; changing from prose to a theatrical script; and setting this script to music.30 WPY also uses a three-­part process: concentrating attention on the most performance-­significant scenes and lines from Shakespeare’s script; cutting less performance-­essential material (about 25 per cent); and then adding interpolated episodes, allowing the student-­actors to write in dramatized ‘present life’ scenes that create the intersection between Shakespeare’s material and the lives they are living. Chris Anthony explains this process of adapting Shakespeare into something truly owned by the students; she says that, as opposed to, for example, the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo created the entire vision and design and used variously skilled apprentices and others to execute the masterpiece, WPY works ‘a little backwards’. Anthony says: We tell the youth, ‘We have to paint a ceiling. We know that it will have God and Adam, some angels and clouds’. Then we start asking questions: ‘Who is God? Who is Adam? What do the angels and the clouds mean to you? What’s missing from our ceiling?’ Then we work to pull our new story together. Their ideas will go through the same process of refinement that all of the professional artists apply to their own work. In the end, students will probably need the mentors to help them execute their design ideas. So when

Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection

247

the final performance comes together, all of the youth can see their ideas and hear their words onstage. It’s not on the side; their work is central.31 So Shakespeare becomes, with the students, part of a shared artistic achievement. Through this means, the students find themselves in full discussion with Shakespeare – acting both as his characters and as versions of themselves, based on their shared and unique experiences as young people growing up in central Los Angeles. As the students perform scenes from Macbeth, Shakespeare’s language is valued, respected, and preserved side-­ by-side with scenes made up entirely of the students’ own words. The students’ words are confidently voiced in conversation with Shakespeare’s. For example, at the outset of the play, following the scene with the witches,32 the performance switches from Shakespeare to an interpolated episode in which the students, in their school uniforms, are organizing a production of Macbeth. Over the school intercom comes a garbled message from the dean, the only clear words being, ‘Make good choices’. The students continue taking attendance and getting ready, and discuss doing the play for a grade, as a means to gain skills – practical reasons and nothing more. At this juncture, the play is only a tool to fulfil their various obligations and aspirations. The second interpolation follows the witches’ early prophecies to Macbeth and Banquo.33 Here again, for the student-­players, learning Shakespeare is a ‘mandatory’ project, completed for course credit. But the students, curious about the interaction between the heroes and the witches, wonder aloud why Macbeth might allow the witches essentially to write his story for him, to create his coming identity. In a move to attempt some self-­ authoring, one student decides to ignore his father’s call to work, and chooses instead to stay and participate with the play; he decides that he needs to succeed at school in order to move forward. The third interpolation makes heavier use of the idea of expectation, agency, and identity, and the audience begins to understand that a theme is forming in this blend of Shakespeare and the students. This student scene takes place as an interruption to Lady Macbeth’s ‘unsex me’ speech,34 and leads into a discussion of a woman taking charge, writing her own story, as the students perceive that men are more able to do, both in Shakespeare’s Scotland and in their own Los Angeles. From here the idea of one’s script being written by others versus authoring one’s own narrative becomes fully realized. In the fourth interpolation, the student playing Macbeth throws off the role as he simultaneously refuses to become his violent father’s violent son; in this way, we see him break from the character of Macbeth and from the pressures that have been shaping the student’s identity. Then, a new, female student-Macbeth feels empowered to take on the role and relates to the tragic hero, saying they both have something to prove; but her classmates also see that going it alone might not provide optimal results, ultimately suggesting to be ‘more like Banquo, less like Macbeth’.

248

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

As with Macbeth, the interpolated episodes begin to confront the idea of prophecy/expectation versus the agency to make one’s own way in the world. In the sixth interpolation, occurring immediately following the failed state dinner at which Macbeth is frighted by the ghost of Banquo,35 we see the female student-Macbeth now relating to the hero in her fear of not measuring up, not being good enough; as a result, she discards her borrowed robes and a third student-Macbeth steps up. He immediately must come to terms with Lady Macbeth’s self-­destruction and death, and reflects with the other students about the danger of being silent instead of telling one’s story. Ultimately, one student-­actor now comes out to his classmates as gay, saying, ‘I’m choosing to own who I am’. As the hybrid play winds to a close, we see multiple students consider Macbeth as the tragedy of lost agency, of lost authorship, the tragedy of following someone else’s story rather than writing one’s own. In the end, the students feel that Macbeth allows the witches power over his story, and in doing so gives up his self-­authoring heroism and becomes fearful and villainous; the students choose, instead, to collectively practise their own agency, as one after the next decides to choose his or her own path. Here, we see the students experiencing Shakespeare as self-­revelatory, as practical and relevant to their own circumstances, often too easily defined by either society’s or their own perceived deficits in terms of finances, race, gender and sexuality. Their paid work on a play simultaneously challenges their presumed/expected place in society, a place where their parents and surrounding community work hard but often at the economic bottom. When the actor-­students individually refuse to join the military and instead go to college, refuse to be silent, refuse to be straight, to become who their surrounding friends, families and cultures suggest they should be, they use the venue and vehicle of Shakespeare to see themselves in a larger personal, professional and civic context. They learn to work and play with diverse others, to be reflective, to form a team, to re-­author a Shakespeare play, and, by so doing, to consider the possibility of re-­authoring the story of their lives. In this respect, we see that while WPY was formed out of a need, a deficiency, in terms of access and opportunity for many of the city’s young people, that filling the need, in this case, happened by making use of Shakespeare and theatre to provide a venue to allow the students to use and better articulate their strengths and abilities as they move forward. The cast members of WPY are included on the cover of this book, following a performance of Macbeth at Los Angeles’s famous Coconut Grove Theater.

Shakespeare and theatre at the intersection In 2016, we saw the continuance of the work of Will Power to Youth in downtown Los Angeles with a production of Macbeth, and we saw the rise of Hamilton: An American Musical in New York and Chicago. The year also

Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection

249

marked the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and there were national and international conversations about who deserves to be in or out of the larger historical, literary and political narratives. All of these events point up an ongoing fact: we are always at the intersection of people and of how people get represented over time, in the present and into a hopeful future; of how people get cared for, gain voice, become themselves in their intersecting, multiple grounds of identity. Shakespeare and theatre, as demonstrated by the discussion of Hamilton and Macbeth here, have a role to play in this story. At the outset, I suggested that we might imagine a theatre scene in which the idea of a ‘safe and special place’ could be established in service of diverse communities and individuals around the globe; I believe that we are seeing that in the efforts of theatre performance such as those discussed here and also in books such as this one that create opportunities to see, and think, and expand our imaginations into new places. At one point in our ongoing conversation, Will Power to Youth Program Director Chris Anthony said to me, regarding the intersectionally-­based work of her theatre: ‘The general idea is to create a place where everyone is seen, heard, and valued. Everyone is important. Everyone.’ That, I believe, has been the motivation and practice of WPY and Hamilton, too. They are creating, practising and playing, an intersectional present in theatre as a reflection of who we were, who we are and who we still might be. In these dramas, the richly mixed stories of Alexander Hamilton, Macbeth and the youth of America suggest that the poor, oppressed and excluded – those who have been both fundamental to and forgotten in historical narratives, un- or under-­represented in our national and global conversations – can powerfully play their own diverse parts, be their varied and vitally contributing selves, build their own and our collective communities, and take their shots as part of the overall community for the cultural, social, political, economic and civic good. At this point, at the historical, theatrical and civic intersection, Shakespeare and the theatre can be ‘a safe and special place’ to attend to the lived realities and desires for agency and empowerment that reside in all of us. All of us.

Afterword: Civic Shakespeares Graham Holderness

The word ‘civic’ entered my vocabulary from a particular place and a particular time. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in a working-­class community in the northern industrial city of Leeds, my family – as council tenants – inevitably had dealings with the local ‘corporation’ offices in the ‘Civic Hall’. Centrally positioned in the ‘civic quarter’, Civic Hall faces a complex of municipal buildings, including the grand Town Hall with its still astonishing concert venue, the Central Library and the Art Gallery. Also nearby stands the building that was the Civic Theatre, built as a Mechanics’ Institute, now a museum, where I saw my first professional Shakespeare productions. Flanking the main square is the Leeds General Infirmary, where I was taken at the age of five when a coal lorry ran over my left leg, snapping it like a twig; and adjacent to the hospital stands St George’s Church, known for its work with the homeless and dispossessed. The space of the civic was thus for me a place of culture and education and public service. I used the library, frequented the Art Gallery, attended concerts in the Town Hall and plays at the Grand and Civic Theatres, and was treated in the hospital. The cultural and social resources of the city offered me a sustaining and supportive place, a place to which I belonged. But it was also infrastructural rather than merely superstructural, being home to the city’s local politics: a space of democracy, of disagreement, of conflict and competition. It was impossible to experience the ‘civic’ simply as an abstract institutional municipality, without also encountering its second OED definition: ‘Of, belonging to, or relating to a citizen or citizens; of or relating to citizenship or to the rights, duties, etc., of the citizen; befitting a citizen.’ A mile or so up the road was the grammar school where I learned that ‘civis’ was a citizen, an active and participating member of the

252

NEW PL ACES: SHAKESPEARE AND CIVIC CREATIVITY

civic arena, and that the slogan SPQR , familiar from the movies, was in ancient Rome a phrase that sealed the people to the state. A common, now outmoded phrase of the time in Leeds was ‘civic pride’, a distant echo of the Victorian confidence and ambition that built the civic quarter. I had no reason to dissent from that value of loyalty and attachment to the city that housed my family, healed me when I was injured, educated me and sent me on my way to university at Oxford. The civic was a space of education, culture, democracy; where I began to read the books that shaped my mind, attended the plays that coloured my imagination, saw the paintings and sculptures that formed my sensibilities, heard the music that still echoes in my memory. And it was the same space where the people of Leeds fought out their political disagreements, together in a communal municipal context, at both local and national level. Here in this one spot I could read, see plays, view paintings, listen to music, receive hospital treatment, pray, vote and apply for a council house. Above all, it was a space where I felt at home: I belonged; I was a citizen. All this was a long time ago, however, and this book is about the now. During the 1960s the ‘civic’ began to mean something else; the institutional apparatus of a society from which one would almost invariably wish to dissent. Another legacy of that proud Victorian culture was the socialist political beliefs that turned me (and many like me) against its institutions, its culture, its ‘establishment’. The civic culture in which I grew up was essentially like the conventional ‘Civic Shakespeare’ identified by Katharine Craik and Ewan Fernie: Civic Shakespeare, in England at least, tends to be affirmative, consolidating a sense of belonging through an appeal to a shared and familiar past. Rooted in responsibility to a participating community, Civic Shakespeare facilitates communal well-being and security, even self-celebration.1 This ‘cosy tendency’ however which offers Shakespeare as ‘a home, a refuge, a warm embrace’ masks a more sinister reality: ‘the colder environment of individualistic, bureaucratic and instrumentalized Western capitalism’. Shakespeare fundamentally operates as a vehicle of social division that shores up the status quo. If this is the case, then a ‘civic mobilization’ of Shakespeare cannot rely on existing political formations and cultural institutions, but is obliged to look elsewhere: We . . . wanted to know whether an engaged approach to the plays could open up avenues of protest, opposition and dissent, helping to forge new freedoms within civil society for its nay-sayers and outsiders, those who explicitly wish to challenge the way things are.

AFTERWORD

253

On the other hand one of this book’s aspirations is to find and occupy a ‘civic sphere’ of consensus and agreement and concord, as Ewan Fernie puts it in his introduction, ‘beyond divided institutional interests and political and religious loyalties today’. This notion seems problematically different from Habermas’s ‘public sphere’, which was precisely a space for the orderly conduct of disagreement. David Ruiter deploys a different concept of ‘civic intersection’: A place teeming with the traffic of history and present day life, of identities and narratives built, shared and owned in a lively if sometimes challenging process of self-authoring and inclusion. This is not a space beyond, but precisely the location of, ‘divided institutional interests and political and religious loyalties’. In such a place culture is made by people sharing and fighting over different identities and competing narratives, imposing and resisting master-narratives, struggling to include themselves in the story. Fernie asserts that Shakespeare ‘is, in himself, a civic intersection, a place of experiment where cultures are made, and also a place where those cultures meet and can be enlarged and remade in the light of each other’. The interchange therefore needs to be reciprocal and dialectical. Somewhere behind the now abstract term ‘civic’ are the actual citizens who constitute the civil sphere; and citizens have a habit of disagreeing with one another, resisting expert advice and not doing as they are told. We need to be confident that our civic domain of inclusion and integration, beyond political and religious controversy, is not simply an echo chamber in which we hear only the sound of our own voices: homogeneous because exclusive, harmonious because purged. Despite much routine castigation of conventional Civic Shakespeare as ‘jingoistic triumphalism’ and ‘aggressive nationalism’, as ‘ideologically conservative’, ‘reified and singular’, the many examples of effective Shakespearean public engagement discussed here show there is life in the old dog yet. David Garrick’s 1769 Jubilee, once as Michael Dobson observes casually dismissed as ‘the instigation of Bardolatry’, proves here to be a role model: an initiative that in Fernie’s words ‘took Shakespeare to the streets’, attempted to ‘bring together people of all political and religious persuasions’, and ‘made new poetry and music after Shakespeare’s example’. The Jubilee thus represented both the ‘civic’ and the ‘creative’, and provided a common ground of communal celebration. Dobson wryly admits that the 2016 revival of Garrick’s Ode seemed ‘useless and inaccessible and merely quaint’, to a nonplussed audience. But Carol Ann Duffy’s and Sally Beamish’s A Shakespeare Masque, a modern imitation and adaptation of the 1769 enterprise, seems to have been much more successful at what Fernie calls ‘community convening’, not only by virtue of its contemporary idiom, but also on account of its collaborative and participatory methodology, involving as it did almost 200 schoolchildren, some from deprived and ethnically diverse areas.

254

NEW PL ACES: SHAKESPEARE AND CIVIC CREATIVITY

Other contributors continue to regard Garrick’s Jubilee as an exemplification of the way in which a popular, celebratory projection of Shakespeare into the public arena always runs the risk of endorsing ‘cultural privilege and national identity’, elitism and xenophobia. Bradley and O’Brien are clearly disappointed that Boris Johnson did not write his book on Shakespeare, but they remain confident that its unwritten pages would have promoted a quasi-UKIP Shakespeare, nationalistic and isolationist. They turn instead to the performance by Kenneth Branagh in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics of a ‘decontextualised’ speech from The Tempest, arguing that the assignation to Brunel of Caliban’s words introduced a ‘distortion’ of Shakespeare’s meaning, thus conniving with the politics of colonialism.2 They regret that so many people would have heard this speech without the opportunity of having its ‘infidelity’ to Shakespeare exposed (‘many . . . might not pick up and read the whole play’). Indeed. But this is one of the hard lessons of Civic Shakespeare: insofar as it genuinely reaches out to a wider public, academic and scholarly control over its meanings will inevitably be weakened. To take Shakespeare ‘out there’ into civic space entails the involvement of citizens who have not internalized the assumptions we take for granted, and will tend to have their own opinions, especially about politics and the nation, even about Shakespeare. Bradley and O’Brien honestly face up to this realization as they review the results of their experiment with Shakespeare Unbard: One of the major ironies of the project was that it was a show about the history of public engagement conceived by practitioners with a foot in the academic camp, and a show whose own public engagement value remains partially theoretical . . . Interestingly the direction taken by this project was away from attempts to impose academic control, and towards a ‘creative method’ where ‘the traditional academic dialectic seems unable to resolve all of the issues raised’. ‘Where the language of debate exhausts itself in tentative, provisional conclusions, the language of artistic response begins’. The chapters on German, Italian and American public Shakespeare also represent an important dimension to this expanding and increasingly important field. The British chapters are haunted by the spectre of Brexit, and charged with pessimism about the future. In this context public Shakespeare proves a focus of anxiety, given that the Civic Shakespeare tradition the contributors seek to revise and renew has been so firmly bound up with British nationalism, while its academic critique has invested in internationalism, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism. Such anxiety is largely absent from the international contributions – and when, in the German context, Tobias Döring invokes it, he does so to move beyond it. And this is not at all because the German and Italian authors retain a secure possession of a ‘European’ identity. Quite the reverse: Döring, Silvia Bigliazzi and Shaul

AFTERWORD

255

Bassi describe a set of fascinating creative experiments in Civic Shakespeare that are resolutely and unashamedly German and Italian, just as Katherine Scheil’s enlightening study of American Shakespeare clubs reveals a confidently American claim to Shakespeare. All these authors show clearly that Shakespeare can be both national and international, English and German and Italian and American, assuming in varied cultural and linguistic contexts a different local habitation and name. ‘Shakespeare’, affirms Döring, ‘is never exclusively English nor German nor anything else, but . . . versatile, variable, culturally manifold and nationally polymorph’. Given the focus on non-professional public activities, these international essays represent an interesting departure, since the various Civic Shakespeare presented from Germany and Italy and America are so distinctively national, while the global academic discourse we share is much more homogeneous. Bigliazzi shows how necessary it is, when aspiring to challenge and critique the popular, to work with the people, to take them with you, and to go along with them, both constituencies ‘ready to transcend their roles’. The civic consists of citizens who are not uniformly passive victims to be cared for and enlightened, nor stubbornly entrenched obstacles to progress earmarked for removal. We can all agree on the need to ‘open the culture of the West up to the knowledge and experience of those others who live among us’ (Craik and Fernie); but if at the same time we ‘don’t know what British nationality consists of’ (Edmondson, quoting novelist Philip Hensher) then we need to start listening to the people, and engaging with them through the common ground of Shakespeare in a genuinely reciprocal and dialectical conversation. Shakespeare can help with this because Shakespeare has never belonged exclusively to the elite, or the academy, or ‘canonical culture’, nor ever solidified into a token of one party or another. If, as Paul Edmondson affirms, Wagner can be purified of the contamination of Nazism, to purge Shakespeare from elitism and xenophobia should not be thought of as an unattainable goal. Despite its undercurrents of political lament, this book maps out a bright and promising future for Civic Shakespeare. Shakespeare can be, has been, always will be genuinely popular, of the people. In the kind of civic space I described at the beginning, the professional and the amateur, the academic and the vulgar, the elitist and the popular co-existed and intermingled. Leeds Civic Theatre hosted professional Shakespeare, but also my own school’s amateur plays, both attended by my working-class parents. The one single space hosted canonical culture, amateur participation and active creativity. The kind of creative interventions rendered possible by public Shakespeare are richly on display here. Duffy’s A Shakespeare Masque features prominently, counterpointed by the more radical experiments exemplified by the revue Shakespeare Unbard, the new play at the heart of The Marina Project, the ecclesiastical liturgy Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love, and Paul Edmondson’s extraordinary libretto merging a celebratory Ode to Shakespeare with the music of Wagner. In these innovative initiatives

256

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity

academics and others can be seen taking risks, cutting their moorings and venturing out on potentially perilous waters: no longer ‘bound by expectations of coherence, completeness or truth’; regarding Shakespeare as raw material to be broken up and used for new building; and reaching out to an audience equally ‘unbound by academic or theatrical expectations’. These experiments in civic creativity are undoubtedly the book’s most exciting and original contribution. Rather than seeking to disseminate established knowledge, they invite question and provoke debate, proving that there is no civic sphere ‘beyond divided institutional interest and political and religious loyalties’. This is perhaps the hardest lesson for academics, under pressure to secure public engagement and impact, to learn: the need to preach (not to lecture) to the unconverted. The editors and contributors of New Places face up to this responsibility, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes ruefully, but always with courage, dedication and costly self-­exposure.

Notes

Introduction 1 Michael Dobson, The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation and Authorship, 1660–1769 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Martha Winburn England, ‘Garrick’s Stratford Jubilee: Reactions in France and Germany’ Shakespeare Survey 9 (1956), 90–100. 2 See Ewan Fernie, Shakespeare for Freedom: Why the Plays Matter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 113–47 for an account of the emancipatory Shakespearean tradition which Garrick initiated. 3 The New York Times called it ‘superb’: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/ arts/music/shakespeares-­hometown-celebrates-­its-famous-­son-in-­song.html?rref =collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts-­international&action=click&content Collection=international®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights &contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0; the Guardian said it was ‘stylishly performed’: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/24/ shakespeare-­odes-review-­david-­garrick-­thomas-arne-­holy-trinity-­churchstratford-­upon-avon-­ex-cathedra; while the Daily Express called it ‘the most memorable’ event of 2016: http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/ theatre/665763/Opera-­reviews-Tannhauser-Shakespeare-Odes; but the Daily Telegraph demurred, calling the concert ‘twee’: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ music/what-­to-listen-­to/ex-­cathedras-musical-­homage-to-­shakespeares-odes-­istwee---revie/ (all accessed 4 April 2017). 4 See, for example, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/jan/05/ shakespeare-­euro-laureate (accessed 5 April 2017). 5 See John Francis Lane, ‘Shakespeare in Italy’, Shakespeare Quarterly 30.2 (1979), 306–10, 307; and also Silvia Bigliazzi and Lisanna Calvi, ‘Introduction’, in Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet and Civic Life: The Boundaries of Civic Space, ed. Silvia Bigliazzi and Lisanna Calvi (New York and London: Routledge, 2016), 13. 6 See Scheil’s own excellent book on this subject: She Hath Been Reading: Women and Shakespeare Clubs in America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012). 7 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 277. 8 John Carey, What Good Are the Arts? (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), 167.

258

Notes

9 See Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 136–38. In their introduction to this co-­authored book, Gallagher and Greenblatt nevertheless insist on the value of the separate ‘individual voice’ (12), identifying what was originally drafted by each author, which is why I attribute this particular consideration to Greenblatt. 10 Rita Felski, The Limits of Critique (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2015). 11 Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 8. 12 Thomas Bridges, The Culture of Citizenship: Inventing Postmodern Civic Culture (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 7. 13 Peter Holbrook tellingly quotes Max Weber, writing as long ago as 1909, on this increasing mechanization of social life: ‘[By rational calculation] the performance of each individual worker is mathematically measured, each man becomes a little cog in the machine and, aware of this, his one preoccupation is whether he can become a bigger cog’ (Shakespeare’s Individualism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 56). See also Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason (London: Continuum, 2004); and Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (London: Verso, 1997). 14 Peter Bazalgette, The Empathy Instinct: How to Create a More Civil Society (London: John Murray, 2017). 15 Stuart Hall, ‘The Meaning of New Times’, in New Times: The Changing Face of Politics in the 1990s, ed. Stuart Hall and Martin Jacques (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1989), 133. Hall is citing Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006). 16 See Stuart Hall, ‘Minimal Selves’, in Identity: The Real Me, ICA Documents 6, 44–46. 17 See Almond and Verba, 593–44. 18 For instance, David Cameron’s government in the UK went so far as to adopt Philip Blond and his book, Red Tory: How Left and Right have Broken Britain and How we Can Fix It (London: Faber, 2010) as a way of promoting a ‘Big Society’ agenda which was just such an attempt to get people to look after themselves without depending on the state. 19 See Stuart Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left (London: Verso, 1988). 20 Alan Sinfield, ‘Give an account of Shakespeare and Education, showing why you think they are effective and what you have appreciated about them. Support your comments with precise references’, in Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism, ed. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), 137. 21 See Václav Havel, ‘The Power of the Powerless’, trans. Paul Wilson, International Journal of Politics 15.3/4 (1985–86), 23–96. Havel defines his ideal as an embodiment of ‘anti-­political’ politics in Living in Truth, ed. Jan Vladislav and trans. P. Wilson (London: Faber and Faber, 1987), 155–57.

Notes

259

See also George Konrad, Antipolitics, trans. Richard E. Allen (London: Quartet Books, 1984). 22 Havel, ‘The Power of the Powerless’, 91. 23 Ibid., 65. 24 Ibid., 65, 94. 25 Ibid., 95. 26 Ibid., 52. 27 Ibid., 93, 95.

Chapter 1 1 David Garrick, An ode, upon dedicating a building, and erecting a statue, to Shakespeare, at Stratford upon Avon (London, 1769), 1, 2. See text following. 2 I am grateful to Iain Mackintosh for details, and for a copy of the script and programme from that occasion. 3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ehw2mb/acts/an8p8g#p03sklft (accessed 25 May 2017). 4 Edmund Gosse’s influential short history of the form, written for the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1911, leaves out this celebrated example altogether. 5 Garrick, Ode, ‘Advertisement’. 6 Garrick, Ode, 11–12. 7 The text is printed in the London Chronicle, 9 April 1757. 8 This painting, which Garrick donated to Stratford, was destroyed in a fire at the Town Hall, though it has been reconstructed from prints. See, e.g. the copy at Charlecote Park: http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/533870 (accessed 25 May 2017). 9 See http://publications.newberry.org/digitalexhibitions/archive/files/ 15afac9b061c49135cc86c80be54e13e.jpg (accessed 25 May 2017). 10 http://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3488224 (accessed 25 May 2017). 11 This is presumably the very statue of Shakespeare which appeared at the climax of Garrick’s pantomime Harlequin’s Invasion (1759). For many years it perched on top of the theatre’s porch, serving as the equivalent of a pub sign. 12 On this, see especially Peter Holland, ‘David Garrick: Saints, Temples and Jubilees’, Actes des congrès de la Société française Shakespeare 33.1 (2015), http:// shakespeare.revues.org/3020 (accessed 7 July 2016); DOI : 10.4000/ shakespeare.3020. Reprinted in Celebrating Shakespeare: Commemoration and Cultural Memory, ed. Clara Calvo and Coppélia Kahn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 15–37. 13 The script of The Jubilee never appeared in an authorized edition in Garrick’s lifetime, and its text as provided in volume 2 of The Plays of David Garrick,

260

Notes

ed. Harry William Pedicord and Fredrick Lois Bergmann (6 vols, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1981), does not incorporate that of the Ode. However, it is clear from contemporary accounts and images that The Jubilee usually concluded with a reprise of the Ode, as per the unauthorized version published in Ireland in 1773: The jubilee in honour of Shakespeare. A musical entertainment, As performed at the theatre in Waterford (Waterford, 1773); see 24–32. 14 See http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-­photo/david-­garrick-reciting-­ the-jubilee-­ode-at-­drury-lane-­news-photo/173340194 (accessed 25 May 2017). 15 The Duke of Dorset (High Steward of the Borough), with the concurrence of Mr. Bradley (owner of the land), most generously ordered a great number of Trees to be cut down, to open the river Avon for the Jubilee. 16 This alludes to a design of enclosing a large common field at Stratford.

Chapter 2 1 A full text of Havard’s ode can be found in Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage Volume 4 1753–1765, ed. Brian Vickers (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1976), 290–91. 2 Michael Tavinor, ‘ “Titles and Ermine Fall Behind”, an Ode to Shakespeare by William Boyce: Critical Study and Performing Edition’, MMus. Diss. University of London, 1977. 3 ‘Richard’ by Carol Ann Duffy, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/ mar/26/richard-­iii-by-­carol-ann-­duffy (accessed 21 August 2017). 4 Shakespeare was also the poem that Duffy chose to read as her public contribution to the Shakespeare Birthday Lunch on Saturday 23 April 2016. 5 www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/arts/music/shakespeares-­hometown-celebrates-­ its-famous-­son-in-­song.html (accessed 4 September 2017). 6 Sally Beamish, http://www.editionpeters.com/works/a-­shakespearemasque/216212 (accessed 24 August 2017). 7 Ex Cathedra gave performances of Garrick’s Ode and A Shakespeare Masque at the Town Hall, Birmingham (24 April), Hereford Cathedral (6 May), St Peter’s Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton (7 May), the Milton Court Concert Hall, London (12 May), and Southwell Minster (28 May). 8 Sally Beamish, http://www.editionpeters.com/works/a-­shakespearemasque/216212 (accessed 24 August 2017). 9 A recording of the broadcast of Ex Cathedra’s Shakespeare Odes concert in Holy Trinity Church on 22 April 2016, which comprised their revival of Garrick’s Ode and the premiere of A Shakespeare Masque (music by Sally Beamish and words by Carol Ann Duffy), is available for consultation in the BBC’s archive. An access copy can also be consulted in the archives of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Notes

261

Chapter 3 1 Andrew Dickson, ‘Brexit, pursued by a bear: Boris Johnson shelves his Shakespeare biography’, Guardian, 23 July 2016. https://www.theguardian. com/books/2016/jul/23/boris-­johnson-shakespeare-­biography-brexit-­riddle-of-­ genius (accessed 15 November 2016). 2 Gary Taylor, Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present (London: Hogarth Press, 1990), 411. 3 Anon., ‘Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius By Boris Johnson’, https:// www.hodder.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781473648135 (accessed 15 November 2016). 4 Clara Calvo and Coppélia Kahn, ‘Introduction: Shakespeare and commemoration’, in Celebrating Shakespeare: Commemoration and Cultural Memory, ed. Clara Calvo and Coppélia Kahn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 4. 5 Alan Sinfield, ‘Introduction: Reproductions, interventions’, in Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism, ed. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), 132. 6 Calvo and Kahn, ‘Introduction’, 4. 7 This passage draws in part on the description of ‘public and popular ‘remembrance’ offered in Ton Hoenselaars and Clara Calvo, ‘Introduction: Shakespeare and the Cultures of Commemoration’, Critical Survey 22 (2010): 1. Much of the above and the observations which follow, however, relate equally to ‘rehearsal’ – Hoenselaars and Calvo’s term for a distinct and somewhat opposed form of commemoration, elaborated by Graham Holderness (‘Remembrance of things past: Shakespeare 1851, 1951, 2012’, in Celebrating Shakespeare, ed. Calvo and Kahn, 79–80). 8 Alan Sinfield, ‘Give an account of Shakespeare and Education, showing why you think they are effective and what you have appreciated about them. Support your comments with precise references’, in Political Shakespeare, ed. Dollimore and Sinfield, 137. 9 Calvo and Kahn (eds), ‘Introduction’, 8. 10 Hester Bradley, Ronan Hatfull and Richard O’Brien, Shakespeare Unbard (University of Birmingham, 2013). All subsequent references to this unpublished script are integrated into the text. While the three named authors had specific responsibility for writing individual scenes, the script was formed in the rehearsal room with the full participation of Kate Alexander, Georgie Cockerill, Charlotte Horobin and Alex Whiteley: these performers also contributed lyrics, musical compositions and arrangements throughout the piece. 11 See, for example, ‘celebration, n.’, OED Online, December 2016. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/29415?redirectedFrom= celebration (accessed 3 January 2017); ‘festival, n.’, OED Online, December 2016. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/69567? redirectedFrom=festival (accessed 3 January 2017); ‘jubilee, n.’, OED Online, December 2016. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/

262

Notes

101849?rskey=4zhRXO&result=1&isAdvanced=false (accessed 3 January 2017). 12 Susan Sontag, ‘What’s Happening in America (A Symposium)’, Partisan Review 34.1 (1967): 57–58. http://hgar-­srv3.bu.edu/collections/partisan-­review/search/ detail?id=326075 (accessed 15 November 2016). 13 Mark Thornton Burnett, ‘Shakespeare Exhibition and Festival Culture’, in The Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts, ed. Mark ThorntonBurnett, Adrian Streete and Ramona Wray (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 460. 14 Holderness, ‘Remembrance’, 82. 15 David Garrick, ‘An Ode Upon Dedicating A Building, And Erecting A Statue, To Shakespeare, At Stratford Upon Avon’, in The Poetical Works Of David Garrick, Esq. Now First Collected Into Two Volumes With Explanatory Notes (London: George Kearsley, 1785), 52–71. http://gateway.proquest.com. ezproxyd.bham.ac.uk/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88–2003&xri:pqil:res_ ver=0.2&res_id=xri:lion&rft_id=xri:lion:ft:po:Z000631862:0 (accessed 3 January 2017). 16 Christian Deelman, The Great Shakespeare Jubilee (New York: Viking Press, 1964), 5. 17 For the Queen’s song, see the ‘Air’ beginning ‘Thou soft-­flowing Avon’ in Garrick, Ode, 69. For ‘Warwickshire’, see David Garrick, Shakespeare’s garland. Being a collection of new songs, ballads, roundelays, catches, glees, comic-­serenatas, &c. Performed at the jubille [sic] at Sratford [sic] upon Avon. The musick by Dr. Arne, Mr. Barthelimon, Mr. Ailwood, and Mr. Dibdin (London: printed for T. Becket, and P. A. de Hondt, 1769), 4–6. http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?& source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=bham_uk&tabID=T001&docId= CW109966904&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&doc Level=FASCIMILE (accessed 3 January 2017). 18 ‘lad, n.1’, OED Online, December 2016. Oxford University Press. http://www. oed.com/view/Entry/104972?rskey=qCKYRw&result=1&isAdvanced= false (accessed 3 January 2017). See the 2001 Draft additions. 19 Holderness, ‘Remembrance’, 79. 20 See, for instance, Jem Bloomfield, Words of Power: Reading Shakespeare and the Bible (Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 2016). 21 A formulation offered by David Ruiter, in response to Raymond Carver, during ‘The White Guy in the Room: Shakespeare and Me at the Edge of Texas/ Justice’ – a lecture delivered at The Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-­upon-Avon, on 14 January 2015. 22 The stage-­direction appears in the Huntington MS of The Stratford Jubilee: A new comedy of two acts (1769–70 season, published 1769) written in David Garrick’s own hand, detailing the grand procession of characters, The Pageant, at the end of the play. It is discussed in Vanessa Cunningham, Shakespeare and Garrick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 114–16. 23 ‘jubilee, n.’, OED Online, December 2016. Oxford University Press. http:// www.oed.com/view/Entry/101849?rskey=4zhRXO&result=1&isAdvanced= false (accessed 3 January 2017). See sense 2.

Notes

263

24 Garrick, Ode. 25 Responses to this prompt are gathered at https://twitter.com/search?q=%23 dearshakespeare&src=typd; see https://soundcloud.com/ronanhatfull/unbard-­ soundscape for a compilation of some of the questions we received, arranged by Ronan Hatfull. 26 See Kate Rumbold, ‘Shakespeare and the Stratford Jubilee’, in Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Fiona Ritchie and Peter Sabor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 259–60. 27 Elizabeth Montagu, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear, Compared with the Greek and French Dramatic Poets with Some Remarks Upon the Misrepresentations of Mons. de Voltaire (London: Printed for J. Dodsley, Pall-­mall; Mess. Baker and Leigh, York Street, Covent-­garden; J. Walter, Charing-­cross; T. Cadell, in the Strand; and J. Wilkie, 78 St. Paul’s Church-­yard: 1769). 28 Ben Jonson, Discoveries, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online, ed. David Bevington, Martin Butler and Ian Donaldson. http:// universitypublishingonline.org.ezproxye.bham.ac.uk/cambridge/benjonson/k/ works/discoveries/ (accessed 3 January 2017). 29 See Angela Bartie et al., ‘The Pageant of England’, The Redress of the Past: Historical Pageants in Britain. https://histpag.dighum.kcl.ac.uk/pageants/1151/ (accessed 15 November 2016). 30 Peter Merrington, ‘ “New Pageantry” and British Imperial Identity’, in Archaeologies of the British: Explorations of identity in Great Britain and its colonies 1500–1945, ed. Susan Lawrence (London: Routledge, 2003), 257. 31 Work of this kind included Amy Binns, ‘New Heroines for New Causes: How provincial women promoted a revisionist history through post-­suffrage pageants’; Daryl Leeworthy, ‘ “A Chorus of Greek Poignancy”: Memory, Popular History, and the South Wales Miners’ Pageants of 1939’; Paul Readman, ‘The redress of the past: historical pageants in Britain 1905–2016’ (papers presented at ‘History In The Limelight: Performing The Past, c. 1850 to The Present’, UCL Institute of Education, London, 8–10 September 2016).

Chapter 4 1 What is Art? (1897), trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (London: Penguin, 1995). 2 ‘In Memory of W.B. Yeats’, in The English Auden: Poems, Essays and Dramatic Writings, 1927–1939, ed. Edward Mendelson (London: Faber, 1977), 242. 3 ‘The Man and the Echo’, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats (London: Macmillan, 1950), 393. 4 P.B. Shelley, A Defence of Poetry (1821), in Shelley’s Prose, ed. David Lee Clark (London: Fourth Estate, 1988), 297. 5 Der Zauberberg, ‘Fülle des Wohllauts’ (Frankfurt: S. Fischer Verlag, 1952), 820.

264

Notes

6 Solon (c. 638 bc to c. 558 bc ), historically a shadowy figure, but seen by later generations in the ancient world as the archetypal law-­maker. 7 For an account that amply partakes of the moralizing points of view it aims to analyse, see Eleonora Belfiore and Oliver Bennett, The Social Impact of the Arts: an Intellectual History (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2008). 8 Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Shakespeare, or the Poet’, in Representative Men, ed. Wallace E. Williams and Douglas Emory Wilson, The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 4 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1987), 117. 9 Trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), §189a–§193e. 10 Wallace Stevens, ‘Adagia’, in Opus Posthumous, ed. Samuel French Morse (New York: Knopf, 1957), 174. 11 Quotations from Shakespeare are from The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. (3rd ed., New York: W. W. Norton, 2016). 12 See W.B. Yeats, ‘A General Introduction for my Work’, in Essays and Introductions (London: Macmillan, 1961), 509. 13 BRB programme of performances, 2016. I am grateful to David Bintley and the BRB for supplying video recordings from the BRB archives, and to Sally Beamish and Peters Edition for supplying a piano version of the score (The Tempest, Leipzig: Peters, 2015). 14 I am grateful to Ex Cathedra, Sally Beamish and Peters Edition for supplying a piano version of the score (A Shakespeare Masque, Leipzig: Peters, 2016). 15 Shakespeare Live!, conceived by Gregory Doran, hosted by David Tennant and Catherine Tate, DVD, BBC/RSC, 2016. 16 For a more detailed consideration of the text, see Chapter 2 in this volume. 17 Also known as eurhythmics, it is the method through which Marie Rambert (who had studied with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze) taught the complex rhythms of the original Nijinsky choreography for The Rite of Spring to Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

Chapter 5 1 Ewan Fernie (ed.), Redcrosse: Remaking Religious Poetry for Today’s World (London: Bloomsbury, 2012). 2 Paul Fiddes wrote the first draft, which was then revised and augmented by Andrew Taylor, Lynn Robson, Myra Blyth and Nicholas Wood. 3 For more details, see Paul S. Fiddes, ‘Shakespeare in Church: Reflection on an Intertextual Liturgy, Based on A Midsummer Night’s: Dream’, Ecclesial Practices 4.2 (2017), 199–217. 4 References are to the Arden edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ed. Harold F. Brooks (London: Methuen, 1979).

Notes

265

5 See Alison Shell, Shakespeare and Religion (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2010), 56–58. 6 The deutero-Pauline authorship of the Letter to the Ephesians is now generally recognized by New Testament scholars. 7 So Beatrice Groves, ‘ “The Wittiest Partition”: Bottom, Paul and Comedic Resurrection’, Notes and Queries 252.3 (2007), 277–82. 8 New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Chapter 6 1 Peter Holbrook tellingly quotes Max Weber, writing as long ago as 1909, on this increasing mechanization of social life: ‘[By rational calculation] the performance of each individual worker is mathematically measured, each man becomes a little cog in the machine and, aware of this, his one preoccupation is whether he can become a bigger cog’ (Shakespeare’s Individualism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 56). See also Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason (London: Continuum, 2004); and Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (London: Verso, 1997). 2 The quotation is from King Lear, ed. R.A. Foakes (London: Arden, 1997), 5.3.15. For an authoritative insight into the poor state of social mobility in the UK, see the Social Mobility Commission’s summary of their report, ‘State of the Nation 2016: Social Mobility in Great Britain’: https://www.gov.uk/ government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/569412/Social_ Mobility_2016_Summary_final.pdf (accessed 4 December 2016). For an admission of the tyranny of grades in current education, see the following article from the Daily Telegraph on 14 May 2015: http://www.telegraph. co.uk/education/educationnews/11605940/There-­is-more-­to-life-­than-exam-­ grades-says-­head-of-­exams-watchdog.html (accessed 4 December 2016). 3 Hamlet, ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor (London: Arden, 2006), 1.5.186–87. 4 Compare George Lillo’s Marina: A Play of Three Acts (London: J. Gray, 1738) which cherishes Marina’s chastity as a way of cleansing Shakespeare of his collaborators’ ‘chaff’ (3). Samuel Wellwood’s Marina, A Dramatic Romance (London: Grant Richards, 1902) also focuses on Marina’s story but reduces the challenge of the original by excising its ‘sordid and offensive’ opening (5) – as does Lillo. 5 See Midsummer Mischief: Four Radical New Plays (London: Oberon Books, 2014), iii. 6 Alycia Smith-Howard, Studio Shakespeare: the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Other Place (London: Ashgate, 2006), 4. 7 Suzanne Gossett’s Arden edition breaks new ground in attributing co-­authorship of the play to George Wilkins as well as Shakespeare on its title page. For ‘the absolute Marina’, see Shakespeare and Wilkins, Pericles, ed. Suzanne Gossett (London: Arden, 2004), 4.0.31.

266

Notes

8 See Midsummer Mischief, iii. 9 See T.S. Eliot, ‘Marina’, in The Complete Poems and Plays of T.S. Eliot (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), 109. 10 See recent reports of the seventy-­five trafficked Syrian women recently released from a brothel in Lebanon: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-­middleeast–35957845; https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/blog/2016/4/6/lebanon-­ sexual-slavery-­network-run-­by-ex-­assad-regime-­officer (both accessed 4 December 2016). 11 Marie H. Loughlin, Hymeneutics: Interpreting Virginity on the Early Modern Stage (London: Associated University Presses, 1997). See also Marie Van Deusen’s Chastity: A Study in Perception, Ideals, Oppositions (Brill: Leiden and Boston, 2008), which explores chastity from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. 12 Bonnie Lander Johnson, Chastity in Early Stuart Literature and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); and Tanya Pollard, Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 13 Philippa Berry, Of Chastity and Power: Elizabethan Literature and the Unmarried Queen (London and New York: Routledge, 1989). See also Susan Frye, Elizabeth I: The Competition for Representation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), especially 116–19. 14 Shakespeare’s collaboration with Wilkins is vividly imagined in Charles Nicholl, The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street (London: Allen Lane, 2007). ‘Two themes’, Nicholl writes, ‘emerge with obsessive regularity from Wilkins’s police record: violence and prostitution, and sometimes they combine in acts of violence against women who are said or inferred to be prostitutes’ (204). 15 Jonathan Dollimore, Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (rev. 3rd ed., Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010). 16 Jennifer Heath (ed.), The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore and Politics (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008), 1–23 (3); Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male–Female Dynamics in Muslim Society (Cambridge, MA: Saqi Books, 2003), 27–45. 17 See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12090388/ Europe-­in-crisis-­over-sex-­attacks-by-­migrants-amid-­calls-for-­emergency-EUmeeting.html (accessed 4 December 2016). 18 The play’s focus on dispossession, and its particular resonance for recent politics of asylum, was explored in the RSC’s 2003 collaboration with homeless people’s theatre company Cardboard Citizens. The production is described by Sarah Beckwith in Shakespeare and the Grammar of Forgiveness (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011), 99. 19 For an existentially and ethically powerful account of what happens to Marina, see Simon Palfrey, ‘The Rape of Marina’, in Shakespeare’s Possible Worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 297–316. 20 Dawn Chatty, ‘The Syrian Humanitarian Disaster: Disparities in Perceptions, Aspirations, and Behaviour in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey’, Institute of Development Studies Bulletin 47.3 (2016): 19–33.

Notes

267

21 See Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York and London: Routledge, 1990), 25–34, 32. 22 For a summary of The Casey Review, see: https://www.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/574566/The_Casey_Review_ Exec_Summary.pdf (accessed 5 December 2016).

Chapter 7 1 These are Portia’s words about one of her hopeful suitors, in The Merchant of Venice, ed. John Drakakis (London: Arden, 2010) 1.2.82–84. 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pgnbk (accessed 21 September 2016). 3 Cf. Hubert Spiegel, ‘Mein Name ist Shakespeare, Wilhelm Shakespeare’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (29 April 2014), 11. The event was covered in all major German media and featured in the primetime national TV news. 4 Andrew Dickson, Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare’s Globe (London: Bodley Head, 2015), 65. 5 For a comprehensive study of German literary engagements with Shakespeare, see Roger Paulin, The Critical Reception of Shakespeare in Germany, 1682–1914 (Hildesheim: Olms, 2003). 6 The relevant study is Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006). 7 Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 8. 8 Thomas Bridges, The Culture of Citizenship: Inventing Postmodern Civic Culture (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994), 7. 9 See Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture, 593–94. 10 Jonathan Bate, Shakespearean Constitutions: Politics, Theatre, Criticism, 1730–1830 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). 11 Bochum, situated in the Ruhr area of western Germany, is the second home of the German Shakespeare Society; during the Cold War years of German partition, the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft West was based there from 1964 to 1993. For survey articles on the history of the German ShakespeareGesellschaft, see the contributions by Werner Habicht, Ruth Freifrau von Ledebur, Christa Jansohn and Dieter Mehl in German Shakespeare-Studies at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, ed. Christa Jansohn (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2006), 239–304. 12 See Ein Pfund Fleisch, in Shakespeare Variationen, ed. Uwe B. Carstensen, Stefanie von Lieven and Bettina Walter (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, 2012), 211–66; see also Ostermaier’s poetry sequence on figures from The Merchant of Venice in his volume Außer mir (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2014). 13 Together with Günter Senkel, Zaimoglu produced German versions of Othello (premiered in Munich in 2003), Romeo and Juliet (Kiel 2006), Hamlet (Hamburg 2010) and Julius Caesar (Kiel 2011).

268

Notes

14 Tobias Döring (ed.), Wie er uns gefällt: Gedichte an und auf Shakespeare (Zürich: Manesse, 2014). 15 For the published versions of most of these lectures, see Shakespeare Jahrbuch, vol. 151 (Bochum: Kamp, 2015); Ewan Fernie’s piece ‘ “Freetown!” Shakespeare and Social Flourishing’ is published in Shakespeare Survey 68 (2015): 294–305. 16 My translation; the original reads: ‘Ich las in diesen Tagen die Shakespeareschen Stücke, die den Krieg der zwey Rosen abhandeln, und bin nun nach Beendigung Richards III mit einem wahren Erstaunen erfüllt. [. . .] Die großen Schicksale, angesponnen in den vorhergehenden Stücken sind darinn auf eine wahrhaft große Weise geendiget, und nach der erhabensten Idee stellen sie sich nebeneinander. [. . .] Die Mühe wäre es wahrhaftig werth, diese Suite von acht Stücken, mit aller Besonnenheit deren man jetzt fähig ist, für die Bühne zu behandeln. Eine Epoche könnte dadurch eingeleitet werden. Wir müssen darüber wirklich conferieren.’ Friedrich Schiller, Briefe II. 1795–1805, ed. Norbert Oellers (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 2002), 344–45, letter of 28 November 1797; Goethe’s answer (2 December 1797) is reprinted in Johann Wolfgang Goethe mit Schiller. Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche. Teil I: vom 24. Juni 1794 bis zum 31. Dezember 1799, ed. Volker C. Dörr and Norbert Oellers (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1998), 457. 17 My translation; the original reads: ‘Der Dorn der rothen und der weißen Rose/ Reiße noch einmal alle Wunden auf,/ Woraus in dreißigjähr’gem Bruderkampfe/ Das lustige Alt-England, ähnlich wie/ Das deutsche Reich, grausam verblutete./ Die Großen sollen lernen sammt den Kleinen,/ Wohin das Unrecht, die Entzweiung führt./ Doch auch getröstet mögen sie erkennen,/ Daß ein gesundes, lebensfähiges Volk/ Aus innerem Drangsal, wie aus fremdem Druck/ Sich durch die eigne Kraft erheben kann,/ Sobald es sie und sich zu sammeln weiß.’ Franz Dingelstedt, Sämmtliche Werke, vol. 9, Dritte Abteilung: Theater. Erster Band (Berlin: Verlag von Gebrüder Patel, 1877), 45. 18 See: ‘Das Land, das Meister Willliam uns gesandt,/ Hat sich vom Mutterlande abgewandt;/ Dem Dänen, unsrem Feind, hat sich’s versprochen,/ Ihm, dessen Fäulniß Hamlet schon gerochen./ Auf Deutschlands Grenzen lauern in der Runde/ Die alten Gegner auf die neue Stunde’, Dingelstedt, Sämmtliche Werke, 43. 19 Franz Dingelstedt, Studien und Copien nach Shakespeare (Pest, Wien, Leipzig: Harlebens Verlags-Expedition, 1858), 5–6. 20 In the original: ‘wir wollen den Engländer Shakespeare gleichsam entenglisiren, wir wollen ihn verdeutschen, verdeutschen im weitesten und tiefsten Sinne des Wortes, d.h. wir wollen nach Kräften dazu beitragen, dass er das, was er bereits ist, ein deutscher Dichter, immer mehr im wahrsten und vollsten Sinne des Wortes werde.’ Hermann Ulrici, ‘Jahresbericht’, in Shakespeare Jahrbuch 2 (1867), 1–16, here 3; the English version follows (yet modifies) the citation in Werner Habicht, who also offers the broader historical perspective, in ‘Shakespeare and the German Imagination: Cult, Controversy and Performance’ in Shakespeare: World Views, ed. Heather Kerr, Robin Eaden and Madge Mitton (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1996), 87–101, here 95.

Notes

269

21 My translation; the original reads: ‘Das Volk gerade ist es, welches am ersten einen inneren Grund hat, den heutigen Tag festlich zu begehen. Denn Shakespeare ist aus dem Volke hervorgegangen; sein Vater war Gewerbetreibender, zuerst Handschuhmacher, später Fleischer und Wollhändler. Die Vermögensverhältnisse desselben gestatteten es nicht, dem Sohne eine wissenschaftliche Bildung geben zu lassen. Dieser, dem im Reiche des Geistes eine so große Zukunft bevorstand, besuchte nur ganz einfach die Freischule seines Geburtsorts.’ A. L. Lua, Shakespeare. Eine Festrede, gehalten bei der volksthümlichen Feier des dreihundertsten Geburtstags des Dichters im Saale des alten Weinbergs zu Schidlitz (Danzig: Verlag Constantin Ziemssen, 1864), 9. 22 For a detailed study of the political streamlining and collaboration of the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft during the Nazi era, see Ruth Freifrau von Ledebur, Der Mythos vom deutschen Shakespeare. Die deutsche ShakespeareGesellschaft zwischen Politik und Wissenschaft 1918–1945 (Köln: Böhlau, 2002). 23 Andreas Höfele, No Hamlets. German Shakespeare from Nietzsche to Carl Schmitt (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016), 12; this study gives a very substantial and comprehensive account of Shakespeare’s place in German political philosophy, especially in the tradition of the far right. 24 See: ‘Shakespeare nimmt entschieden Partei für das englische Volkstheater: er will sich an die “Natur”, die in Leben und Geschichte gegebene Wirklichkeit halten’; Hermann Ulrici, Shakespeare’s Dramatische Kunst. Geschichte und Charakteristik des Shakespeareschen Dramas (Leipzig: T.O. Weigel, 1874), 368. 25 See Robert Weimann, Shakespeare und die Tradition des Volkstheaters (Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1967); Shakespeare und die Macht der Mimesis. Autorität und Repräsentation im elisabethanischen Theater (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1988); Zwischen Performanz und Repräsentation: Shakespeare und die Macht des Theaters. Aufsätze von 1959–1995, ed. Christian W. Thomsen and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer (Heidelberg: Winter, 2000). 26 For a thrilling study of amateur Shakespeare productions and their cultural relevance, see Michael Dobson, Shakespeare and amateur performance (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011). 27 See: ‘Ganz besonders wurde die Gesamtwirkung erhöht durch Dingelstedts Fähigkeit, mit Massen zu operieren. Er selbst spricht einmal von seinem “angeborenen Hang zu Massenentwicklungen und Massenwirkungen” [. . .]. Das Volk – das in den Historien eine handelnde Rolle spielen muß, dessen das historische Drama so wenig entbehren kann wie das Historienbild der Gruppen und Massen – dies Volk will in der Darstellung, obwohl es auf dem Zettel zu unterst steht, mit oberster Sorgfalt bedacht und behandelt werden.’ Rudolf Roenneke, Franz Dingelstedts Wirksamkeit am Weimarer Hoftheater. Dissertation (Greifswald: Buchdruckerei Hans Adler, 1912), 198–99. httpx:// archive.org/stream/3865762/3865762_djvu.txt (accessed 15 December 2016). 28 Published in Shakespeare Jahrbuch 151 (2015), 11–16. 29 My translation; in the original: ‘Ein Feuer zu zünden/ Das sonnengleich leuchtet/ Unlösch- unzerstörbar/ Die Herzen erwärmend,/ Die Geister erhebend–/

270

Notes

Vermag nur der Dichter,/ Vom Himmel geweiht/ Zum irdischen Herold/ Des ewigen Lebens’ (ibid.) 30 In the original: ‘Wann man dich auch citiren kann,/ Komm doch ein Weil zu mir,/ Und gönne mir, du großer Mann,/ Ein kurz Gespräch mit dir./ Hört uns das Gsind und spottet mein,/ So bitt ich, hilf du mir./ Ich will dir dann dein Rüpel sein,/ Sonst kann ich nichts dafür.’ Reprinted in Wie er uns gefällt, 12.

Chapter 8 1 John Francis Lane, ‘Shakespeare in Italy’, Shakespeare Quarterly 30.2 (1979): 306–10, 307. 2 Vittorio Betteloni, ‘La leggenda di Giulietta’, Bollettino della Società Letteraria di Verona ([1905] 2008), 55. 3 Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 171–72; Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality. Essays (San Diego, New York and London: Harcourt & Brace, 1986), 36, 43–48. 4 Silvia Bigliazzi and Lisanna Calvi, ‘Producing a (R&)JSpace: Discursive and Social Practices in Verona’ in Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, and Civic Life: The Boundaries of Civic Space, ed. S. Bigliazzi and L. Calvi (New York and London: Routledge, 2016), 238–59, 241. This article discusses extensively the implications of practices of civic commodification of Shakespeare and their ideological and social effects. 5 Ibid., 242–49. 6 Donald Hedrick and Brian Reynolds, Shakespeare without Class: Misappropriations of Cultural Capital (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000); Bigliazzi and Calvi, ‘Producing a (R&)J Space’. 7 Starring Amanda Seyfried, Christopher Egan, Vanessa Redgrave, Gale García Bernal and Franco Nero, the film is a story of love, loss and reunion in Verona, revolving around letter-­writing to Shakespeare’s heroine. 8 For more information, see: http://www.julietclub.com/en/ (accessed 10 December 2016). 9 See: http://casashakespeare.it/ (accessed 10 December 2016). 10 The group has been active in Drama and Theatre Studies since 2014 (see: http://www.skenejournal.it/). 11 In line with what Douglas Lanier called the ‘Disneyfication of history in the twentieth century’: Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 152; Bigliazzi and Calvi, ‘Introduction’, in Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet and Civic Life, ed. Bigliazzi and Calvi, 13. 12 See: http://casadigiulietta.comune.verona.it/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=50816; http:// thegoodwillproject.in/index.php/2016/02/09/romeo-­and-juliet-­the-verona-­ manuscript/; http://www.julietclub.com/en/romeo-­e-giulietta-­il-manoscritto-­diverona/ (accessed 10 December 2016). 13 The plays were thematically connected with the Veneto region and attendance was not free: Romeo and Juliet (in Verona), Othello and The Merchant of

Notes

271

Venice (in Venice), The Taming of the Shrew (in Padua), and The Two Gentlemen of Verona (on Lake Garda). The Romeo and Juliet staged in the Cantina Shakespeare, which I attended, was enjoyable to a certain extent, but it was extraordinarily truncated to suit three actors, who recited in English and Italian, and with an unclear focus. It was followed by drinks and cakes. 14 Romeo and Juliet, ed. René Weis (London: Arden, 2012), 2.2.66–69. 15 ‘Incontri, scontri, anomalie e sorprendenti vicinanze tra le musiche del Duca Bianco e le parole del Bardo’, http://casashakespeare.it/?page_id=1571 (accessed 10 December 2016). 16 ‘I fantasmi, o le spose che vagano fuoriuscite dalle pagine di Othello Amleto e Giulietta e Romeo o Macbeth, ne indossano un paio a ricordarci che per amore o gelosia, potere o possesso ancora si muore’: Simone Azzoni, ‘Il femminile di Shakespeare diventa messaggio politico’, L’Arena, 27 July 2016 (quotations from this article have been translated by me). 17 ‘Femminile è l’approccio non solo il tema e l’argomento. Perché il velo da sposa e quegli abiti nuziali appesi sul finale (che tanto ci ricordano le tele mistiche di Pinzi-Cannella) sono pennellate delicate. A tal punto che anche Romeo a Giulietta non cede alla tentazione di essere recitato ma rimane una straordinaria apparizione. Così come un tocco di voce è la figura di Caterina d’Aragona e solo danza è la contorta figura di Lady Macbeth’: ibid. 18 ‘And yet, behind this collage which, luckily enough, has not chosen the formula of a reading camouflaged as a patchwork. . .’ (‘Eppure sotto questo collage, che per fortuna non ha scelto la formula del reading mascherato da patchwork . . .’): ibid. 19 See: http://profs.lingue.univr.it/2013veronarj/; http://profs.lingue.univr.it/ 2013veronarj/lindsay-­kemp-workshop/ (accessed 10 December 2016). 20 Bigliazzi and Calvi, ‘Producing a (R&)J Space’, 253–44; Ewan Fernie and Paul Edmondson, ‘ “What’s past is prologue”: Civic Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet and Beyond’, in Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, and Civic Life, ed. Bigliazzi and Calvi, 294–96. 21 On Kemp’s version, see Lucia Nigri, ‘Review of Lindsay Kemp’s Perché sei tu? (directed by Lindsay Kemp at Teatro Nuovo, Verona, 12 April 2013)’, Shakespeare 10 (2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2014.880733 (accessed 10 December 2016); Jacquelyn Bessell, ‘Perché sei tu? Lindsay Kemp’s “gift of memory” ’, in Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, and Civic Life, ed. Bigliazzi and Calvi, 260–77. 22 As is the case, for example, with the ongoing SENS digital project, which is devoted to the construction of a relational archive with the European sources of selected Shakespeare’s plays: http://www.skenejournal.it/ digitalarchives/?page_id=199 23 See: http://profs.lingue.univr.it/thetempestat400/ (accessed 10 December 2016). 24 See: http://www.skenejournal.it/shakespeareverona2016/ (accessed 10 December 2016). 25 A few clips may be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 8LewSS23fGM&feature=youtu.be; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

272

Notes

S7m3SiVen2s; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwqZJPQqL74 (accessed 10 December 2016). 26 The ‘what’s in a name’ soliloquy, for one, maintained the Q2 variant ‘take all myself’ in place of the Q1 ‘take all I have’: a detail for specialists, it might be argued, but indicative of the residual memory of the better known version. 27 Bessell, ‘Perché sei tu?’, 268–69. 28 Bigliazzi and Calvi, ‘Producing a (R&)JSpace’, 253. 29 For some stills see: http://www.dismappa.it/pierpaolo-­sepe-e-­lindsay-kemp-­pershakespeare–400/ (accessed 10 December 2016). 30 From a private email exchange on the workshop. 31 On civic tensions and their relation with the Juliet-­narrative see Bigliazzi and Calvi, ‘Producing a (R&)JSpace’, 252. 32 See: http://www.thespis.it/tyrantsfear/ (accessed 10 December 2016). 33 See: http://www.thespis.it/ (accessed 10 December 2016).

Chapter 9 1 For information regarding the production, see: http://www.shabegh.eu (accessed 6 February 2017). 2 The phrase was used by the patrician Zaccaria Dolfin in the Venice Senate (Marin Sanuto, I diarii, ed. Federico Stefani et al., Venezia 1879–1903, vol. XXII, 26 marzo 1516, coll. 72–73). Richard Sennett has reflected in a thought-­provoking way on this inclusion-­exclusion in his essay on the Ghetto included in The Foreigner (London: Notting Hill Editions, 2011). 3 The Merchant of Venice, ed. John Drakakis (London: Arden, 2010). 4 Salvatore Settis, ‘Can We Save Venice Before It’s Too Late?’, The New York Times, 29 August 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/30/opinion/ can-­we-save-­venice-before-­its-too-­late.html?_r=0 (accessed 6 February 2017). 5 Salvatore Settis, If Venice Dies (New York: New Vessel Press, 2016). 6 Ibid., 170. 7 Ibid., 169. 8 Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 5. 9 Silvia Bigliazzi and Lisanna Calvi (eds), Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, and Civic Life: The Boundaries of Civic Space (London: Routledge, 2015). 10 In January 2017, Palazzo Contarini Fasan, also known as ‘Desdemona’s House’, was bequeathed by the deceased owner to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano (Italian National Trust) and is slated to become a museum (with a Shakespearean component?). http://www.ilgazzettino.it/nordest/venezia/ palazzo_venezia_lasciato_testamento_eredita_fai_imprenditore_morto_casa_ desdemona–2221477.html (accessed 6 February 2017).

Notes

273

11 For an in-­depth analysis of the production, see Carol Chillington Rutter and Shaul Bassi’s companion pieces in Shakespeare Survey 70 and 71, edited by Peter Holland and Emma Smith. 12 Roger Friedland and Richard D. Hecht, ‘The powers of place’, in Religion, Violence, Memory, and Place, ed. Oren Baruch Stier and J. Shawn Landres (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006), 17–35. 13 Mitchell Duneier, Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016). 14 The whole program is at: http://www.veniceghetto500.org (accessed 6 February 2017). 15 Riccardo Calimani, The Ghetto of Venice (New York: M. Evans and Co., 1987); Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid (eds), The Jews of Early Modern Venice (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Donatella Calabi, Venezia e il Ghetto: Cinquecento anni del ‘recinto degli ebrei’ (Torino: Boringhieri, 2016); Donatella Calabi (ed.), Venice, the Jews, and Europe: 1516–2016 (Venice: Marsilio, 2016). 16 Arnold Zable, Violin Lessons (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2012), 104. 17 For the cultural life and achievements of the Ghetto, see in particular: Davis and Ravid (eds), The Jews of Early Modern Venice. 18 Thomas Coryat, Coryat’s Crudities (London, 1611). Modern edition: Most Glorious & Peerless Venice, ed. David Whittaker (Charlbury: Wavestone Press, 2013). 19 Théophile Gautier, The Travels of Théophile Gautier (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1912), 265. 20 Ulrike Brunotte, Anna-Dorothea Ludewig, Axel Stähler (eds), Orientalism, Gender, and the Jews: Literary and Artistic Transformations of European National Discourses (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2015). 21 ‘Good morning, Shylock. Good to see you’; William Dean Howells, Venetian Life (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co, 1907), 189. 22 Umberto Fortis, La parlata degli ebrei di Venezia e le parlate giudeo-­italiane (Firenze: Giuntina, 2006), 264. 23 Pierre Nora and Lawrence D. Kritzman, Realms of Memory: Conflicts and Divisions (3 vols, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). 24 Beatrice Barzaghi and Maria Fiano, Guida alla Venezia ribelle (Rome: Voland, 2015). 25 Erica Jong’s novel was later republished under a different title: Shylock’s Daughter (New York: Norton, 2003); Marek Halter, The Messiah (New Milford, CT: Toby Press, 2008). 26 Caryl Phillips, The Nature of Blood (London: Faber and Faber, 1997). 27 S.H. Crowhurst Lennard, The Venetian Campo: Ideal Setting for Social Life and Community (Venice: Corte del Fontego, 2012). 28 Private communication. I thank the author for the precious reference. 29 Sanuto, I diarii, XXII, col. 85–87.

274

Notes

30 Cited in Erith Jaffe-Berg, ‘Jewish Theatre Production in Venice During the Renaissance Venice Before and During Ghettoization’, Engramma (2016): 136, http://www.engramma.it/eOS2/index.php?id_articolo=2895 (accessed 25 May 2017). 31 Whittaker, Most Glorious & Peerless Venice, 76–82. 32 Brian Pullan, ‘Shakespeare’s Shylock: Evidence from Venice’, in The Jews of Italy: Memory and Identity, ed. Bernard Cooperman and Barbara Garvin (Bethesda, MD: University Press of Maryland, 2000). 33 No fewer than three photographic exhibitions were devoted to the Ghetto in Venice in 2016 and early 2017. 34 Helen Cavendish de Moura, ‘The world’s first ghetto, 500 years later’, http:// edition.cnn.com/2016/02/21/world/cnnphotos-­venice-ghetto-­anniversary/ (accessed 25 May 2017). 35 Duneier, The Ghetto, 24. 36 Yale scholar David Scott Kastan should be credited for recommending the company. 37 http://www.colombari.org (accessed 6 February 2017). 38 This phase is also narrated in BBC documentary Shylock’s Ghost (2015) by Alan Yentob. 39 http://www.shabegh.eu (accessed 28 February 2017). 40 Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society, Faro, 27 October 2005, http://www.coe.int/it/web/ conventions/full-­list/-/conventions/rms/0900001680083746 (accessed 6 February 2017). 41 Donatella Calabi and Paolo Morachiello, Il Fontego dei Tedeschi (Venezia: Corte del Fontego, 2016). 42 Settis, If Venice Dies, 11. 43 Christopher Bollas, ‘Architecture and the Unconscious’, International Forum of Psychoanalysis 9.1–2 (January 2000): 28–42.

Chapter 10 1 Unless otherwise stated, all quotations from Shakespeare’s works refer to William Shakespeare, The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, ed. Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson and David Scott Kastan (Walton-­on-Thames: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1998). 2 Sarah Lenton, ‘Master Sachs’, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (programme), The Royal Opera House 2017, 30–34, 30. 3 Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, trans. Peter Branscombe (London: EMI Records, 1971; repr. 1999), 79. 4 Virginia Woolf, Travels with Virginia Woolf, ed. Jan Morris (London: Pimlico, 1993), 112.

Notes

275

5 Kevin Colls, ‘The Secrets of Shakespeare’s Grave’, Current Archaeology 325 (2017): 36–41. 6 E.M. Forster, Howards End, ed. Oliver Stallybrass (London: Penguin, 1941; repr. 1988), 85. 7 Johann Gottfried Herder, Shakespeare, trans. and ed. Gregory Moore (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 2. 8 Forster, Howards End, 49. 9 Werner Habicht, ‘Shakespeare and the German Imagination’, International Shakespeare Association Occasional Paper, no. 5 (Hertford: Stephen Austin and Sons Ltd, 1994), 7. 10 I am grateful to Richard Wilson for supplying this information to me and for sending me the text of an unpublished lecture, ‘Wheel of Fire: Memory and Mourning at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre’, delivered at The British Shakespeare Association Conference in Hull, September 2016. A.K. Chesterton regularly referred to Shakespeare as ‘the Mastersinger’ in, for example, the Shakespeare Review (1928), the monthly magazine of which he was editor (on behalf of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre). An article based on Wilson’s lecture was published as ‘Bonfire in Merrie England’, London Review of Books 39.9 (2017): 15–17. 11 Forster, Howards End, 52. 12 ‘Prayer’ by George Herbert in The Complete Works, ed. Anne Pasternak Slater (London: Everyman’s Library, 1974; new ed. David Campbell Publishers Ltd, 1995), 49. 13 Sarah Lenton, ‘Master Sachs’, 32. 14 Nicholas Spice, ‘Is Wagner Bad For Us?’, London Review of Books 35.7 (2013): 3–8: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n07/nicholas-­spice/is-­wagner-bad-­forus (accessed 27 March 2017). 15 Wagner, Meistersinger, trans. Peter Branscombe, 287. 16 David Paxton, ‘Shakespeare to Mann, via Wagner’, in Thomas Mann and Shakespeare, ed. Tobias Döring and Ewan Fernie (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 149–70, 153. 17 Paxton, ‘Shakespeare to Mann, via Wagner’, 155. 18 Andreas Höfele, No Hamlets: German Shakespeare from Nietzsche to Carl Schmitt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 4–5. 19 Habicht, ‘Shakespeare and the German Imagination’, 13. 20 E.K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), vol. 2, 200. 21 All references to the ‘Commendatory Poems and Prefaces’ of the 1623 Folio cite: William Shakespeare, The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works, ed. Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor, John Jowett and William Montgomery (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986; 2nd ed., 2005). 22 These might be counted as: the twin masters and servants as well as the Abbess in The Comedy of Errors, Hero in Much Ado About Nothing, Falstaff in Henry IV Part One, the twins Viola and Sebastian in Twelfth Night, or What

276

Notes

You Will, Claudio in Measure for Measure, Helen in All’s Well That Ends Well, Thaisa in Pericles, Posthumus in Cymbeline, Queen Hermione in The Winter’s Tale, and Prince Ferdinand in The Tempest. 23 wseww.urs.globalnet.co.uk/~snelling/warkl2.htm (accessed 27 March 2017). 24 Chambers, William Shakespeare, vol. 2, 210. 25 Chambers, William Shakespeare, vol. 1, 559. 26 Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, trans. Frederick Jameson (Milwaukee: G. Schirmer, Inc., 1904; repr. 1932), 563–64. 27 Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, trans. Frederick Jameson, 568–69. 28 Höfele, No Hamlets, 1. 29 Philip Hensher, ‘Masters and Commanders’, Guardian, 25 February 2017, 15. 30 Höfele, No Hamlets, 1.

Chapter 11 1 ‘Secretaries Book of the Shakespeare Club’, MS 0031, Special Collections Division, University of Washington Library. 2 Fortnightly Shakespeare (1895) 1:1. 3 Folger Shakespeare Library, Scrapbook 243553. 4 Frances A. Wittick, ‘Founder’s Day 1946,’ MS, Peoria Historical Society. 5 Elizabeth Greenfield, ‘Shakespearean “Culture” in Montana, 1902,’ Montana: The Magazine of Western History 22.2 (1972): 49–50. 6 Katherine Scheil, She Hath Been Reading: Women and Shakespeare Clubs in America (Ithaca, NJ: Cornell University Press, 2012), 57–59. 7 Scheil, 107. 8 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 277. 9 Heiferman gives each new employee a copy of Putnam’s Bowling Alone. Adrianne Jeffires, ‘Interview with Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup’, Observer, 6 February 2012. As Peter Holland has pointed out, the Web is ‘remaking the nature of community’. ‘Shakespeare in Virtual Communities’, in Shakespeare and the Digital World, ed. Christie Carson and Peter Kirwan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 165. 10 Judy Tong, ‘Responsible Party: Scott Heiferman’, The New York Times, 17 August 2003. 11 Teri Evans, ‘Reaping Success Through Stranger “Meetups” ’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 November 2010. 12 Jeffires, ‘Interview with Scott Heiferman’. 13 A 2015 study of social media and civic life makes a similar claim, that social media has a positive impact on civic engagement. Marko M. Skoric, Qinfeng Zhu, Debbie Goh and Natalie Pang, ‘Social Media and Citizen Engagement: A Meta-Analytic Review’, New Media & Society 18.9 (2016): 1817–39.

Notes

277

14 Unless otherwise noted, information on these Meetups comes from their public Meetup page. 15 The phenomenon of creating a social group around Shakespeare is not confined to the US. Thirty-­seven self-­proclaimed ‘Sensitive Warriors’ make up the Shakespeare and Management Meetup Group in India. This group is based on the premise that ‘many of Shakespeare’s plays have great relevance to present day situations in the workplace, among professional groups and in home situations’. The group uses performance of Shakespeare to ‘hone one’s theater skills to enhance confidence and poise’. In Amsterdam, ninety-­two members are involved in the Sha-­oke Shakespeare Karaoke group, which meets monthly. Members’ ages range from eight to eighty, and some are non-­native English speakers. Other groups outside the US include the Toronto Shakespeare Workshop (135 members); London Shakespeare Meetup (124 members); Canberra Shakespeare Reading Group (thirty-­nine strolling players); L’atelier Shakespeare V.O (228 amis de Shakespeare); Abu Dhabi Shakespeare Society Meetup (sixty members); Hacking Shakespeare Meetup, Singapore (fifty-­nine members); Lausanne Shakespeare play reading Meetup (eighteen members); Shakespeare in the Clock Tower, St Pancras, London (fifty-­eight members); Dover Art Infused (Shakespeare-Web-Chess-Philosophy); Newcastle Shakespeare Society (Australia) Meetup (eighteen Bardophiles); Bach and Shakespeare Club of Delhi (492 Classy Classical Lovers). 16 https://www.hks.harvard.edu/saguaro/factoids.htm (accessed 25 February 2017). 17 http://www.knightfoundation.org/sotc/ (accessed 25 February 2017). 18 http://wlfi.com/2015/11/21/community-­coming-together-­through-the-­readingsof-­shakespeare/ (accessed 25 February 2017). 19 http://www.meetup.com/The-Falstaffs-­of-South-Bay/events/225220912/ 20 In the American frontier West, starting a Shakespeare club was a way to establish a civic life; as one pioneer wife of Woodward, Oklahoma, put it, her husband helped start the club ‘as soon as he washed his hands after driving the stake on his lot’. Jane Jayroe, Oklahoma 3 (Portland, OR: Graphic Arts Center Publishing, 2006), 18. Similarly, one writer in 1929 remarked that ‘The cultural standards of the towns in which these [Shakespeare] clubs have functioned owe something definite and fine to their continued presence.’ Shakespeare Association Bulletin 4.3 (1929): 86. 21 http://www.ncoc.org/civic-­renewal-initiative/. The National Conference on Citizenship is a congressionally chartered organization charged with ‘harnessing the civic spirit . . . that was present following World War II’. 22 https://www.meetup.com/shakespeare–50/ (accessed 25 February 2017). 23 Paul Kreider, e-­mail message to author, 7 December 2016. 24 Barbara Harnisch, e-­mail message to author, 8 December 2016. 25 Scott Dulin, e-­mail message to author, 8 December 2016. 26 http://www.ncoc.org/research/seattleites-­active-politically-­but-among-­the-least-­likelyto-­talk-with-­or-exchange-­favors-with-­neighbors/ (accessed 25 February 2017). 27 Greater Seattle Civic Health Index, 2013, available at http://ncoc.veracitymedia.com/ wp-­content/uploads/2015/04/2013SeattleCHI.pdf (accessed 25 February 2017).

278

Notes

28 Paul Kreider, e-­mail message to author, 7 December 2016. 29 Paul Kreider, e-­mail message to author, 7 December 2016. 30 Aidan Low, e-­mail message to author, 13 December 2016. 31 Scott Dulin, e-­mail message to author, 8 December 2016. 32 Paul Kreider, e-­mail message to author, 7 December 2016. 33 Scott Dulin, e-­mail message to author, 8 December 2016. 34 Afsaneh Mirfendereski, e-­mail message to author, 3 January 2017. 35 Afsaneh Mirfendereski, e-­mail message to author, 3 January 2017. 36 https://www.meetup.com/Shakespeare-­lovers-Chevy-Chase-MD/ members/12923786/ (accessed 25 February 2017). 37 Robin Williams, e-­mail message to author, 9 December 2016. 38 Robin Williams, e-­mail message to author, 12 December 2016. 39 Melyssa Holik, ‘In Good Company,’ Local Flavor Magazine (November 2016), 37. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 https://www.meetup.com/SFSCloseReaders/about/comments/?op=all (accessed 25 February 2017). 43 W. Lance Bennett, ‘Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age’, in Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth, ed. W. Lance Bennett (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008), 8. 44 Amanda M. Fairbanks, ‘Funny Thing Happened at the Dog Run’, The New York Times, 23 August 2008. 45 https://www.hks.harvard.edu/saguaro/factoids.htm (accessed 25 February 2017). 46 Jeffires, ‘Interview with Scott Heiferman’.

Chapter 12 1 Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (London: Penguin, 2005). 2 Associated Press. ‘ “Hamilton” cast delivers message to VP Pence.’ YouTube video, 1.21 (accessed 1 November 2016). https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=aWlwrUFiuUw (accessed 19 February 2017). 3 Tribune News Services, ‘Debate over “Hamilton” speech to Pence exposes post-­election cracks’, Chicago Tribune (2016). http://www.chicagotribune.com/ news/nationworld/politics/ct-­hamilton-pence-­debate–20161119-story.html (accessed 19 February 2017). 4 See AudioBurst. ‘Mike Pence on “Hamilton” Incident: “That’s What Freedom Sounds Like” ’. YouTube video, 1.30 (accessed 1 November 2016). https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOX6A0i5wok and Tiger. ‘Mike Pence Responds

Notes

279

to “Hamilton” Incident’. YouTube video, 2.5; https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=KPhjSqYG_sM (both accessed 19 February 2017). 5 Kimberlé Crenshaw, ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989 1.8 (1991): 1245. 6 Ange-Marie Hancock, ‘When Multiplication Doesn’t Equal Quick Addition: Explaining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm’, Perspectives on Politics 5.1 (2007): 63–79, 63–64. 7 R.S. Chang and J.M. Culp, ‘After intersectionality,’ University of MissouriKansas City Law Review 71 (2002): 485–91, 490. 8 Crenshaw, ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex’, 166, parentheses Crenshaw’s. 9 Ibid., 139. 10 For another recent narrative example of this concept, see Moonlight, which received the 2016 Academy Award for Best Picture. In the movie, we see the Little/Chiron/Black character struggle for self-­authorship; the film makes clear that the hero’s grounds of identity are multiple – black, gay, poor, isolated, etc. – and that his agency in creating his own selfhood is born out of all these simultaneously. 11 Ibid., 166. 12 Ibid., 167. 13 Kenji Yoshino, ‘The Pressure to Cover’, The New York Times Magazine, 15 January 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/magazine/the-­pressure-to-­ cover.html (accessed 19 February 2017). 14 Ibid. 15 Rita Kaur Dhamoon, ‘Considerations on Mainstreaming Intersectionality’, Political Research Quarterly 64.1 (2011): 230–43, 230. 16 Afeef Nessouli and Ray Sanchez, ‘Broadways “Hamilton” under fire for controversial casting’, CNN, 30 March 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/30/ entertainment/hamilton-­broadway-casting-­call (accessed 19 February 2017). 17 Spencer Kornhaber, ‘Hamilton: Casting after Colorblindness’, The Atlantic, March 2016. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/03/ hamilton-­casting/476247 (accessed 20 February 2017). 18 Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘I Have a Dream’, American Rhetoric (updated 2017). http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm (accessed 24 February 2017). 19 Kornhaber, ‘Hamilton: Casting after Colorblindness.’ 20 For much more on the idea of the concept of as-­yet unrealized histories presented in Shakespeare, see the work of Kiernan Ryan, including his recent work: Shakespeare’s Universality: Here’s Fine Revolution (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 21 Ben Brantley, ‘Review: “Hamilton,” Young Rebels Changing History and Theater’, The New York Times, 7 August 2015. https://www.nytimes.

280

Notes

com/2015/08/07/theater/review-­hamilton-young-­rebels-changing-­history-and-­ theater.html (accessed 20 February 2017). 22 Barack Obama, ‘Remarks by the President at “Hamilton at the White House” ’ (2016). https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-­press-office/2016/03/14/ remarks-­president-hamilton-­white-house (accessed 20 February 2017). 23 Before going on, I must thank the following: my dear friend Martha Andresen who first introduced me to Ben Donenberg; Donenberg, founder of the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, who allowed me to learn from his terrific colleagues and students; Peter Howard, who helped me understand how the plays can be used to create agency; Marina Oliva, who made clear to me the gravity and greatness of the work of Will Power to Youth, always in respect to the individual lives and pathways of the students they employ, herself once included in that number; and Chris Anthony, who first taught me to understand the reality of theatre as social justice. 24 See multishowtvweb. ‘Rodney King Beating Video’. YouTube video, 2.10. Posted [September 2015]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdZ5xuZOlbk (accessed 19 February 2017). 25 CNN Library, ‘Los Angeles Riots Fast Facts’, CNN, 18 September 2013. http:// www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/us/los-­angeles-riots-­fast-facts/ (accessed 19 February 2017). 26 For more, visit: http://www.shakespearecenter.org/wp-­to-youth/ (accessed 19 February 2017). 27 Crenshaw, ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex’, 166. 28 Ibid., 167. 29 The Shakespeare Center, ‘Impact Report’ (2014). https://static1.squarespace. com/static/571d19c4c6fc0857af970e71/t/57b4dd7e579fb32ee5d88e20/ 1471470984468/__wpy_impactreport_updated5_9_14.pdf (accessed 22 February 2017). 30 Tim Baker, ‘Meet Ron Chernow, The Biographer Who Inspired Broadway Musical Hit “Hamilton” ’, Newsweek Special Edition (2016). http://www. newsweek.com/hamilton-­biographer-ron-­chernow–502295 (accessed 21 February 2017). 31 Chris Anthony, interview via email by David Ruiter, 7 October 2015. 32 See, for example, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, ed. B. Raffel (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 1.1. 33 Ibid., 1.3. 34 Ibid., 1.5. 35 Ibid., 3.4

Afterword 1 See my revaluation of these views in ‘Stratford Revisited’, in Renaissance Shakespeare, Shakespearean Renaissances: Proceedings of the Ninth World

Notes

281

Shakespeare Congress (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2014), 363–73; and ‘Shakespeare-­land’, in This England, That Shakespeare: New Angles on Englishness and the Bard, ed. Willy Maley and Margaret TudeauClayton (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2008), 201–20. 2 See my discussion of this speech in ‘Remembrance of things past’: Shakespeare 1851, 1951, 2012’, in Celebrating Shakespeare: Commemoration and Cultural Memory, ed. Clara Calvo and Coppélia Kahn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 114–39; and also ‘The Seeds of Time’, Critical Survey 25.3 (2013): 88–113.

INDEX

Figures in italics denote illustrations. Aboad, Samuel ben Abraham 169 Acosta, Carlos 67 Akala (Kingslee Daley) 82 Al Jazeera 116 Aldeburgh (Suffolk) 33, 81 Alexander, Kae 116 Alexander, Kate 44, 141 Almond, Gabriel A. xxii, 132 Amsterdam (Netherlands) 166 Anderson, Benedict 267 n.6 Anthony, Chris 243, 246–7, 249 anti-Semitism 138, 162, 165–70, 176, 186 L’Après-midi d’un faune 67 Arditti, Philip 116, 121 Aristotle xxi–xxii Arne, Thomas xiv, 3, 7, 13, 33, 49 Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) 83 Arts Council (UK) xx–xxi Atkin, Douglas 232 Auden, W.H. 65–6 Bach, Johann Sebastian 81 Bader Ginsburg, Ruth 174 Bakst, Léon 67 Balanchine, George 46 Ballets Russes (company) 67, 264 n.17 Baracco, Andrea 150 Barnes, Peter 10 Barshai, Rudolf 69 Bassano (Italy) 174 Bate, Jonathan 133 Baudelaire, Charles 65 Baudrillard, Jean 270 n.3 Bavarian Court Opera 180 Bayadère, La 70 Bayreuth (Germany) 180, 184–6, 195

Bazalgette, Peter xxii Bazely, Paul 116, 122–3 Beamish, Sally xiv–xv, xvii, 3, 7, 11, 13, 23–34, 26, 32, 34, 75–8, 79, 80–2, 253. See also Shakespeare Masque Beckett, Samuel 156 Beethoven, Ludwig von 187 Bennett, W. Lance 232 Berlin (Germany) 184 Berlin, Free University of 195 Berry, Philippa 113 Bessell, Jaq 154, 157–60 Betteloni, Vittorio 145, 149–50 Beyoncé (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) 68 Bible Acts 87, 99 Corinthians 84–5, 96–7 Ephesians 85, 103, 108, 265 n.6 Esther 169–70 John 89, 91, 95, 99, 187, 192 Luke 86, 95 Mark 87–8 Matthew 95 Psalms 85, 86, 100 Revelation 99 Song of Songs 86, 90, 100, 104, 108 Biden, Joe 236 Bilimoria, Karan 57 Billy Elliot 67 Bintley, David xvii, 75–9 Birmingham Library 42 Symphony Hall 10 University of xvi, 25, 42, 57, 111 Birmingham Royal Ballet xvii, 75–9, 79

284

Index

Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (BSO) 7, 10 Bismarck, Otto von 136–7 Bloomfield, Jem 50 Blyth, Myra 84 Bochum (Germany) 133, 267 n.11 Bogart, Anne 158 Bollas, Christopher 176 Bologna (Italy) 156 Bolshoi Ballet (Moscow) xvii, 68–71, 81 Bonaparte, Napoleon 65, 130, 166 Bourne, Matthew 67 Bowie, David 150, 152 Boy George (George O’Dowd) 68, 75, 82 Boyce, William 23 Boyle, Danny 44 Bradley, Hester see Shakespeare Unbard Bräker, Ulrich 143 Branagh, Kenneth xxi, 43–4, 49, 129, 134, 254 Brandon, David 152 Brantley, Ben 242 Brecht, Bertolt 11, 134 Bremer Shakespeare Company 134, 140–2, 141 Brexit xviii–xix, xxii, 42–3, 55–6, 174, 195, 254 Bridges, Thomas xxii, 132 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 3–4, 116 BBC Radio 3 xv, 3, 13 BBC Radio 4 129 British Council xv Britten, Benjamin xv, 25, 32–3, 81 Brugnera, Andrea 173 Brunel, Isambard Kingdom xxi, 43, 49, 254 Buddeberg, Alice 134 Buonarrotti, Michelangelo 246 Burns, Robert 33 Burr, Aaron 236–7 Burton, Richard 68 Byron, George Gordon, Lord 166 Calais (France) 116 Calvi, Lisanna 154 Calvo, Clara 43–4 Carey, John xx–xxi

Carreras, José 67 Caruso, Enrico 67 Caserta, Giovanna 150 Caserta, Isabella 150 Casey, Louise 124 Cavendish de Moura, Helena 170 Chang, R.S. 239 Charter 77 xxiii Chatty, Dawn 116, 124 Chekhov, Anton 9–10 Cheney, Dick 236 Chernow, Ron 235–6, 242, 246 Chester Mystery Plays 25 Chesterton, A.K. 186 Chesterton, G.K. 186 Christie, John 184–5 City Musick, The 81 civic forms dance 31–2, 65–82, 133, 152, 157–60 definitions 251–3 drinking 150, 225–6 front-of-house events 41–61 ‘intersectionality’ 235–49 libretti 24–31, 179–216 liturgies 83–108 masques and pageants 23–40, 43, 45, 56–8 parades, processions and promenades 10, 12, 23–4, 33, 42, 52–6, 81, 146, 150–1, 162, 171–5, 179, 182 reading groups 219–33, 277 n.15 recitals 3–21 workshops 109–25 Classic FM 75 Clinton, Hillary 236 Coburg-Saxe-Gotha (Germany) 135 Cockerill, Georgie 44 Colombari (company) 161, 162, 171–2, 173 Colorado Shakespeare Festival 225 commedia dell’arte 153 Condell, Henry 192 Coonrod, Karin 171–2 Coryat, Thomas 166, 169 Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts see Arts Council (UK)

Index

Craik, Katharine A. see Marina Project Cranko, John 68, 76 Crenshaw, Kimberlé xx, 235, 238–41, 245 Crowhurst Lennard, Suzanne H. 169 Culp, J.M. 239 Da Porto, Luigi 153 Dalcroze, Emile Jaques- xv–xvi, 32, 81, Dartington Hall (Devon) 3, 6 Debussy, Claude 67 Deelman, Christian 47 Degas, Edgar 66–7 Denmark and Danes 129, 136–7 Deotti, Enrico 156 Dessau (Germany) 184 Detering, Heinrich 134 Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft xviii, 129–30, 137–9, 142–3, 184, 187, 194–5, 267 n.11, 269 n.22 Dhamoon, Rita Kaur 240 Diaghilev, Sergei 67, 264 n.17 Dibdin, Charles 193 Dickens, Charles 65 Dickson, Andrew 130–2, 139 Dingelstedt, Franz von xviii, 133–42 Disneylands and Disneyfications xviii, 145, 147, 160, 162 Dixon, Brandon Victor 236–7, 242, 244 Dodd, Matthew xv Dodsworth, Stephen 195 Dolfin, Zaccaria 272 n.2 Dollimore, Jonathan 114 Domingo, Plácido 67 Doran, Gregory 10 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 65 Draesner, Ulrike 133–4 Dresden (Germany) 184 Droeshout, Martin 191 Duffy, Carol Ann xiv–xv, xvii, 3, 11–13, 23–40, 34, 80–2, 253, 255. See also Shakespeare Masque Duneier, Mitchell 165, 170–1 Dürr, Tobias 141 Dylan, Bob 134 Ebrahim, Vincent 116 Eco, Umberto 270 n.3

285

Edmondson, Paul see ‘To the memory of our beloved, the author, Master William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us’ Edmundson, Helen 9 Eisenberg, Ned 173 Eliot, T.S. 112, 266 n.9 Elizabeth I, queen of England 113 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 66 English Circle of Frankfurt 184, 185 English Youth Ballet 67 Ermler, Fridrickh 71 Eschenburg, Johann Joachim 143 Euripides 113 European Union (EU) xviii, 42–3, 174, 196. See also Brexit Ex Cathedra choir (Birmingham) xiv–xv, 3–4, 7, 10, 12, 24, 25, 30, 31, 81 Fairbanks, Douglas 68 Faro Convention (2005) 174 Farrell, James xv–xvi, 32 Fascism 165–8, 186. See also anti-Semitism Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) 67 Felski, Rita xxi Fernie, Ewan see Marina Project Fiddes, Paul S. see ‘Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love’ Fiorentini, Ser Giovanni 164 First World War 58, 167, 183, 184, 194, 220 Forster, E.M. 183–7 France and the French 45–6, 55–6, 69, 129, 132, 134 Francis, Clive 6 Frankfurt (Germany) 184 Freiligrath, Ferdinand 196 Freston, Tom de 116, 120, 123 Friedan, Betty 68 Friedland, Roger 164–5 Friedman, Ceil 146 Friedman, Lise 146 Furness, Horace Howard 194–5 Fuseli, Henry 12

286

Index

Gafic´, Ziyah 170 Gainsborough, Thomas 7 Garrick, David xiv–xviii, xxi–xxiii, 3–21, 5, 23–5, 24, 30–3, 42–9, 52–7, 80, 134, 150, 179, 183, 193, 195–6, 253–4. See also Ode . . . to Shakespeare; Stratford Jubilee Gautier, Théophile 166–7 Gdansk (Poland) 138 George III, king of England 240 Georgia, University of 220 German Shakespeare Society see Deutsche ShakespeareGesellschaft Germany and Germans xviii–xix, 129–44, 164–6, 175, 179–87, 185, 194–6, 254–5. See also individual cities Gigli, Beniamino 67 Gleason, Chris 55 Globe to Globe Festival (2012) 150 Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Sussex) 181, 184–5 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von xix, 130–5, 143, 184–7, 268 n.16 Goldsberry, Renée Elise 240 Goodbody, Buzz 111 Gosse, Edmund 259 n.4 Greenblatt, Stephen xxi Groff, Jonathan 240 Günther, Frank 131, 141 Habermas, Jürgen 253 Habicht, Werner 187 Haddad, Rana 116, 123–4 Halévy, Jacques 167 Hall, Stuart xxii–xxiii Halter, Marek 168 Hamilton, Alexander 241, 249 Hamilton: An American Musical xx, 235–49 Hampton (Middlesex) 195 Hancock, Ange-Marie 238–9 Handel, George Frideric 180 Hanover (Germany) 184 Hatfull, Ronan 41, 44–5. See also Shakespeare Unbard Haughton, David see Brandon, David

Havard, William 6, 23 Havel, Václav xxiii Hecht, Richard 164–5 Heiferman, Scott 222 Heisey, Ella J. 220 Heminges, John 192 Henderson, Diana 134 Henry VII, king of England 136 Henry VIII, king of England 166 Hensher, Philip 195, 255 Herbert, George 186 Herder, Johann Gottfried von 138, 183–4 Hermes, Gertrude 45 Hitler, Adolf 183, 185–6 Höfele, Andreas 138, 194 Holbrook, Peter 258 n.13 Holderness, Graham 47, 50 Holland, Peter 134, 259 n.12, 276 n.9 Holocaust see anti-Semitism Holst, Gustav 75 Horobin, Charlotte 45, 50, 51 Hound, Rufus 82 Houston Ballet Foundation 75 Howells, William Dean 167 Hozier (Andrew Hozier-Byrne) 67 Israel and Israelis 168, 170 Italy and Italians 129, 166–8, 170, 254–5. See also individual cities Iurissevich, Adriano 173 James, Henry 166 James Irvine Foundation (California) 243 Jayasundera, Thusitha 110, 116 Jefferson, Thomas 240 Johnson, Boris 42–3, 254 Johnson, Edward 183 Jong, Erica 168 Jonson, Ben 6, 56, 183, 191–3, 196 Juliet Club (Verona) 146, 148 Kahn, Coppélia 43–4 Kala, Aysha 116, 122 Kant, Immanuel 46 Karajan, Herbert von 186 Karlsruhe (Germany) 184 Katherine of Aragon, queen of England 166

Index

Kemp, Lindsay 152–4, 157–60 Khrushchev, Nikita 71 King, Martin Luther, Jr. 241 King, Rodney xx, 243 King’s Men (company) 78, 80–1 Kirov, Sergei 71 Knotts, David 116, 123 Koolhass, Rem 175 Kornhaber, Spencer 241 Krechel, Ursula 133–4 Laban, Rudolf 158 Lady Gaga (Stefani Germanotta) 68 Lally, Gwen 45, 56–8 Landau, Tina 158 Lander Johnson, Bonnie 113 Lang, Jessica 76 Langley Park (Buckinghamshire) 57 Lanier, Douglas 270 n.11 Lea-Jones, Jenni 173 Leeds (Yorkshire) 251–2 Leicester Cathedral 29 Leitner, G.W. 184 Lenton, Sarah 186 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 132, 143 Lessing, Otto 131 Lewis, Jenny xvii, 84, 97–8, 108 Lillo, George 265 n.4 Limón, José 76 Lofthouse, John 195 London Brixton 117 St Martin-in-the-Fields xvii, 88 St Mary’s Priory 117 Seven Sisters 117, 119 Shoreditch 9 Westminster Abbey 7, 187 Longborough (Gloucestershire) 180 Loughlin, Marie H. 113 Lua, A.L. 138 Ludwig II, king of Bavaria 180 McGregor, Wayne 67–8, 75 McKellen, Ian 50 MacMillan, Kenneth 76, 157 Macpherson, James 138 McVicar, David 181 Maillot, Jean-Christophe xvii, 68–71 Malik, Abdul-Rehman 116–17, 121–2

287

Mallarmé, Stéphane 66–7 Mancuso, Gabriele 169 Mann, Thomas 66, 166 Mannheim (Germany) 184 Marina Project 109–25, 110, 120, 255 Marlowe, Christopher 27 Marx, Karl 46 Mead, Philip 134 Meres, Francis 193 Merrington, Peter 57 Milton, John 12 Minogue, Kylie 68 Miranda, Lin-Manuel 235–7, 241–2, 245–6. See also Hamilton Mirfendereski, Afsaneh 229 Miró, Joan 67 Montagu, Elizabeth 6, 55 Moretto, Giorgio 170 Morley, Thomas 31 Morrissey, Sinéad xvii, 84, 93, 108 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 46 Muir, Edward 163 Müller, Max 184 Munich (Germany) 130–2, 135, 180 National Ballet of Canada 71 National Ballet of Korea 67 National Campaign for the Arts 7 National Conference on Citizenship (USA) 227 Neugebauer, Heike 141 Newton, Isaac 46 Nicholl, Charles 266 n.14 Nijinsky, Vaslav 67 No, No, Nanette 69 Nora, Pierre 168 Nuremberg (Germany) 179–87 Nureyev, Rudolf 67 Obama, Barack 236, 242 O’Brien, Richard see Shakespeare Unbard Ode . . . to Shakespeare (Garrick) xiv, xvii, xxi, 3–13, 4, 5, 8, 14–21, 23–5, 24, 30–3, 41, 43–8, 53–5, 80, 134–5, 179, 183, 253 Olivier, Laurence 52

288

Index

Olk, Claudia 195 Olympic Games (2012) 43–4, 74, 254 Orvieto (Italy) 171 O’Siadhail, Micheal xvii, 84, 92–3, 108 Ossian 138 Ostermair, Albert 133, 267 n.12 Oxford Brookes University (Oxford) 123 Oxford, University of 108, 124, 184, 252 Padua (Italy) 174 Pageant of England, The (1935) 57 Paine, Tom xxii Pascal, Blaise 46 Pastor, Krzysztof 76 Paul IV, pope 165–6 Pavarotti, Luciano 67 Pence, Mike xx, 235–7, 242, 244 Petipa, Marius 67, 69 Phillips, Caryl 168 Picasso, Pablo 67 Pickford, Mary 68 Pine, Robert Edge 7, 11, 12 Pite, Crystal 76 Plato 68 Pollard, Tanya 113 Polunin, Sergei 67 Porter, Cole 68 Prager, Ferdinand 187 Prague (Czech Republic) xiv Pratt, Loraine Immen 220 Prokofiev, Sergei 67 Proust, Marcel 166 Prussia (Germany) 135 Puccini, Giacomo 67 Pugh, Gareth 67–8 Pullan, Brian 170 Putnam, Robert D. xix, 221–3 Ratmansky, Alexei 76 Ravel, Maurice 67 Refugee Studies Centre (Oxford University) 124 Regent’s Park College (Oxford) 84, 86 Reinhardt, Max 167 Religion and Society Programme of the Arts and Humanities Research Council 83

Return from Parnassus, The (anon.) 191 Richard III, king of England 29 Rodin, Auguste 66–7 Ronson, Mark 67–8, 75, 82 Royal Ballet (Covent Garden) xvii, 67–8, 71–6, 74, 82 Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) xvi–xviii, 7, 9–10, 12, 30, 42, 50, 57, 59, 80–2, 111–14, 121 Ruskin, John 166 Russian Imperial Theatre 66, 68, 82 Sachs, Hans 179–86, 194 Sacre du printemps, Le 67 Sadler’s Wells Ballet 67. See also Royal Ballet Sail, Lawrence xvii, 84, 101–2, 108 Sarajevo (Bosnia) 170 Saunders, Corinne 116, 123 Savorelli, Gianpaolo 154 Schall, Johanna 134, 141 Scheemakers, Peter 7–10, 9 Scheidel, Sebastian Alexander 184 Schiller, Friedrich 130, 134–5, 140, 143 Schlegel, August Wilhelm 135, 139, 184 Schuyler, Angelica 240 Scott, Walter 167 Second World War xix, xxi, 67, 69, 165, 167, 170–1, 221 ‘Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love’ (Paul S. Fiddes, Andrew Taylor et al.) 85, 86, 89–108 Sennett, Richard 272 n.2 Sepe, Pierpaolo 153–5, 160 Settis, Salvatore 162–3, 176 Shakespeare (née Hathaway), Anne (wife) 27–9, 79 Shakespeare, Hamnet (son) 27, 79 Shakespeare, John (father) 27, 138, 181–2 Shakespeare, William life and reputation ‘Bardolatry’ 4, 13, 31, 47–50, 56, 129–30, 253 education 26–7, 30, 79, 138

Index

grave xv, 10, 26–9, 33, 79, 181, 182–3 likenesses and monuments 7–9, 8, 9, 11, 131, 191 religious affiliation 27, 79–80, 84–5 works All’s Well That Ends Well 275–6 n.22 Antony and Cleopatra 27 As You Like It 25, 27, 192, 193 Comedy of Errors, The 275–6 n.22 Cymbeline 27, 192–3, 275–6 n.22 First Folio (1623) 183, 191 Hamlet 7, 8, 12, 27, 28, 45, 52, 71, 111, 137, 139, 150–1, 193, 194, 196, 226, 267 n.13 Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2) 12, 134, 136, 140–2, 275–6 n.22 Henry V 10–12, 27, 58, 135–6, 140, 192, 193, 194 Henry VI (Parts 1, 2 and 3) 134–6, 140, 184, 225 Henry VIII 151 Julius Caesar 150, 267 n.13 King Lear 12, 109, 110, 193, 220, 225 Love’s Labour’s Lost 192 Macbeth 12, 150–1, 193, 246–9 Measure for Measure 275–6 n.22 Merchant of Venice, The xix, 129, 133, 143, 148, 161–77, 161, 173, 193–4, 267 n.12, 270–1 n.13 Midsummer Night’s Dream, A xvii, 27, 45, 52, 83–8, 152, 192, 193, 220, 225. See also ‘Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love’ Much Ado About Nothing 7, 275–6 n.22 Othello 45, 46, 53, 73, 76, 133, 150–1, 164, 168, 192, 193, 267 n.13, 267 n.13, 270–1 n.13, 272 n.10 (with Wilkins) Pericles xvii, 109–25, 110, 255, 265 n.7,

289

266 n.14, 275–6 n.22. See also Marina Project Richard II 57, 136, 140, 141 Richard III 45, 46, 50, 51, 53, 134–6, 140 Romeo and Juliet xviii–xix, 45, 50, 51, 53, 76, 145–60, 151, 164, 179, 196, 267 n.13, 270 n.13; Quarto variants 153–4, 155–7, 272 n.26 Sonnets 27–8, 76, 80, 193 Sonnet 12 193 Sonnet 29 193 Sonnet 81 29 Sonnet 98 192 Taming of the Shrew, The xvii, 68–71, 76, 82, 150–1, 219, 270–1 n.13 Titus Andronicus 150 Tempest, The xvii, xxi, 43–4, 49, 68, 75–80, 79, 82, 153, 193, 254, 275–6 n.22 Twelfth Night 27, 80, 134, 192, 193, 194, 275–6 n.22 Two Gentlemen of Verona, The xviii–xix, 147, 153–5, 160, 196, 270–1 n.13 Venus and Adonis 225 Winter’s Tale, The xvii, 53, 68, 71–5, 72, 78, 82, 179, 192, 275–6 n.22 Shakespeare Association of America 130 Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (Stratford-upon-Avon) xiv–xv, 7, 25, 42, 184, 195 Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles (SCLA) xx, 235, 238, 242–6. See also Will Power to Youth Shakespeare Institute (Stratford-uponAvon) xiv–xv, 7, 12, 25 Shakespeare Jubilee see Stratford Jubilee (1769) Shakespeare Masque, A (Duffy and Beamish) xiv–xvii, 3, 12–13, 23–33, 26, 30, 32, 35–40, 80–2, 253, 255 Shakespeare Summer Festival (Verona) 145, 152–60

290

Index

Shakespeare Unbard (Hester Bradley, Ronan Hatfull and Richard O’Brien) 41–61, 41, 254–5 Sheikh Nazim Sufi Centre (London) 117 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 66 Shepperson, Carrie Still 221 Shostakovich, Dmitri xvii, 68–71 Siedlce (Poland) 138 Sinfield, Alan xxiii, 43–4 Sistine Chapel (Rome) 246 Skenè (research group) xviii, 147, 154 Skidmore, Greg 29 Skidmore, Jeffrey xv, 3, 25, 30, 31 Smith, Nick 195 Smith-Howard, Alycia 111 Snape (Suffolk) 33 Société Française Shakespeare xviii Society for Theatre Research 12 Solon 66, 264 n.6 Sontag, Susan 46–7 Spice, Nicholas 186 Spinoza, Baruch 166 Spottiswoode, Patrick 129 Stalin, Josef 71 Stevens, Wallace 71 Stratford Jubilee (1769) xiv–xvii, xxii, 3–21, 4, 8, 23, 32, 42–9, 52–7, 80, 179, 183, 193, 253–4 Stratford-upon-Avon Chapel Lane 112 Henley Street xix, 27, 33, 182 Holy Trinity Church xv, xvii, 3, 4, 7, 10, 13, 24, 26, 28–9, 30, 32, 80, 85, 86, 88, 180–3, 181, 191, 195 King’s New School 26–7 Market Place 27 New Place 29, 34, 191 Old Thatch Tavern 27 Shottery 27 Town Hall 7, 179, 180, 184 Stratford-upon-Avon Chamber Choir 195 Straus, Peter 24 Strauss, Franz 180 Strauss, Richard 180 Stravinsky, Igor 67

Swan Lake 67, 70 Symmons Roberts, Michael xvii, 84, 106–7, 108 Syria and Syrians xvii, 115–17, 123–4, 266 n.10 Talbot, Joby xvii, 71–4 Talmud 166 Taylor, Andrew see ‘Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love’ Taylor, Elizabeth 68 Taylor, Gary 42 Tchaikovsky, Piotr Ilych 67, 69–70 Teatrino Giullare (company) 156–7, 160 Teatro Scientifico (company) xviii, 150–5, 151, 157–60, 159 Tehran (Iran) 229 Thatcher, Margaret xxii–xxiii theatres and playhouses Arena (Verona) 149 Arsenale Asburgico (Verona) 154–6 Bayreuth Festspielhaus (Bayreuth) 180, 184, 186, 195 Chichester Festival Theatre 9–10 Civic Theatre (Leeds) 251, 255 Coconut Grove Theater (Los Angeles) 248 Courtyard Theatre (Stratford-uponAvon) 111 Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar 133–5, 142 Folies Bergère (Paris) 67 German National Theatre (Weimar) see Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar Globe (1599) 27 Globe (1997) 150 Glyndebourne (Sussex) 181, 184–5 Grand Theatre (Leeds) 251 Großherzogliches Hoftheater (Weimar) 133–5 Königliches Hof und Nationaltheater (Munich) 180 Longborough Festival Opera House 180 Other Place, The (Stratford-uponAvon) xvii, 110, 111, 116, 120, 121

Index

Richard Rodgers Theatre (New York) xx, 235–40 Royal Court (London) 116 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (London) 75, 183, 195 Royal Shakespeare Theatre (Stratford-upon-Avon) 4, 41, 42, 45, 51, 57 Swan (Stratford-upon-Avon) 9, 30 Teatro Nuovo (Verona) 147–8, 152 Teatro Ristori (Verona) 154–7 Teatro Romano (Verona) 150 Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (London) 3, 6, 9, 11 Thirty Years War 134, 136 Thornton-Burnett, Mark 47 Tieck, Ludwig 139 Titian (Tiziano Vecelli) 175 ‘To the memory of my beloved, the author, Master William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us’ (Ben Jonson) 183, 192, 196. See also Jonson, Ben ‘To the memory of our beloved, the author, Master William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us’ (Paul Edmondson) 188–91, 197 Tolstoy, Leo xvii, 65–6, 81 Torah 169 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de 66–7 Trethewey, Katie 27–8 Trump, Donald xx, xxii, 174, 195, 236–7, 244 Twitter 54, 237 Twyman, Richard 116, 122–3 Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher 112 Ulrici, Hermann 137, 139 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 148 University College London 58 USA and Americans xvii, xix–xx, 68, 167, 171–4, 219–33, 235–49, 254–5 Albuquerque (New Mexico) 225

291

Alpena (Michigan) 219 Barnesville (Georgia) 220 Boulder (Colorado) 225 Bowling Green (Ohio) 220 Brooklyn (New York) 225 Chevy Chase (Maryland) 223–5, 229–30 Chicago (Illinois) 248 Dallas (Texas) 220 Denver (Colorado) 225 Grand Rapids (Michigan) 220 Green Bay (Wisconsin) 222 Houston (Texas) 75 Lafayette (Indiana) 224 Little Rock (Arkansas) 221 Los Angeles (California) xx, 235, 243–9 Manhattan Beach (California) 226 Montana 220 New York (New York) 171, 219, 235, 238, 248 Orlando (Florida) 230 Peoria (Illinois) 220 Port Gamble (Washinton) 219 Portland (Oregon) 226 San Francisco (California) 225–6 San Jose (California) 224 Santa Fe (New Mexico) 230–2 Seattle (Washington) 227–9, 222, 231 Topeka (Kansas) 221 Woodland (California) 220–1 Woodward (Oklahoma) 277 n.20 Valerio, Paolo 148 Valois, Ninette de 76 van Dyk, Grit 141 Venice (Italy) xviii–xix, 161–77 Accademia Teatrale Veneta 148 Banco Rosso 164 Ca’Foscari University (Venice) 162, 171 Cannaregio 165 Fondaco dei Tedeschi 175–6 Jewish Ghetto xix, 143, 161–77, 161 Mestre 164 Palazzo Contarini Fasan 272 n.10 Rialto 167, 175

292

Index

San Marco 162 San Trovaso 167 Verba, Sidney xxii, 132 Verlaine, Paul 65 Vernall, Lucy xvi Verona (Italy) xviii–xix, 145–60, 163, 196 Accademia d’Arte Circense (Circus Academy) 157, 159 Achille Forti Gallery 150 Casa Shakespeare 146, 148–50, 149 Castelvecchio 152, 154 Civic Library 148 Corso Porta Borsari 148–9 Corso Sant’Anastasia 148–9 Corte Mercato Vecchio (Old Market) 150, 151 ‘Juliet promenade’ 146 Osteria Sgarzaria 150 Piazza Bra 149 Piazza Erbe 148–9 Torre dei Lamberti 150 University 147, 152–3 Verona Plays Project 147, 154–60, 159 Veronese, Paolo 175 Vienna (Austria) 184 Vienne-Guerlin, Nathalie xviii Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) 55 Wadia, Sorab 173 Wagner, Richard xix, 180–7, 191, 194–6, 255 Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Die 180–7, 195–6 Ring des Nibelungen, Der 180 Wale (Olubowale Akintimehin) 68 Wallenstein, Albrecht von 134–6 Walton, William 10–11 Warsaw (Poland) 170–1

Weber, Max 258 n.13 Weimann, Robert 139 Weimar (Germany) xviii, 129–43, 131, 184, 194 Weimar Jubilee (1864) 129–43 Wells Barnett, Ida 221 Wellwood, Samuel 265 n.4 West, Samuel xiv, 3–13, 9, 24 Weston, Laura 157–8 Wheeldon, Christopher xvii, 71–5, 74 White III, Jack 75 Whiteley, Alex 45, 57 Whyman, Erica 111–12, 116 Wieland, Christoph Martin 132 Wilkins, George 113, 265 n.7, 266 n.14. See also Marina Project; Pericles Wilkinson, Monica xv–xvi, 32 Will Power to Youth (WPY) xx, 235, 238, 240, 243–9 Williams, Mark 116, 122 Williams, Robin 230–1 Wilson, Benedict 195 Wilson, Richard 275 n.10 Winick, Gary 146 Woolf, Virginia 182 Wordsworth, William 166 World Shakespeare Congress (2011) xiv World Shakespeare Festival (2012) xiv, 30 Yeats, W.B. 65–6, 76 Yoshino, Kenji 239–40 YouTube 67, 82, 108, 236 Zable, Arnold 166 Zaimoglu, Feridun 133, 267 n.13 Zeffirelli, Franco 68, 157 Zoffany, Johann 12