- The College of St. Scholastica
1200 Kenwood Ave
Duluth
MN 55811 - +1 (218) 625-4874
Kevin A Quarmby
College of St Scholastica, English, Faculty Member
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Kevin A. Quarmby PhD is Associate Professor and Rose Warner Endowed Professor of English at The College of St. Schola... moreKevin A. Quarmby PhD is Associate Professor and Rose Warner Endowed Professor of English at The College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, MN, specializing in Shakespeare and performance, global Shakespeare, and Shakespeare and social justice. edit
In the early seventeenth century, the London stage often portrayed a ruler covertly spying on his subjects. Traditionally deemed 'Jacobean disguised ruler plays', these works include Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Marston's The... more
In the early seventeenth century, the London stage often portrayed a ruler covertly spying on his subjects. Traditionally deemed 'Jacobean disguised ruler plays', these works include Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Marston's The Malcontent and The Fawn, Middleton's The Phoenix, and Sharpham's The Fleer. Commonly dated to the arrival of James I, these plays are typically viewed as synchronic commentaries on the Jacobean regime.
Kevin A. Quarmby demonstrates that the disguised ruler motif actually evolved in the 1580s. It emerged from medieval folklore and balladry, Tudor Chronicle history and European tragicomedy. Familiar on the Elizabethan stage, these incognito rulers initially offered light-hearted, romantic entertainment, only to suffer a sinister transformation as England awaited its ageing queen's demise. The disguised royal had become a dangerously voyeuristic political entity by the time James assumed the throne.
Traditional critical perspectives also disregard contemporary theatrical competition. Market demands shaped the repertories. Rivalry among playing companies guaranteed the motif's ongoing vitality. The disguised ruler's presence in a play reassured audiences; it also facilitated a subversive exploration of contemporary social and political issues. Gradually, the disguised ruler's dramatic currency faded, but the figure remained vibrant as an object of parody until the playhouses closed in the 1640s.
Kevin A. Quarmby demonstrates that the disguised ruler motif actually evolved in the 1580s. It emerged from medieval folklore and balladry, Tudor Chronicle history and European tragicomedy. Familiar on the Elizabethan stage, these incognito rulers initially offered light-hearted, romantic entertainment, only to suffer a sinister transformation as England awaited its ageing queen's demise. The disguised royal had become a dangerously voyeuristic political entity by the time James assumed the throne.
Traditional critical perspectives also disregard contemporary theatrical competition. Market demands shaped the repertories. Rivalry among playing companies guaranteed the motif's ongoing vitality. The disguised ruler's presence in a play reassured audiences; it also facilitated a subversive exploration of contemporary social and political issues. Gradually, the disguised ruler's dramatic currency faded, but the figure remained vibrant as an object of parody until the playhouses closed in the 1640s.
Research Interests:
Shakespeare, Shakespearean performance history, Shakespearean Drama, Thomas Middleton, Early Modern English drama, and 12 moreRobin Hood, Teaching Shakespeare, Shakespeare in Performance, William Shakespeare, Disguise Plays, John Marston, Shakespeare Studies, King James I, Disguises in Shakespeare, Shakespeare Henry v, Análisis Shakespeare, and King James VI/I
"'Shakespeare in Prison': A South African Social Justice Alternative" interrogates the validity of certain ‘Shakespeare in prison’ initiatives. In so doing, it engages in ongoing criticism of arts outreach projects and their... more
"'Shakespeare in Prison': A South African Social Justice Alternative" interrogates the validity of certain ‘Shakespeare in prison’ initiatives. In so doing, it engages in ongoing criticism of arts outreach projects and their effectiveness, while highlighting the role of anti-mass-incarceration activists who denounce such well-meaning efforts as unwittingly abetting the ongoing commodification of detainees. As an antidote to projects that seek to "salve with the balm of the Bard", the chapter offers an alternative South African ‘Shakespeare in prison’ educational experience, which consciously seeks to de-commodify the incarcerated by empowering inmates to confront their fear of Shakespeare, not as an intellectually superior literary or dramatic construct, but as a very real counter to the ‘fear’ of their violent day-to-day existence.
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Quarmby offers a timely reminder about the dangers of imposing a reformulated national myth on international Shakespeare productions. Focusing on a London performance of Korea’s Yohangza Theatre Company’s shamanized Hamlet, Quarmby’s case... more
Quarmby offers a timely reminder about the dangers of imposing a reformulated national myth on international Shakespeare productions. Focusing on a London performance of Korea’s Yohangza Theatre Company’s shamanized Hamlet, Quarmby’s case study invites far broader consideration of the readability of global Shakespeares, and the cultural competence required by Western audiences to appreciate their political, historical, and local complexity. The Korean theatre industry’s colonizing of Hamlet is traced to a Seoul-based nationalist intellectual agenda to reinvent Korea’s mythic identity after a century of cultural oppression. Quarmby demonstrates how this concretizing of shamanic symbolism, packaged for Westernized theatregoing consumption, has created a supposedly authentic Koreanized Shakespeare genre that is confusing to local and global audiences alike.
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In 2008, two British productions of The Revenger’s Tragedy, one in London, the other in Manchester, reintroduced twenty-first-century theatre audiences to the savage satire of Middleton’s play. Critical responses to both versions were... more
In 2008, two British productions of The Revenger’s Tragedy, one in London, the other in Manchester, reintroduced twenty-first-century theatre audiences to the savage satire of Middleton’s play. Critical responses to both versions were mixed. For some, these productions proved too self-consciously modern in their overt representation of sexual and social depravity. Heavy-handed moralizing effectively subsumed the play’s subtle undercurrents of infectious humor. In consequence, both the National Theatre and the Manchester Royal Exchange stood accused of sensationalized and salacious “overkill”. Such “overkill” was blamed on directors unwilling to trust the narrative, or overly eager to highlight the corrupt decadence of male authority at the play’s core. These readings were not surprising in the context of an economic crisis that, since late 2007, was already triggering public mistrust in institutions of social and financial control. Revenge and corrupting revenue represented the contemporary keys to interpretation.
In contrast, a London fringe theatre production of 2015 consciously avoided the extremes of moral discourse, despite its equally modern-dress design choices. Lazarus Theatre’s Revenger’s Tragedy focused more on the stylized attractiveness and reality of removed violence, and its effect on characters that suffer from, or glory in, its execution. The play’s director, Gavin Harrington-Odedra, justified this relaxed attitude to violent extreme by referencing the early modern acceptance of public execution as family entertainment. Blood and horror sold plays far better than cathartic moralizing. An immediate effect of this directorial “underkill” was a surprising elevation of the female characters in the play. No longer shallow archetypes that pandered to traditional readings of sexual desire, virginity, and femininity, the Duchess, Gratiana, and Castiza instead represented complex feminist commentators on the worlds they inhabit. Castiza might be commoditized by the lust of Lussurioso and the apparent insensitive greed of her mother, but in the Lazarus production, this complicated commercial exchange became less a cipher for moral decay, and more an opportunity for individual self-justification. The Duchess and Gratiana, in particular, both offer surprisingly honest, non-moralizing analyses of their actions. This detailed self-analysis seemed lost because of recent mainstream “overkill” performance choices. Including interviews with Harrington-Odedra, and the Artistic Director of Lazarus, Ricky Dukes, this chapter explores the representation of commodified women in The Revenger’s Tragedy, and considers how twenty-first century interpretations can offer radical new feminist readings when directors offer more nuanced views of the play's female characters.
In contrast, a London fringe theatre production of 2015 consciously avoided the extremes of moral discourse, despite its equally modern-dress design choices. Lazarus Theatre’s Revenger’s Tragedy focused more on the stylized attractiveness and reality of removed violence, and its effect on characters that suffer from, or glory in, its execution. The play’s director, Gavin Harrington-Odedra, justified this relaxed attitude to violent extreme by referencing the early modern acceptance of public execution as family entertainment. Blood and horror sold plays far better than cathartic moralizing. An immediate effect of this directorial “underkill” was a surprising elevation of the female characters in the play. No longer shallow archetypes that pandered to traditional readings of sexual desire, virginity, and femininity, the Duchess, Gratiana, and Castiza instead represented complex feminist commentators on the worlds they inhabit. Castiza might be commoditized by the lust of Lussurioso and the apparent insensitive greed of her mother, but in the Lazarus production, this complicated commercial exchange became less a cipher for moral decay, and more an opportunity for individual self-justification. The Duchess and Gratiana, in particular, both offer surprisingly honest, non-moralizing analyses of their actions. This detailed self-analysis seemed lost because of recent mainstream “overkill” performance choices. Including interviews with Harrington-Odedra, and the Artistic Director of Lazarus, Ricky Dukes, this chapter explores the representation of commodified women in The Revenger’s Tragedy, and considers how twenty-first century interpretations can offer radical new feminist readings when directors offer more nuanced views of the play's female characters.
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A "freeze frame" volume showcasing the range of current debate and ideas surrounding this most familiar of Shakespeare's tragedies. Each chapter has been carefully selected for its originality and relevance to students' needs. Key themes... more
A "freeze frame" volume showcasing the range of current debate and ideas surrounding this most familiar of Shakespeare's tragedies. Each chapter has been carefully selected for its originality and relevance to students' needs. Key themes and topics covered include, The Text, History and Topicality, Current Critical Perspectives and Adaptation and Afterlife. All the essays offer new views and combine to give readers an up-to-date understanding of what's exciting and challenging about the play. The text-based approach, unlike that of topic based series, reflects how Shakespeare is most commonly studied and taught.
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Co-Authored with S.T. Cavanagh & S. Unwin, "Infinite Variety: Undergraduate Research in Theatre Studies," in How to Get Started in Arts and Humanities Research with Undergraduates, ed. I. Crawford, S.E. Orel, & J. Olin Shanahan (Washington, DC: Council on Undergraduate Research, 2014), pp. 74–81more
In his 2011 study, which explores how ongoing advances in neuroscientific research continue to inform pedagogical theory, the biologist, biochemist and educational theorist James E. Zull remarks, ‘If we continue to count on education for... more
In his 2011 study, which explores how ongoing advances in neuroscientific research continue to inform pedagogical theory, the biologist, biochemist and educational theorist James E. Zull remarks, ‘If we continue to count on education for development of the mind, we need to change education itself’:
Like an Olympic athlete who embarks on a regime of training and challenging self-discipline, the human brain (and the cognitive mind it accommodates) must likewise, so Zull suggests, be exercised and strengthened. Experiences and challenges fuel this strengthening process, allowing the brain and mind to develop to the peak of performance and endurance. Physiology, neuroscience, biology, all feed the synaptic expansion of the brain’s potential, making the learning experience – ‘education itself’ – the site of radical and revolutionary new pedagogical procedures.
As Zull’s comments highlight, however, a late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century problem with the adoption of new technologies, one that technology specifically ‘does not address’, is the dulling receptivity that it invites in individuals who focus solely on isolated, restrictively personalised virtual experiences. All pervasive in private and public social interaction, technology should be able to ‘address’ this problem. Unfortunately, there is limited financial incentive for devices designed for mass consumption to be made more experientially demanding. Ease of use rather than intellectual challenge holds the commercial key. Nevertheless, Zull’s comments suggest that, although technology might be the problem, it might also offer new and radical solutions.
Like an Olympic athlete who embarks on a regime of training and challenging self-discipline, the human brain (and the cognitive mind it accommodates) must likewise, so Zull suggests, be exercised and strengthened. Experiences and challenges fuel this strengthening process, allowing the brain and mind to develop to the peak of performance and endurance. Physiology, neuroscience, biology, all feed the synaptic expansion of the brain’s potential, making the learning experience – ‘education itself’ – the site of radical and revolutionary new pedagogical procedures.
As Zull’s comments highlight, however, a late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century problem with the adoption of new technologies, one that technology specifically ‘does not address’, is the dulling receptivity that it invites in individuals who focus solely on isolated, restrictively personalised virtual experiences. All pervasive in private and public social interaction, technology should be able to ‘address’ this problem. Unfortunately, there is limited financial incentive for devices designed for mass consumption to be made more experientially demanding. Ease of use rather than intellectual challenge holds the commercial key. Nevertheless, Zull’s comments suggest that, although technology might be the problem, it might also offer new and radical solutions.
Research Interests:
In 1991, Ann Thompson pleaded with feminist critics not to give up on King Lear. In the years since Thompson’s essay, Goneril and Regan gained an alternative status as political victims rather than misogynized aberrations. Such... more
In 1991, Ann Thompson pleaded with feminist critics not to give up on King Lear. In the years since Thompson’s essay, Goneril and Regan gained an alternative status as political victims rather than misogynized aberrations. Such politicization was accompanied by an apparent over-sexualization of Goneril and Regan in performance, as evident in Trevor Nunn's 2007 RSC production starring Ian McKellen and Frances Barber. The foregrounding of the sisters as sexual predators highlights their dramatic currency as fetishized commodities for twenty-first century stage consumption. This chapter analyzes the shift in theatrical status for Lear's daughters, from unseen entity to sexualized commodity, and questions the predominantly masculinized theatre industry, in which primarily male directors and producers seem preoccupied with star-centricity’ and sexualization as guarantees for commercial Lear success.
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Colombia’s capital Bogotá hosted the 2016 Latin American Theatre Festival, which coincided with many 400th anniversary Shakespeare celebrations worldwide. Although the country’s then president, Juan Manuel Santos, acknowledged... more
Colombia’s capital Bogotá hosted the 2016 Latin American Theatre Festival, which coincided with many 400th anniversary Shakespeare celebrations worldwide. Although the country’s then president, Juan Manuel Santos, acknowledged Shakespeare’s importance for the festival’s “Theatre for Peace” theme, the event itself was limited in Shakespearean appeal. Referencing the nation’s decades of civil strife and the 2015 film Shakespeare by local director Dario Armando “Dago” Garcia, Quarmby’s essay explores the perception in contemporary Colombian politics that the bloody heritage of guerrilla warfare was already too tragically Shakespearean to warrant further celebration, thus permitting anti-Shakespeare rhetoric to inform Colombia’s quest for peaceful reconciliation.
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Shakespeare and performance pedagogy changed with COVID-19’s arrival. Live performances ceased, theatres closed, and pre-recorded Shakespeare dominated. Actors either accepted dangerous work or experimented unsuccessfully with technology.... more
Shakespeare and performance pedagogy changed with COVID-19’s arrival. Live performances ceased, theatres closed, and pre-recorded Shakespeare dominated. Actors either accepted dangerous work or experimented unsuccessfully with technology. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, however, developed ‘live’ Zoom performances, their safe employment practices offering alternative models for student engagement in the post-pandemic world.
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Michelle Terry's May 2018 debut performances as artistic director/actor at Shakespeare's Globe, London, attracted a flurry of attention. Her regime also replaced that of Emma Rice, whose forced departure from the Globe received mixed... more
Michelle Terry's May 2018 debut performances as artistic director/actor at Shakespeare's Globe, London, attracted a flurry of attention. Her regime also replaced that of Emma Rice, whose forced departure from the Globe received mixed responses from those who agreed that she had desecrated the sacred playhouse space, versus those who viewed her ousting as an anti-feminist coup. Fundamental to this exploration of the troubled narrative of Rice's Globe tenure is an acknowledgement that the forces of original practice (OP) academic theorizing about early modern performance seemed at odds with twenty-first century interests in Performance as Research (PAR). This article explores the battle between these two factions and discusses the role the academy played in the drama that unfolded not on stage, but behind the tiring house walls.
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William Shakespeare arguably represents the height of English intellectual creativity. His drama and poetry transcend his mortality, speaking to generation upon generation with an authoritative appeal that seems morally superior because... more
William Shakespeare arguably represents the height of English intellectual creativity. His drama and poetry transcend his mortality, speaking to generation upon generation with an authoritative appeal that seems morally superior because of its durability over the centuries. In his play As You Like It, Shakespeare even appears to glorify the social bandit and proto food activist. Characters that survive in the Forest of Arden by poaching their usurping duke’s deer are likened to the mythical figure, Robin Hood. The allusion achieves greater significance when considered alongside near- contemporary pseudo-biographies that record Shakespeare’s early life as a poacher and youthful renegade. At face value, Shakespeare’s Robin Hood reference might suggest his subtle advocacy of food sovereignty and social justice. This romanticized image is supported by later historiographies that interpret medieval and early modern enclosure from a specifically partisan viewpoint. Early nineteenth century historians who referenced More’s Utopia, and whose influence is evident in enclosure analyses ranging from Marx to Polanyi and Bookchin, unwittingly assist in perpetuating the iconography of the social bandit Shakespeare, united with his rebellious rural contemporaries. Surprisingly, however, Shakespeare’s true personality – that of a shrewd and ruthless businessman, at ease with hoarding in time of famine as purchasing common-land rights and privileges at the expense of his impoverished neighbors – is less familiar. The opportunistic, land-grabbing, pro-enclosure Bard, while not erased from critical view, is certainly shielded by the bardolatrous hero- worship of later ages. This “Bardwashing” of Shakespeare’s agrarian capitalist identity, in favor of the morally irreproachable icon, owes much to gossip gleaned from the very people most impacted by his aggressive exurbanite dealings. This paper interrogates the populist iconography of Shakespeare, and questions his reinvention as a local celebrity and Robin Hood eco-champion, rather than aggressive capitalist willing to exploit for immediate profit the food justice rights of his hometown community.
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McMaster University’s The Three Ladies of London conference engages with Wilson’s early modern dramatic text through Performance as Research (PAR). The archival recordings that make up this PAR moment reside in, and are accessed from,... more
McMaster University’s The Three Ladies of London conference engages with Wilson’s early modern dramatic text through Performance as Research (PAR). The archival recordings that make up this PAR moment reside in, and are accessed from, their digital home on the Queen’s Men Editions website (QME). Within the wider academic community, however, PAR has yet to achieve its full potential or acceptance. This essay considers the reason for this lessening of PAR’s scholarly status, associated, as it seems, with the hierarchical superiority of more traditional print-based exegesis, which is invariably prioritized and valorized as the sole means to validate PAR’s academic potential. Such valorization denies the collaborative model PAR offers as a laboratory for innovative scholarly inquiry. In addition, this essay questions the prevailing hegemony, and inherent presentism, of recent reconstructional 'original practice' scholarship, while offering an argument for recontextualizing, reviving, and re-enlivening the dramatic text through the embodied skill of the PAR actor. http://threeladiesoflondon.mcmaster.ca/par/KevinQuarmby.htm
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The 2013 Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s King Lear presented a dual problem for any reviewer. With two actors sharing the principal role, which performance represented the director’s vision and which should be considered first? Bill Rauch’s... more
The 2013 Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s King Lear presented a dual problem for
any reviewer. With two actors sharing the principal role, which performance represented
the director’s vision and which should be considered first? Bill Rauch’s intention,
to explore Lear’s multifaceted character through two distinctive performers,
seems counter to demands for consistency inherent in any repertory production. An
unforeseen outcome for this forced duality was its affect on the production’s powerfully
envisioned Cordelia, whose character shifted subtly in response to the different
Lears. To interrogate and complement this schizophrenic theatrical moment, two
academics collaborate on a combined review of two separate performances.
any reviewer. With two actors sharing the principal role, which performance represented
the director’s vision and which should be considered first? Bill Rauch’s intention,
to explore Lear’s multifaceted character through two distinctive performers,
seems counter to demands for consistency inherent in any repertory production. An
unforeseen outcome for this forced duality was its affect on the production’s powerfully
envisioned Cordelia, whose character shifted subtly in response to the different
Lears. To interrogate and complement this schizophrenic theatrical moment, two
academics collaborate on a combined review of two separate performances.
Research Interests:
The 2012 Globe to Globe Festival proved a great success. Actors, directors, musicians, dancers, designers and technicians travelled from all over the world to perform on the Globe stage. Visitors to London’s Cultural Olympiad enjoyed six... more
The 2012 Globe to Globe Festival proved a great success. Actors, directors, musicians, dancers, designers and technicians travelled from all over the world to perform on the Globe stage. Visitors to London’s Cultural Olympiad enjoyed six jam-packed weeks of Shakespeare, presented in an array of international languages. The Globe’s Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole, and his Festival Director, Tom Bird, had achieved what seemed, to many, the impossible. Nonetheless, filmed interviews with Dromgoole and Bird, conducted during the festival by the American documentary-maker Steve Rowland, offer tantalizing insights into the genesis of the festival venture. These candid interviews confirm the sometimes farcical, often exhausting, but invariably serendipitous truth behind the Globe to Globe Festival’s short, intense history. Although the Globe was “flying completely blind,” it still succeeded in hosting a glorious feast of Shakespearean delights, seasoned with the strong spice of multiculturality.
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New technology and digital media are, as Smith's comments suggest, forcing the debate about lone scholarship and collaborative pedagogy into the realm of performance-based teaching, a technique that has long been recognized by US and UK... more
New technology and digital media are, as Smith's comments suggest, forcing the debate about lone scholarship and collaborative pedagogy into the realm of performance-based teaching, a technique that has long been recognized by US and UK educators as an intrinsic strategy for introducing Shakespeare to the young and uninitiated. The improvisational flexibility and collaborative adventurism upon which the World Shakespeare Project (WSP) model relies fulfills some, if not all, of Smith's clarion call for stimulating experimentation in and out of the college classroom. Co-directed initially by Sheila T. Cavanagh in Atlanta and Kevin A. Quarmby in London, the WSP electronically connects international faculty and students in order to create and sustain hitherto unimagined collaborative dialogues and educational opportunities. Collaborative partnerships, however, require significant personal interaction in order to thrive. The WSP remains focused on its primary goal: to illuminate textual variety and performativity of Shakespearean drama, while stretching boundaries of electronic Shakespeare collaboration on a worldwide Web-based scale.
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The opening to Julie Taymor’s 2010 version of The Tempest offers a close-up camera shot of a dark turreted castle. Enormous drops of rain begin to batter the battlements as the edifice dissolves, revealing how the towers and turrets are... more
The opening to Julie Taymor’s 2010 version of The Tempest offers a close-up camera shot of a dark turreted castle. Enormous drops of rain begin to batter the battlements as the edifice dissolves, revealing how the towers and turrets are no more than a moulded sandcastle held in the palm of Miranda’s hand. As this essay confirms, the image of the melting sandcastle was not new for Taymor, who used the same visual reference in her staged production from the 1980s. Preserved in an obscure children's show, this original production choice demonstrates Taymor's close affinity with a theatrical effect that she transfers with little alteration to the movie screen.
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In 2010, Julie Taymor's film The Tempest was given limited art-house release. Starring Helen Mirren as the re-gendered Prospera, this version relied heavily on computer generated imagery to imagine Shakespeare's complex narrative. The... more
In 2010, Julie Taymor's film The Tempest was given limited art-house release. Starring Helen Mirren as the re-gendered Prospera, this version relied heavily on computer generated imagery to imagine Shakespeare's complex narrative. The resulting hyperrealism juxtaposed seamlessly with the expressionistic reality of the film's Hawaiian island locations. For its audience, Taymor's Tempest was decidedly twenty-first century in technical and visual appeal. In the film's accompanying glossy book, Taymor references her earliest foray into Tempest direction, her New York City production of 1986. No visual record of this production remains. In 1992, however, a children's television program, fronted by the comedy magicians Penn and Teller, records a one-off reworking of this New York production. Evident in a selection of key scenes, Taymor's artistic vision, with her regular use of masks, magic, and international puppetry techniques, is revealed. Significant for our appreciation of Taymor's development as a Tempest director is that this low-quality, low-budget video demonstrates how many 2010 filmic innovations already manifested in her original theatrical staging. The storm-tossed shipwreck, now computer generated, mirrored its New York counterpart. Most noticeable, however, is Taymor's 1980s decision to represent Caliban as an oppressed African slave, emerging from the physical structure of the island. Taymor's overtly postcolonial reading of Caliban, strikingly imagined in her 2010 film, reproduces in surprising detail her earliest creative choices. Prospero becomes Prospera, who transitions into a pseudo-bondage dominatrix, but the film still reproduces Taymor's earlier envisioning of the play's racial tensions, as evidenced by an obscure 1980s televisual experience.
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Traditional criticism of Measure for Measure has long noted a similarity between the fictional Duke Vincentio and the real King James. Indeed, some critics of Measure for Measure have insisted that the Duke and James are one and the same.... more
Traditional criticism of Measure for Measure has long noted a similarity between the fictional Duke Vincentio and the real King James. Indeed, some critics of Measure for Measure have insisted that the Duke and James are one and the same. An analogous similarity between Shakespeare’s Duke and the real King James seems based irrefutably on ‘historic fact’, with Shakespeare attempting a lifelike portrayal, or topical caricature, of the personality or political opinion of his Scottish king and patron. Biographical analogy holds the key to appreciating the contextual topicality of Shakespeare’s dramatic creation, with the spectre of King James residing firmly in the Duke of Measure for Measure. This specific instance of biographical analogy, focusing as it does on certain negative aspects of James’s personality and reign while searching for parallels in the Duke, is best called the ‘Duke-as-James’ theory. A culture of critical conservatism among Shakespeare scholars, especially those who follow the hegemonic/subversive model of new historicist practice, continues to uphold the ‘Duke-as- James’ theory as irrefutable ‘historic fact’. By refusing to respond to longstanding revisionist historical research, new historicist scholars continue to nurture a traditionally held view of Measure for Measure as topical political commentary, with Shakespeare offering decidedly negative or apologetic opinions about the qualities and intentions of his new king. This article seeks to redress the imbalance caused by such critical conservatism by interrogating our tacit acceptance of the ‘Duke-as-James’ theory in relation to Measure for Measure, and by highlighting the anachronistic historical construct at the theory’s core.
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In As You Like It, Rosalind makes a passing comment in response to Orlando's questioning which seems, in all innocence, to refer to rabbits gambolling contentedly in Arden's idyllic forest. Assuring him that she is native to the place,... more
In As You Like It, Rosalind makes a passing comment in response to Orlando's questioning which seems, in all innocence, to refer to rabbits gambolling contentedly in Arden's idyllic forest. Assuring him that she is native to the place, Rosalind invokes the image of the “coney” that dwells near where it is kindled as proof of her local heritage. Twenty-first-century actors delivering this line regularly use a pronunciation for “coney” that would, for any early modern audience, seem particularly alien. This article traces the history of the word “coney”, its banishment from later editions of Bowdler's Family Shakspeare, as well as its reinstatement following alteration by a nineteenth-century lexicographer who sought to make it sound acceptable for family reading. In doing so, it highlights the overtly sexual meaning of the word, linked as it appears to slang terminology for the female pudenda and thus the commodification of the female body, so restoring its potential as Rosalind's cryptic pun about the hidden truth of her “Ganymede” disguise.
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2005 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of two famous Shakespeare productions on the London stage: Peter O'Toole's Macbeth and Jonathan Pryce's Hamlet. Comparison of differing techniques for rehearsal and textual assimilation, combined... more
2005 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of two famous Shakespeare productions on the London stage: Peter O'Toole's Macbeth and Jonathan Pryce's Hamlet. Comparison of differing techniques for rehearsal and textual assimilation, combined with markedly dissimilar approaches by their respective directors, situate these productions in the historical context of British theatre of the early 1980s. From the viewpoint of an actor in both productions, this survey represents a primary resource in the study of twentieth-century drama. It exposes the opposing forces of “old” and “new” acting and directorial styles, the significance of changing attitudes to set and costume design, and the ultimate importance and limitations of performance space and venue. Most importantly, it demonstrates how both audience and critical reception might impact on the developing strategy of Shakespeare performance.
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Shakespeare, Drama, Shakespearean performance history, Shakespearean Drama, History of Acting, and 11 moreActing, Acting and Directing, Shakespeare in Performance, William Shakespeare, Shakespere's Hamlet, Shakespeare Studies, Shakespeare Macbeth, Drama and theatre studies, Acting Process, Análisis Shakespeare, and PETER O'TOOLE
In 1 Henry IV, Falstaff enacts his histrionic mock deposition scene, only to be usurped by England’s true heir, Prince Hal. Irate at his actorly demotion, Falstaff praises his own performance skills, while suggesting that, if found... more
In 1 Henry IV, Falstaff enacts his histrionic mock deposition scene, only to be usurped by England’s true heir, Prince Hal. Irate at his actorly demotion, Falstaff praises his own performance skills, while suggesting that, if found lacking, he should receive a punishment befitting his knightly status. Likening Falstaff to small game hanging in a shopfront or above a market stall, Shakespeare offers the ludicrous imagery of diminutive rabbit suckers and poulters’ hares as analogous with the metaphorical baffling of his cowardly knight’s massive bulk. With its systematic reference to the multiple methodologies of close textual analysis, intertextual evidence, and cross-linguistics and substitutions, this essay argues that Shakespeare’s “rabbit sucker” and “poulter’s hare” dialogue, while superficially referencing London’s poultry tradespeople, is actually adopting and adapting an obscure Scottish punishment, recently revised and reimagined with dangerous intensity in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. Shakespeare builds on this Spenserian imagery, adding his own animal-inspired evocation of rural hunting practices with culturally rich detail. Originating in Shakespeare’s obscure textual reference to an everyday marketplace image of inverted helplessness and humiliation, Falstaff’s rabbit sucker and poulter’s hare metamorphose into the standard dramatic trope for punishing violence and aggression, their newly-envisioned disemboweled carcasses displayed openly in Beaumont and Fletcher’s A King and No King and Philaster.
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Singapore, and Singapore alone, successfully forced Sir Ian McKellen's 2007 King Lear to cover his naked body on the production's international tour. The decision by the RSC to submit to local pressure from a nation that, at the time,... more
Singapore, and Singapore alone, successfully forced Sir Ian McKellen's 2007 King Lear to cover his naked body on the production's international tour. The decision by the RSC to submit to local pressure from a nation that, at the time, denied anyone under the age of eighteen to be exposed to nudity was deemed necessary, given the advance ticket sales to schools. Cancellation, the only other option, was financially too painful to consider. Artistic freedom, faced with a political regime whose anti-gay, ultra-conservative policies impacted any cultural activity, including cross-dressing and theatrical nakedness, bowed under the economic pressure. McKellen wore a loincloth in Singapore. As this keynote argues, however, the same censorship of the flesh was evident when Trevor Nunn's production was translated to the small screen for broadcast on the US's PBS network. Like the Singaporean diktat, PBS likewise imposed its own censorship, its cameras skillfully positioned to save its viewers' supposed blushes. Again, an inherent conservatism in the nation's politics was impacting PBS as it faced criticism of overly liberal production values. This essay considers, therefore, the extent that religious, political, and moral considerations for international theater companies are far outweighed by an educational imperative that panders to the consumerist ideals of the young at the expense of artistic innovation. Companies, directors, actors, and playwrights might adapt their productions, performances, and texts to accommodate the changing demographic of their local venues, but they do so for purely economic, rather than ideologically sensitive reasons.
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A review of the live virtual production of King Lear, presented by the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival for their "Shakespeare at Home" season 2020. Freely available to all via YouTube, this production featured actors performing the... more
A review of the live virtual production of King Lear, presented by the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival for their "Shakespeare at Home" season 2020. Freely available to all via YouTube, this production featured actors performing the play in multiple and individual locations, the socially-distanced imperative facilitated by Zoom and Open Broadcaster Software technology to create a performance in "real-time" that captured the spirit of living theatre, while keeping all involved safe and gainfully employed.
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A review of the 2019 Cheek by Jowl and Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre/Barbican co-production of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, at the Barbican.
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The Wurtele Thrust Stage of the Minneapolis Guthrie Theater is transformed into a Disneyesque Italian mountaintop village for their 2017 production of Romeo and Juliet.
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Black box claustrophobia informs the Union Theatre Southwark's all-female Henry V. The Lazarus Theatre Company creates an ensemble performance that relies wholly on its actors' collective ability to plant effective and vibrant images in... more
Black box claustrophobia informs the Union Theatre Southwark's all-female Henry V. The Lazarus Theatre Company creates an ensemble performance that relies wholly on its actors' collective ability to plant effective and vibrant images in its audience member's minds.
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Rehearsals for The Steam Industry’s 2012 offering of King John took place in the late-Victorian faded splendor of Shoreditch Town Hall. Situated north-east of the City of London, Shoreditch is a mixed location of warehouses, workshops,... more
Rehearsals for The Steam Industry’s 2012 offering of King John took place in the late-Victorian faded splendor of Shoreditch Town Hall. Situated north-east of the City of London, Shoreditch is a mixed location of warehouses, workshops, and residences. The area has benefitted from its twenty-first century trendiness and association with the artistic renaissance of Hoxton. For Shakespeareans, the choice of Shoreditch Town Hall might seem unwittingly resonant as it sits 350 yards from the 2008-discovered foundations of Burbage’s The Theatre (most likely where King John was first staged), with The Curtain memorialized in street names nearby. In reality, it is just one of many suitable (and affordable) rehearsal venues in and around the capital.
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Spenser’s Faerie Queene provided the overarching theme of an unusual and thought-provoking event, which included David Fuller, Professor of English and former Orator of Durham University, Bart Van Es and Ewan Fernie, the contemporary... more
Spenser’s Faerie Queene provided the overarching theme of an unusual and thought-provoking event, which included David Fuller, Professor of English and former Orator of Durham University, Bart Van Es and Ewan Fernie, the contemporary poets Jo Shapcott and Michael Symmons-Roberts, the theologian Andrew Shanks, and the Islamic chaplain
at Eton College, Monawar Hussain. Those expecting an academic exploration of the early modern text found instead a re-envisioning of Spenser’s political, social and theological allegory for a contemporary multi-cultural British audience. Not intended to offer answers to the nation’s woes, but to bring this epic poem, neglected by all but enthusiasts of English Renaissance literature, to a new audience, this one-off "event" is captured in this thought-provoking review.
at Eton College, Monawar Hussain. Those expecting an academic exploration of the early modern text found instead a re-envisioning of Spenser’s political, social and theological allegory for a contemporary multi-cultural British audience. Not intended to offer answers to the nation’s woes, but to bring this epic poem, neglected by all but enthusiasts of English Renaissance literature, to a new audience, this one-off "event" is captured in this thought-provoking review.
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No review of Shakespeare on European Festival Stages, published in the early months of 2022, could ignore the irony of discussing Europe at this fraught historical moment. Little could the book’s contributors have envisioned how their... more
No review of Shakespeare on European Festival Stages, published in the early months of 2022, could ignore the irony of discussing Europe at this fraught historical moment. Little could the book’s contributors have envisioned how their analyses of European festival stages – progeny of the ‘catastrophic first half of the twentieth century’ (3) – would be impacted by 2022’s own catastrophe, Russia’s attack on Ukraine, just as Europe willed itself into short-lived post-pandemic optimism. While the book is dedicated to the Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival founder Jerzy Limon, who died in 2021, this review is dedicated to the children, women, and men of Ukraine whose lives remain devastated by war.
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Book review of Wellington Summer Shakespeare, New Zealand.
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Shakespeare's Globe: A Theatrical Experiment will appeal to all who have enjoyed performances at the Globe and who wish to understand more fully the way the theatre approaches its plays. It will, of course, also appeal to an academic... more
Shakespeare's Globe: A Theatrical Experiment will appeal to all who have enjoyed performances at the Globe and who wish to understand more fully the way the theatre approaches its plays. It will, of course, also appeal to an academic audience, but this is certainly no cold, scholarly text. Sumptuous colour photographs of actors in period costume adorn its pages, reinvigorating memories of performances past. After reading this wonderful book, the true extent of the dedication and commitment of those who first saw, and continue to see, the potential of this Bankside resource comes shining through. A fitting tribute and one which should grace any theatre-lover's bookshelves.
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Kevin A. Quarmby situates the 2019 theatre scene within the context of social justice concerns prevalent in 2019. Not only did 2019 pass with all its political, social, and cultural discord painfully intact, but also the year’s focus on... more
Kevin A. Quarmby situates the 2019 theatre scene within the context of social justice concerns prevalent in 2019. Not only did 2019 pass with all its political, social, and cultural discord painfully intact, but also the year’s focus on disparate, often localized events now appears quaintly ill-considered given the global problems that erupted in 2020. The varied articles in Scene’s 2019 issue offer a taste of what was, a reminder what we missed, and what we hoped would soon return.
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An Editorial Essay for Scene, 2018, which discusses the "topical politicized resonances" that regularly appear in contemporary performances of early modern drama. For such "political and social issues to dominate theatrical practice,"... more
An Editorial Essay for Scene, 2018, which discusses the "topical politicized resonances" that regularly appear in contemporary performances of early modern drama. For such "political and social issues to dominate theatrical practice," Quarmby contends, "creatives must be prescient in their undertakings, must tap into a collective zeitgeist without appearing too heavily to moralize or polemicize." As Quarmby suggests, with "national division and polarization continuing to threaten our security and that of future generations, such politicization is inevitable, if not always completely successful." A review is one such aspect of of this zeitgeisting imperative. As such, a review inevitably materializes into something more than a record of performance. "No sooner is a production realized," notes Quarmby, "than its death is announced in the obituary columns of the theatrical review."
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Editorial: Is there a (North-)West Coast Shakespeare?
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Focus and Scope: Scene publishes review essays about early modern English drama in performance, reviews of productions and adaptations of early modern plays, book reviews, film reviews, and production notes. Our scope is mainstream... more
Focus and Scope: Scene publishes review essays about early modern English drama in performance, reviews of productions and adaptations of early modern plays, book reviews, film reviews, and production notes. Our scope is mainstream professional productions, as well as university, drama school, and non-professional productions.
Peer Review Process: All submissions are peer reviewed by the Editor (Kevin Quarmby), the Associate Editor (Melissa Walter), and external peer reviewers. Regional Editors and the Managing Editor (Janelle Jenstad) also do peer reviewing.
Publication Frequency: Reviews are published on a rolling basis. Twice a year, Scene bundles reviews into a single issue with a commentary on the preceding season.
Open Access Policy: This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Sponsors: Hosting is provided by the University of Victoria Libraries.
Journal History: Scene supersedes the ISE Chronicle, started by the Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE) under the editorship first of Paul Prescott and then of Kevin Quarmby. It was hosted at isechronicle.uvic.ca. The first two issues of Scene were hosted on the ISE site at http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/scene/. The content of those issues, as well as content from the ISE Chronicle, has been republished here as back issues.
Peer Review Process: All submissions are peer reviewed by the Editor (Kevin Quarmby), the Associate Editor (Melissa Walter), and external peer reviewers. Regional Editors and the Managing Editor (Janelle Jenstad) also do peer reviewing.
Publication Frequency: Reviews are published on a rolling basis. Twice a year, Scene bundles reviews into a single issue with a commentary on the preceding season.
Open Access Policy: This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Sponsors: Hosting is provided by the University of Victoria Libraries.
Journal History: Scene supersedes the ISE Chronicle, started by the Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE) under the editorship first of Paul Prescott and then of Kevin Quarmby. It was hosted at isechronicle.uvic.ca. The first two issues of Scene were hosted on the ISE site at http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/scene/. The content of those issues, as well as content from the ISE Chronicle, has been republished here as back issues.
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The Shakespeare Encyclopedia is an authoritative, visually exciting, and entertaining guide to all things Shakespeare, explaining the themes, plots, and contexts of his works, their literary and cultural significance, and uncovering some... more
The Shakespeare Encyclopedia is an authoritative, visually exciting, and entertaining guide to all things Shakespeare, explaining the themes, plots, and contexts of his works, their literary and cultural significance, and uncovering some of the mystery of the man himself. Throughout this volume, text, diagrams, and images combine to enrich our understanding of Shakespeare's timeless literary creations. Each work's themes, imagery, language, and historical context are examined and discussed in accessible language, while sidebars give at-a-glance information on plots, characters, sources, settings, and famous quotations. In addition, detailed diagrams, charts, and tables throw light on the plays' characters and their interrelationships, and illustrate the true history behind the plots. Finally, carefully selected images of stage and film productions, from different cultures and historical periods, convey the drama, pathos, and humor that suffuse Shakespeare's works.
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Copy Editor of OS (old spelling) digital text of Henry VI, Part 1, originally created for Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE), University of Victoria, BC, Canada.
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Non-peer-reviewed modern spelling digital text of Henry VI, Part 1, for Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE), University of Victoria, BC, Canada.
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Old spelling digital text created of William Davenant’s The Cruel Brother, for Digital Renaissance Editions, University of Victoria, BC, Canada.
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Advising assistant to Brett D. Greatley Hirsch (University of Leeds), the anonymous Fair Em (Shakespeare Apocrypha), Digital Renaissance Editions, LEMDO. Ongoing project.
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In 1 Henry IV, Falstaff enacts his histrionic mock deposition scene, only to be usurped by England’s true heir, Prince Hal. Irate at his actorly demotion, Falstaff praises his own performance skills, while suggesting that, if found... more
In 1 Henry IV, Falstaff enacts his histrionic mock deposition scene, only to be usurped by England’s true heir, Prince Hal. Irate at his actorly demotion, Falstaff praises his own performance skills, while suggesting that, if found lacking, he should receive a punishment befitting his knightly status. Likening Falstaff to small game hanging in a shopfront or above a market stall, Shakespeare offers the ludicrous imagery of diminutive rabbit suckers and poulter’s hares as analogous with the metaphorical baffling of his cowardly knight’s massive bulk.
As this essay argues, however, Shakespeare’s “rabbit sucker” and “poulter’s hare” dialogue not only offers a tantalizing glimpse into societal attitudes to London’s poultry tradespeople, but also adapts an obscure Scottish punishment, recently revised and reimagined with dangerous intensity in Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Shakespeare builds on this Spenserian imagery, adding his own animal-inspired evocation of rural hunting practices with culturally rich detail. From an obscure textual reference to an everyday marketplace image of inverted helplessness and humiliation, Falstaff’s rabbit sucker and poulter’s hare emerge as a standard trope for punishing violence and aggression, their disemboweled carcasses now strangely animated as they are readied for the cooking pot.
As this essay argues, however, Shakespeare’s “rabbit sucker” and “poulter’s hare” dialogue not only offers a tantalizing glimpse into societal attitudes to London’s poultry tradespeople, but also adapts an obscure Scottish punishment, recently revised and reimagined with dangerous intensity in Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Shakespeare builds on this Spenserian imagery, adding his own animal-inspired evocation of rural hunting practices with culturally rich detail. From an obscure textual reference to an everyday marketplace image of inverted helplessness and humiliation, Falstaff’s rabbit sucker and poulter’s hare emerge as a standard trope for punishing violence and aggression, their disemboweled carcasses now strangely animated as they are readied for the cooking pot.
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Colombia hosted the Globe to Globe Hamlet tour in 2014, the play visiting the Teatro Colsubsidio in Bogota. A few hundred meters from the theatre, in the Avenida El Dorado, a far quieter theatre of war is commemorated in a... more
Colombia hosted the Globe to Globe Hamlet tour in 2014, the play visiting the Teatro Colsubsidio in Bogota. A few hundred meters from the theatre, in the Avenida El Dorado, a far quieter theatre of war is commemorated in a state-sanctioned British cemetery founded by Simon Bolivar, which honors the dead of Britain’s military campaign that supported the revolutionary founding of New Granada. All things British are celebrated in a country that equates its very existence with this historical collaboration. It seems surprising, therefore, not how much Shakespeare influences Colombian theatre culture, but how little. With reference to the twenty-first-century performance culture of Bogota's XVth Festival de Teatro, and the surprising 2015 film Shakespeare by the Colombian director Dario Armando “Dago” Garcia, this paper explores the perception in contemporary Colombian politics that the nation’s bloody heritage of guerrilla warfare is Shakespearean in its tragic consequences. Shakespeare, or more precisely anti-Shakespeare, informs Colombian rhetoric about reconciliation and peace.
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Review of The Merchant of Venice, Wise Fool Theater, Duluth, MN (2017), for Big Q Reviews
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Review of Hamlet, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, National Theatre Live from London's Barbican Theatre, Screened at the Douglass Theatre, Macon, GA (2015), for Big Q Reviews
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Review of Hamlet, Ninagawa Company, Barbican Theatre, London (2015), for Big Q Reviews
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Review of Henry V, Lazarus Theatre Company, The Union Theatre, Southwark, London (2015), for Big Q Reviews
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Review of Richard II, starring David Tennant, Royal Shakespeare Company, Barbican Theatre, London (2013), for Big Q Reviews
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Review of Othello, starring Adrian Lester, The National Theatre, London (2013), for Big Q Reviews
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Review of King John, Claire Evans in association with The Steam Industry, The Union Theatre, London (2012), for Big Q Reviews
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Review of Romeo and Juliet, The Broadway Studio Theatre, Catford, London (2012), for Big Q Reviews
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Troilus and Cressida
William Shakespeare
The Wooster Group and Royal Shakespeare Company
Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
3–18 August 2012
William Shakespeare
The Wooster Group and Royal Shakespeare Company
Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
3–18 August 2012
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Review of The Taming of the Shrew, RSC Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 2012, for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Richard III, Royal Shakespeare Company Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 2012, for British Theatre Guide
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Review of King John, Royal Shakespeare Company Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 2012, for British Theatre Guide
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Review of The Comedy of Errors, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 2012, for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Twelfth Night, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2012) for British Theatre Guide
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Review of The Malcontent, by John Marston, Custom/Practice and Graffiti Productions, The White Bear Theatre, Kennington, London (2011), for Big Q Reviews
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Review of Macbeth, Royal Shakespeare Company Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2011), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Edward II, Christopher Marlowe, Em-Lou Productions Rose Theatre, Bankside (2011), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Measure for Measure, Royal Shakespeare Company Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2011), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of The Merchant of Venice, Royal Shakespeare Company Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2011), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of RSC's Cardenio, 2011, for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Double Falsehood, Union Theatre London, 2011, for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Massinger's The City Madam, RSC, 2011, for British Theatre Guide
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Review of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Royal Shakespeare Company Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2011), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of King Lear, Royal Shakespeare Company, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2010) for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Women Beware Women, by Thomas Middleton, National Theatre, London (2010), for CurtainUp London
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Review of Romeo and Juliet, Royal Shakespeare Company, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2010) for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London (2010), for CurtainUp London
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Review of Antony and Cleopatra, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2010) for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Romeo and Juliet, at The Chocolate Factory, London, 2010, for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Arden of Faversham at the Rose Theatre, Bankside, for British Theatre Guide.
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Review of All's Well That Ends Well, National Theatre, London (2009), for CurtainUp London
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Review of The Tragedy of Soliman and Perseda, Attributed to Thomas Kyd, Trifle Productions, Rose Theatre, Bankside, London (2009), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of The Spanish Tragedy, by Thomas Kyd, presented by Doublethink Theatre, Sotirios Hatjoullis and Jacob Wagen, at the Arcola Theatre, London (2009), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of The Rover, by Aphra Behn, Looking Glass House, Southwark Playhouse, London (2009), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Hamlet, starring Jude Law, Donmar West End at Wyndham's Theatre, London (2009), for Big Q Reviews
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Review of The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare's Globe On Tour, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London (2009), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of As You Like It, RSC, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2009), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of The Winter's Tale, RSC, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2009), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of The Tempest, The Baxter Theatre Centre at the University of Cape Town in association with the RSC, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2009), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of Romeo and Juliet, RSC, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2008), for British Theatre Guide
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Review of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, an adaptation in Portuguese by Nós do Morro, Bite08, Barbican Pit, London (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Review of Love's Labour's Lost, RSC, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Review of Edward II, by Christopher Marlowe, Eyestrings, St Andrew's Church Holborn, London (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Review of Timon of Athens, by William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Review of Hamlet, starring David Tennant, RSC, RSC, Courtyard Theatre Stratford-upon-Avon (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Review of Edward II, by Christopher Marlowe, BAC, Battersea, London (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Review of The Revenger's Tragedy, by Thomas Middleton, The National Theatre, London (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Review of The Taming of The Shrew, RSC, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Review of The Merchant of Venice, RSC, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Review of Henry V, RSC, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (2007), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with Samantha Spiro, actor playing Maria in Twelfth Night, Donmar West End, Wyndham's Theatre London (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with the playwright Howard Barker, The Dying of Today, Arcola Theatre, London (2008), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with Tony Benn, host of Eloquent Protest III, Trafalgar Studios, Whitehall, London, Remembrance Sunday 9th November 2008, directed and produced by Caroline Clegg, Artistic Director of Feelgood Theatre Productions, Manchester,... more
Interview with Tony Benn, host of Eloquent Protest III, Trafalgar Studios, Whitehall, London, Remembrance Sunday 9th November 2008, directed and produced by Caroline Clegg, Artistic Director of Feelgood Theatre Productions, Manchester, for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with Michael Pennington, actor celebrating Shakespeare in his one-man performance, Sweet William, Little Angel Theatre, Islington, London (2007), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Shakespeare and Acting
Interview with playwright Adrian Mitchell, adapter of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's The Great Theatre of the World, Arcola Theatre London (2007), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with RSC Director Gregory Doran, Venus and Adonis, Little Angel Theatre London (2007), for Rogues and Vagabonds
Interview with Peter Eyre, actor playing the Duke of York in Trevor Nunn's Richard II, Old Vic Theatre, London (2005), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with Claire Price, actor playing Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Crucible Theatre Sheffield (2005), for Rogues and Vagabonds
Interview with Sam Alexander, actor in The Winter's Tale and Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre London (2005), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with Sir Peter Hall, introducing the Rose Theatre Kingston (2004), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with David Rintoul, King Edward in Edward III, Gielgud Theatre London (2003), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with Stephen Unwin, Artistic Director, Romeo and Juliet, English Touring Theatre (2003), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with Patrick Spottiswoode, Globe Education Director, Shakespeare's Globe London (2003), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with Lilo Baur, Gertrude in Le Tragedie d'Hamlet, directed by Peter Brook, Warwick Arts Centre, Warwick University (2003), for Rogues and Vagabonds
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Interview with Edward Hall of Propeller for Rogues and Vagabonds
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The Vakhtangov Theatre, established in 1922, is named after Stanislavski's protege, Evgeny Vakhtangov. The theatre perpetuates the distinctive dramatic technique of its founder, embodied in Vakhtangov's Imaginative or Fantastic... more
The Vakhtangov Theatre, established in 1922, is named after Stanislavski's protege, Evgeny Vakhtangov. The theatre perpetuates the distinctive dramatic technique of its founder, embodied in Vakhtangov's Imaginative or Fantastic Realism ( fantasticheskii realism ), which contrasts fundamentally with Stanislavski's own naturalistic dramaturgy. With its ironic style of acting and emphasis on elements of the grotesque, Vakhtangov's experimental physicality and psychological intensity continue to inform the company's artistry. For this Russian Measure for Measure , Vakhtangov's ‘grotesque’ and ‘ironic’ formulations served to highlight the visual and aural intensity of the drama. Since the play is not particularly well known in Russia, its director, Yuri Butusov, felt free to adapt it to suit the company's stylistic needs. Butusov's most radical alteration was to double Duke Vicentio ( sic ) with Angelo. The impressively tall Sergy Epishev, who towered menacingly over his fellow actors, played both duke and deputy. As the duke, Epishev presented a self-controlled aristocrat whose effeteness accounted for Vienna's moral decline. As Angelo, Epishev became a gangling bureaucrat, uncomfortable in his ill-fitting suit and straitjacketed in his moral outwardness. It was, however, in disguise as Friar Lodowick that Epishev's physicality offered the most striking visual analogue. In black-hooded habit, Epishev appeared more Mephistophelean opportunist than ducal manipulator.
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Book Reviews: Ben Jonson in Context, Twelfth Night: New Critical Essays, Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture, Shakespeare and Moral Agency, Quoting Death in Early Modern England: The Poetics of Epitaphs beyond the Tomb, Three Renaissance Usury Plays, Thomas Heywood's Theatre, 1599–1639: ...more
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"'Shakespeare in Prison': A South African Social Justice Alternative" interrogates the validity of certain 'Shakespeare in prison' initiatives. In so doing, it engages in ongoing criticism of arts outreach... more
"'Shakespeare in Prison': A South African Social Justice Alternative" interrogates the validity of certain 'Shakespeare in prison' initiatives. In so doing, it engages in ongoing criticism of arts outreach projects and their effectiveness, while highlighting the role of anti-mass-incarceration activists who denounce such well-meaning efforts as unwittingly abetting the ongoing commodification of detainees. As an antidote to projects that seek to "salve with the balm of the Bard", the chapter offers an alternative South African 'Shakespeare in prison' educational experience, which consciously seeks to de-commodify the incarcerated by empowering inmates to confront their fear of Shakespeare, not as an intellectually superior literary or dramatic construct, but as a very real counter to the 'fear' of their violent day-to-day existence.
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Ruth Morse, Helen Cooper, and Peter Holland, eds, Medieval Shakespeare: Past and Presents (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013) 127 David Salter Agnès Lafont, ed., Shakespeare’s Erotic Mythology and Ovidian Renaissance Culture... more
Ruth Morse, Helen Cooper, and Peter Holland, eds, Medieval Shakespeare: Past and Presents (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013) 127 David Salter Agnès Lafont, ed., Shakespeare’s Erotic Mythology and Ovidian Renaissance Culture (Farnham, Surrey, Ashgate, 2013) 130 Goran Stanivukovic Farah Karim-Cooper and Tiffany Stern, eds, Shakespeare’s Theatres and the Effects of Performance (London and New York, Bloomsbury, 2013) 133 Kevin A. Quarmby Alexander (Alexa) C. Y. Huang, Weltliteratur und Welttheater: Ästhetischer Humanismus in der kulturellen Globalisierung (Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2012) 136 Géraldine Fiss
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Book Reviews: Ben Jonson in Context, Twelfth Night: New Critical Essays, Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture, Shakespeare and Moral Agency, Quoting Death in Early Modern England: The Poetics of Epitaphs beyond the Tomb, Three Renaissance Usury Plays, Thomas Heywood's Theatre, 1599–1639: ...more
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No review of Shakespeare on European Festival Stages, published in the early months of 2022, could ignore the irony of discussing Europe at this fraught historical moment. Little could the book’s contributors have envisioned how their... more
No review of Shakespeare on European Festival Stages, published in the early months of 2022, could ignore the irony of discussing Europe at this fraught historical moment. Little could the book’s contributors have envisioned how their analyses of European festival stages – progeny of the ‘catastrophic first half of the twentieth century’ (3) – would be impacted by 2022’s own catastrophe, Russia’s attack on Ukraine, just as Europe willed itself into short-lived post-pandemic optimism. While the book is dedicated to the Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival founder Jerzy Limon, who died in 2021, this review is dedicated to the children, women, and men of Ukraine whose lives remain devastated by war.
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King John Presented by Claire Evans, in association with The Steam Industry at the Union Theatre, Southwark, London, UK. January 17—February 11, 2012. Directed by Phil Willmott. Design by Emma Tompkins. Costume Supervision by Natasha... more
King John Presented by Claire Evans, in association with The Steam Industry at the Union Theatre, Southwark, London, UK. January 17—February 11, 2012. Directed by Phil Willmott. Design by Emma Tompkins. Costume Supervision by Natasha Mackmurdie. Sound by Jason Meininger. With James Corscadden (Lewis the Dauphin), Maggie Daniels (Queen Eleanor/Bigot), Albert De Jongh (Arthur), Ross Ericson (Pembroke), Sebastian Foux (Henry III), Michael J Hayes (Cardinal Pandulph), John Last (Hubert), Samantha Lawson (Constance), Rikki Lawton (Philip the Bastard), Daisy May (Lady Blanche), Nicholas Osmond (King John), Damian Quinn (King Philip of France), James Robinson (Chatillon/French Herald/Melun), Leonard Sillevis (Robert Faulconbridge/Earl of Salisbury).
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A review of the live virtual production of King Lear, presented by the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival for their "Shakespeare at Home" season 2020. Freely available to all via YouTube, this production featured actors... more
A review of the live virtual production of King Lear, presented by the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival for their "Shakespeare at Home" season 2020. Freely available to all via YouTube, this production featured actors performing the play in multiple and individual locations, the socially-distanced imperative facilitated by Zoom and Open Broadcaster Software technology to create a performance in "real-time" that captured the spirit of living theatre, while keeping all involved safe and gainfully employed.
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... The Gheeraerts “Ditchley” portrait of Queen Elizabeth I presided over all, her image casting its regal eyes over proceedings as she trampled a ... for contemporary society inspired by the quest for holiness in Book I of Spenser's... more
... The Gheeraerts “Ditchley” portrait of Queen Elizabeth I presided over all, her image casting its regal eyes over proceedings as she trampled a ... for contemporary society inspired by the quest for holiness in Book I of Spenser's epic.”[4] Recipients (along with Simon Palfrey and ...
Editorial: Is there a (North-)West Coast Shakespeare?
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Quarmby offers a timely reminder about the dangers of imposing a reformulated national myth on international Shakespeare productions. Focusing on a London performance of Korea’s Yohangza Theatre Company’s shamanized Hamlet, the chapter... more
Quarmby offers a timely reminder about the dangers of imposing a reformulated national myth on international Shakespeare productions. Focusing on a London performance of Korea’s Yohangza Theatre Company’s shamanized Hamlet, the chapter invites far broader consideration of the readability of global Shakespeares and the cultural competence required by Western audiences to appreciate their political, historical, and local complexity. The Korean theatre industry’s colonizing of Hamlet is traced to a Seoul-based nationalist intellectual agenda to reinvent Korea’s mythic identity after a century of cultural oppression. Quarmby demonstrates how this concretizing of shamanic symbolism, packaged for Westernized theatregoing consumption, has created a supposedly authentic Koreanized Shakespeare genre that is confusing to local and global audiences alike.
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In 2008, two British productions of The Revenger’s Tragedy, one in London, the other in Manchester, reintroduced twenty-first-century theatre audiences to the savage satire of Middleton’s play. Critical responses to both versions were... more
In 2008, two British productions of The Revenger’s Tragedy, one in London, the other in Manchester, reintroduced twenty-first-century theatre audiences to the savage satire of Middleton’s play. Critical responses to both versions were mixed. For some, these productions proved too self-consciously modern in their overt representation of sexual and social depravity. Heavy-handed moralizing effectively subsumed the play’s subtle undercurrents of infectious humor. In consequence, both the National Theatre and the Manchester Royal Exchange stood accused of sensationalized and salacious “overkill”. Such “overkill” was blamed on directors unwilling to trust the narrative, or overly eager to highlight the corrupt decadence of male authority at the play’s core. These readings were not surprising in the context of an economic crisis that, since late 2007, was already triggering public mistrust in institutions of social and financial control. Revenge and corrupting revenue represented the contemporary keys to interpretation. In contrast, a London fringe theatre production of 2015 consciously avoided the extremes of moral discourse, despite its equally modern-dress design choices. Lazarus Theatre’s Revenger’s Tragedy focused more on the stylized attractiveness and reality of removed violence, and its effect on characters that suffer from, or glory in, its execution. The play’s director, Gavin Harrington-Odedra, justified this relaxed attitude to violent extreme by referencing the early modern acceptance of public execution as family entertainment. Blood and horror sold plays far better than cathartic moralizing. An immediate effect of this directorial “underkill” was a surprising elevation of the female characters in the play. No longer shallow archetypes that pandered to traditional readings of sexual desire, virginity, and femininity, the Duchess, Gratiana, and Castiza instead represented complex feminist commentators on the worlds they inhabit. Castiza might be commoditized by the lust of Lussurioso and the apparent insensitive greed of her mother, but in the Lazarus production, this complicated commercial exchange became less a cipher for moral decay, and more an opportunity for individual self-justification. The Duchess and Gratiana, in particular, both offer surprisingly honest, non-moralizing analyses of their actions. This detailed self-analysis seemed lost because of recent mainstream “overkill” performance choices. Including interviews with Harrington-Odedra, and the Artistic Director of Lazarus, Ricky Dukes, this chapter explores the representation of commodified women in The Revenger’s Tragedy, and considers how twenty-first century interpretations can offer radical new feminist readings when directors offer more nuanced views of the play's female characters.
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A review of the 2019 Cheek by Jowl and Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre/Barbican co-production of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, at the Barbican.
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On the eve of Michelle Terry’s May 2018 debut performances as artistic director/actor at London’s Globe, The Guardian published Bridget Minamore’s observations about the rehearsal process for Terry’s “egalitarian and democratic” creative... more
On the eve of Michelle Terry’s May 2018 debut performances as artistic director/actor at London’s Globe, The Guardian published Bridget Minamore’s observations about the rehearsal process for Terry’s “egalitarian and democratic” creative ensemble, observed two weeks before.1 Comprising As You Like It and Hamlet, with Terry playing Adam and Hamlet respectively, this dual-production, raceand gender-blind, alternative-ability opening season appeared as radically innovative as its recent equally-inclusive forebears. The economic luxury (or perhaps necessity) of an extended twelve-week rehearsal schedule, complete with not one, but two weeks of onstage technical rehearsals, seemed appropriate given the break with tradition of Terry’s “quietly revolutionary” directorial style (Minamore). As Terry admitted, her ensemble approach was not immediately welcomed, even by her own actors. Uncomfortable with their newfound creative enfranchisement, some in Terry’s company demonstrated an “internal reluctance” to her democratization of decisionmaking (Minamore). In defense of their reticence, Terry voiced sympathy for actors who, from personal and professional experience, rarely felt they had a “right to talk about the costumes, for example, [or] believe their opinion matters” (Minamore). Implicit in Terry’s highlighting of “internal” acting company hesitancy appears her tacit acknowledgment that “external” forces could (or did) express similar aversion to collaborative change. As this essay contends, however, external aversion to change was nothing new. Indeed, given the early removal from artistic directorial office of her predecessor, Emma Rice, Terry might understandably feel pressure to succeed, without inviting negative appraisal of her methods. Led not by actors, but by academics and theater pundits seemingly offended by Rice’s perceived irreverence to the Globe’s material infrastructure, and frustrated by her lackluster
For the production: Romeo and Juliet (2017, Guthrie Theater, USA).
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For the production: Henry V (2015, Lazarus Theatre Company, England).
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The 2012 Globe to Globe Festival proved a great success. Actors, directors, musicians, dancers, designers and technicians travelled from all over the world to perform on the Globe stage. Visitors to London’s Cultural Olympiad enjoyed six... more
The 2012 Globe to Globe Festival proved a great success. Actors, directors, musicians, dancers, designers and technicians travelled from all over the world to perform on the Globe stage. Visitors to London’s Cultural Olympiad enjoyed six jam-packed weeks of Shakespeare, presented in an array of international languages. The Globe’s Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole, and his Festival Director, Tom Bird, had achieved what seemed, to many, the impossible. Nonetheless, filmed interviews with Dromgoole and Bird, conducted during the festival by the American documentary-maker Steve Rowland, offer tantalizing insights into the genesis of the festival venture. These candid interviews confirm the sometimes farcical, often exhausting, but invariably serendipitous truth behind the Globe to Globe Festival’s short, intense history. Although the Globe was “flying completely blind,” it still succeeded in hosting a glorious feast of Shakespearean delights, seasoned with the strong spice of multic...
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A "freeze frame" volume showcasing the range of current debate and ideas surrounding this most familiar of Shakespeare's tragedies. Each chapter has been carefully selected for its originality and relevance to... more
A "freeze frame" volume showcasing the range of current debate and ideas surrounding this most familiar of Shakespeare's tragedies. Each chapter has been carefully selected for its originality and relevance to students' needs. Key themes and topics covered include, The Text, History and Topicality, Current Critical Perspectives and Adaptation and Afterlife. All the essays offer new views and combine to give readers an up-to-date understanding of what's exciting and challenging about the play. The text-based approach, unlike that of topic based series, reflects how Shakespeare is most commonly studied and taught.
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McMaster University’s The Three Ladies of London conference engages with Wilson’s early modern dramatic text through Performance as Research (PAR). The archival recordings that make up this PAR moment reside in, and are accessed from,... more
McMaster University’s The Three Ladies of London conference engages with Wilson’s early modern dramatic text through Performance as Research (PAR). The archival recordings that make up this PAR moment reside in, and are accessed from, their digital home on the Queen’s Men Editions website (QME). Within the wider academic community, however, PAR has yet to achieve its full potential or acceptance. This essay considers the reason for this lessening of PAR’s scholarly status, associated, as it seems, with the hierarchical superiority of more traditional print-based exegesis, which is invariably prioritized and valorized as the sole means to validate PAR’s academic potential. Such valorization denies the collaborative model PAR offers as a laboratory for innovative scholarly inquiry. In addition, this essay questions the prevailing hegemony, and inherent presentism, of recent reconstructional 'original practice' scholarship, while offering an argument for recontextualizing, revi...