Shakespeare Bulletin最新文献

{"title":"“[A] time / Of pell-mell havoc and confusion”: Shakespeare and the 2016 Paris Protests","authors":"Anne-Valérie Dulac","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a907992","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a907992","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article looks at several graffiti based on translated quotations from Shakespeare’s plays which appeared on the walls of Paris in the spring of 2016, during the many protests against the government’s proposed labor law. After a discussion of Shakespeare’s own sense of the importance of visual communication strategies and painterly media in times of insurrection, it then moves on to the particularly tense political context in which these French graffiti were staged on the city surfaces. Based on detailed descriptive coding of these acts of writing, this article analyzes them as a modality of radical performance, showing that these words from The Tempest or Romeo and Juliet were staged as part of a visual political theater, and thereby allowing audiences to rediscover the full affective power and scope of such graffiti. The article finally turns to a close reading of the translated quotations in order to better grasp their time/site-specificity and topical relevance. Considering the parallel occupation of Paris’s main theaters at the time, it reassesses the growing gap between theater and protest as well as between performance and drama, while trying to account for Shakespeare’s ubiquitous presence in such contemporary discussions.","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"As You Like It Presented by the American Shakespeare Center at the Blackfriars Theater, Staunton, VA (review)","authors":"Nora Frankovich","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a907999","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a907999","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: As You Like It Presented by the American Shakespeare Center at the Blackfriars Theater, Staunton, VA Nora Frankovich As You Like It Presented by the American Shakespeare Center at the Blackfriars Theater, Staunton, VA. 17 February–14 May 2023. Directed by Jen Wineman. Costume design by Ashleigh Poteat. Music composed and directed by Tevin Davis. Prop design by Alaina Smith. Choreography by Summer England. With Kayla Carter (Orlando), Constance Swain (Rosalind), Kenzie Ross (Celia/Amiens/MarTex), Topher Embrey (Duke Frederick/Duke Senior/Corin), Summer England (Adam/Le Beau/Phebe/Audrey), Michael Manocchio (Touchstone/Oliver), and Annabelle Rollison (Silvius/Jaques/William/Charles). The American Shakespeare Center (ASC) presented an ambitious seven-actor production of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It as a part of their 35th Anniversary Season. In alignment with the ASC’s preference for minimal props and set pieces, this small-scale production relied heavily on costumes, as well as physical and vocal adjustments by the actors, to differentiate between characters. The production was quite successful in making clear distinctions between the numerous characters its cast portrayed—some actors juggling as many as four characters within the show—but many of the choices resulted in characters being associated with stereotypes. Stereotypes are not intrinsically bad or hurtful, though they may cause an eye roll from time to time, and in this production some of the stereotypes actually fit well with the characters, adding fun and humor in ways that enhanced their portrayal and successfully avoided negative associations. However, others resulted in mockery or the reinforcement of negative associations in a way that made watching this production, at times, a very uncomfortable experience. Director Jen Wineman established a 1990s aesthetic for the production which lent itself well to the opening scenes in Duke Frederick’s court. Rosalind’s and Celia’s plaid Catholic school outfits were a clear reference to the film Clueless (1995), whose patterns were carried effectively into their Ganymede and Aliena ensembles in the Forest of Arden. Kenzie [End Page 139] Ross’s Celia spoke with a Valley girl speech pattern which connected the movie’s spoiled rich girl Cher with this duke’s daughter who has been living a pampered life in court. In the United States, a Valley girl stereotype can be negatively associated with a ditsy or naïve girl, but this Celia was assertive and clever as she wandered around the Forest of Arden with Rosalind, showing her wit as she poked fun at Orlando’s terrible verses. Celia’s Valley girl accent came out more strongly when she met Oliver at the end of the play and nervously flirted with her new love interest, but this was still a young woman who had her wits about her and was very aware of what was going on. Similarly to Celia, the character of Jaques was wonderfully enhanced by the combination of Wineman’s 90s aesthetic and","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"688 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Tempest Presented by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, in the Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT (review)","authors":"Keolanani Kinghorn","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a908002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a908002","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: The Tempest Presented by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, in the Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT Keolanani Kinghorn The Tempest Presented by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, in the Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT. 12 July–8 October 2022. Directed by Cameron Knight. Set and projections design by Yee Eun Nam. Costume design by Raquel Adorno. Lighting design by Jaymi Lee Smith. Music and sound by Lindsay Jones. Dramaturgy by Isabel Smith-Bernstein. Voice and text instruction by Philip Thompson. Fight and intimacy choreography directed by Caitlyn Herzlinger. Stage managed by Carolyn Fast. With René Thornton, Jr. (Alonso), John Bixler (Sebastian), Arizsia Staton (Antonio), Freedom Martin (Ferdinand), Jasmine Bracey (Prospero), Amara Webb (Miranda), Sophia K. Metcalf (Ariel), Aidan O’Reilly (Caliban), Kevin Kantor (Trinculo), Anatasha Blakely (Stephano), Steven Jensen (Gonzalo), Kevin Kanto (Iris), Arizsia Staton (Juno), John Bixler (Ceres), and others. Last season, the Utah Shakespeare Festival featured Black actress Jas-mine Bracey as Belarius in Cymbeline. This year she returned to the same theater, front and center, as Prospero in an adaptation of The Tempest set in the 1990s, which came complete with a Boyz II Men song, original alt-rock music, a VHS tape, and—yes, even Walkman headphones. In this production, Prospero (Bracey) and Ariel (Sophia K. Metcalf) had a relationship that was different from any other portrayal of The Tempest I had seen before, and that was partly because, according to the production’s dramaturg Isabel Smith-Bernstein in a Q&A session, the words “slave” and “master” were removed from the text. The changes and their effect were especially apparent at the end of this production when Prospero embraced Ariel to bid her goodbye. The sadness they shared was palpable. The leads in this cast were outstanding, but there is no doubt that the success of this particular adaptation owed much to Bracey, who played Prospero as a woman, and who was a less severe and more affectionate parent-like figure. Bracey’s Prospero put up a strong front with Ferdinand and Miranda, but once they parted and Prospero was alone, that tough façade melted into giggles, showing her secret delight that the young couple was falling in love. This showed the audience that Bracey’s Prospero had motivations beyond revenge and that she could be likable; and it showcased Bracey’s range as an actress. Additionally, it highlighted the intensity of Prospero’s character in previous productions of The Tempest, which have often displayed a power-hungry and manipulative Prospero who takes advantage of everyone around him, including his family and the Indigenous islanders. [End Page 153] Instead, this production flipped the dynamics of a usually white cast and a Black Caliban (the word “Black” in conjunction with Caliban was also removed from the play according to Smith-B","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"500 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532677","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Staging Forgetting: How Botho Strauß and Heiner Müller Dislocate A Midsummer Night’s Dream","authors":"Tobias Döring","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a907988","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a907988","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Comedy may well be the generic form most intensely tied to the contemporary. If contemporariness, as defined by Giorgio Agamben, is “that relationship with time that adheres to it through a disjunction and an anachronism,” comedy stages this relationship by making such disjunctions the prerequisite of laughter while subjecting its protagonists to confusions and anachronisms, in the words of Shakespeare’s Puck, “that befall preposterously” (3.2.121). How, then, does comedy travel through time? How may its disjunctions be displaced to very different circumstances? And how, specifically, can it be rewritten so as to contest the pastness of the past? This article sets out to explore these issues through a reading of two little known, but highly resonant and symptomatic, German stage plays that engage, in rather different ways, with A Midsummer Night’s Dream : whereas Heiner Müller’s Waldstück (1969) relocates the erotic and political entanglements of Shakespeare’s Athens to a workers’ recreation home in the German Democratic Republic, Botho Strauß’s Der Park (1983) tries to reimagine mythic characters and their magic charm under conditions of West German banality. Both merit comparison and study as their project is less directed at remembering and retrieving powerful Shakespearean legacies than marking loss and making us forget their power—comedies which, in Agamben’s sense, hold their gaze on their own time so as to perceive its darkness.","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Macbeth Presented by the Longacre Theatre, New York (review)","authors":"Lisa Robinson","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a908006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a908006","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Macbeth Presented by the Longacre Theatre, New York Lisa Robinson Macbeth Presented by the Longacre Theatre, New York. 29 March–10 July 2022. Directed by Sam Gold. Scenic design by Christine Jones. Costume design by Suttirat Larlarb. Sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman. Lighting design by Jane Cox. With Daniel Craig (Macbeth), Ruth Negga (Lady Macbeth), Grantham Coleman (Macduff), Amber Gray (Banquo), Paul Lazar (Duncan), Asia Kate Dillon (Malcolm), Maria Dizzia (Lady Macduff), Phillip James Brannon (Ross), Emeka Guindo (Fleance), Michael Patrick Thornton (Lennox), Danny Wolohan (Seyton), Bobbi Mackenzie (Macduff ’s Child), Che Ayende (Ensemble), Eboni Flowers (Ensemble), and others. The inclusion of Macbeth in the 2022 Broadway season had both political and historical reverberations, as it asked a timely question: what happens to a community when power trips take their toll? Once the audience had entered the theater, the production began quietly, with actors milling about the stage. Michael Patrick Thornton, who would play the role of Lennox, entered the downstage space to address the audience directly. This pre-performance speech sought to dispel the curse of speaking “Macbeth” in a theater space, but also to situate the composition of Macbeth in its historical context. Thornton claimed that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in direct response to King James’s hyperfixation on the danger of witches; as England lay decimated by the bubonic plague in 1603–1604, the king instead focused on his struggles with the mysticism of witchcraft. So, when I walked into a theater after two years of COVID-19’s presence in the world, this framing of Macbeth’s historical moment made the placement of its greater narrative even more prominent in a time of great American upheaval. The production seemed to ask the audience: what does one do when power acts as the main motivator and corruptor, and how does a bystander handle the violence that follows in response? Through the creation of a vivid visual statement via extensive lighting design by Jane Cox and sparse scenic design by Christine Jones, the pain of mental and physical violence was left onstage for all to see. Without overly wrought set pieces, the minimalist set design made sure that human emotion was the largest focus of this production. Oscar-nominated actress Ruth Negga and Golden Globe-nominated actor Daniel Craig brought everything to their title roles; the intensity of their representations truly highlighted this emotional toll and the unraveling of desperation in the Macbeth family. In particular, the ways in which the production depicted both characters’ falls were quite poignant. This staging did not pit the [End Page 170] married pair against one another, but instead showed how they are both victims of the power offered to them. With the other standouts of this production, Amber Gray as Banquo, Grantham Coleman as Macduff, and Asia Kate Dillon as Malcolm, the power of Macbeth filled this theater ","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Henry VI: Rebellion; Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses; Richard III Presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (review)","authors":"Katherine Hipkiss","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a908001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a908001","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Henry VI: Rebellion; Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses; Richard III Presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Katherine Hipkiss Henry VI: Rebellion; Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses; Richard III Presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. 1 April–8 October 2022. Directed by Owen Horsley (Henry VIs) and Gregory Doran (Richard III). Set design by Stephen Brimson Lewis. Lighting design by Simon Spencer (Henry VIs) and Matt Daw (Richard III). Costume design by Hannah Clark (Henry VIs). Music composed and directed by Paul Englishby. With Mark Quartley (Henry VI), Minnie Gale (Margaret), Oliver Alvin-Wilson (York), Arthur Hughes (Richard III), Aaron Sidwell (Jack Cade/Son Who Killed His Father), Ashley D. Gayle (Edward IV), Daniel J. Carver (Clifford), Nicholas Karimi (Warwick), Yasmin Taheri (Elizabeth), Lucy Benjamin (Eleanor/other parts), Richard Cant (Humphrey Duke of Gloucester/other parts), Paola Dionisotti (Cardinal Beaufort/other parts), Conor Glean (Dick the Butcher/other parts), Peter Moreton (Father Who Killed his Son/other parts), Sophia Papadopoulos (Prince Edward), and others. What is a cycle of history plays? Is it simply performing plays that have a set chronology in order? Is it defined by all of the plays having the same director? By having the same company of actors and the same creative [End Page 147] team? Is a cycle of history plays defined by there being a cohesion and consistency of aesthetic choices? The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) produced Henry VI: Rebellion, Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses, and Richard III across a seven-month period from April to October 2022 with two different directors (Owen Horsely and Gregory Doran), a sometimes-consistent cast, and an occasionally cohesive aesthetic approach. These three plays formed part of the RSC’s take on the first tetralogy, with Henry VI: Part One being performed as part of an “Open Rehearsal Project,” during which a three-week rehearsal process was filmed before a final performance in the Ashcroft Rehearsal Room above the Swan Theatre in 2021. In this review, I will consider the three 2022 productions, all staged in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, as a cycle, and will focus primarily on the aspects that were consistent across the three plays. The aspects include how the productions presented the political instability caused by the domestic argument at the center of the plays; the supernatural and embodied ghosts; and the use of projection and the privileged access to the onstage (and sometimes offstage) events that technology affords. Click for larger view View full resolution Margaret (Minne Gale) and company in Henry VI: Rebellion, dir. Owen Horsley. Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), 2022. Photo by Ellie Kurttz, courtesy of the RSC. In the first two plays of this cycle (Horsley’s Henry VI: Rebellion and Henry VI: Wars of the Roses), political instability was","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Contemporary Shakespeares on Festival Stages: Empathy and Futurity in Poland and Hungary","authors":"Rowena Hawkins","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a907993","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a907993","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article explores “contemporariness” at European international Shakespeare Festivals. It begins by outlining the “disjunctions” and “anachronisms” of festival contexts, which combine highly contemporary productions with deeply commemorative practices. Through their unique temporality (“Festival Time”), festivals allow us to grasp our present moment from a crucial critical distance. To test the limits of this theory, this article considers two productions hosted on festival stages in recent years: Romeo i Julia , a Polish 3D water musical hosted by the Festiwal Szekspirowski in Gdańsk, Poland (2018), and Keresztvíz , a Hungarian production responding to the refugee crisis presented in Gyula, Hungary (2019). Situating these productions in their social, political, and climatic contexts, the article proposes that they use Shakespeare to cast what Giorgio Agamben might call an “untimely” gaze on contemporary concerns, and encourage audiences to look, with hope, towards a better future.","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation ed. by Diana E. Henderson and Stephen O’Neill (review)","authors":"Benjamin Broadribb","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a908007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a908007","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation ed. by Diana E. Henderson and Stephen O’Neill Benjamin Broadribb The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation. Edited by Diana E. Henderson and Stephen O’Neill. London: Bloomsbury, 2022. Pp. xiv + 411. Hardback $175.00. E-book $157.50. In their introduction to The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation, coeditors Diana E. Henderson and Stephen O’Neill use the phrase “big tent” to describe their approach to Shakespeare adaptation studies (18). They borrow the term from the world of politics, where it denotes a political party that embraces a broad spectrum of views rather than enforcing members to toe the line of a particular dogma. “Big tent” is an apt descriptor for Henderson and O’Neill’s expansive volume, which provides a truly panoramic view of the field. It demonstrates the longstanding intertwinement of Shakespeare studies and adaptation studies, while respecting each as a distinct discipline equally worthy of independent consideration and care. Shakespeare and Adaptation is the fifth entry in Bloomsbury’s series of Arden Research Handbooks, inaugurated in 2020. It follows the blueprint of other titles in the series by dividing its chapters into three parts under the headings “Research Methods and Problems,” “Current Research and Issues,” and “New Directions.” The editors also adapt this format by further dividing part two into subsections—“Histories and Politics of Adaptation,” “Shakespeare in Parts,” and “Media Lenses and Digital Cultures”—to achieve their desired balance of “capaciousness with clarity” (18). While each chapter is written with the distinctive voice of its writer or cowriters, the collection offers a united vision that captures the inclusive, forward-thinking philosophy that Henderson and O’Neill put forward in their introduction: “Adaptation is no longer simply a facet of Shakespeare or the field of study based on his works and their afterlives but is, rather, a key driver of Shakespeare’s ongoing vitality in the contemporary world” (5). While I cannot hope to capture the wealth of far-reaching research contained within Shakespeare and Adaptation in a brief review, I will try to emulate here the volume’s balance of capaciousness and clarity. The three chapters in part one, written by Emma Smith, Douglas M. Lanier, and Julie Sanders, convincingly set out the theoretical framework upon which the subsequent chapters are based. Together, these chapters decenter “Shakespeare” from the phrase “Shakespeare [End Page 191] and Adaptation.” Smith, Lanier, and Sanders present their work in a manner that is both academically rich and comprehensively accessible, explaining complex ideas through language and tone choices that are never abstruse. Smith positions Shakespeare as a key player in the long history of adaptation. She highlights early on that “The term ‘playwright’ [. . .] follow[s] the semantic model of words like cartwright and","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"201 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Othello Presented at the Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre, London (review)","authors":"Gemma Miller","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a908004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a908004","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Othello Presented at the Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre, London Gemma Miller Othello Presented at the Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre, London. 30 November 2022–21 January 2023. Directed by Clint Dyer. Set design by Chloe Lamford. Costume design by Michael Vale. Lighting design by Jai Morjaria. Sound design and composition by Pete Malkin and Benjamin Grant. With Jack Bardoe (Roderigo/System), Joe Bolland (Messenger/System), Rory Fleck Byrne (Cassio/System), Kirsty J. Curtis (Bianca/System), Peter Eastland (System), Tanya Franks (Emilia/System), Colm Gormley (Gentleman/Officer/System), Paul Hilton (Iago), Gareth Kennerley (Montano/System), Joshua Lacey (Lodovico/System), Rosy McEwan (Desdemona), Martin Marquez (Duke of Venice/System), Katie Matsell (System), Amy Newton (System), Sabi Perez (System), Steffan Rizzi (Gentleman/Senator/System), Jay Simpson (Brabantio/Gratiano/System), Giles Terera (Othello), and Ryan Whittle (Voice/System). Since its foundation in 1963, the Royal National Theatre has staged five productions of Othello, the most recent of which before this latest offering was just nine years ago—Nicholas Hytner’s well-received 2013 production starring Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear. However, times have changed, and the 2022 staging was very clearly an Othello for the post-Brexit-era, Black Lives Matter moment. National Theatre’s deputy artistic director Clint Dyer, the first Black British artist to have worked there as an actor, writer, and director, has spoken in interviews about seeing posters of Laurence Olivier as Othello in the National Theatre’s auditorium. The image of Olivier in blackface apparently “broke [his] heart,” and he was moved to scratch “Shame on you” across the whites of his eyes (Marshall). Almost twenty years later, Dyer has finally had the chance to direct his own production of Othello, and it was one that both acknowledged and consciously broke from the problematic performance history of this play. As I entered the Lyttelton auditorium, I was confronted with projections of playbills across the back wall of the stage. These were images from previous productions of Othello, from its first performance in 1604 to the most recent twenty-first-century revivals. Downstage, a janitor was mopping up a large puddle of blood, pausing every now and then to look out into the auditorium. Was he clearing up the blood from the last performance or from the past 400 years? The fact that the performance ended with blood seeping up from below the stage suggested a cyclicality that even Dyer’s production could not break. The set was a raised gray platform, flanked on three sides by steps leading upwards and lighting rigs exposed in the wings. When the lights went down, “The Moor of Venice” [End Page 161] in a typeface reminiscent of that of the First Folio scrolled across the top step. Othello’s status as an outsider, who is both “of ” and not “of ” Venice, served as a reminder to audiences that this is a play p","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"100 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"In the Thick of the Woods: Contemporary Obscurity in the RSC’s 2021 Virtual Dream","authors":"Ina Habermann","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a907989","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a907989","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This essay discusses the Royal Shakespeare Company’s virtual Dream that was streamed in March 2021, reaching over 53,000 people from more than seventy countries. Led by publicity to expect a dazzling virtual spectacle, many spectators found the experience underwhelming, feeling baffled by a Puck avatar who groped around an artificial looking nighttime wood, whipped about by a storm. This article suggests that, instead of dismissing this project too easily, it can be read as a truly contemporary rendering of the play in Giorgio Agamben’s sense. Shakespeare becomes contemporary through a dramatic exploration of obscurity, showing how characters are compelled to act, to make decisions, and to abandon themselves to a potentially dangerous environment that they do not fully understand or control. Like Shakespeare’s mechanicals, tripped up in their rehearsal process by the strange workings in the woods near Athens, the RSC’s Dream cast were groping towards an expression of their present predicament, sending out a flickering message from their COVID-19 lockdown. The production captured contemporary obscurity and anxiety caused by the challenges of climate change, the pandemic, and digital transformation.","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"476 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}