A Festival of Theses: The Sequel

It’s hard to believe, but it’s that time again. Yesterday, I found myself attending the Spring 2011 Thesis Festival at the Blackfriars Playhouse. Thirteen Mary Baldwin MLitt/MFA students were on hand to share their Shakespearean (and non-Shakespearean) discoveries, but, this time, instead of dead leaves crunching underfoot and the smell of various pumpkin-flavored beverages in the air, forsythia and daffodils were blooming and t-shirts outnumbered turtlenecks. The sense of scholarly excitement was the same, however, as students and professors and the curious public (like yours truly) gathered to hear what these graduate students had to say.

There was a glut of information at this spring’s Festival for someone of a history bent, such as myself. Before the day even began, my inner medievalist was already excited to see Shakespeare’s Chaucer, presented by Matthew Carter and featuring the illustrious authors themselves (in the forms of Kimberly Maurice and Maria Hart, admittedly). This examination of “source studies” looked at Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde as one of the inspirations for Shakespeare’s own Troilus and Cressida, while studying the different historical contexts out of which each sprung. England of Chaucer’s day was embroiled in the Hundred Years War with France and beset by plague, while Shakespeare was writing for “God fearing Englishmen who love a fight.” This, Carter theorized, caused Chaucer to focus on the romantic while Shakespeare embraced the military aspects of the story. Yet Carter pointed out that both works, frequently regarded in a strictly literary light, should also be appreciated as performance pieces, since that was the intention of their respective authors.

Another presentation with a medieval component was Maxim Overton’s The Pyrotechnique Story: Commanding Devils, Dragons, the Natural, and the Celestial, which looked at how the introduction of gunpowder to England in the late Middle Ages came to play a critical role on the early modern stage. Overton called the printing press and gunpowder the two most significant introductions to early modern England, and the two both played a role in the theatrical world. Unlike regular fire, which in earlier, medieval productions was often associated with heavenly figures, gunpowder and fireworks in an early modern show routinely symbolized devils and other evil characters. Overton even theorized that the dragon seen on the title page of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus was a firework-powered property -- the same, in fact, used for an earlier play by Robert Greene on notorious “pyromancer” Roger Bacon.

Faustus and the possible firework-spouting dragon.

At the opposite end of the historical spectrum, Katy Mulvaney, in “They Won’t be Troubling Shakespeare but They’ll Do”: Contemporary Playwrights Writing for Shakespeare’s Globe, spoke about some more modern plays which have been performed at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, specifically Peter Oswald’s The Storm and Jack Shepherd’s Holding Fire! Mulvaney looked at how these contemporary shows play with early modern staging conventions (demonstrated by volunteer actors staggering about in supposed blindness on the brightly lit stage in a send-up of universal lighting) and also how the playwrights can harness anachronistic uses of the Globe space unheard of to Shakespeare and his fellows. Yet Mulvaney drew an intriguing link to early modern performances in the form of audience interaction. Modern theatre at the Globe may revive the feel of the more rambunctious, participatory audience of Shakespeare’s day through new techniques for involving audience members directly in a show. Mulvaney echoed this concept in her own presentation by calling on volunteers from the audience and planting actors throughout the playhouse. In this way, even contemporary productions at the new Globe are retaining the spirit of the Elizabethan theatrical experience.

I also enjoyed tremendously Mediated Dramaturgy: Using Technology to Improve Different Forms of Dramaturgy, by Paul Rycik, on the potential uses of media in dramaturgy (yet more on education and the digital world – what seems to be a running theme through my blog contributions), and The Physics of Contranymy: Indefinition, Sublim(inal)ity, and Play, by Zachary Brown, which, once I finally wrapped my brain around the topic, was a fascinating study of the repercussions of differences between the written and spoken word and the possible subconscious effect on this wordplay on an audience. As before, for a more in depth look at each of the thirteen presentations, check out the ASC Education liveblogs of Session 1, Session 2, and Session 3. Also as before, I had a great time at this event and would heartily encourage anybody and everybody with a glimmer of interest in Shakespeare, Marlowe, Middleton (any Elizabethan playwright), history, literature, fireworks (literal and rhetorical), or theatre (early modern or just plain modern) to come out to one of these festivals. Let’s put it this way: you could be a Lady Gaga fan, and there would have been something entertaining for you yesterday.

Natalie A.

Happened Upon Discoveries: Other People Who“Do It With The Lights On” (Even in 1917!)

The American Shakespeare Center has been ‘doing it with the lights on’ at the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia since 2001. For ten years, this small theatre on Market Street has brought the staging conditions of Shakespeare productions and his contemporaries to life in a beautiful re-creation of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars Playhouse (the world’s only re-creation, in fact). As many of the preshow speeches dictate, the use of universal lighting creates a unique environment for audiences and actors in which “they can see you, you can see them and you can all see each other.” This essentially avant-garde brand of theatre is attributed to the loyalty the American Shakespeare Center has on early modern practices. The playhouses in Shakespeare’s period would have been lit by either sunlight or candlelight, neither of which could have been dimmed or altered for the purpose of the production. This knowledge allows the American Shakespeare Center to support academically their choice to keep the lights at the same level throughout each and every production. Living, studying, and working in this community has altered my conception of theatre forever. I was an English major whose only exposure to live Shakespeare performances was at Public Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park in New York City. After eight months here now, I can’t really imagine seeing Shakespeare in the dark ever again. To be honest, I don’t know if I would enjoy theatre as much if the actors couldn’t see, talk to, and engage with me as an audience member. Theatre here is a continual conversation with the audience, and I cannot really imagine being shut out of that conversation ever again (although I still would like to see the Broadway Addams Family.)

To clarify my seeming divergence, the reason I have brought up our universal lighting practices and the American Shakespeare Center preshow is that universal lighting seemed to me as a characteristic of early modern theatre that common practice had abandoned until the American Shakespeare Center and places like it brought the conversation back into the light and the audience back into the play. Can we really believe that after proscenium arches and footlights the audiences was always in the dark? Can we as theatre audiences accept that the conversation just stopped until 2001 in Staunton, Virginia? Or rather, in 1988 when Dr. Ralph Alan Cohen and Jim Warren founded Shenandoah Shakespeare Express (the theatre company that would eventually become the American Shakespeare Center)? I am sure lights-on productions happened throughout those few hundred years of interim. This assurance turned into a hypothesis, and I started reading about the historical evolution of theatre and theatre audiences. I picked up a book of that same title, Theatre Audiences by Susan Bennett, and found one section that was of particular interest to me. In the section entitled “Historical Approaches to Theatre” she breaks down the evolution of theatre in terms of audience throughout history:

“A history of audiences in the theatre demonstrates, of course, a changing status. Medieval and sixteenth century audiences did not enjoy the power of the Greek audiences, but nevertheless still functioned in an active role. There was flexibility in the relationship between the stage and audience worlds which afforded, in different ways, the participation of those audiences as actors in the drama. With the establishment of private theatres in the seventeenth century, however, there is a move towards separation of fictional stage world and audience, and with the beginnings of passivity and more elitist audience came codes and conventions of behavior. In terms of English theater, audiences became increasingly passive and increasingly bourgeois. With the exception of the first forty years of the nineteenth century-when the working-class audience created noisy disturbances and occasional riots in the pits- this is a steady progression to a peak in the second half of the nineteenth century. After 1850, with the pits replaced by stalls, theatre design ensured the more sedate behavior of audiences, and the footlights first installed in the seventeenth century private playhouses had become a literal barrier, which separated the audience and the stage. As Michael Booth puts it, ‘After 1850 behavior improved, and complaints were eventually made, not of uproar in the pit and gallery, but of stolid indifference in the stalls.’ In the last hundred years, none the less, there have been many challenges and disruptions of the codes and conventions which demand passivity.”

After reading this breakdown, I realized that the evolution of theatre over the past hundred years was designed to make everyone behave and follow the rules of social conduct. With the lights off, your options are limited. Your choices are either to pay attention to what’s in the light, to make out with your date, or to fall asleep. Limiting the choices of the audience removed the conversational element the Blackfriars has completely from the plays. Susan Bennett goes on to mention the consequence of proscenium theatre: passive audiences. I thought of theatre productions where passivity in the audience was actively combated against. In the Blackfriars Playhouse, actors talk directly to audience members. They present questioning lines as questions and wait for responses. The actors even physically interact with audience members. This practice destroys the comfort zone that would traditionally foster a passive audience. I can recall numerous productions where this frees audience members, and pulls them further into the world of the play. I can also recall multiple instances where audience members are unsure of how to act. The American Shakespeare Center breaks three hundred years of theatre behavior rules, and they expect their audiences to forget the rules they were raised in and to see an early modern play without concerns for the code of etiquette. Audience members are invited to sit on stage, to answer the actors, and to look wherever they please. They can even get up and get a drink at the bar whenever they would like to. The American Shakespeare Center actors create the world of the play for the audience and then invite them to live in it fully instead of just observing a show.

As I continued reading Susan Bennett’s Theatre Audiences I came across the phenomenon in the twentieth century. Productions started dissolve the convention of the fourth wall and to shock audiences out of the stasis of passive observation. Throughout the fascinating list of avant-garde early twentieth century production style, I came across one that hit close to home. Susan Bennett explains the theatre style of Meyerhold’s production of Lermentov’s Masquerade, a production in Russia in 1917 that kept the lights on in the theatre throughout the production. I shared this exciting bit of information with my boyfriend, a former theatre professor and current Masters Student from New York who perked up at the mention of Meyerhold. I will fully admit I did not know who this man was. I was simply excited that people other than the American Shakespeare Center and early modern England had “done it with the lights on.” I proceeded to Google, as any good scholar would. I found that Meyerhold had worked in Russia and eventually took over for Constantin Stanislavski as director his theatre. For those of you who did not go to acting school, as I did not, Stanislavski is a big name in the acting world. He essentially invented the method of acting that directly opposed the Western method acting movement of the time:

Meyerhold's acting technique had fundamental principles at odds with the American method actor's conception. Where method acting melded the character with the actor's own personal memories to create the character’s internal motivation, Meyerhold connected psychological and physiological processes and focused on learning gestures and movements as a way of expressing emotion outwardly. Following Stanislavski's lead, he argued that the emotional state of an actor was inextricably linked to his physical state (and vice versa), and that one could call up emotions in performance by practicing and assuming poses, gestures, and movements. He developed a number of body expressions that his actors would use to portray specific emotions and characters. (Although Stanislavski inspired method acting, he was also at odds with it, because like Meyerhold, his approach was psychophysical).

From my reading and various discussions with actors I have gleaned that Stanislavski was instrumental in the evolution of acting as it exists today. Meyerhold was essentially his legacy in the world of Russian theatre and is now the link between their revolutionary production style and American Shakespeare Center’s choices to “do it with the lights on.” According to The Russian Theatre Under the Revolution by Oliver M. Sayler written in 1920, Meyerhold made many of the same choices in production as the American Shakespeare Center makes now. “In performance, it was sheer joy,--the joy of the theatre as theatre. You face Meyerhold's stage with no illusion that it is not a stage. Of course it is a stage! Why pretend it isn't? There it is, under the full lights of the auditorium, curtain removed and apron extended twenty feet beyond the proscenium arch. It's a play you shall see, a play, you who love the theatre for its own sake! No cross-section of life here, no attempt to copy life! No illusion here, to be shattered by the slightest mishap or by a prosaic streak in the spectator's make-up. It's a play you shall see, and you'll know it all the time, for you'll play, too, whether you realize it or not. The audience is always an essential factor in the production of drama.”

I was excited to make this discovery and to share it with all of you. I hope you find it as interesting as I did. I think that it is always nice to realize your world is far larger and more influenced than you originally thought. While the American Shakespeare Center is not the first modern theatre to keep the lights on the audience and to invite everyone into the world of the play, the ASC is in good company.

(K.A. Lenz)

Actor-Scholar Council 3/4/11

Last Friday’s council focused on 3 Henry VI, which opened last week. Actors in attendance included Tyler, Ben, Sarah, Greg, and Alli. The ASC is working its way through Shakespeare’s two tetrologies of history plays, doing a play from the War of the Roses each Renaissance season and play from the Henriad each fall season. Dr. Menzer, who led the council in Dr. Ralph’s absence, said that it has become fashionable among theatre companies to do the whole set of history plays in one season or festival. The Royal Shakespeare Company has done this twice in the past decade. I’m glad the ASC isn’t doing that, because I don’t think I could sit through eight two and a half hour plays.

The only character who appears in all four plays of this tetrology (the three parts of Henry VI and then Richard III) is Margaret, played by Sarah Fallon. Sarah feels the Margaret in Richard III (which the ASC will perform in the 2012 Renaissance season) is hard to understand unless a person has seen the Henry VI plays. Carrying the character through the tetrology proves difficult, partly because a year separates the staging of each play. Also, a lot of Margaret’s story in the first two parts revolves around Suffolk, who is killed at the end of Part 2. Instead of focusing on him, Margaret must now focus on her son Ned.

Greg, who previously played Suffolk, now plays the titular character. King Henry, he thinks, differs in this play from in the others. He sees the king as someone who never wanted for power or kingship and must try in vain to explain to those around him, who seek just that, that other things have greater import, such as stopping all the killing. Greg calls Henry a “good king, in the wrong play.”

Ben, who plays Richard Duke of Gloucester (later to be Richard III), also played the former duke of Gloucester, Humphrey, in parts 1 and 2. This correlation gives him a lot to draw on, especially in the contrast between the two. Humphrey always tried to do right (and gets killed for it—which explains why Richard at first thinks Gloucester too ominous a dukedom to accept), while Richard does only wrong. Ben argues that Richard only becomes so bloodthirsty after Clifford brutally kills his father and little brother. Before that, he focused on getting the crown for his father, York. With them dead, he feels free to be vicious. Viewers of last year’s Part 2 will remember that the seeds of viciousness were visible when Richard impaled Somerset on his sword and hoisted him over his head.

One part of rehearsing that makes history plays unique among the ASC show: they have tech rehearsals. All the fighting, sound cues, and stage directions make them more complicated. Henry VI Part 3 has over 70 sound cues, all of which are done live by actors. They have almost no down time backstage and must work hard to bring it all together. This show even included blood, mostly in the scene of Clifford’s death. The actor playing Clifford really wanted the blood, and the scene comes just before intermission, which gives the stage managers a chance to clean up the blood. The actors would have loved more gore, but technical, costume, and time constraints prevented it. Time constraints also prevented them from having a big celebration at the end of the play, when Edward gets crowned and everyone thinks the War of the Roses ends. While this leaves the ending more open to the violence of Richard III, the actors wish they could have ended with a jig.

The actors talked about the importance of heart and emoting in making the play work. By emoting, they keep from going into what Dr. Menzer calls “historical pronouncements,” or from making a blatantly allegorical scene seem overbearing. The actors need to find out how the action relates to their characters personally, and the audience will feel their emotion. The audience may not follow all the complicated family ties, but they understand the concepts, like family or civil war. If each actor knows how he or she feels and has a firm internal grasp on the character’s history and family, that will be enough.

Today’s podcast also featured a discussion of comedy in Henry VI Part 3, some hilarious banter from Dr. Menzer, and Greg’s fascinating extended conceit about . . . toast? So be sure to listen to the council’s podcast, available soon on the website.

Forgotten Folios and Private Portraits

As I was watching Antiques Roadshow the other night (yes, that is correct, I watch Antiques Roadshow), much to my surprise, amongst the Federalist furniture and Tiffany lamps, there unexpectedly appeared a partial first folio of Shakespeare’s plays. True, this was not the entire folio as it was first published by Shakespeare’s colleagues Heminges and Condell in 1623, of which some 219 are known to still exist of the original printing of approximately 750. Instead, this one had been re-bound sometime in the nineteenth century and contained only the complete first and third parts of Henry VI (the latter of which you may, coincidentally, see currently on the Blackfriars stage). Still, these two plays along, along with the remaining individual pages from several other plays, were valued at $40,000 to $50,000. ‘Swounds! See for yourself.

Now, of course, all first folios were at one point “privately owned.” Yet to see an original printing of Shakespeare’s work, partial or otherwise, appear from the dusty depths of someone’s attic was a shock. The idea of artifacts directly relating to the celebrated Shakespeare not all being appropriately stowed in various libraries or museums was one I, at least, had never before considered. A quick internet search of various auction houses and newspaper articles reveals, however, that pieces of Shakespeare are still out there to be had – if, that is, you have a cool couple million or so to spare. And, additionally, new items are coming to light fairly regularly, each one often changing or challenging the contemporary view of that elusive figure, William Shakespeare.

An interesting study of how the remaining first folios have changed hands and increased in value over time may be seen by following the path of those belonging to one Dr. Rosenbach. Rosenbach, an American antique book collector, purchased two in 1922, one for £8,600, the highest amount for a first folio ever paid up to that time. Previously, the same folio had sold in 1864 to a British baroness for £716. Rosenbach later sold his entire collection, which by then totaled 73 folios and quartos, to a Swiss banker for over one million dollars, as this Time article from 1952, entitled “Goodbye, Shakespeare,” explains. On an interesting side note: in the past, Rosenbach had purchased yet another first folio for Harry Widener, an American businessman who then inconveniently perished in the Titanic disaster. Widener’s private collection was subsequently donated to Harvard, where it, folio included, became available to the public. You may still see it there today.

New York Times headline from 1922

Almost sixty years later, folios are still floating around out there, continuing to grow in value. In 2006, a first folio sold at Sotheby’s in London for £2.8 million. As recently as December 2010, another one went up for auction, again at Sotheby’s. This copy sold for £1.5 million. Both sold to private collectors.

A Sotheby's employee handles a copy of Shakespeare's complete first folio

One form of Shakespearean material culture which continues to shake up the scholarly world whenever it emerges from private ownership is portraiture. The current exhibition at The Morgan Library and Museum in New York City, entitled “The Changing Face of William Shakespeare,” focuses on this very subject. The exhibit includes a portrait which, in 2009, was revealed to the world as a candidate for the only likeness for which Shakespeare may have sat in his lifetime. Believed to have been painted in 1610, when Shakespeare was 46, the image had hung for centuries in a house in Ireland belonging to the Cobbe family, and it wasn’t until its owner happened to spy a similar work at the National Portrait Gallery in Britain that a connection was made. Naturally, much controversy has arisen over the authenticity of the portrait. The subject’s elaborate dress and youthful appearance led many scholars to believe it was not Shakespeare but a gentleman by the name of Sir Thomas Overbury. The two sides of the argument are laid out in these two articles:

The New York Times VS. The London Times

The Cobbe portrait – the true face of Shakespeare?

So, is this dashing figure indeed Shakespeare? What new portraits might come to light down the road? Are there yet more unknown folios waiting to be discovered, tucked away in crowded bookshelves or hidden in the bottoms of boxes? Next to Shakespeare’s long lost, super secret diary? Well, maybe that’s wishful thinking. Then again, maybe I need to go home and clean out my basement…

Natalie A.

PS. For a more in-depth exploration of the first folio and its history, the Folger Shakespeare Library, in Washington, DC (which also owns about a third of those still in existence), provides an interactive online copy for your perusing pleasure.

How 3 Henry VI is like the Star Wars Prequels

In both the movies and the Henry VI plays an incompetent ruler is the source of the central conflict. Chancellor Valorum in episode 1 and King Henry VI in all three plays. Chancellor Palpatine rises to power just like the Yorkists. First he declares the current ruler incompetent in Episode one, making himself chancellor. In Part I, the whole court already sees Henry as incompetent because he is too young to rule. This allows the Duke of Gloucester and Cardinal Beufort to take control of the kingdom.

In Episode II, the Chancellor creates a galactic emergency as an excuse to create a huge army, then he corrupts a powerful warrior to get on his side, and then, when he has all the power in the universe, he declares himself Emperor and uses the military and his Sith lord to destroy the Republic. The Yorkists operate in much the same way. In Henry the Sixth, Part II, Richard Duke of York is proclaimed protector of the Realm. Similarly in Part II, the rebellion of Jack Cade is similar to the Separatist movement that allows Chancellor Palpatine to create an uprising as an excuse to create a vast army to defeat them.

In Part III, York uses his army, along with his powerful sons to conquer the kingdom. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, like Darth Vader, is wholly committed to evil and will stop at nothing to destroy the Lancastrians. When the Duke of York dies, all three of York’s sons become consumed with desire for revenge and vow to conquer the kingdom to revenge their father. Richard, like Vader, is also deformed from his sheer hate. Although Shakespeare dramatizes Richard as being born with deformity, the Elizabethans viewed deformity as a sign of evil from birth.

In both the plays and the movies, the ambitions of individual people raise an evil empire, seeking power and revenge. Just as the Sith wished to revenge their exile from the Jedi council, the Yorkists wish to revenge the deposing of King Richard II a generation earlier. In addition Richard Duke of York’s seeks revenge for the Lancastrians proclaiming his father a traitor.

And like the Star Wars prequels, the worst atrocity of The Wars Of the Roses is the slaughter of children. When Clifford kills York’s 10 year old son Rutland, and when the Yorkists kill Prince Edward, it is clear that both sides have gone to the Dark Side.

The great communist writer Jan Kott described this play as a dramatization of people who manipulate the Great Machine of history, and either thrive with its help, or become ground up in it. Over the course of the evening, the audience sees the rise and fall of two noble houses, as well as a series of civil conflicts that cover England in blood. Begun this Rose War has.

--Paul Rycik, dramaturgy intern for3 Henry VI

Intern Adventures in the World of Henry the Sixth Part Three

Before I begin my inaugural blog post, I have decided to introduce myself to the world of American Shakespeare Center Intern Blog readers. The new voice contributing to this blog belongs to the most recent intern of the ASC Education Department, Kimberly Lenz. I have only just begun working with the ASC Education Department as the Academic Resources intern but I am very happy to be able to share my thoughts, discoveries and work with all of you. In addition to my work here with the Education Department, I am also a graduate student with the Shakespeare and Performance MLitt/MFA program at Mary Baldwin College. I am currently in my first year with the program and look forward to a longstanding educational and working relationship with the community. I am originally from Long Island, New York were I received a Bachelor of Arts in English and NYS Certification to teach English to grades 7-12. I will be working primarily on sections of the ASC study guides during my first few months here. My first venture out into the blog world was inspired by the fates. After weeks of working a wide range of tasks, I was given simultaneous assignments related to Henry VI, Part Three by my Shakespeare Pedagogy class with Dr. Ralph Alan Cohen in the Masters Program and by the Education Department with the ASC. As a result, I have proudly spent the past ten days completely immersed in the world of Henry VI, Part Three. I’m sure for those of you out there who have worked on, in or around Shakespeare this is not the most impressive feat but this is actually a stark contrast to the fast-paced world of my first year as a graduate student in Shakespeare and Performance. I rarely get a chance to dive deep into a play nowadays and I relish any opportunity to really get involved with a text that I’m not performing.

I feel the need to preface my adventures with the note that I love this play. I read it for the first time this past fall as a part of my Gateway Shakespeare class. It was a play that would not be a part of our class sessions but was in the course reading. So, at the end of my first semester, my reading group sat down one cold winter evening to read a relatively obscure (to us) history play. Our expectations were tentatively optimistic as we had spent the past few months seeing Henry IV, Part Two at the Blackfriars Playhouse and had come to love history plays in general for it. We read through the play in about two hours, and once we had finished, I was completely elated. I talked about the play at length and went home spouting newfound dreams of some day playing Queen Margaret in my own fantasy performance of Henry VI, Part Three. Any woman who is willing to get her hands dirty (or bloody) to defend her husband’s crown and her son’s position is pretty amazing in my book. Needless to say, I was rather excited to have the opportunity to work in depth with this text and especially to create a few things that could help students realize the greatness in there, too.

Before the Winter Teacher Seminar began on February 4th, I was given the assignment to put together a few of the sections of an abbreviated study guide a teacher had requested from the Academic Resources branch of the ASC’s Education Department. So amidst my Teacher Seminar weekend I reread the play to find quotes explaining each of the characters for the “Who’s Who” section of the traditionally formatted study guide. I proceeded to engage in a specific type of close reading that I have come to call embedded exposition. I read the play again to myself in search of quotes like: “O tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide!” (spoken by York in reference to Queen Margaret in 1.4) to help explain each of the characters using only the text. Shakespeare’s original actors could only build their characters based upon what was said within the text, and through recognizing these moments we can learn how the original actors learned about their characters. For example, in the first act, Margaret’s husband, King Henry VI, introduces her first entrance by saying he will “steal away” to avoid her anger. Through this first entrance we as readers can sense her power even without an actress performing the lines with venom in her voice and blood on her hands. The text expands upon Margaret’s character more when she later taunts York, the attempted usurper, with a rag soaked in his child’s blood, before she stabs him to death and orders his severed head displayed for the town. Upon rereading it I recalled everything about the play that I had loved the first time around and then found so much more. I proceeded to read the entire play in search of embedded exposition and learned a great deal about each of the characters and their relationship. I also created a flowchart to help visually represent how all of these people were related to one another. The flowchart was exciting for multiple reasons, but mostly because it was my first attempt at such a diagram, and it really helped to see who connected to whom in the play. To prove my successful creation and hopefully to explain how those loyal to the House of York relate to one another, here is a section of my flow chart:

My 3 Henry VI week, progressed with an observation of an Actors’ Renaissance Season rehearsal. I sat in the back of the playhouse and watched in awe as a group of actors worked through scenes from cue scripts. The questions the actors asked one another about the text made me realize some of the important approaches to the play, and I was able to use their questions to build lessons. I thought if these were the ways the actors got into an understanding of the play, then they could be the best ways for students to follow suit. After observing the rehearsal and talking with a high school teacher who is working with the play at the moment, I began to put together some lessons that would take the ASC actors’ approach to the text and apply it to how a teacher presents the play. After a few days of reading, rereading and watching rehearsals I put together a few activities for teachers to use when working with this play and presented them to the graduate program’s Shakespeare Pedagogy class and discovered there is so much within this play to teach and pick apart and relish.

For example, the activity below came from the discussion while blocking Act One, scene two of Henry VI, Part Three on the first day of rehearsal. John Harrell (Edward), Benjamin Curns (Richard) and Jeremy West (York) were discussing how to move around the stage to clarify their dialogue and character relationships. Through their discussion, they brought up the element of familial competition within the brothers. After they staged the scene, the movements effectively revealed the sense of competition and dominance within the House of York at the beginning of the play. I created an activity that would emulate that same conversation with students so they could clarify for themselves what kind of family the Yorks are. Below is an effective lesson in exposition based off of the ARS rehearsal process I observed.

A. This activity will require three student speakers and everyone’s participation.

Characters involved in the scene:
York: Richard, Plantagenet, Duke of York, Rival to the throne of Henry VI
Edward, Later Duke of York and King Edward IV: Son and Heir to York
Richard, Duke of Gloucester: Son of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
Montague: Marquis of the Divided House of Neville, Loyal to the House of York

Context: At the opening of 1.1 the sons of York compete with feats of brutality through displays of bloody swords and severed heads for the recognition of the father, York. The scene incorporates the court of King Henry with the entrances at line 50, King Henry VI is threatened by York’s forces and agrees to acquiesce to York’s advances with the caveat, “Let me for this my lifetime reign as king.” The scene concludes with reactions and outrage against King Henry’s choice of York as his successor. After the deal has been set, York and his sons withdraw to private contemplation. They rejoin us on stage with the previous scene’s events fresh in their minds.

Focus: The previous scene depicted each of the York sons competing for command of the room and recognition from their father. Read the scene below to see where each of the men uses their words to take command of the situation.

Directions for the class: As you read through the scene place a star next to any line in which one of the men seems to assert his power over the other with their words. Make a note of where each of the men should sit below. Watch how the scene plays out and see if you made the same choices as the actors.

Directions for the actors: There will be enough seats for each of you. As you enter please decide which seat your character deserves and take it (you may discuss this with one another before you sit but if you feel like there is a definite seat you deserve, take it). Where should the father sit? Which son should sit closest? Where should Montague sit? After you have taken your seats begin reading your lines aloud to the class. Try to highlight when you are taking command of the room with your words with assertive vocal choices. The first time you take command, put down the other men or simply assert yourself stand up. Take a step forward every time your character asserts him, chastises or cuts off another character or steals focus from the rest of the group.

Act One. SCENE II. Sandal Castle.
Enter RICHARD, EDWARD, and MONTAGUE
RICHARD
Brother, though I be youngest, give me leave.
EDWARD
No, I can better play the orator.
MONTAGUE
But I have reasons strong and forcible.
Enter YORK
YORK
Why, how now, sons and brother! at a strife?
What is your quarrel? how began it first?
EDWARD
No quarrel, but a slight contention.
YORK
About what?
RICHARD
About that which concerns your grace and us;
The crown of England, father, which is yours.
YORK
Mine boy? not till King Henry be dead.
RICHARD
Your right depends not on his life or death.
EDWARD
Now you are heir, therefore enjoy it now:
By giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,
It will outrun you, father, in the end.
YORK
I took an oath that he should quietly reign.
EDWARD
But for a kingdom any oath may be broken:
I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.
RICHARD
No; God forbid your grace should be forsworn.
YORK
I shall be, if I claim by open war.
RICHARD
I'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak.
YORK
Thou canst not, son; it is impossible.
RICHARD
An oath is of no moment, being not took
Before a true and lawful magistrate,
That hath authority over him that swears:
Henry had none, but did usurp the place;
Then, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,
Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.
Therefore, to arms! And, father, do but think
How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown;
Within whose circuit is Elysium
And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.
Why do we finger thus? I cannot rest
Until the white rose that I wear be dyed
Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.
YORK
Richard, enough; I will be king, or die.
Enter a Messenger
But, stay: what news? Why comest thou in such post?
Messenger
The queen with all the northern earls and lords
Intend here to besiege you in your castle:
She is hard by with twenty thousand men;
And therefore fortify your hold, my lord.

During the Teacher Seminar one of the educators in attendance shared he was currently teaching Henry VI, Part Three to his high school class in Alexandria, Virginia. As he revealed his plans for the play and his students reactions I noticed how excited the staff and actors of the American Shakespeare Center were about it. I realized, over that weekend that the love for this play expands throughout our Shakespeare community and everyone wants to teach the next generation to love it just as much.

The above activity would take up about 10-15 minutes of class time but has countless benefits for students interacting with a Shakespeare history play, a few of them are:
1. Students get up on their feet with Shakespeare’s words. The American Shakespeare Center treats every play as if it is a play first and a piece of literature second. Acknowledging the play’s true form helps students grasp the meanings behind the words in their most viable form.
2. Every student is involved in the same choices the American Shakespeare Center actors had to make. These are relevant and practical questions that have accessible answers students can find with the text and their classmates.

I have come to the conclusion that every Shakespeare class should include a few days working with Henry VI, Part Three. I believe it is the best way to introduce students to the idea that history plays are not history lessons, but that they are great plots of the rises and falls of great men and women of England. This play includes the rise of one of the most infamous villains of Shakespeare, Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III) and the fall of one of the most compelling female powerhouses in all of Shakespeare, Queen Margaret. Beyond these two characters, this play includes some amazing battles, fascinating court scenes and a glimpse into the England of the War of the Roses. This play is more than just a story of a King -- in fact the King is one of the least compelling characters you get to meet. Instead, Henry VI, Part Three is an intense and exhilarating glimpse into the world of vengeance, violence and the power of will. If you ever need a great Shakespeare read, take a few hours and explore this world. Or better yet, come down to the Blackfriars Playhouse and see the Actors’ Renaissance Season’s production, opening February 24th. I only saw a few hours of rehearsal, and I cannot wait for opening night! I hope the teachers out there consider adding this play, I hope every student gets to read Margaret, and I hope to see all of you at the Blackfriars for this amazing thrill-ride of a play!

(K.A.Lenz)

Actor-Scholar Council 2/11/11

Last Friday’s Actor-Scholar Council focused on Look About You. Audiences may remember this show from the Bring ‘Em Back Alive two years ago. The play has had a special place in my heart because I formatted and annotated the script for that performance and, I also played a couple of small roles. The version in this year’s ARS is much more heavily cut, thanks to John Harrell, who plays Skink. In addition to John, actors Jeremiah (Prince John), Chris (Redcap), Miriam (Lady Marian Fauconbridge), Tyler (Sir Richard Fauconbridge, Porter), Paul (Henry II, Block), and Greg (Prince Richard) were in attendance.

The council started off with Ralph asking if any actors were confused about plot points. Look About You is a confusing play, one which he says, “takes the conventions of disguise to sublime heights.” To the actors, who work from sides, it almost seems like parts of the play are missing. An example of something they wanted explained is why the purservant laments the loss of a box. Scholars explained that Gloucester drugged the purservant to get the box, which contained a reprieve for the porter that Gloucester wanted to keep out of Prince John’s hands. Veteran actors call it the most confusing production since The Devil Is an Ass. John feels it was very hard to cut, and the initial read-through was illuminating because it made who was talking much clearer than on the page. Tyler ventured that an even bigger problem than the confusion was the “stage business”, and that some plot points happen offstage.

The actors had visions of audiences rolling on the floor with laughter, but they couldn’t tell, because the show is confusing and has so many characters in so many disguises, if they would really love it. There was a bit of a panic after the dress rehearsal, which had a small audience. Many felt concern that audiences wouldn’t retain disguise signifiers (such as capes and fake beards) long enough. Fortunately, audiences received it well, and there is only one time (when Prince John comes on as Gloucester after a long stretch) when it may not work. The actors grow more comfortable with the play as the run progresses; Miriam said that on February 10th, the show’s third performance, she felt that, rather than just actors trying to make their cues, relationships and moments had a chance to develop.

According to John, the original audience would have known a few things that audiences today don’t. They would have accepted that hermits who can tell the future live close to London. Most of them were somewhat familiar with the court of Henry II and the factions among his sons. The actors said that most of their understanding of this came from The Lion in Winter, so they understood about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, but had questions about Gloucester. The Robin Hood in this play is very different from the image we have formed based on Errol Flynn, an actor said. This Robin Hood is very young, more than a boy but not yet a man, and so pure and virginal that he can woo Lady Fauconbridge and nobody worries about him doing anything improprietary. Like many other characters, he disguises himself in this play, which leads to a comic moment in which other characters say, “Goodbye, England’s pride” to him while he’s cross-dressing.

One thing we aren’t sure how original audiences reacted to is Redcap’s stutter. No other early modern plays have stutterers, said Dr. Ralph. Chris, who plays Redcap, says that audiences now don’t have the patience to listen to it. They just want him to finish the line or thought and feel sympathy; if he’s taking a line to an audience member and stutters, they always break eye contact. Perhaps the original audience didn’t have our compunctions about laughing at someone with a speech impediment. Chris had to cut back on the stutter because he realized it caused some of the story to get lost. He said it was the hardest thing he ever had to memorize because he memorized it with the stutter, found out he didn’t know the lines without the exact stutters, and had to go back and re-memorize without them. In delivering the last line of the play, Redcap doesn’t stutter, and his success surprises him. Audiences are happy for him, according to the actors.

At one point a sword fight takes place between Gloucester and Richard, who are friends but are in disguise at the time. The actors initially wanted something “stupid and simple” for the fight, but they made it comic. Partway through rehearsals Ben suggested adding some Matrix-style slow-motion moments. Then they included their swords getting stuck together like that scene in the movie Spaceballs. The money moment is when the two reveal their true identities to each other, especially since the audience could easily see through Richard’s disguise (as a random servant) the whole time.

The actors could have put more absurd things into the play if they had had more time. The scenes, being especially complicated, took up more rehearsal time than usual, and with the exception of “Come On Eileen” they had to pick quick and easy songs because they didn’t have time to do music. The drugging of the Purservant is a prime example because, while only 36 lines, the scene took over 90 minutes to work (the actors didn’t tell specifically why). The actors advise people to come and see the show now or in another couple of weeks, by which time they’ll have been able to add more absurd, zany moments. If you’ve already seen the show, you should come see it again. See if you can count how many times variations of the phrase “look about you” are used (there are at least 11). And don’t forget to listen to the podcast of this week’s Actor-Scholar Council, available soon on the ASC website.