THE EFFECT OF SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM

ON SHAKESPEAREAN PRODUCTION*.

A CASE STUDI

John D* MacPhedran

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHÎWSOEiï

August 1973

BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY"

'¿'Aio

Vo .VU ABSTRACT

ì»

The study of Shakespeare has traditionally been treated by one of three distinct, usually isolated, approaches—as theater, or as literature, or as the ’•food" for critical thought. This study attempted to establish the "flow” of relationships among three ele­ments by examining the question of whether Shakespearean criticism had an effect on Shakespearean production. Since this issue has, to a great extent, been neglected by scholars, this study sought to establish a model for future studies on the basis of a particular, limited investigation.

The method used was a case-study technique which involved inter­views with directors of a university production and a professional production. The directors interviewed were Dr. Charles Boughton who directed Bowling Green State University’s production of Measure for Measure, Fall Quarter, I96S, and David Giles of the British Royal Academy who directed the Stratford (Ontario) Festival production of Measure for Measure, Spring, 1969.

The discussion of many items found in the transcription esta­blished that criticism did have a direct influence on both of these productions. For Boughton, the works of R. G. Hunter, G. W. Knight,R. M. Frye, and R. Davies were cited as having been especially useful. Giles cited the Arden edition, edited by J. W. Lever, as the source of many ideas about interpretation he implemented in his production.

Criticism was discovered to be both a stimulus and also a means of confirming a director’s suspicions and thereby solidifying his interpretation. Criticism was found to have implemented in rather subtle and indirect ways. Neither director particularly wished to create effects in their productions that would be recognized by an observer as stemming from a critical influence.

Secondary issues such as the relationship between the university theater and the professional theater and between criticism and direc­tion were discussed, and a new approach to critical scholarship and to teaching Shakespeare were both outlined. In general, a total approach was advocated, one which would create an interpretation of a play on the basis of the combined interests of the critic and the director.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION...........................................................................

Related Scholarship ............................................................

Scope of the Study ......... ...................

Criteria for Design Chosen .................................................

Approach and Design Chosen.......................... ...................

Designs Considered but Rejected ............... . ...............

II. THE METHOD . .... ........................................ .................................

Preliminary Investigation .................................................

Pre-Interview ....................... .............................................

Interview..............................................................................

Post-Interview .......................................................................

Conclusions............................................................... . . .

III. PRESENTATION OF DATA: DIRECT INFLUENCE .......................

Background Information on Measure for Measure ....

Direct Influence: Boughton Production ..........................

Direct Influence: Giles Production ....................... . .

Conclusions......................................... ... .............................

IV. ANALYSIS: INDIRECT INFLUENCE .............................. ...

Indirect Influence: Giles Production ..........................

Indirect Influence: Boughton Production .......................

Conclusions: Specific ..................................... .....

General Conclusions

PAGE

5

7

11

13

18

18

21

26

29

32

38

38

A3

51

55

59

59

69

72

74

iv

V. CONCLUSIONS: MOTIVATIONS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS .... 76

Motivations for Using Criticism: Giles ....................... 76

Motivations for Using Criticism: Boughton ................... 78

Types of Motivations: Both Directors................... ... . 82

Implementation........................................ 85

Boughton*s Views on Implementation .................................. 86

Giles* Views on Implementation .................................... 88

VI. IMPLICATIONS OF PRESENT STUDY ...... ....................... 91

The Contrast Between University and Professional Theaters.............................................................................. 91

The Relationship between Direction and Criticism ... 94

The Significance of Direction Study on Scholarship . . 97

Proposal for New Critical Approach ................. ... 100

The Significance of Direction Study on Teaching . . . 103

A Final Comment on the Design . . .................................. 104

An Index-Summary of Conclusions ...................................... 107

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......... ............ 109

APPENDIX...................... 113

Interview with Mr. Giles.................................................... 114

Interview with Dr. Boughton............................................ 171

•i

jt

i' I

i

V

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. I. Sample page from Dr. Boughton’s script-book . . . 45

i

/

iII

I

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION: PROBLEM AND DESIGN

To determine whether academic Shakespearean criticism is of

use—and therefore influential—to Shakespearean production is

really to study a process, to observe an idea grow. In light of the

fact that Shakespeare’s works are usually regarded from one of

three separate’ and distinct perspectives! as theatrical entertainment

(the drama approach), as works of literature (the literary approach)

or as a stimulus for the development of academic intellect (the

critical approach), an examination of a work which combines two of

these perspectives, the dramatic and the critical, does on the sur­

face at least, appear to constitute a new approach.

Though this issue has received little systematic analysis or

recognition, there are some critics whose work does to some degree

parallel the intentions of this study. In his The Use of Drama and

in other works as well, Harley Granville-Barker treated, to some

extent, the relationship between the theater and critical scholar­

ship. But his emphasis was primarily on gaining recognition for

what he called ’’the vital value of plays,” and he was often concerned

with understanding stagecraft for its own sakeA Only once in the

^Harley Granville-Barker, The Use of Drama, Edinburgh, 1947,p. 72.

2

various volumes of Prefaces to Shakespeare did he include a section 2entitled ’’The Producer’s Problem.” Although, that type of problem

did involve the relationship between the theater and critical

analysis, his emphasis is different from that of this study. As

0. J. Campbell points out, the Prefaces were written at a time when

his theatrical career lay behind him, and he was "increasingly 3

influenced by academic critics, such as A. C. Bradley.” Therefore,

his work might be seen as a director’s discussion of criticism

rather than a criticfe discussion of direction. Had Granville-Barker

actively resumed his career as a director after the writing of the

Prefaces and after his study of Bradley and others, and had he subse­

quently gone on to write about Shakespeare’s plays in light of these

criticism-influenced productions, then he would have been using the

approach presently being established.

A. C. Bradley’s work is somewhat more relevant to understanding

this study than that of Granville-Barker. Bradley saw the critic as

someone who should "read a play more or less as if he were an actor

who had to study all the parts.But his view seeks to understand

the individual roles and does not include discussion of the director’s

function and the coordination of all the roles. However, his reason

for using his approach is similar to the reasoning this dissertation

2In the First Series study of Love’s Labor’s Lost.30. J. Campbell. The Reader’s Encyclopedia of Shakespeare,

New York, 1966, p. 271»

^A. C. Bradley. Shakespearean Tragedy, London, 1904, p* 2.

is using to justify its approach. "It is necessary," Bradley contends

”to a true conception of the whole, to compare, to analyze, and to 5

dissect." Here, in this study, Bradley’s techniques are being

applied on a larger scale. He was attempting to achieve a "true

conception" of a single Shakespearean work or group of works, while

this study is attempting to lay the foundation for a series of investi­

gations into a conception of Shakespearean criticism as a whole. This

study is a record of case study research which set out "to compare"

two productions of Measure for Measure, and it includes an attempt

to "dissect and analyze" the influence literary criticism had on the

directors of those two productions. As a point of contrast, neither

Bradley nor Granville-Barker tested his approach on what might be

called a "scientific" level by finding specific test-case actors or

productions to "compare, analyze, and dissect."

On the other hand, Robertson Davies, in his essays in Tyrone

Guthrie’s Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded, did "gear" his criticism

to specific productions, namely the 1954 Stratford Festival offerings

of Taming of the Shrew, Oedipus Rex, and Measure for Measure. But

his emphasis was on providing what he himself called "extended notices of the plays.A His perspective was basically that of the newspaper

critic, and his basic motivation was his desire to collaborate with

^Ibid., p. 2.

^Robertson Davies. Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded, Toronto,1954, p. ix.

4

Tyrone Guthrie in the writing of a book about the Stratford Festival

itself. Moreover, discussion of the director’s interpretation and

the issue of coordination of the roles are matters largely neglected.

For instance, he attempted, in his essay on Measure for Measure, a

short Freudian analysis of the play followed by a rather detailed

review of the production. But he did not try to determine whether

it was the aim of the director to present a Freudian approach to the

play. His work is helpful in determining the use production study can

be to criticism; that issue, however, is what will be described later

as a “supplemental area of interest" to this dissertation. He did

not touch on the primary issue of whether, in practice, directors

find that their knowledge of criticism can be useful to their

productions.

In an interview with Dr. Charles Boughton, he stated that at

Bowling Green, students writing a production thesis devote at least

one chapter to analysis and interpretation which reports on the

critical opinion in existence about the play being discussed. Since

this type of student is, in effect, preparing a hypothetical "direction"

of a play, his discussion of criticism serves as a foundation for the

student’s own interpretation. This method, Dr. Boughton feels, is

common practice at many universities for graduate students in

theater arts who are preparing a total concept approach to a play.

This study is somewhat similar to the theater arts* student’s pro­

duction thesis, but a different perspective is used. This type of

research investigates the director’s use of criticism as it relates

5

to the study of criticism rather than to the study of production.

Also, the two projects differ in that the theater student is working

with a hypothetical production, whereas this study investigates actual 7productions.

Scope of the Study

What little has been written on the relationship between

criticism and production has nevertheless revealed that a profitable

but seemingly neglected approach would be to investigate the director’s

use of criticism in his preparation of a production. Also, the

director of a university production seemed to be a logical source of

information to be investigated concerning what, if any, effect

criticism has on production. However, even though the decision to

use a director, who is also an academician, in a study on academic

criticism presented the opportunity for an in-depth study, such a

choice seemed a somewhat one-sided way to treat the hypothesis. It

seemed in some ways to represent a prejudgment of the results of such

a study. Therefore the scope of the dissertation was expanded to

include the study of the director of a professional production as

well. This professional production was introduced into the project

not only as a second test case, but also as a more unpredictable

challenge to the hypothesis. The university director is often,

himself, a critic; but there is no reason to assume that the

7I have not found any example of scholarship, similar to my

project, by a student of literary criticism in an English depart­ment program.

b

professional director thinks of himself in this way, and there is no

reason to assume that either has made a specialty of writing criticism.

Thus, the scope of the investigation was broadened by bringing

into the study the question of possible similarities and differences

in the way the entire area of academic Shakespearean criticism is

regarded by both the university theater and the professional theater.

The study of the contrasts between these two types of directors and

the types of theater productions they represent should not be viewed

as a separate "mini-study” removed from the rest of the project.

Instead, this attempt at comparison-contrast should be viewed, in my

opinion, as further evidence of the fact that a broad foundation was

being established on which to base comments about the use of criticism

to production. A method was being sought that could provide informa­

tion on both the theoretical level and the practical level.

The use of both types of productions perhaps gives the impres­

sion that this dissertation will provide comments about the central

issue through the use of many productions of both types in an effort

to produce conclusive results. Such is not the intention. Since

the approach being studied is one that has not previously been

examined to any appreciable extent, this dissertation is only hoping

to open the door to further studies of a similar nature. Because

it was designed as a model for future work, the investigation con­

centrated on one production from each type. To further insure that

the project would maintain modest but manageable proportions, it was

decided that only one play should be used in the study. Furthermore,

7

the productions chosen were to be ones which were produced within the

same approximate period of time so that it could be assumed that

both directors had the same body of criticism available to them.

Criteria for Design Chosen c

If this study is to serve as a model for future similar studies,

it must present not only a method for the investigation of criticism’s

influence on production, it has to include a design for the pre­

sentation of the data collected by the investigation. In order to

select a design, many approaches were considered. An approach had

to be developed which would include all the basic areas covered by

the scope of the study and had to emphasize those issues that the

method was designed to investigate.

With this idea in mind, some criteria could be established

for what the approach had to encompass. First of all, it seemed

essential that a major segment be devoted to a simple explicit

discussion of whether, in fact, academic criticism (the work of

literary scholars as opposed to journalistic critics) was found tog

have had an influence on the directors interviewed. Any informa­

tion gathered which proved conclusively that the directors did

&When approaches were first being considered, the decision was made to exclude from the chosen design the actual transcriptions of the interviews with the directors. This material is included in the study in the form of an appendix. Notations appearing in the text as (G. ) and (B. ) refer respectively to line numbers intranscriptions of the Giles and Boughton interviews presented, in that order, in the Appendix.

8

acknowledge the use of criticism as an aid in the preparation of their

productions would be evidence of a direct influence of Shakespearean

criticism on Shakespearean production and as such would deserve

major emphasis.

Secondly, the approach needed to be one which did more than

treat the transcriptions on a surface level. Direct influence could

be identified-by names and works mentioned by the director as in­

fluential. Such a discussion, by definition, would not have to

investigate in detail the critical viewpoint being established by

the director. As was noted, the bulk of the interviews treated the

director’s conception of the play. (Since any knowledgeable inter­

pretation of a dramatic work is more than just a matter of names and

nominal references to influential factors, the finding of direct

influence must'be seen as a starting point for further analysis of

the data and not merely an end in itself.)

It seemed imperative that a contrast be made between the in­

fluences mentioned by the director and his conception of the play.

It seemed naive to suspect that a director or anyone for that matter

who has a comprehensive interpretation of a play such as Measure for

Measure could consciously identify the nature and the source of all

the factors that influenced his judgment. The possibility of a degree

of influence from critical sources known to the director but projected

into his personal interpretation of the play on a subconscious level

seemed to be not only a legitimate issue to pursue but a necessary

one. Such a treatment of the indirect influence of criticism on

9

production logically would seem to include analysis of whether certain o

critical theories and interpretations are relevant to understanding

the director’s interpretation.

Thirdly, these first two vital issues logically presented the

need for discussion of the motives for using criticism as an influence

on production. Such a segment of the design would investigate motives

of both an overt and a covert nature which explain why criticism was

sought as an aid in the preparation of a production.

Such a section on motive would especially be justifiable in

light of the basic motives behind the decision to undertake this

study in the first place. The desire to explore the possibility of

establishing a different approach to the study of Shakespeare was

motivated by a strong sense of curiosity and, to some degree, con­

fusion about the purposes or more specifically the uses of literary

criticism. Even a glimpse at the range and variety of Shakespearean

criticism written over the centuries reveals an impressive array of

diverse styles and formats. Such diversity presents questions about

the motives those critics had and whether they all saw their efforts

as providing information which could be put to some practical use by

their readers. Since this issue seemed far too abstract to approach

directly, the investigation sought to establish one type of use

criticism does have. But the issue of why it is used is also important,

9Critics and critical views which the director has not mentioned as being a part of his background knowledge of criticism.

10

as is the correlative issue of how a director goes about implementing

criticism into his final product, the production itself. This matter

seems so closely related to the "motive” question that it hardly seems

to warrant separate treatment. Although the motive for using criticism

seems more appropriate to the discussion of production where criticism

was a direct influence, it does apply also to a degree to productions

where criticism had an indirect influence.

However as mentioned previously, the issues of direct and

indirect influence were not to be allowed by the chosen approach to

monopolize discussion and thereby cause other related issues to be

ignored. The director’s view of the relationship between criticism

and direction seemed to be an area that the interviews were destined

to cover in detail. Information gathered on this issue would un­

doubtedly shed light on the validity of criticism which incorporates

consideration of production in its perspective and comments con­

versely on criticism which fails to take these matters into account.

While the contrast between the university theater and the pro­

fessional theater was introduced into the study as a means of broad­

ening the base of the research, the directors were nevertheless asked

about their view of the contrast and therefore data on this issue

was collected. Gaining insight about the nature of such a contrast

provides a clearer understanding of the basic role of the director

of a Shakespearean production.

Also, the idea of studying the possibility of a new approach

to Shakespearean study automatically presents the opportunity for

comment on teaching techniques related to the overall findings.

11

Although the discussion of these "related issues" should give

the study the opportunity to provide "food for thought" about the

possibility of future research on matters as criticism, the theatre,

and the teaching of Shakespeare, and an analysis of the method seems

to be the type of issue that might well provide the most constructive

aid in outlining for anyone contemplating similar research what this

type of study demands of the researcher.

Approach and Design Chosen

Therefore, the ideal approach to the arrangement of the study

could be said to be one which would include proof of criticism’s direct

influence, analysis of its indirect influence, conclusions about why

it was used, comments on and recommendations for future study of

related issues, and a full explanation of the method the study used

to determine what influence criticism did have on production.

The approach chosen to include all these "essential" elements

had to be more than just a presentation of the key questions asked

of the directors and a discussion of their answers. Such an approach

would not attempt to relate the various elements to each other and

would not establish a recognizable process.

The approach chosen was decided a result of the realization

that the "process" being treated by this study is not merely the

process by which Shakespearean criticism affects Shakespearean pro­

duction but also the process by which one studies criticism’s effect

on production.

12

Secondly, the logical approach became more readily discernible

when it was realized that the elements to be incorporated involved

both theoretical matters such as "subconscious influence," "motive,"

and the "philosophy of criticism" and matters of fact ("direct

influence"), technique ("method"), and practicality (comments on

teaching). However such a combination of elements did not seem to

fit a literary style of arrangement or even a mathematical formula

as was attempted by some of the rejected approaches. An approach was

finally decided upon when the realization was made that the arrange­

ment of research information used by scientists might well apply to

the needs of this study.

Material to be discussed in science has been approached in the

same time-honored manner, because it was found to be quite capable

of presenting "a constant interplay between observations and the

interpretations of those observations, and between facts and theories

to explain the facts. . • and it is sometimes called the scientific

method.«^® While the arrangement of material implied by the phrase

"the scientific method" seems applicable to this study, the adoption

of a title such as "An Essentials Approach" seems perhaps less mis­

leading. Nevertheless, the relevance of the scientific method to the

criteria does provide justification for using it to arrange the

elements of a study of the effects of Shakespearean criticism. And

it is definitely applicable. The elements "essential" to this

^Claude H. Villee and Vincent G. Dethier, Biological Principles and Processes, Philadelphia, 1971, P« 1»

13

study, outlined on the previous page, need only to be rearranged and

this chapter added to make the final design complete:

HYPOTHESIS: Chapter I: Introduction of the central question, "Does Shakespearean criticism influence production?"

METHOD: Chapter II: Explanation of how the study will determine whether such influence exists.

PRESENTATION OF DATA: Chapter III: Proof of the direct influence of criticism on production (to augment the Appendix).

ANALYSIS OF DATA: Chapter IV: Discussion of the extent of the influence (indirect influence) of criticism on production.

CONCLUSIONS: Chapter V: Evaluation of the reasons for and means by which criticism influenced pro­duction.

IMPLICATIONS OF PRESENT STUDY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE STUDY: Chapter VI: Discussion of "secondary issues" such as (A) how production (the role of the director) affects criticism, (B) the difference between the university theater and the professional theater, and (C) how Shakespeare can be studied and taught.

Approaches Considered but Rejected

To further justify the design chosen, some of the ones

,which were considered should be reviewed. Any one of them might

be more applicable to future studies, depending on what methods are

used and what information is gathered.

* * *

The first design approach to be discussed is perhaps best

labelled "The Total Approach." As discussion of method will reveal,

the idea did exist early in the planning stages to use a case study

14

technique which would involve investigation—and therefore interviewing—

a great many of the people associated with the productions involved--

such as actors, set designers, etc. Instead, the directors were asked

to evaluate how the various aspects of production related to their

use of criticism. In that manner, the inclusiveness of the "total

approach" was used but in an indirect manner.

This approach was rejected, however, because it did not seem

to lend itself to a very coherent design. Some factors seemed to

apply far more to one director than to the other, and such an approach

seemed to complicate the presentation of data rather than to simplify

it. Most importantly, the factors such as the type of actors and

the type of theater, which did have application to the director’s use

of criticism did not shed light on the central issue of the "process"

by which criticism affects production. The transcriptions show that

the director either could not remember which factor influenced him

first or else saw factors as having influenced him simultaneously.

The process, therefore, if there was one, was blurred rather than

clarified by this approach.

* * *

A second alternative is "The ExperientialApproach," which is

concerned with tracing the director’s experience with the production

through its various stages from "acceptance of assignment" through to

"opening performance." Such an approach would attempt to determine

at which stage criticism first became of use to the director and

what factors encouraged or discouraged the development or increase of

criticism’s influence.

15

Of all the approaches considered, this one could be said to

have appeared the most promising "on paper.” However, such an

approach makes an assumption which renders it less than profitable

for most such studies. It imples that criticism is so vital to a

director’s work that he would stop at the end of each stage and con­

sider how criticism could assist him in the upcoming phase. Not

only does criticism not play such an important role, but directors,

from the evidence of this study, do not seem to segregate stages of

a production in anything like the distinct and separate fashion that

would be implied by this approach. Also, the study revealed that

psychological and environmental factors, such as the director’s

familiarity with critical works prior to this production, are often

quite instrumental in determining the degree to which he uses such

criticism. These factors are excluded from such an approach, there­

fore, because they either occur prior to the "experience" or occur

beyond the ¡boundaries set up by the various stages. Most importantly,

this approach was rejected because it had a limited focus compared to

the wide range of possibilities the study was designed to treat. For

instance, such an approach did not have any section which would pro­

vide a forum for the discussion of related issues. Since there was

a concentrated effort to gather information about these issues, the

final arrangement of data, therefore, should not exclude them.

* * *

Thirdly, an "Interview Approach" was considered. Such an

approach would call for a natural arrangement of the material; a

16

presentation of the data in the order in which it appeared in the

interviews with the two directors. This approach would therefore be

all-inclusive and would not omit any aspect of the study as does the

"Experiential Approach." It would include such areas treated by the

"Total Approach" as the actors* views, the contribution of the other

members of the production, and the director’s personality and back­

ground. It would, of course, also treat the major stages of the

director’s experience with the play such as any editing of the text

done by the director and his choice of editions. In addition, this

approach emphasizes areas of emphasis not given major status by the

other designs. Most of the interviews were largely conducted from

the stance of letting the director discuss his production in his own

way with specific questions added when appropriate. Therefore, a

large amount of the interview material deals with discussion of

individual characters in the play. Thus, this design would have to

include major sections devoted to the director’s conception of the

Duke, Isabella, Angelo, and the minor characters as a unit. The

director’s view of Shakespeare and his genius would also by the sheer

bulk of material gained in this area, have to be considered a key

element in a design drawn up in accordance with this "Interview

Approach."

A major drawback to using this type of design is that it

almost automatically requires two patterns, each drawn specifically

to match the interviews of each director. Thus, the study, if this

design were adopted, would be admitting from the outset that the

17

designs are custom-made, one-of-a-kind and therefore of little use

as models for future studies.

That approach and the others that were rejected fail to either

include or emphasize the various elements of the study. However,

the major difference between them and the design chosen is the fact

that the latter includes a discussion of the method. Knowing the

method should put the successive discussions in perspective.

CHAPTER II

THE METHOD: EXPLANATION AND EVALUATION

This study used a case-study method based largely on inter­

views with directors. It consisted of four stages: Preliminary

Investigation, Pre-Interview, Interview and Post-Interview.

The method will first be described as what it was—the way

it was actually executed in this study--to be followed by an evalu­

ation section which will give summary definitions, tell how well

the method worked in this study and advise researchers about how it

could be used in future studies.

Preliminary Investigation

This stage covered the period of time from the "inception" of

the study to the point when a clear-cut statement of general purpose

and specific objectives was established. Basically, this phase of

the method involved such considerations as impetus, perspective,

scope, limitation and feasibility.

This study began initially as the result of an experiment

involving the review df each of Shakespeare's thirty-eight plays

accompanied by the review of selected critical readings (approximately

six per day), conducted over a period of thirty-eight days. Since

over one hundred critics were incorporated in this experiment, the

diversity of approach and style found in the criticism was, to say

the least, impressive. But the experiment proved to have a disturbing

19

effect as well. It led to questions about whether such diverse

approaches and styles could possibly be serving the same purpose,

which, in turn, led to questions about the intentions and uses of

Shakespearean criticism. The initial problem, then, was to find a

way to evaluate the effect of criticism. Studying "uses of

criticism"—who uses it and why--seemed to be a much more viable

alternative to speculating about the purposes of criticism.

The first major decision this case study technique required

concerned perspective. "The use of criticism by directors" seemed

to not only present a forum for a discusión of criticism but to,

also, introduce the notion of a new approach to the study of

Shakespeare (See Chapter VI for discussion of other perspectives

considered).

After scope (the type of directors chosen) was determined

(as discussed in Chapter I), the next step involved the selection

of the play and the productions to be used in the investigation.11Measure for Measure was selected for a variety of reasons.

Basically, it was felt that this sort of "problem play" or dark

comedy, with its history of widespread critical confusion and con­

troversy, might be more likely to motivate a director to seek out

the opinion of critics as an aid in the preparation of his production

l^A major reason this play was selected was that it is a play with which I am very familiar and which I have studied before. My Masters thesis was on "The Application and Implication of Frye’s Green World Theory to Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure." I purposely wanted to use a play I knew well enough to discuss easily, during the interviews—referring to notes as infrequently as possible. My

20

than a play with fewer ambiguities • This type of careful selection,

regardingi the case-study play, it is argued, does not damage objecti­

vity because this study is not trying to make wide sweeping generali­

zations about all Shakespearean productions.

. Since the approach being examined is one that has not been

explored to any appreciable extent, the hope here is to establish a

model for future studies. Therefore, as a means of applying some

limitations on the scope, this study used just one two productions of

Measure for Measure--one done by a professional theater and the other

by a university theater.

The productions to be used in the study were selected on the

basis of two criteria. First, the productions chosen were to be ones

which were staged within the same approximate period of time, pre­

ferably not more than a year apart, so that it could be assumed that

both directors had the same body of criticism available to them.

Second, the productions should be ones the researcher had seen be­

cause familiarity with them might be of some benefit during the

interviews with the directors.

Both productions met the criteria. The university production

was Bowling Green State University’s University Theater production,

directed by Dr. Charles Boughton, fall quarter 1968. The professional

theater was represented by the Stratford (Ontario) Festival Theater

production, directed by Mr. David.Giles in the spring of 1969.

11 (continued) chief aim was to let the director’s train of thought flow smoothly and yet, at the same, to have all my questions answered. Especially, in the case of the professional director I did not want to appear overly prepared—with a large stack of file cards, launched for attack.

21

Still further limitation was imposed by the decision to con­

centrate on understanding the director's use of criticism by inter­

viewing only the directors. As was mentioned in the discussion of

the "total approach" (in Chapter I), this approach was rejected as a

possible design because it had not been used for the method. Inter­

viewing all the actors, designers and other members of the production

for the purpose of verifying and amplifying the statements made by

the director was rejected as being too unmanageable and complicated.

The issues involved in the study were complex and inter­

related ones which demanded a simplified approach. Also, the total

approach might reduce the candor of the director. Even with the

chosen method, there still was the possibility that the directors

would be reluctant to have someone record comments about individuals,

(see Giles transcript, Line 831).

The last step of the preliminary investigation involved

determining the feasibility of the study by obtaining approval and

cooperation from the directors of the productions. Fortunately both

directors were, with little difficulty located, and both readily

agreed to participate. With their approval secured, the dimensions

and objectives of the study could be defined with some degree of

certainty.

Pre-Interview

This stage covered the period of time from the point the

objectives were systematically outlined to the point when the inter­

views began, including also the period between the end of the first

22

interview and the start of the second. The objectives that the

study hoped to cover by means of information gathered from the inter­

views were outlined by a series of questions. The questions weren’t

to be considered as a rigid guidline which the interview would fol­

low in a strict fashion but were conceived in the form of general

issues that the directors would be encouraged to comment on at some

time during the course of the interview. There were, however, some

issues that took precedence over others. There would be an attempt

to elicit answers to questions concerning these issues at the begin­

ning of the interview.

The first of these high-priority issues involved the director’s

background with Shakespearean production in general and with Measure

for Measure specifically. This line of questioning was designed to

give the interviewer some idea about the general personality of the

director and to indicate how specific subsequent questions should be.

If, however, the director’s discussion of background revealed

a history of interest in and familiarity with literary criticism,

then questions of a specific nature could be asked early in the inter­

view. These questions were not to be direct inquiries but were

designed to encourage, by an indirect approach, comments about 12criticism’s influence on the production.

12The indirect approach was used for the purpose of attaining more honest answers from the directors and therefore a greater possi­bility for valid results. In the case of Mr. Giles, this approach is illustrated by the question about whether he thought a play could be better understood by "just reading the play itself or do you want to seek out the opinion of other people?" (G. 275)« At this point, he seemed to relax, whereas, earlier in the interview he had been nervous

23

Another question which was also designed to be asked early in

the interview concerned the director’s overall conception of the play.

This sort of question was to be used as a structuring device to pro­

vide a way to keep the interview progressing smoothly. If, for

instance, a lull in the conversation developed, the director would

be asked to comment on some aspect of the play already introduced

but not yet fully discussed to maintain continuity.

Also, it was decided that there would be no attempt to pre­

judge the production being studied by asking questions about certain

aspects of the play which might direct the interview towards discus­

sion of certain genres of criticism. For instance, questions about

plot development might by implication, be intended to introduce dis­

cussion of structural criticism; questions on character motivation;

psychological criticism, etc. The director would be left free,

however, to choose whether the starting point should be plot, char­

acter theme, or whatever. Questions regarding those aspects of the

play would not be avoided altogether but would be asked when and if

they were introduced into the discussion by the director.

The desire was to have "a natural flow of ideas: which would

result in an accurate view of the director’s conception. Moreover,

because indirect influence was going to be investigated, it seemed

12(continued) and disturbed by the fact that he could not remember specific names and titles, which he felt I wanted him to contribute. Had he been pressed to do so, I feel than an exaggeration or a distortion of critical influence would have resulted.

24

essential to know what the director’s instinctive reaction to the play

was—what about the play, first came to his mind: structure, motiva­

tion, theme? Knowing the nature of that instinctive reaction would

greatly aid the investigator by providing him with some direction for

assessing what type of criticism and which critics most closely

coincide with the director’s interpretation, itself a kind of criticism.

Along the same line, after the director had, for the most part,

finished his discussion of his interpretation, questions were asked

which concerned the terms and concepts that are often the subject of

a critical analysis of Measure for Measure, such as "problem comedy,"

•Christian allegory," "late play," etc. As before, no critics were to

be mentioned in connection with the questions, and critics were only

to be discussed when mentioned by the director. Again there was the

intention of exploring the director’s familiarity with the criticism

about the play, and there was the desire to establish a basis for

analysis of direct influence.

Questions were also included about the director’s view of

Shakespeare as a dramatist in general and questions about the

relationship between this play and the rest of Shakespeare’s works

to determine whether the author or the play tinder consideration had

anything to do with the influence criticism had on production. Such

information was necessary to evaluate the validity of the study and

also the advisability of attempting similar studies later on.

Besides developing a set of questions and a strategy for the

interviews, the pre-interview stage also involved gathering information

25

about the productions. It was important, for instance, to learn

beforehand which edition of the text had been used and, if possible,

to obtain the director’s copy. Items such as photographs, programs,

etc. could possibly aid the interviewer by giving him a chance to

refresh his memory about what the production had been like. Because

the director has an advantage, it would be necessary for him to be as

familiar with the productions as he could possibly be. In my case,

seeking out such materials as the director’s script and the theater

program provided an additional advantage to those just mentioned--

tentative proof of the hypothesis. In the case of Dr. Boughton, the

fact that criticism had indeed influenced production was immediately

apparent upon receipt of his heavily annotated script-book: in it,

passages from criticism had been carefully arranged on the ’’borders"

of pages he had used as "mats" for individual pages of the text. In

the case of the Stratford production, direct influence was partially

established by the fact that the theater program included with the

cast list a "Director’s notes" section in which Mr. Giles had discussed

the play by quoting several critics. What remained to be proven, of

course, was whether this exercise in reviewing criticism was done

just for the program or whether it was an indication of how he pre­

pared for the production.

An additional aspect of pre-interview was the preparation done

by the director. In both cases, the director wished to be given a

chance to review the play and his production. The Giles interview

was delayed a few hours to allow him time to review a copy of the

Arden edition which I had brought and he had been unable to find.

26

The materials loaned to me by Dr. Boughton were returned a week

before the interview, and his review of the text included writing

notes of observations in the back of his script-book.

Interview

Before the actual taping began, the interview started with a

brief explanation of the study and its objectives. In the case of

the interviews with Dr. Boughton, this duscussion continued inter-

mittantly throughout the first day of taping; with Giles, it occurred

between interviews also.

With the Giles interview, the questions were used as planned,

for the most part, with background and conception of the play being

the prime topics of discussion. In both cases, it was decided to

curtail discussion of the director’s background to keep the interview

from becoming an exercise in having the director give a resume of

his career by listing all his experiences with Shakespearean pro­

duction (such information, if deemed necessary, could be written

out by the director at a later date, thus conserving the interview

time.)

For obvious reasons, the Boughton interview did not begin

as originally planned; although the pre-interview stage did anti­

cipate this situation. The file of notes taken on criticism and the

annotated script-book constituted sufficient proof of the hypothesis;

from the outset, the interview was a discussion of the critical works

already identified as having been influential. Thus, while the Giles

27

interview tended to arrive at discussion of such matters as how a

critical interpretation is implemented in a production in an indirect

manner, in my interview with Dr. Boughton this question could be

approached directly by having him comment on how he '’used" particular

quotations from criticism.

Specific questions were asked of Mr. Giles concerning his

use of criticism, but they were introduced into the interviews al­

most as secondary issues. He was allowed to finish his discussion

of his conception of the play before being asked about his motives for

using exerpts from criticism in his "Director’s Notes" article in the

program.

Since the Boughton interview was begun with the understanding

that criticism had been influential, he was not only asked about

the criticism he used but also about his view of the quotations

Mr. Giles had chosen. In this way, it was hoped that there might be

one more point of comparison to study concerning the relationship be­

tween the university theater and the professional theater.

Although the directors were not asked specifically to give

their opinion about the differences between these two types of

theaters, both directors tended to speak this point (See Chapter VI).

Also, without being asked, the directors tended to discuss

many of the terms and concepts connected to the play in the course

of their discussion of conception. There was a conscious effort,

however, to keep track of what issues had not been included in their

discussion of their interpretation, and questions were asked afterwards

28

about such matters to make the discussion complete and to see if some

items had been left out accidently or because the director was un­

familiar with them or thought them irrelevant to his interpretation.

One "strategy" that was not planned ahead of time—but which

developed during the course of the interviews—was the decision to

encourage the directors to discuss Measure for Measure as it related

to other productions that they had done or were in the process of

working on. References found in the Boughton transcription to

Euripides, especially his Aleestis and Ionesco’s Exit the King

indicate material gained from this method. In the case of Mr. Giles,

his discussion of Tis* a Pity She’s a Whore, The Forsyte Saga and 13Vanity Fair illuminated many of the points he was trying to make

about his production of Measure for Measure.

The interviews also, as implied before, questioned the direction

about the influence criticism had on technical aspects of the pro­

duction such as costumes, sets, make-up, and lighting. To aid in

the discussion, photographs, make-up charts, and diagrams were used.

The director was encouraged to discuss what interpretation was added

l^His discussion of The Forsyte Saga and Vanity Fair refer to the BBC television productions which adapted the novels into drama­tized serial form. He directed these productions during the period from 1966-68. Although, it is not often referred to in the text, this discussion is in the transcriptions in several places towards the end. On the other hand, the reference to Tis’ a Pity She’s a Whore refers to a theatrical production he directed in Edinburgh in August of 1972.

23

by the people in charge of these areas and what, if any, effect

criticism had on his advice to these members of the production staff.

Post-Interview

This stage covered the period from the conclusion of the

interview to the point when the report on the study was written. It

was largely concerned with organizing the information collected by

the interviews. However, before any organizing could be done,

transcriptions of the tapes had to be made. This type of work was

largely mechanical and time-consuming, but it was quite essential if

the information were to be presented along with the report. A

transcription of the interviews, presented as an appendix was desired

not only to give documentation for the statements made by the directors’

interviews, but also to provide a body of information which could be

referred to, for form and content, by those involved with future

studies.

^The preliminary investigation had not predicted that I would have to do all the transcriptions myself. This was the case for a number of reasons which a future researcher should be apprised of.I employed a series of four different secretaries, all of whom had difficulty for different reasons. The first secretary had difficulty with the Giles interview because of his British accent. The second one had trouble with the terms and allusions--as noted before, there are likely to be a great quantity of these. The third, a trained legal secretary, was able to make some progress but the fast pace of the conversation made her have to slow down to a very unproductive rate. The fourth had difficulty with the inflections and therefore punctuation. That is indeed a problem, and the chief solution—the use of alternate all-capital typing for one speaker and lower-case typing for the other--while it facilitated the completion of the transcriptions, made it difficult for the final-draft typist to understand. There are, of course, secretaries trained to do tran­scriptions, but a researcher should not rule out the possibility that he might have to do them himself.

30

Editing the transcriptions can be regarded as an optional

aspect of the post-interview stage. A study could presumably want to

have a completely accurate record of the interviews with nothing omit­

ted from the tapes, or it could on the other hand, simply want a

representative collection of passages which would epitomize the

information gathered on all the primary objectives. This particular

study could be best described as taking a somewhat middle stand

between both of those extreme views on editing. Conversational

speech of the nature used in this method tends to look somewhat

ragged on paper. Questions and answers often get broken in mid-

sentence and begin all over. Vague references need to be filled in

with an editor’s parentheses. This type of editing seems unavoid­

able. Also, there is a possibility with this largely informal type

of interviewing technique to produce transcriptions which contain

what might be called "diversions” or "tangents" that amount to

passages which have drifted away from the objectives of the study.

In some,cases leaving these passages in can be justified, but at

any rate, an editorial decision is needed.

The organization of the information can be done in a variety

of ways. This study catalogued the transcriptions according to the

objectives outlined by the preliminary investigation. Issues that

presented themselves during the interviews were also added to the

original list. This procedure was not done as a formal index pro­

cess but in a way which structured the material loosely without

prejudging it.

31

As an additional form of cataloging information, data sheets

were compiled listing items such as the texts used by the directors,

the names of critics, critical works, and plays which were mentioned

during the course of the interviews. These sheets were used as a

sort of "reading list" indicating material that might have to be

investigated before a complete analysis of the information could be

finished.

The last phase of the post-investigation, the selection of a

design ( a way of organizing in a report the material collected ) has

already been discussed. However, it should be mentioned that the

designs themselves were explored as early as the preliminary in­

vestigation phase. There was no attempt made then to decide which

design would be used, but the problem of having to find the most

appropriate design, when the time came, was recognized. It is hoped

that Chapter I did not give the impression that the approach used

was chosen as either a last resort or because it seemed to fit the

established categories of information. Just as the "total approach"

was rejected as a design because it had not been used as the method,

so this "essentials or scientific" approach would have been rejected,

also, had it not been thought of as having a direct relationship to

the method and the type of information gathered. The key to the

decision to use this design is found in the phrase quoted earlier

which stated that this method dealt with "the constant interplay

between observations and interpretation. . . between facts and

theories." Many sections of the transcriptions, I think, illustrate

32

this "interplay.” A good example of it is found in the transcriptions

(starting with G. 802) in which Giles discussed the relationship be­

tween direction and criticism. He began on a most theoretical plane,

but the discussion rapidly turned to the possibility of there being

a conflict between a director and an actor over which criticism should

be used. This hypothetical line of questioning turned even more

rapidly into a discussion of the practical issue of upstaging in his

production. Since Mr. Giles was reluctant to let me pursue that mat­

ter on a personal basis, the discussion went back to the theoretical

level, and he talked about whether he felt any set of actors would

experience the difficulties his cast did. The discussion then returned

where it began by theorizing about Shakespeare’s original intentions

and his original group of actors. The chapters which follow this one

will hopefully illustrate this interplay approach by including evalu­

ation in the same chapter with the explanations rather than having

one concluding section at the end.

Conclusions: Preliminary Investigation

To reiterate, this first stage involved a process which in­

cluded, in order, the concepts of impetus, perspective, scope,

limitation, and feasibility. This process is largely a matter of the

development of an idea from general conception to specific dimensions.

In my own case, I feel that my preliminary investigation

included some rather fortunate findings. I consider myself ex­

tremely "lucky” to have been able to get the cooperation of the

33

two directors with whom I most wanted to work. Also, the fact that

due to the program and the script-book, influence could be proven

before the interviews was of great reassurance to me and facilitated

the task of preparing an interview "strategy." However, the fact

that there was a time span of several years between the dates of the

productions and the interviews meant that I did not have specific

enough recall to verify many of the directors statements about influence.

Because of the rather fortuitous circumstances mentioned above,

a future researcher should be cautioned not to expect future studies

to meet with as little difficulty as this one did. For instance,

finding two productions that would be appropriate might be very dif­

ficult. The criterion that the researcher limit himself to productions

he had seen might have to be eliminated. Also, it should be stressed

that decisions made in this study with regard to impetus, perspective,

scope and limitation should be seen as an attempt to present a rigid

definition of procedure. The experiment used is only one way impetus

can be achieved, and some researchers might feel this phase is un­

necessary. The perspective should be chosen according to the back­

ground of the individual and his motivation for doing the research.

There are a variety of other scopes and means of limitations also

available and quite possibly productive. For example, if two pro­

ductions were to be studied that were recent or still in production,

the "total approach" might be reconsidered. Both of these issues

should always be determined on the basis of the study’s objectives.

34

Pre-Interview

This stage is principally involved with the task of designing

interview questions. All materials related to the production, such

as copies of the text, notebook; prompt scripts, staging diagrams,

photographs, and sketches as well as a goodly amount of criticism

have to be gathered, reviewed, and given, consideration when these

questions are being composed.

My approach to these questions could have been, I feel, more

practical, and I could have tried harder to anticipate what a dis­

cussion of a certain issue would be like in practice. Large

questions, such as the one about the director’s conception of the whole

play, could have been broken into a series of smaller ones, perhaps

an act-by-act approach, without restricting the director’s comments

to any dangerous extent. Overall, I could have benefitted from more

investigation of production materials and a more extensive review of

criticism. However, the opportunity to meet with Mr. Giles arose

suddenly and the preparation had to be done hastily.

Future studies should therefore allow for extensive preparation

Perhaps several productions could be considered during the pre-inter­

view stage and the final decision about scope delayed until a review

of production materials available was made. It would also be ad­

visable to ask the directors to fill out a written form, prior to

the interviews, listing the nature and breadth of their experience.

This procedure would greatly facilitate the next stage.

35

Interview

The key aspect of the interview method was its emphasis on the

need for a natural flow of ideas coming from the director but super­

vised in subtle fashion by the interviewer. The desired effect was

the interplay between observations and interpretations—theories and

facts. This interplay made possible by flexibility--a loose but

complete structure.

One lesson I definitely learned from my experience was the

need for the interviewer to realize how, at all times in the inter­

view, the interview will appear in print. Although I am sure there

was never a conscious desire on my part to interrupt the director, I

found, from listening to the tapes, that I often sounded as though I

was interrupting. It was important, especially with Mr. Giles, to

keep a train of thought going; comments were interjected at times

when, he appeared to have reached a "dead end." But just as I spoke,

he would often pick up the thread of conversation that he had lost

and would begin again.

I also found that the questions I had designed, withwhich to

begin the interviews, did work according to the original intent, but

the questions added "on the spur of the moment," concerning other

productions the director had done, also proved to be a profitable

approach. I also found that it was worthwhile to revise questions

between interviews. I had two days (eight hours) of interviewing

with each director, and I found the time in between interviews to be

useful.

36

Because of that fact, future researchers should be alerted

about the importance of taking notes during the interview. It is

much more feasible to review notes than to listen to the tapes when

trying to prepare for the next interview session. Some of the tape

material should, however, be played during this preparation period

so the interviewer can judge whether his interview technique will

result in coherent transcriptions. Also, if the researcher plans

to use the data collected for an audio presentation, sound quality

should be checked as often as possible, and the period between inter­

views should then be used for experimentation--to see if better sound

quality can be achieved. However, the interviewer should remember

above all to keep himself from being obsessed with one aspect of the

interview so that the natural flow of ideas and the interplay of

facts and ideas can be maintained.

Post-Investigation

This stage is largely concerned with what could be labelled

"necessary tasks"--such as transcription making, editing, cataloguing,

and designing an approach. All of these "tasks" are relatively time-

consuming requirements that demand a methodical, well planned

technique.

I like to think that having had to do the transcriptions myself

was of some benefit to me as a researcher. By the time I was finished

transcribing, the task of selecting a design seemed much less formid­

able than it had at the outset. Also, my experience was beneficial

during the cataloguing process and while preparing the report—having

37

had to go over certain passages many times in order to do the tran­

scription accurately left me with a good memory for where certain

comments could be located.

In regard to future studies, little can be said in the form

of generalizations about how the aspects of this stage should be

handled. The needs of the researcher will, to a great extent,

dictate how much of this post-interview period time is spent.

However, one aspect of this stage, namely the choice of the design

must be made on the basis of the information. For the benefit of

both researcher and reader, it might be suggested, that future studies

should include an index to the transcriptions.

CHAPTER III

PRESENTATION OF DATA: DIRECT INFLUENCE

The chief aim of this study, from the outset, was to find

proof for the assertion that academic Shakespearean criticism does

indeed have an effect on Shakespearean production. This chapter and

the appendix collectively represent the presentation of that proof.

Actually, this rather basic discussion should be properly regarded

as a summary of the most significant facts contained in the tran­

scriptions. It can be shown that both directors did acknowledge

using criticism in the preparation of their productions.

The phrase "direct influence" is being used in this study to

denote any instance found in the course of the interviews where the

director indicated that the work or ideas of a certain critic did,

in some way,have a bearing on his conception of the play—a conscious

influence he was aware of while working on the production.

As was mentioned in the discussion of method, direct influence

had been tentatively established in both cases before the interviews

were conducted. However, this fact did not change the interview

method to any marked degree, and the presentation in this chapter of

material from the transcriptions should be seen as this study’s first

real effort to prove its basic assumptions.

Background Information on Measure for Measure

As was mentioned in the last chapter, Measure for Measure was

selected partly because of the diversity of critical opinion it has

39

elicited. Most critics agree that Measure for Measure indeed de­

serves the label "problem play," but few agree about the nature of

its problems. However, even the most simplified account of the

plot suggests targets for controversy among critics. For example,

the mere fact that Shakespeare added details of his own to the ma­

terials he borrowed from Whetstone and Cinthio has been a cause for

consternation among some scholars. The principle difficulty has

been the fact that the mixture of sources produced a work which has

three prominent characters—The Duke, Isabella, and Angelo--who at

various moments in the play are each given the spotlight. Though

the action begins with the Duke, he leaves Vienna, anxious to have

someone else stem the moral decay his laxness has caused—and the

emphasis is shifted to Angelo, the deputy left in charge. But

Angelo’s decision to prosecute Claudio on a rarely-enforced charge

brings the focus of attention to Isabella—who as the accused’s

sister, feels it her duty to plead to Angelo for mercy. Since their

meetings lead to Angelo’s "indecent proposal" of extortion, the

focus is eventually reshifted to the Duke—who feels he must resolve

the various predicaments.

The issue of "focus" has been further complicated by the stage

history of the play. In 1662, William Davenant rewrote it (in his

version Angelo and not the Duke marries Isabella), and ever since,

directors have taken liberties with Measure for Measure.

These shifts in emphasis and the amount of attention the play

gives to both men, especially, has created a question concerning

40

whether the Duke or Angelo should be seen as the "central” character.

The Cambridge edition among others has found Angelo "least objection­

able," and most critics have felt that his speeches are the most

powerful and the most poetic. On the other hand, there have been

critics, especially structuralists (The Arden edition is a good ex­

ample) who point out that the Duke’s role is the largest and most

demanding. They have, also, emphasized the fact that Angelo is

absent from the stage from the beginning of the third act until the

last scene in which he is largely passive.

However, the dispute about the relative importance of the Duke

and Angelo has not at all been as hotly contested an argument as has

been the controversy about Isabella. The extreme diversity of

opinion about her leaves one with the observation that she must truly

be one of Shakespeare’s most enigmatic characters. She is the novice

who complains about the need for more discipline in her order, the

petitioner who arouses lust in the previously resolute Angelo, the

sister who is aghast at her brother’s implication that she consent

to Angelo’s proposal, the "conspirator" who is eager to agree with

the Duke’s plan to have Mariana be seduced in her place, and she is

the woman who seemingly has no objections to the Duke’s rather

unexpected offer of marriage. Wilson Knight, E. C. Morris and espe­

cially Anna Jameson (see Chapter IV) are among those who had favor­

able opinions of her, while Hazlitt and Quiller-Couch, who both

attacked the way"chastity" is presented, are representative of the

opposite view.

41

Besides such general controversies about the nature of these

characters, their specific actions have been the subjects of much

disagreement and varied interpretations. Perhaps the most discussed

plot element has been the proposed marriage of the Duke and Isabella.

A great many critics have expressed mixed feelings about this point;

it seems inconsistent with the preceding action, but it does add to

the traditional tone of "joyous celebration" that marks the end of

most Shakespearean comedies. A. C. Bradley found it totally im­

plausible, while Tillyard believed that Shakespeare altered the play

to make Isabella a flexible character-one he could use in almost

any situation. Freudian critics have seen the marriage as the union

of two nearly identical personalities.

The mercy shown to Angelo by the Duke and others, at the

ending of the play had also been the subject of much argument. It

has been seen as a violation of the very title of the play and was,

of course, the subject of much indignation by Dr. Johnson and most

Romantic and Victorian critics. Modem critics, depending on the

amount of import ante they attach to Christian and humanitarian aspects

of the play, have mixed views.

One aspect of the plot, the "bed-trick" as it is called seems

to be less of a’problem" than it once was. Having Mariana, the girl

once betrothed to Angelo, substitute for Isabella has been considered

"disgusting" (Coleridge), "grim" (F. S. Boas), and even "unmention­

able" by countless critics dating from Jacobean times to the early

part of this century. Starting with Lawrence (1930), critics have

42

either defended it as being a theatrical convention or have simply

ignored it.

Actually, the whole moral tone of the play has been a subject

of controversy by itself. Oddly enough, views about the bawdiness

of the play and the characters associated with that type of humor do

not always follow the normal chronological pattern. Johnson, for

example, had praise for Lucio and the ribaldry of Pompey and Mistress

Overdone. On the other hand, a modern critic, Ernest Schanzer,

found the harsh punishment of the jocular Lucio to be warranted, and

he felt that the handling of morality in the play was the chief

reason why it should be regarded as a "problem comedy."

Besides the controversies about the specific issues mentioned,

there have been a variety of views, or schools of thought, about the

play as a whole. To begin with, the play has enjoyed little popularity

until recently. With the exception of Dr. Johnson, who had mixed

views, most eighteenth-century critics gave it brief mention or else

none at all. Critics of the Romantic period, especially Coleridge

and Lamb, were among the most violent critics of the play; their

disgust was so great that few specific reasons were given. Hazlitt

is something of an exception, as Jameson and Pater are in their era;

but he, too, had reservations. Basically, the Victorian view was as

moralistic as one might expect; and today that group is usually

referred to critics today collectively (see the discussion of Indirect

Influence on Boughton, Chapter IV). From Shaw on, however, critics

began to pay more attention and give more praise to the work. The

43

group of critics, starting with Boas in 1896 (including Lawrence,

Tillyard, and Schander) who chose to concentrate on studying the play

as part of a sub-genre known as "problem plays" have done a great

deal to stir critical interest. The play became known as an

intellectual puzzle, like Hamlet—and, ever since, new approaches

have been developed to render the work explicable. Freudian analysis

(Daiches, Sachs, Davies) has been used to justify Shakespeare’s use

of such complex characters in a comedy. Today, the most popular

approach seems to be analysis which employs Christian allegory

(Knight, Hunter, Frye) of various types in an attempt to find, in

the play, a design governed by a set of values which are compatible

with both Shakespeare’s time and our own.

Direct Influence? Boughton Production

Since the assumption stated in the introduction--that the

incidence of direct influence would more than likely be found to be

greater in the university production—proved to be true, the

Boughton production will receive the most emphasis. But the Giles

production will not be ignored, and in the section on indirect

influence, the reverse emphasis will be used.

The information found in Dr. Boughton’s script-book established

conclusively that criticism had had a driect influence on his produc­

tion of Measure for Measure. Therefore, the interview with Boughton

began with a confirmation of the use of the critics mentioned in

the script-book. (B. 1-12).

44

Robertson Davies* essay on Measure for Measure in Twice Have

the Trumpets Sounded, G. Wilson Knight’s Wheel of Fire, Robert

Grams Hunter’s Shakespeare and the Comedy of Forgiveness, and Roland

Mushat Frye’s Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine were the four works

quoted in Dr. Boughton*s annotated version (see illustration page)

of the text, which he used for rehearsals. These works were also

represented in his files of notes on critical works collected while

preparing for production and filed along with the other production

materials associated with this project.

Also, in his folder of notes is a page or two of exerpts from

Caroline Spurgeon’s Shakespeare’s Imagery.Although this work

qualifies, according to the definition given, as having had a direct

influence on production, none of the Spurgeon notes were used in the

script-book, and therefore her influence must be seen as minimal.

Also of minimal influence was Herrick’s book on tragic-comedy.

No notes from this work were included in the file, but passages from

it were quoted in two different places (Ii & Ili.) in the script-book.

Since the nature of criticism’s influence is being singled out for

attention here, it should be pointed out that, despite its title, the

Herrick work does address itself quite directly to specific works

such as Measure for Measure. The same can be said for the Spurgeon

work, which also discussed plays individually rather than treating the

15Caroline Spurgeon, Shakespeare’s Imagery, Cambridge, 1935» pp. 208, 288-90.

. Tig. I. Sample.Tage From Dr. Boughton’s Script-Book________ ______ 45___ _____

46

Shakespeare canon as a whole. This fact is mentioned to emphasize

that these two works are being considered as having had a minimal

amount of direct influence, not because they are intrinsically dif­

ferent from the other four, but for the simple reason that they

were merely used to a lesser degree by the director in his prepara­

tion of his script. And in the case of Dr. Boughton, the script-book

seems to be the best indication of the extent to which criticism had

a direct influence: "I reviewed the criticism and put it in the

text, where I thought it would be useful." (B. 1717-9). While the

motives for considering certain works for application to this pro­

duction and the use of quotations from these works served will be

discussed in a later chapter, what can be reviewed now is the general

nature of the influence each of these four major works had.

The sheer number of items from Robertson Davies’ Twice Have

the Trumpets Sounded quoted in the script book is definitely one

indication of the fact that it was the most influential of the works

used by Dr. Boughton. Naturally, there are other reasons (discussed

in Chapter V) for considering this work as of major influence, but

certainly significant is its pervasiveness in the script-book. Out

of the approximately thirty-five instances of passages quoted from

criticism and labelled by author, which were placed into the script,

nearly a half (sixteen to be exact) came from Davies. In addition,

many of this number refer to pages of the text where several com­

panion segments of criticism from the Davies essay were collected.

47

This large amount of material from Davies should be seen not

as random passages put in the text in a sporadic fashion. It was

done very much according to the general patterns for the use of

critical materials that Boughton set up at the beginning of his

research. Basically his approach was to put "some things at

character’s first appearance that I thought would be helpful as

far as the actor was concerned, and then I put things that seemed to

relate to particular parts of the play, close to them, so I could

review that I was getting ready to block." (B. 1704-8)« This work

then was viewed by Boughton as being of influence for both major

functions.

Davies was not only used in conjunction with such major

characters as the Duke, Angelo, Isabella and Lucio, but his work

is the sole critical source implemented in the text for the handling

of Elbow, Pompey, Froth, and Bamadine.

His essay was also consulted for the purpose of providing

critical comment in the text on a variety of issues or "problems"

presented to a director by the play, such as the court scene,

"Father figures," and the issue of "dark" comedy--or, more specifical­

ly, what Boughton labels "the necessity of darkness."

The importance of this source gains added significance from

the fact that it was used to some degree in every act of the play,

except the last. Its usefulness therefore goes beyond being able

to provide capsulized comments about the characters. In some cases,

only part of Davies’ comment about a character was used when that

48

character first entered the play, while other passages were spread

out over many scenes.

Pi naily it should also be mentioned that another aspect of

direct influence is illustrated here. By using Davies* work,

Dr. Boughton was not only recording comments on characters but

also about acting itself. This work provides comments not merely

on Davies’ view of certain characters but also his view of a certain

company of actors and their interpretations of the roles. An "acting

comment" such as "James Mason’s performance as Angelo was. . . a

deeply considered, subtly imagined study of a man at war with him­

self" (B. 3068-70) was not always included with other comments about

the nature of the specific character, but it was often given a

separate place in the text.

Another work which was of undeniable use to Dr. Boughton in

the preparation of his script-book was G. Wilson Knight’s Wheel of 16Fire. His chapter "Measure for Measure and The Gospels" was

found to have been quoted frequently (eleven times) in the text for

the Bowling Green production. However unlike the references to

Davies, many of those to Knight’s work were short and usually in the

form of Biblical quotations which had been used in Wheel of Fire as

the nucleus of his interpretation of the play. More often than not,

the Biblical passages occurred in the text without the comment which

accompanied it in Knight’s chapter. Usually, they were given a

double notation; the original context (i.e. John VIII, 11) was used

l6G. Wilson Knight..Wheel of Fire, Oxford, 1930, pp. 73-96.

49

and also the label "Knight.” Although the relative merits of the

type of image analysis done by Knight as opposed to Spurgeon will be

discussed in a later chapter, this work was used throughout the play,

in all five acts. Interestingly, the quotes from Knight that pertain

to general issues raised by the play are found in the text in con­

junction with the first and last scenes of the play and involve the

issues of the "death-rebirth cycle." Therefore, a discernible

pattern of usage can be established and will be analyzed.17Robert Grams Hunter’s Shakespeare and the Comedy of Forgiveness,

18was quoted only four times in the text but was nonetheless considered

by Dr. Boughton to be relevant to his interpretation of the play. In

this case, there is an interesting contrast between the number of notes

taken on this book and the number of citations from it which were

entered in the script-book. Boughton recorded in his notes an exten­

sive collection of ideas, from different parts of the book, but he

only included a few of these passages in his text. The nature of

the influence this work had on Boughton*s production is discernible

in his explanation of why he used the work:

This is a book which interests me, because it deals with genre criticism, and it is trying to explain the genre by tracing it back to the medieval form. (B. 848-50).

17Robert Grams Hunter, Shakespeare and the Comedy of Forgive- ness, New York, 1965, pp. 70,88,89, 131-141» 206-226.

l8Used in reference to Ii, Iiv, and Vi. The references involve both Hunter’s chapter on Measure for Measure and an earlier one on All’s Well That Ends Well. T'his is the only one of the four books which produced notes from many different parts and not just from the specific discussion of the play in question.

50

Thus, this work provides what might be called "background comment"

and by definition would not lend itself to use in the actual text.

Boughton did not want a blueprint to work from and yet his notes

include diagrams which he drew to illustrate the complex patterns

of allegory Hunter finds in this play. From a scholarly standpoint,

this vrork appeals to Dr. Boughton’s interest in genre and dramatic

theory, but he states quite bluntly that such complex patterns and

diagrams have no direct application to production (B. 1466-7).

This contrast between the notes and the script-book is discussed at

some length under the category of the "negative-influence" motive

for using criticism (see Chapter V).

Like the Hunter book, Roland Frye’s Shakespeare and Christian 19Doctrine was largely concerned with genre criticism and specifical-

20ly "the relations between Shakespearean drama and Christian theology."

As was true with the Hunter book, the Frye work was used only slightly;

the script-book shows only two entries (occurring at Iliv and Vi) in

the text. Both of these entries deal with issue comment concerning

Angelo’s pride and the Duke’s mercy. Although this work was used

sparingly, it does represent a different type of direct influence than

has been cited thus far. In using this book, Dr. Boughton is employ­

ing a work which, unlike the other three, has no distinct and separate

discussion of Measure for Measure. References to the play are

^Roland Mushat Frye, Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine, Princeton, New Jersey, 1963.

20Ibid.. p. 3«

51

scattered throughout many chapters and segments of the main plan of

the book.

Oddly enough, despite the wide variety of types of influence

by criticism found in the Boughton production, almost none of those

types were found in the Giles production. Instead, it can be seen

as providing this study with evidence about several other different

ways direct influence can be established.

Direct Influence: Giles Production

Primarily, the influence of criticism is directly related to

this production in two ways. The editorial comment found in the

introduction of the edition used was considered a critical source

by this director, and sources quoted or discussed by this first

critic are considered as separate and distinct influences on pro­

duction and not as part of the criticism in which they were literally

found.

During the course of the interview, Giles stated many times

that "the difficult thing, about talking about direction like this,

is that you only realize some times where your ideas come from." (G.

155-7) However, this avowed inability to remember sources proved

not to be a deterant to determining the existance of direct critical

influence. Such a link could easily be made for the simple reason

that while Giles believes that "the most important thing" about

doing a production "is the text and which text you use." (G. 121-2)

He also believes that a text should be selected which is "full" and

^balanced" (G. 149-150) and useful (he considers an edition which

52

has notes at the bottom of the page ’’quite important” (G. 151)« And,

by these criteria, he meant an edition which includes criticism in

the editorial comment and notations. Thus the edition is the criti­

cism, and the editor is the critic. This philosophy about the im­

portance of text selection shows what he called "the way one’s mind

works" (G. 133). His mind appears, then, to want criticism to supply

him with’ideas,” which will help him not just to cause the concept

of the play to jell in his mind and to confirm original suspicions,

but more than that, he was actually seeking a conception of the

play--the approach to be used in the final production. To him, such

a conception gets its impetus from criticism. Thus the ideas found

in the editor’s comments were of a somewhat broader nature than

those which are gleaned from criticism consulted for the purpose of

tightening and verifying a tentative conception.

The criteria listed above were all represented, according to21Mr. Giles, in The Arden Shakespeare edition of Measure for Measure.

In reference to this work, Mr. Giles had no difficulty remembering

where certain ideas came from:

I know that the introduction, which was by Lever, I think, had an enormous influence on me. . . And looking back on it, I know there were certain passages which struck me. (G. 152-4).

Although not every passage from Lever which "struck" him can be 99identified with certainty. several key contributions which the

21J. W. Lever, ed., The Arden Edition of the Works of Shakespeare; Measure for Measure, London, 1965«

22The interview was conducted with Giles under the assumption that his copy of the Arden with his notes and underlinings would be available for use. But, the copy has not been located, and therefore

53

introduction to the edition made to the conception can be singled

out.

Giles stressed quite clearly that what he called his "Duke

orientation” approach came from Lever. This idea is one that was

so pervasive in the introduction that no single passage can be

quoted. However, Lever does often use phrases such as "The Duke 23in dominating the action. . ." which amounts to a belief in "Duke

Orientation."

As was mentioned in the discussion of method, direct influence

was to some extent established before the interview with Giles due to

the fact that the "director’s notes" section of the program, which

Giles wrote, included passages from lever’s introduction. Both of2A.the passages follow the trend discussed with the "duke orientation"

concept in that they both relate to an "overview" of the play. One

deals with the matter of "emphasis," which Lever finds to be equally J25distributed between "the forces of discord and harmony.,r* The

(continued) the only "record" of his view of the introduction is the underlining he did in rather hasty fashion in my copy as a way of preparing for the interview and approximating the copy he used.

23j. w. Lever, p. lviii.

2A.^"Duke Orientation" refers to the critical view which thinks that Shakespeare intended the Duke to be the central figure and not Angelo. Both directors use this term and hold this view, but I was not able to find the origin of the term.

25J. W. Lever, p. xci.

54

other treats the equally broad issue of "authority.” The actual

nature of that passage to a great degree illustrates the broad,

abstract quality of the criticism which Giles seems to respond to:

The play’s true greatness is felt wherever its concepts are in (Graham) Hough’s phrase, ’completely absorbed in, character and action and completely expressed by them.

The concepts which Giles used to govern his production have

truly been "absorbed" from the criticism in a subtle fashion. The

passages from Lever, mentioned here, differ from many of those

used in the Boughton production in that they do not seem to provide

specific comment about the characters or the problem scenes, but, on

the other hand, they appear to have been considered as more than

background commentary.

A second type of direct influence Giles used was the influence

of a critic whom he did not read directly during the preparation

period but whom he read about in the Lever introduction. Giles’

"director’s notes" also included quotes by both Coleridge and Hazlitt.

The Coleridge quote and a paraphrase of the Hazlitt quote are found

side by side in Lever’s discussion of the ’’diversity of opinions’’ that

critics have had about this play. His motives for including these

quotations in his "director's notes" reflect a general philosophy he

has concerning the use of some criticism. He did not think of

Coleridge’s views on the tragicomic aspects as "issue comment"

or Hazlitt*s capsule portraits as "character comment," he

26Ibid., p. xcii.

thought of them both as worthwhile to consider in order to provide

what might be called "critical history comment." To him, being aware

of the critical history of a play presents ideas for consideration

which one must remember were formulated by people "worth taking

note." (G. 277)« Such comments, he feels, are useful because "they

drive you back to the text."

While on the subject of text, another type of direct influence

must not be omitted. Giles benefitted, he feels, from comments

Lever includes in a section of the introduction called "textual

anomalies." He took serious note of Lever’s discussion of the cor­

ruption of the text foundin the fourth act, IV, iii to be exact. An

interest in such "textual comment" illustrates the advantage of us­

ing the edition-type of critical work, which, of course, would most

likely discuss a wide variety of areas of comment,including textual

considerations.

Conclusions

It is difficult to discuss the types or forms direct influence

can include without discussing the director’s motive for selecting a

certain critic or the use he made of certain passages of criticism.

But the existence of influence by criticism on production must first

be proven and described before it is appropriate to discuss such

subordinate issues.

Proving direct influence, as we have seen, may be achieved

some times during a preliminary investigation. But even though that

56

phase of the method seemed to suggest that the overall plan was

feasible, there is no reason to assume that future studies would

count on achieving similar results. There is no reason to assume

that a director is going to keep a comprehensive file of critical

reading notes or that he is going to have to write program notes

which include a hint that criticism was an influence. This infor­

mation was not--and should not be--considered conclusive but, rather,

preliminary proof. The directors still do have to be given the

opportunity to acknowledge and explain how criticism was influential.

Outside of evidence found in the note-book and program, there

is hardly any way to verify the directors* views that the works

named were indeed influential to production. As mentioned in the

last chapter, the length of time between the productions and the

interviews lessened the researcher’s ability to recollect the per­

formances accurately enough to offer opinions about the directors*27statements. It was observed that in both cases, there was a

recognizable effort to emphasize the importance of the Duke. Both

productions used a "dumb-show" type of sequence at the beginning,

which especially in the Giles production, presented the Duke as the

observer of the action—the central focus. His decision to cast

27In all instances, where I asked the directors questions about aspects of their performances I remembered distinctly, the directors replied that those elements of their treatment were inspired purely by the text and not by criticism.

57

William Hutt, an esteemed and popular Canadian actor, associated with

the festival since its first year, in the role of the Duke--opposite

the British import, Leo Ciceri, as the Duke was further evidence of

the fact that he wanted a performer of "major status" in the role--

someone who could control the audience’s reactions. Recollections

of the Boughton performance and his diagrams of stage movements

both support his view that there was attempt to portray "balance"

to suggest the relationship between Justice and Mercy referred to in

much of the criticism he used.

Substantiation is made difficult, however, because neither

director especially wanted to impose their critical view in an

overt--lightly noticeable—manner. Boughton only showed his script-

book to a very few members of the cast, and he neither read them

criticism nor did he assign the cast critical reading. Much of the

material Boughton placed in his script-book was done solely for his

own benefit--not the cast’s nor the audience’s (See Chapter VI). In

the case of both productions, especially the one at Stratford, the

directors wished to implement their views in a subtle fashion (See Chapter

V). Therefore, the proof of direct influence seems to depend wholly

on statements by the directors production materials such as script-books. 28 and programs.

However, a discussion of direct influence is useful, because it

identifies and describes the variety of uses a director has criticism.

^^From having participated in the interviews, I strongly believe that both directors would think it next to impossible for an observer of a performance to detect which critical works were consulted in the preparation of their productions. I also think that the transcriptions give the same impression.

58

By doing so, questions are raised about the director’s motives for

using criticism and his means for implementing criticism into a

production.

Moreover, to simply say that a director acknowledges that he was

affected by a certain critic’s comments is meaningless without some

insight into what type or types of comments caused the positive

reaction on the part of the director. Selecting from among comments

about characters, scenes, acting, themes, critical history, the over­

all idea behind the play, and textual anomalies shows an observer, as

Mr. Giles said, "the way one’s mind works.” It also does show, or

at least, begins to show how criticism works.

Establishing that a director has agreed that his work with

criticism affected his production, means that criticism can be thought

of as functional. Being functional, of course, means having parts.

After all the parts have been identified, one should be able, it is

hoped, to identify and comprehend what exact functions they have

been designed (in this case, chosen) to perform. But in order to

"identify all the parts,’’—all the elements of influence--the pos­

sibility that the director was influenced by some critical works

unconsciously should be explored.

CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS: INDIRECT INFLUENCE

By analyzing evidence found in the transcriptions, it can be

established that the influence of criticism on production extends

beyond only those critics that the director has consciously recognized

as having been influential. There also will be some attempt to relate

each director’s comments to the overall body of criticism about this

play, but such a procedure is being used to put each director’s views

in perspective and is not designed to test the val T ri-i ty of those

views.

The term "Indirect Influence" is being used in this study to

denote any subliminal, or unconscious influence criticism might have

had on the director--critical opinions he had read but which he was

consciously trying to use in his production. As was mentioned in

Chapter III, this type of analysis relates to a greater degree to

the Giles production than to the Boughton interview. Mr. Giles was

encouraged not to try to remember names but to concentrate on

describing his conception of the play. Most of his references to

specific critics concerned his attitude toward Shakespearean criti­

cism in general and the amount of critical reading he had done. Very

few references discussed critics who he knew had influenced his

interpretation of Measure for Measure.

Indirect Influence: Giles Production

Oddly enough, however, two of the critics Giles mentioned, as

scholars whose work he was generally familiar with, have written

60

specifically about Measure for Measure, and both disliked it. These

notable examples are Dover Wilson who edited the Cambride edition of

Measure for Measure, and Stopford A. Brooke, whose Ten More Plays of

Shakespeare (mentioned by Giles, G. 118-9) included his lecture on

Measure for Measure♦ Giles mentioned both of these by name as works

that he had read, and he volunteered that he had consulted both

critics from time to time. He did not, however, acknowledge any

conscious influence by these two critics, and no opportunity pre­

sented itself whereby the interviewer could ask the director to

define the exact relationship between these works and his inter­

pretation of the play.

In general, Mr. Giles* view of the use criticism has for pro­

duction, is that although a director such as himself has done a

"wide spectrum of critical reading," it is very difficult "to pin

down where one got his ideas from," (G. 115-6). However, one

source of these now "difficult to pin down" ideas most probably is

Dover Wilson’s Cambridge edition. He did mention Wilson and the

Cambridge series but only in the general sense: "one always looks

at the Cambridge." He did not mention the Cambridge Measure for

Measure, and he never identified any aspects of his interpretation

as having come from Wilson. But he did not deny this possibility.

The introduction to the Cambridge edition is, to some extent

mirrored in Giles’ discussion of the play. This fact is especially

reflected in his initial comments on Isabella.

I do know that Isabella is presented by two different critical lights: there is one school of criticism which

61

thinks of her as a sort of paragon on virtue, and the other school which thinks she’s quite the opposite--a prud­ish, narrow-minded, hysteric (G. 269-73).

Although that last phrase, from the way it was spoken, seems de­

finitely to have been spontaneous and original, the rest of the

quote is closely paralleled in the Cambridge. "Critics can make

nothing of her or--which is worse--they make two opposite women of 29her, and praise or blame her accordingly." The two schools of

criticism are both included in a passage quoted from George

Greenwood:

Let Isabella be a paragon of virtue. Let her chastity be as ice that no warmth of affection can rise above the freezing-point. . . But surely she might reprove a wretched brother, lying in the valley of the shadow of death, in restrained and measured language, ’more in sorrow than in anger,* and not with the abuse and vituperation of a termagant.

This strong parallel between Dover Wilson and Giles should, however,

be seen as an agreement of opinion on only the critical history of

Isabella; their own personal views about her and other aspects of

the play differ greatly.

This disagreement was to be expected. Mr. Giles had a re­

spectful but largely negative opinion of Wilson, and he stated that

"he’s idiosyncratic and so mad in some ways--just mad—but very

29J. Dover Wilson and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, editors, The Works of Shakespeare: Measure for Measure, Cambridge, 1922, p. xxvii.

30Sir George Greenwood, as quoted in Wilson and Quiller- Couch, p. xxix.

62

interesting" (G. 135-6). Holding such a view, however, did not pro­

hibit him from thinking Dover Wilson at times quite useful. Because

he finds him "so perverse," he finds himself "reacting against him

sometimes," which means, in the final analysis that a critic like

him has been useful, because he "feeds your imagination" (G. 140-3).

In some places in his interpretation, Giles did seem to be

offering views which could well be a reaction against the Cambridge

introduction. For instance, Wilson’s final comment on Isabella was

that she fails to be a consistent character in the way she treats 31matters of chastity and mercy. All in all, the view being repre­

sented is similar to the school which sees her behavior as the

"vituperation of a termagant." Mr. Giles on the other hand, viewed

her as someone who is being groomed from the beginning for her

eventual role as a Duchess. That fact explains, to his way of

thinking, why at times she may appear to be behaving somewhat unlike

a nun. He found consistency in her role and in the play as a whole,

because "to make the play work. . ". you must go right to the very

end of the play to the moment, when the Duke says to Isabella:

•Will you be my Duchess?*. . . and the key to my whole treatment of

the play was that the whole play was really a preparation for that

31Although this edition takes an extreme view by calling her chastity "rancid," many critics have used this issue to the overall peculiarities of this play’s structure. The problem Shakespeare faced is the transformation of a yourgnun with firm values (I. iv.) into a cooperative, flexible young lady, agreeable to a deceitful plot (Illi) and seemingly receptive to the marriage proposal of a Duke with a colored past (Vi).

63

moment” (G. 219-30). He found all of Isabella’s actions then to be

consistent with a desire by Shakespeare to build up to that moment.32He also found justification, as does Mrs. Jameson, in Isabella’s

actions because of her youth. She is not, in his opinion, ”a

virago," because the fact that she is young "does explain and gives

her an excuse for her tremendous overreaction to events (G. 526-8).

The kind of view found in the Cambridge edition, is the type of

criticism that he felt "drives one to the text" and in an indirect

manner helps the director, by challenging his imagination, to esta­

blish the strategy he will employ in the production.

Wilson’s edition also presented a view of the Duke, which is

certainly the type of view that the Giles production was reacting

against. The Cambridge edition’s discussion of the Duke did not

begin with an objective review of the various past viewpoints, but,

instead, it immediately opened with a concentrated attack which sum­

marized all the points to be included in the assault on this

character:

The Duke comports himself no less capriciously (thanIsabella). He begins well, and in his exhortation toClaudio upon the death he speaks most nobly. But he tails off into a stage-puppet and ends a wearisome man, talking rubbish. From the first no one quite knows why he has chosen to absent himself ostentatiously from Vienna and to come back pretending to be somebody else. His game puzzles Lucio only less completely than it puzzles us.^

32J Anna Jameson who finds her "wise, gracious, virtuous, fair, and young. . . (with) firmness of character, depth of reflection and persuasive eloquence" wonders at the marvelous power by which her "qualities and endowments. . . are so combined and modified" (Shakespeare’s Heroines, Boston, 1911, p. 83).

33Wilson and Quiller-Couch, pp. xxxiii-iv.

64

Giles’ use of the "Duke Orientation" concept was motivated by

a desire to react against the trend toward Angelo-dominated pro­

ductions .

In all productions I’ve seen, the play was disoriented ... in the theater, the ’star part* is considered to be Angelo. . . very few big names have played the Duke (G. 159-66).

He based his belief that the Duke is the most important part in the

play on a close study of the text and a recognition of the "sheer,

bulk of lines," the tremendous degree of responsibility, the demand­

ing amount of action and the feeling of omnipresence Shakespeare

gives this character. Not only is his general view of the Duke in

direct opposition to Wilson,but his specific views also seem to

"react against" some of the individual comments found in that

quotation cited from the Cambridge edition. Concerning the Duke’s

motivation for leaving Vienna, Giles thinks that the text has made

his reasons abundantly clear. Giles thought that the Duke wants an

opportunity to investigate his society, and through the device he has

found "a way of getting into seeing people in extremes" (G. 381-2).

He wants, in Giles* opinion, to examine attitudes and to test them.

Really what he’s done is to set a trap for Angelo.He says at the end of the scene (I. iii.):

’Therefore, I prithee,Supply me with the habit and instruct meHow I may formally in person bear meLike a true friar. . . More reasons for this actionAt our more leisure shall I render you;'

(That’s very convenient.)’Only this one: Lord Angelo is precise;Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses That his blood flows; or that his appetite

65

Is more to bread than stone; hence we shall see,If power change purpose. . . what our seemers be.’

. . .He then goes to see how Angelo’s victims are really. . .Somehow or another he wants to catch Angelo out, and. . .What we tried to convey was the Duke’s skepticism aboutAngelo, and that one bit of the Duke thinks that Angelo is a pain in the neck (G. 383-409).

Obviously, Giles presents a radical departure from the view that

holds that we do not know why the Duke leaves.

There was another link between the Cambridge introduction and

the Giles interpretation which also involved the Duke and which

presents an interesting comment on the issue of the indirect influence

of criticism. Up to this point, the case has been made that the

Cambridge edition seems to have provided opinions which were reacted

against by the director. Giles also seemed to have been influenced

by a statement about an aspect of the text which the editors see as

a negative feature of the play. While Giles agreed about the im­

portance of this point, he saw it, in a positive light, as the key

to understanding the structure of the play. It is a definite fact a

technique is used in Illi which creates "a startling exhibition of91 or

the clash of irreconcilable styles ,,'w in that there is a shift^^ from

poetry to prose in the speech in the middle of the scene. The

Cambridge edition was adamant in its disapproval of this technique:

3AIbid., p. xxxix.

35In this scene all the Duke’s conversations with the provost in the prison are in poetry. He then withdraws in order to overhear the Claudio-Isabella conversation where Angelo’s proposition is revealed. Horrified, the Duke intervenes (l. 150), and from the moment he "comes forward" his lines are then in prose.

66

The two halves of this scene cannot be made of a piece by anyone possessing even a rudimentary acquaintance with the English prose and poetry. We will not say that they could not have been written—an interval granted—by the same man. But we say confidently that the two parts could not have been written. . . with anything like an identicalor even continuous poetic purpose.-5

That is definitely the sort of statement Mr. Giles would remember and

would react against because he feels quite strongly that a "continuous

poetic purpose" can always be found in Shakespeare. And he finds one

at work in this case. He sees the shift from poetry to prose as a

strategy being used to realign the direction of the play.

It is at exactly this moment where the Duke takes over the play. The play, to start with, seems to be about Isabella and Angelo, and, to a certain extent, Claudio. . .Then at the point where he comes down from the upper stage, after the Claudio-Isabella scene: this is the moment where he really "enters" the action of the play. And, indeed, from then on. he takes it over (G. 182-188).

It is for this reason he believes that this scene presents, not a

textual problem, but an acting problem, and it is for this reason,

the need to coordinate the effect of the prose and peotry, he feels

that "you must have a major performer as the Duke" (G. 201-2).

Compared to Dover Wilson, there is much less basis for an

analysis of the influence of Stopford Brooke’s Ten More Plays of

Shakespeare on Mir. Giles* conception of Measure for Measure. In a

way, discussing the Brooke work, selves to prove, by contrast, the

validity of regarding the Cambridge edition as influential. Giles*

comments, also, seem to predict that any influence by Brooke, if

found, would be of a subtle nature.

^ibid., p. xxxix.

67

I didn’t read Stopford Brooke because I wanted to read about Measure for Measure, I read for Brooke, and I don’t know what seeds were left (G. 118-119)«

Finding what ’’seeds’’ were taken from Brooke’s work and planted

into Giles* conception of the play presented a different situation

than that which the interviews seem to suggest. All references to

Brooke were seemingly positive, but Brooke’s chapter on Measure for

Measure has a quite definitely negative tone. Brooke cited what he

called the disagreeable subject matter as the reason Shakespeare was

not in his view inspired to write at his best. Giles, on the other

hand, considers Measure for Measure one of his six favorite Shakespearean

plays.

Still, there are "bits’* found in this work which parallel some

things Giles said. As mentioned, Giles thinks that the Duke dis­

guised himself to see "people in extremes." Brooke thinks that

Shakespeare’s basic approach to the subject was to use it as a frameOl

for an "arresting representation of. . . the extremes of human nature.

Giles agrees with Brooke that "something happened to Shakespeare"

(G. 190) in the middle of writing the play, which accounts for the

difference in quality between acts three and four compared to the first

two. Both also agree that Shakespeare came back to it with a feeling 35"that it is due to his genius to master it." However, Giles feels

he did, and Brooke feels he didn’t. Giles feels that Act Five is a

Of^Stopford A. Brooke, Ten More Plays of Shakespeare, London,

1913, p. 141.

35Ibid., p. 140.

68

"marvelous last act," written at "absolute top form (G. 195-6),37but Brooke—who is even more negative than Tillyard —feels that

38the play has a "more wretched ending than King Lear."

Citing Brooke as an influence on Giles helps to explain the

one inconsistent aspect of his overall interpretation. Although,

Giles finds the humor of the bawdy characters to be delightful, the

Duke authoriative and reasonable, and the behavior of Angelo and

Isabella to be realistic in a satirical sense, he cannot quite per­

mit himself to accept "the bed-trick," which he considers "monstrous"

and "unethical" (G. 430 and 419)«

The combination, however, of his background and the fact that

Brooke was one of the first critics he ever read, seems to explain

this seemingly inconsistent attitude. Because all the schools he

attended, including acting school, excluded his play from the

curiculum, he seems to have had instilled in him the view that there

was something "nasty" about Measure for Measure. Reading Brooke at

an impressionable age would merely have reinforced the view he

already had. Therefore, it seems no wonder that he would approach his

first opportunity to direct the play with the view that it contained

an incident of monstrously unethical proportions which he would have

37E. M. W. Tillyard calls this act "hampered by misunderstand­ing and mystification," and he feels that in the process of achieving his ends, Shakespeare has turned Isabella into "a mere tool of the Duke." (Shakespeare’s Problem Plays, London, 1950, p. 129)«

3^Brooke, p. 148.

69

to try his best to make an audience accept. The incident he singles

out is the Duke’s speech about his plan to have Mariana substitute

for Isabella in Angelo’s bed. His experience with the Stratford pro­

duction mellowed his attitude because he enjoyed the laugh he got out

of the audience when the plot was presented (G. 929)*

Indirect Influence? Boughton Production

What makes any discussion of indirect influence of criticism

on Dr. Boughton more limited than the discussion of such influence

on Giles is the fact that the critical ideas which were used in the

Bowling Green production were entered into the text literally with

the names of critics attached (See Illustration).

However he did admit that although a great many things he did

in his production resulted from specific reading he was also sure

’’that all the reading and studying that I’ve done generally over the

years also provided a lot of points of view and a lot of ways of

doing things" (B. 820-2). He definitely seemed to be implying that

subliminal, indirect influence could well have been a factor. The

possibilities are so unlimited that a complete study is hardly

feasible. But since the sources quoted in the script-book seem to

cover most of the aspects of his interpretation, there seems to be

little unaccounted for.

Some inferences about indirect influence, however, can be

made by noting that the transcription shows that Dr. Boughton seemed

to be rejecting certain critical views. There is to begin with,

Dr. Boughton’s comment on Victorian criticism, in general, and his

70

mention of the fact that he contemplated using but decided not to use

W. W. Lawrence as one of the critics who he would quote in the script-

book.

W. W. Lawrence, the author of Shakespeare’s Problem Comedies

is one of a group of critics, starting with F. S. Boas in I896 and 39including E. M. W. Tillyard and most recently, Ernest Schanzer, who

have analyzed Measure for Measure as a "problem play." Boughton did

take notes from Lawrence’s book, but that fact was not included under

direct influence because those notes just consist of a quote by Shaw

and F. S. Boas* definition^ of a problem play. There is not any

concrete evidence to prove that he was consciously influenced by

anything Lawrence himself said.

One can deduce that Boughton felt that criticism which dwells

this "problem play" issue is largely outmoded and for the most part

irrelevant. He felt that in a way, "every play is a problem play;

every play has its problems to be solved. . . I don’t think I would

want to~ call the play a problem play in quite the same sense that we

talk about modem social problem plays." (B. 456-62). He did

39One curious point of contrast developed between what Boughton said and what he implied about Tillyard. Boughton says he has "a great amount of respect for Tillyard," (B. 955), and yet of all of these problem comedy playwrights, he seems to be the one whose views would most go against Boughton’s own attitude. Particularly, they have opposite views of the Duke and especially Isabella. Boughton emphasizes the fact that the roles have great possibilities for an in-depth study, while Tillyard (p. 137) disparages the fact that she is made too independent.

^The passage quoted from Boas does seem relevant because of its reference to "highly artificial societies. . . ripe unto rot- teness." (Shakespeare and His Predecessors, New York, 1905, P« 345)«

71

think that there was that element to the play, that some of the pro­

blems "are theological and psychological" (B. 424-5), but he seemed

to have a definitely negative attitude to the way, in which, someone

like Lawrence classifies it as a problem play:

The term "problem play," then, is particularly useful to apply to those productions which clearly do not fall into the category of tragedy, and yet are too serious and analytic to fit the commonly accepted conception of comedy.

Boughton felt that "the mixture of the tragic and the comic is some­

thing that we find fairly natural now" (B. 422-2). Therefore he

needed only to have read the opening pages of Lawrence to know that

he would reject him for, at least, his tragi-comedy view.

It should be noted that Boughton did not seem to be reacting

against critics like Lawrence because of the fact that they wrote in

an era which is far removed from the morality of today. His primary

emphasis was on the fact that such critics have the tendency "to look

at the whole canon and to see some sort of pattern," he finds "the

more specific things likely to be more helpful" (B. 962-3) when

directing a particular play. Even Ernest Schanzer’s book, written

in 1963, is just as "guilty" of this sort of view as Boas was in the

nineteenth century. He felt that Measure for Measure is a "problem

play" because it is concerned with problems that are moral rather

W. W. Lawrence, Shakespeare’s Problem Comedies, New York,1931, p. 5.

72

than "with problems that are psychological, metaphysical, social, or political."^

Conclusions: Specific

Considering the entire body of criticism about this play in

relation to the views held by these two directors, the names of

some critics seem noticeably absent from the transcriptions. ForIO

example, Giles quite often sounds like Pater. They both believe in

the ultimate genius of Shakespeare, but both see hints of a "fragment

work" in this play. Still another critic of that same era whom Giles

seems to coincide with is E. W. Chambers^1' who promoted the "good

Duke" idea when it was indeed an unpopular idea. These two critics

were not mentioned by Giles and are not as relevant to discussion as

Wilson and Brooke are, but it did seem curious that Giles whose main

thrust seemed to be away from the negative approach would mention two

critics who take a rather harsh view of the play.

With Boughton, the curious point involves critics whom he did

not mention. Those that he did provide some comment on such as

Lawrence seem to fall into place with respect to his overall view.

A man like Boughton, who "grew up with T. W. Baldwin’s five act

structure" would naturally reject Lawrence’s "bastard brother of

tragedy" label (B. 2737-8). But, although there are discrepancies

^Ernest Schanzer, The Problem Plays of Shakespeare, New York, 1963, p. 5-

i q^Walter Pater calls the play "rough and disjointed" but

praises it for being "a fragment of life itself." (Appreciations, London, 1910, p. 17).

^*R. W. Chambers, Man’s Unconquerable Mind, London, 1939, p. 281.

73

between the two, it does seem a bit odd that he didn’t mention

Schanzer, who although a ’’problem-play" critic, is nonetheless a

recent, up-to-date (1963) scholar in this field.

In light of the fact that he criticizes the "problem comedy"

school for not emphasizing psychological problems, it is no wonder

that he did use an example of Freudian analysis, such as the one by

Davies. He did not mention any other examples of this type of

criticism. Interestingly absent are the works of Daiches and Sachs.

David Daiches includes a psychoanalytic study featuring Measure for

Measure in his Critical Approaches to Literature which although not

as specific as Davies’ work is a well researched overview of this

entire area. Moreover, Boughton also seems to have passed over the

work of Hans Sachs which is a professional psychologist’s view of this

play and which is "concerned with applying psychoanalytic knowledge

about the nature of the mind to an elucidation of the behavior of 45characters in a play." It would seem that works like these could

have been an aid to the production, but, on the other hand, when

Boughton states that he uses Freudian analysis to "undergird’’ (B.

149-5) his interpretation, he might be speaking quite literally.

While Daiches and Sachs offer psychoanalytic approaches, neither

identifies his work as Freudian.

Similarly, the criticism of M. C. Bradbrook would appear to

have been relevant to this production—in light of the use of Hunter’s

^Hans Sachs as quoted in David Daiches, Critical Approaches, Englewood Cliffs, 1956, p. 354«

74

book--but it may have been regarded as not specifically applicable.

Her essay ’’Authority, Truth and Justice in Measure for Measure” is a

widely anthologized allegorical treatment, but Boughton seems to pre­

fer larger scale, more recent works.

General Conclusions

There is some validity and some benefit to studying what sub­

liminal factors may have been influential, but there are drawbacks

as well. Some of the problems encountered in performing such an

analysis are worth resolving, and, to some extent, this sort of

analysis seems in some ways contrary to the aims of the study.

On the positive side, this type of analysis does serve to

define the extent of influence criticism had on production. It

takes the issue beyond the literal level of names and titles. It

adds to the information known about the positive and negative way

criticism can be influential. Knowing that such an analysis will

be conducted also facilitates the interviews. The director does

not have be drilled with questions and books do not have to be

poured over, and therefore, the desired informal atmosphere can be

retained.

In the case of the professional director, such an analysis

serves to assist him in the process of ’’pinning down” where his

ideas came from and is a necessary addition to the discussion of

^M.C. Bradbrook,’’Authority, Truth, and Justice in Measure for Measure," Review of English Studies, XVII (October, 1941), pp. 285-99.

75

direct influence in order to firmly establish the relationship between

criticism and production. In the case of the university director,

such an analysis seems either superfluous or unfeasible. If the sources

are remembered well and documented, as Boughton’s were, little remains

for the researcher to do. On the other hand, if his entire background

is to be examined for possible ’’seeds” of influence, the researcher

would be faced with a Herculean task. Also, omissions--works not

mentioned as influential—cannot be taken too seriously. For in­

stance, in this study, it must be remembered that neither Giles or

Boughton had ever been taught this play, had ever acted in it or had

ever directed it before. There was no reason for them to have a

"backlog" of information about it, and they could not be expected to

research every possibility.

The danger of doing this type of analysis is that once some

type of influence is established, there is a temptation to discredit

or argue with the results as not being what the researcher would have

expected to find. While executing this part of the design, the

scientific aspect of this method should be emphasized. A future

study would do well to concentrate its analysis of indirect influence

to "what probably was influential"--an analysis rooted in names and

works mentioned but not discussed—rather than "what could have been

or should have been influential." Without that limitation, the case-

study technique is being bypassed in favor of the usual "review of

all critical opinion" approach.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS: MOTIVATIONS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS

According to the logic of this design, what has been presented

in the last two chapters was proof that criticism can have an in­

fluence on production—as well as the explanation of how this in­

fluence was proven. What remains to be concluded are the issues of

"Why criticism was used” and "How criticism was used in the

productions.’’

In order to determine motivation, a general policy statement

concerning why a director would want to use criticism can be esta­

blished for both Mr. Giles and Dr. Boughton. Also, an examination

of the types of direct influence found will be used to put whole

cateogory of specific motivations for using criticism in a clearer

light.

Motivations for Using Criticism: Giles

"What one is looking for in criticism. . . is something that

will start the imagination"(G. 138-9), is the key statement under­

lying almost all of Mr. Giles comments on criticism. The first

work he mentioned as having "started" his imagination, in a positive

sense, was J. W. Lever’s introduction to the Arden edition. This work

also fulfilled a second motivation he had for using criticism. He

felt that the most important aspect of directing a play is "text, and

which text you use" (G. 121-2), and by text, he means a critical

edition of the play, which includes line notes and an introduction.

77

He used this combination of text and criticism as a sort of "source

authority" about the play and all its aspects. Specifically, he

chose the Arden edition because he thought it was "full and on the

whole balanced" (G. 149-50), and because "it has all the notes at

the bottom of the page, which I find very useful" (G. 150-51)«

He seemed to use criticism which "starts" his imagination in

both a positive and negative sense; he supported some critical views

and reacted against others. He cited the J. W. Lever introduction

as the source for his concept of "Duke orientation." It is ironic

that Giles could not pin down Dover Wilson as the source of some

ideas which seem to have come from the Cambridge edition almost

verbatim, and yet he did explicitly link source to idea in a case

where the point of connection seems vaguely recognizable. While

Lever did find the Duke to be "exemplifying what most of Shakespeare’s47contemporaries would regard as the model ruler of a Christian policy,"

he did not speak of him as taking over the play from the third act

on, which was Giles* contention. Lever’s comments about the Duke

may be seen as relatively favorable in contrast to Wilson’s view

that the Duke is a "wearisome man, talking rubbish" and to Stopford

Brooke, who considers him very weak. But the fact remains that Lever’s

comments are not of the obvious positive nature one might expect the

to be from hearing Giles. However, much of Giles’ concept of the

Duke seems to have come primarily from his examination of the text;

the bulk of the Duke’s lines and his presence on the stage impressed

Giles and made him feel that the Duke was the most important character

W. Lever, p. li.

78

in the play. Therefore, criticism and especially a critical edition

like the Arden appealed to him because it gave a total view of a play.

For more specific matters, he seemed to want to rely on his imagina­

tion and the text itself.

He seemed to resist criticism which is highly negative towards

the play. But he liked to read such works as the Cambridge edition

because he found them interesting even though he found Dover Wilson

"idiosyncratic and so mad in some ways." He didn’t think "he’s any

good to work from" (G. 134-5), but he liked to read him because "he

is indeed so perverse that you’ll react against him sometimes."

(0. 140). He did, therefore, find such criticism and such a critic

as Dover Wilson useful, because "he makes you think, and then use it

in a sort of way, because then you are using him because he’s feeding

your imagination." (G. 142-/3)« Criticism then is a stimulus, but it

can serve to initiate action or reaction.

Giles considered his view on criticism ("something that will

start the imagination") to be "very different from the academic

approach." To the extent that Giles responded to criticism in a

general way rather than to select specific passages from critical

works as Dr. Boughton did, Giles* assessment of the academic

approach, at least in this one case, was relatively accurate.

Motivations for Using Criticism: Boughton

Dr. Boughton, did, for example, say that "the worst critic

may have one phrase that really turns me on, not even a whole

79

sentence, just one phrase, that may suggest something to me as a

director” (B. 675-7)« He was being very selective in picking only

the things that "turned him on" from the reading he was doing at the

time.

What seems to be the underlying motive behind his interest in

specific passages is his desire to formulate fully his overview of

the play. He sought the aid of the critics to provide helpful comment

on the parts of this overview. He saw his creation of a conception

of the play as a "crystallizing process" that is begun by both the

imagination and an investigation of the text. He seemed to be

bringing in criticism at a slightly later stage in the development

of a conception that Giles does. While Giles used criticism to spark

the imagination in the first place, Boughton seemed to stress that the

conception is first bom of one’s interest in the play (in his case,

issues like tragi-comedy, justice-mercy motifs, theater of the absurd),

then it is furthered by a thorough understanding of the text, and then

through the use of criticism it gains its depth and its substantiation:

I suppose you do get excited about something (criticism you’re reading), if it suddenly does corroborate the suspic­ions that you’re beginning to have as far as the play is concerned. . . You try to see ’is there anything about this comment that makes any sense?* You may not be able to tie that comment up with what you’re trying to do with the play, but if it sounds good, you write it down, because later on you may be able to tie it in. (B. 497-511)«

Like Giles, Boughton used criticism which influenced him both

positively and negatively but in a somewhat different manner. He.

enjoyed the Hunter book, The Comedy of Forgiveness, because it

"called attention to thè play as a play in which the central problem

80

is really one of mercy rather than the way around it" (B. 432-4)«

Unlike Giles’ discussion of the "Duke orientation" idea in which he

emphasized that the idea "came from" Lever, Boughton, in the above

quote and in much of his discussion of The Comedy of Forgiveness,

implied that Hunter is expressing a view that he, Boughton, held to

be time from the outset. Furthermore, the positive influence of

Hunter on Boughton was much more readily understandable than

Lever’s influence on Giles. Hunter and Boughton mirror each other.

Both emphasized the role of Mercy and its relationship to Justice,

God, and Humanity. Hunter even went as far as to try to diagram

this relationship, but while Boughton took notes on these diagrams,

he found them of little use to production.

Two types of negative influence were relevant to Boughton*s

views on criticism, one which involved a reaction response and one

which does not. In the discussion of the influence of W. W. Lawrence

on Boughton, it was noted that the whole general area of Victorian

criticism is one which Boughton has little positive use for:

Well, I think, given my own pre-dispositions I am likely to find that I can pretty much ignore a lot of Victorian criticism, or that my reaction to it as a mirror image kind of thing--the things that they ob­ject to are often the things that excite me the most. . .And so when you find negative criticism, you know it’s something like ’here’s something work looking at— something they couldn’t understand* (B. 397-412).

Though, he did seem to not be prejudiced against older critics, he

did feel that "the modem critic speaks more to the modem director"

(B. 992-3)« It was evidently not a question of being "turned off"

by certain older critics, but instead it seemed to be a case where

81

the more modem ones "turned me on enough that I wanted to take

notes" (B. 994-5).

Even in the case of the modem critics he did use, there were

instances where a sort of "negative influence" took place. In the

case of Davies’ Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded, there seems to be a

mixture of positive and to a certain degree negative influence. As

mentioned before, this book was used more often (as the source of

notes from criticism in the script-book) than any of the others;

primarily, Boughton felt that the Freudian analysis used was valid

and that many of the comments about the Stratford performances re­

lated directly to techniques his actors could use. But there are

some instances of passages included from Davies in the script-book

that the Boughton production did not endorse. A good example is the

treatment of Mistress Overdone. On the page where Mistress Overdone

enters the play for the first time, Boughton included the following

passage from Davies:

Marianne Johnston gave us a Mistress Overdone who was not the bawdy-house keepker of tradition—fat, debauched, and careless--but a woman with the cares of an endangered busi­ness on her mind, a woman custom shrunk and in retreat be­fore the powers of righteousness.

But Boughton used a Mistress Overdone who was "falling out of her

costume," and he admits "we used the bawdy-house keeper of

tradition" (B. 1890-1). He liked having the Davies quote there on

the page, but he felt that the-traditional view seemed to have more

justification in the text and felt it was a bit more feasible for a

student actor.

^Davies, p. 88.

82

Motivation for Types of Direct Influence;

Both Directors

Often, especially with Mr. Giles, the criticism used referred

to the director’s general viewpoint and the overall design of his

conception of the play. But criticism can also be seen as useful

to very specific aspects of production. These aspects have already

been identified in the chapter on direct influence, but explanation

should be given as to why the directors sought these types of in­

fluence from criticism.

The motivation behind using comments about characters in the

case of Dr. Boughton was that he was "looking for groups of characters"

(B. 126); he was looking for a way to organize the cast into workable

units. When he was asked what importance critical theory about

characters was to a director, Mr. Giles said that it was important

to know that "someone of note" thought of these ideas, and because

of that "it drives you back to the text which is a good thing" (G. 279)«

For a variety of reasons, criticism on scenes was used to a

lesser degree. Both directors gave the impression that it was their

responsibility to figure out how to handle specific scenes. Having

input from critics on the characters and central ideas of the play

gives the director knowledge about who and what should be emphasized

in a given scene without him having to read criticism about the scene

itself.

Boughton did, however, take passages from Davies and others

concerning some specific scenes. For instance, he included in

83

script-book many passages in connection with the court scene in the

second act (Ili). He quoted Davies’ discussion of the scene, as it

was played at Stratford, and included at the same time, passages

about the key attention-getting characters, namely Pompey, Elbow,

and Froth. Since that scene is usually regarded as a rather standard

farce in which Shakespeare displays his talent for portraying bumbling

incompetents and shrewd hustlers, one might not expect that a director

would seek critical ’’assistance" at such a moment. But Boughton

seemed to have collected this rather large amount of criticism at

this point in the production for the simple reason that he liked the

scene and felt it was important. The use of criticism there seemed

to have been responsible for bolstering his support of the scene to

the point where he felt that he did not want to cut any of it. This

decision on his part is worth noting because he chose to cut a sub­

stantial amount of the play, and given such a directive, this scene,

because it does not further the main plot would under the usual

circumstances, have to be considered a prime "target."

In terras of theory-criticism, both directors discussed the

relevance of Freudian analysis to this play. Boughton finds that

"good impressionistic criticism" of this type is "all too rare"

(B. 1755-6). He found that analysis dealing with the subconscious is

useful, because it reveals "subtle approaches" to characters. Giles

felt that such an approach is sometimes worth seeking "because what

is Freud about but human behavior, and what is Shakespeare about

but human behavior" (G. 680-8).

BOWLING GREEN STATE ui.i.ERSI'IY LIBRARY

84

Boughton used acting criticism by Davies, who commented on the

1954 Stratford production. Reading how actors like James Mason, who

played Angelo, handled their roles, gives a director additional in­

sight into the subtleties of characterization. He also found such

comments useful because they gave the student actors some concept of

the possibilities and variations available to them.

Giles* motivation behind paying attention to Lever’s textual

criticism was his desire to resolve difficulties before he actually

encountered them on stage. The one instance, IV,ii, where Giles

mentioned a textual problem, concerned contradictory references to the

time of day. Lucio’s "Good even" on line 147 is indeed a radical

departure from the references to morning used earlier--as close by

as line 69. Lever felt that the two parts of the scene were writ­

ten at different times, but that comment did not help Giles. He had

to "jiggle," as he called it, eight lines to make the scene play

smoothly. Through Lever then, he became aware of the problem before

having to confront it on stage. He hates to alter a text and thinks

that most of the time someone has trouble understanding Shakespeare,"

it is your fault not his" (1. 1645). For that reason, he found

textual criticism to be helpful for those times when a problem was

inexplicable from all other angles.

Something should be said about a type of influence that was

not found, namely "production criticism." In the discussion with

the directors about costumes, sets, lighting and make-up, criticism

was never mentioned and only rarely implied. The views on lighting

85

depended on how ’’dark” a comedy the director thought the play was,

but no critical view was singled out. Dr. Boughton’s set was mentioned

in terms of "balance” but none of the sources that mentioned Justice

versus Mercy were connected to the stage design. The main influence

on the costumes were painters, for the most part Bruegel and Bosch,

presumably for the shades of brown, but no critical work was found

which used as an allusion to the tone of this play a mention of those

painters or their styles.

Implementation

The task of implementing a conception into a production is one

which appears to be exercised in subtle and indirect ways. Neither

director read criticism to the actors, and neither seemed to want

specific passages from criticism to be implemented. Instead, criti­

cism seems to offer, as Boughton said, "a range of possibilities."

One can study a production and see what possible interpretations were

not being encouraged on stage, but one cannot necessarily tell how

the director achieved his view. The director, does, of course, to

some degree, know how his view evolved, but in both cases neither

director seemed to be concerned with making the audience aware of

"viewpoint." For both men, the emphasis, as discussed was on the

use of criticism by a director for the sake of giving the director a

complete interpretation of the play or, in the case of Dr. Boughton,

developing and supporting an interpretation that he had already be­

gun to formulate. Dr. Boughton saw criticism to be primarily of

86

benefit for the director, but he did mention a few instances where

he considers a critical viewpoint to be "actable.”

But before discussing "actable" criticism, one must begin by-

recognizing the fact that criticism can be influential to a director

without necessarily being implemented into the production to any

great extent. In discussing his view of audience and his responsi­

bility to the audience Dr. Boughton de-emphasized this matter of

implementation by saying:

In educational theater, the people who are going to get the most out of a production are the actors and the directors, who are working on it for this extended period of time, and I think we owe something to those actors, and we owe something to ourselves for that matter, too--to use the production to learn something that will be beneficial to classes and to perhaps publication, and so we have that kind of responsibility, too, and maybe we’re a little self- indulgent at times (B. 2999-3006).

This view is,supported by the fact that many of the quotes entered

in the script-book were there, he said, for his own benefit and for

possible benefit to future projects.

Boughton’s Views on Implementation

However, as mentioned above, Boughton did agree that some

aspects of the criticism he used were "actable."

Boughton felt strongly that this play is concerned with the

issues of Justice and Mercy and uses many quotes in his script-book

concerning the relationship of the two. For instance, he quoted

Frye who said that "the two should be kept not only in balance, but 49even in union." ' This idea of "balance" is one which he tries to

Frye, p. 210.49

87

carry out on stage at many intervals. In Act Two, Scene Two, the

first confrontation scene between Angelo and Isabella, he tries to

employ this critical view in his handling of the peripheral char­

acters of the Provost and Lucio. He has them on opposite sides of

the stage, Lucio on the side with Isabella and the Provost with

Angelo. Boughton considered the scene a kind of ’’night court’’

appeareance with "the Provost, who is a Justice kind of figure on

the one hand, and we have the criminal on the other" (B. 2040-1).

Boughton uses the other part of the Frye quote, "but even in union"

at the end of the confrontation scene by having Isabella move closer

to Angelo, "then away, then closer again, and then she encircles

him, and ultimately, he comes to her" (B. 2OÓ1-3). This use of

criticism about the balance between justice and mercy, it should be

mentioned, is also used in his treatment of the final scene.

However, a different approach to implementation of criticism

in production is to be found in his treatment of Lucio. At the point

in the text where Lucio enters, he included many passages from

criticism. The criticism that he is most able to implement is from

Wilson Knight who regards Lucio as a "loose-minded vulgar wit," who

is "merely superficial" (B. 1918-26). The idea of superficial,

pleasure-seeker is one that Boughton found to be "actable." He tried

in terms of props "to have him drinking, eating; a sensuous kind of

person, from beginning to end:" (B. 1958-9) an exemplification of

the superficial society upon which he’s commenting on.

88

In regard to Davies* discussion of interpretations used in the

Stratford production, Boughton thought many of the ideas Davies

mentioned, about the aspects of the roles, were actable. Basically,

Davies view of James Mason’s Angelo was that he was "a genuinely good

man, though not wholly good.. . . deeply ambitious. . . yet with a

fine integrity and sense of justice” (B. 3068-72). Boughton feels

that this kind of comment provides the actor with clues as to what

qualities should be expressed;

. . . with regard to the ’ambitious,’ yes, I think, this is something you can show, and there is a certain modesty in the man also, and I think an actor can show that. He can show that, for one thing by his attitude toward the com­mission that is handed him, and the honor he feels, and in his surprise and pleasure at finding himself in the position he is in, in regard to power (B. 3100-7).

Dr. Boughton believed that his responsibility was to direct his

cast in such a way that he could "get them to do things" which would

"embody the criticism" (B. 481-2).

Giles’ Views on Implementation

Mr. Giles supported the assertion made earlier by Dr. Boughton

that there is less need to implement a critical viewpoint into a

production for the sake of the audience in the educational theater

than there is in the commercial theater.

This issue seems to provide a natural ending point for this

discussion because he "picks up" where Dr. Boughton left off by dis­

cussing how a director gets a cast to "embody" criticism.

He defined a sort of process that takes criticism from the

first to final stages. He mentioned, first, that the director must

89

do a large amount of "reading around" a play which is then followed

by a concentrated effort to know the text thoroughly. However, he

thought that although "one has an overall feeling. . . about the

structure of the play and theories about the play" (G. 697-8).

actually working on the stage "throws huge floodlights" on all aspects

of the play, and then the director has to relate his reading to the

actual physical demands of directing. Giles felt that the director

must be careful not to appear to actors as having "too strong a

theory about the plot," (G. 721) because doing that is often in­

hibiting to an actor or can often lead to friction between cast and

director. Instead he tried to make the director^ influence just an

influence on the actor, not the only one. He must then "entwine

theories, so they become not theory, but absolute practice" (G. 772-

3). Giles then gave an example of what he wanted and the way he must

go about acheiving his goal:

You have to jockey them [the actors] into a position where they think of an idea themselves, although it’s the idea you wanted them to have. So, they think it’s their idea, even though. . . the idea might have been suggested to me by a sentence in Wilson Knight. But they will quite rightly have no idea that they’re acting upon that piece of criticism (G. 782-8).

He found that he had to "jockey" the actors into position by saying

"No, I don’t think that. . ."or "What do you think?" and eventually

he will have left them "only one road out. . . the road you want them

to go on" (G. 740-1)« The final test as to whether the actor

"embodies" the criticism comes each night he performs the part where

he had been jockeyed into position by the director.

90

They don’t think. . . ’ this is the moment where David [GilesJ wanted me to do so and so’ or that ’I read that so-and-so said to do such-and-such,’ instead they think ’This is my moment’--this is where it’s so difficult (G. 793-7).

The implementation of criticism into production does indeed appear

to be a difficult process but a fascinating one.

91

CHAPTER VI

IMPLICATIONS OF PRESENT STUDY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE STUDIES

Although much of this section will present comments about issues

which are, for the most part separate and unconnected, there is a

broad connection between these ’’related" issues. As the introduction

stated, this study always anticipated that information would be

collected that would serve as the basis for comment about a number of

issues not directly investigated by this project. The first issue,

The Contrast between the University Theater and the Professional

Theater, provides comment on the specific role and responsibility of

the director of a Shakespearean production. The second section, The

Relationship between Production and Criticism analyzes the role of

the director as it relates to the role of the critic. The third

section, The Significance of Direction-Study on Scholarship and

Teaching, follows up the previous one with comments about possible

ramifications that emerge from an understanding of the relationship

between production and criticism. Furthermore, a final comment on

the design and an index type summary of conclusions are included to

give the overall structure of the design completeness.

The Contrast between University and Professional Theaters

Since this contrast was not something the study set out to

investigate, comments about it will be limited to observations made

by the directors about what they conceive the differences between the

types of productions to be.

92

The first point of contrast was mentioned quite early in the

interview with Mr. Giles, during his discussion of why he chose to

direct the Stratford production:

If you are the director within a university, and you have a burning desire to do a play, then do it; whereas with a professional director, unless one is running Stratford, Ontario, or Stratford, England, you have to wait to be asked (G. 57-60).

He considered the difference siginificant because in his view the

university director is motivated by, what he wants to do whereas the

professional director is governed by opportunity. In the case of

Dr. Boughton, this view was to some degree substantiated. He,

"delivered an ultimatum," he said, that he would direct a Shake­

spearean production (which was what the students wanted) if the play

was Measure for Measure.

The second distinction between the two types, also mentioned

by Giles, concerned a director’s ability to identify what criticism

he has been influenced by.

The trouble, with talking about direction like this, is that, unlike the scholar, it’s very difficult [for a professional director like himself"! to pin down where one got his ideas from (G. 114-16).

Again, this observation was valid, for the most part; Dr. Boughton

did have a strong recollection of the critical influence on his

production.

Another difference was found in casting, Mr. Giles was given some

opportunity to choose actors but only from photographs and not auditions

Also, much of the cast was set by the Festival staff which uses what

93

is very much like a repertory company. To a great extent,^

Dr. Boughton had what could be termed "total” control of the casting.

Many of the differences between the types of productions con­

cern the director’s relationship with the actors. Mr. Giles believes

that one of the advantages of working with professional actors is

that "they have to be there." That situation is a contrast to

several comments by Dr. Boughton about actors who had summer jobs

and attend meetings and actors who could not get back to school on

time to start working with the rest of the cast.

Another difference, of course, is the background of the actors.

Mr. Giles stated that he was quite aware many of the cast had done a

lot of reading about the play and had their own theories about it,

whereas, one of the reasons Dr. Boughton included acting-criticism

in his script-book was to inform the actors about some of the possi­

ble approaches available to them. He also felt that some student

actors would not know how to use critical opinion; giving it to them

would be pointless. The cuts made in Dr. Boughton’s script were

done largely for the purpose of reducing the text to more manageable

proportions: a length that would not prove too overwhelming to

inexperienced actors. Mr. Giles* few cuts were done, as mentioned

before, because of textual anomalies.

To end with, there are also matters of time and money which

produce differences. The university production was forced to use

5°His control over casting was restricted to some degree be­cause Measure for Measure and Slow Dance on the Killing Ground, which were both planned as Fall quarter productions, shared the same audition, and the directors had to "divide" up the actors.

94

old costumes, simple sets and a short rehearsal time, while the pro­

fessional theater does not usually have these restrictions.

The Relationship between Direction and Criticism

Since this study dealt primarily with the uses production has

for criticism, the directors were almost inevitabley led into discus­

sion of their view of criticism in general. That discussion, in turn,

led to comments which either explicitly or by implicity were concerned

with the relationship between director and critic.

The transcriptions include many references to this issue, but

discussion of this matter can best be expedited by beginning with a

comment made by Mr. Giles, which Dr. Boughton, in turn, was asked to

comment on.

During the discussion of how a director implements critical

theory into production (See Chapter V), Mr. Giles volunteered a

definition of the relationship of direction and criticism;

Of course, any production of a play is a theory about the play, and, in a way, what I’m trying to say is that direction and criticism are terribly closely linked, because any direction, any production of a play that’s worth it’s salt is a piece of criticism; it’s a point of view, and criticism--no, you can’t really do the corollary, and say that any criticism that’s worth it’s salt is a kind of would-be director, without the actors. But I do think that this is the best kind of criticism, where you feel that somebody has such a burning feeling about the play that they must write about it (G. 802-811).

Besides trying to establish a link between the two fields, the quote

also serves to highlight the elements on which the traditional

distinctions between the two have been based. He seemed to be

95

implying that ’’theory, " the desire to theorize, is the basic nature

of all criticism. The ’’corollary’* seems to be frying to express the

view that criticism is usually not thought to stress the element of

’’feeling” or ’’emotion’’ which, he feels, is basic to the creative

nature of direction.

Dr. Boughton was asked to comment on Giles’ statement about a

production being a criticism and the "corollary" that good criticism

is a "would-be direction."

I guess I would agree with the primary statement more than I would buy the corollary, because I think it’s important to discuss themes, images and so on about plays. And I think people can do this who are not directors, and who do not have production in mind.What I’m saying is that I think literary, almost purely literary criticism is of some potential use to the director. But, I think, the director and the actors working together have got to be interpreting and making it (the production) have a point of view (B. 662-70).

His stress then was on the distinction that direction has to perform

the critical function of theorizing but criticism is not bound to

discuss a work in terms to which a director could directly relate.

The point that Dr. Boughton seemed to be implying was that there

are many types of criticism but that not all of them have an approach

traditionally associated with the field of direction. This is a

point that Dr. Boughton mentioned several times. Along the same

line, he stated:

You try to look at the method the critic is using and see whether it is appropriate. I mean that you may read one critic, and obviously he is into theological ideas, and he is interpreting the theological ideas, and that could be very useful, but then you’re dealing with actors, of course,

96

and some actors are turned on by some things and others aren’t. . . maybe the things that would help you act the role won’t help the actor to act it (B. 712-721).

Criticism, he felt, is different from direction because it has so

many recognizable divisions, which may or may not be helpful to a

given actor in a given production. In order to equate the two, he

would reason that a director would have to review enough types of

criticism to coincide with all of his disparate responsibilities.

The literary critic has a technique and an approach.He has one aspect that he’s trying to get across, and he can ignore the parts of the play that don’t support this or don’t concern that, and so on, but the director can’t. He’s got to find a way to deal with every moment in the play (B. 489-93).

For this reason, Boughton felt that it is inaccurate to consider a

critic a "would-be director," because his scope isn’t large enough.

When the director searches for criticism he knows he is not going to

find one critic who will meet his every need. He might find "cer­

tain critics who are helpful here and here, but they are not helpful

here, and here, and here." (B. 493-5).

Unlike Giles, Boughton felt that criticism does not revolve

around the concept of "theory." Instead, he tends to "equate

criticism with interpretation" (B. 585).

Both directors did, however, feel that even if both direction

and criticism are seen as emphasizing interpretation, they still

differ in that direction has the added responsibility to execute

this interpretation. As Giles said "theory must become practice"

(G. 773).

97

The Significance of Direction Study

On Scholarship

This type of study forces the researcher to examine many

critical works. That kind of experience creates a viewpoint about

criticism in general and, in specific, its relationship to production.

Despite some of the distinctions made in the previous section,

this study, does establish, a parallel, if not a similarity, between

the two fields. While it is true that criticism can limit itself

to one aspect and production must treat all aspects, there have been

countless cases of large scale critical works which included many

aspects and numerous productions which have de-emphasized many aspects

in order to highlight one which the director wishes to stress.

The director, like the critic must interpret, and interpretations

can range in style, as does criticism, from the most impressionistic

to most analytical. Therefore, there seems to be no reason why the

critic should not consider the director to be a kindred spirit.

Drama--the desire to understand how a dramatic work functions--is the

common denominator.

From the inception of the idea to conduct this study, the

assumption has existed that if literary criticism were proven to

have some influence on production, would it not be logical to assume

that direction can be of use to the critic. In other words, one

could perhaps learn something about the usefulness of all criticism

in general by looking at the type of critical works the directors used.

98

I think that the style of criticism that this study could be

said to be endorsing can best be put in perspective by contrasting

it to some of the critical works used by the directors.

Robertson Davies’ essay in Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded

seemed to have appeal to Dr. Boughton for a variety of reasons,

most of which involved techniques which he felt made for impressive,

useful criticism. The first of these is the use of an actual pro­

duction as a model for comments about the play. Not only did he

fully examine the performances by the actors but Davies also based

his examination on several viewings of the play. By doing.that, he

’’noticed some things that were not particularly obvious which seemed

to work there, and it seemed to give some possibilities for some

more subtle approaches" (B. 1740-2).

Besides being reportorial, Davies* inclusion of a Freudian

analysis of the play makes him impressionistic as well. He seems to

fall under Giles’ category of "someone who has a burning feeling about

the play," (G. 810) but at the same time, he is thoroughly unpre­

tentious:

I make no claim to have read all that a critic deeply skilled.in this type of criticism might read, but. . .I shall do my best, hoping that I may cast some fitful gleam upon the perplexities of this strange play.

Although Boughton said that good impressionistic criticism is all too

rare, the Davies essay impressed him as "an honest impression,"

which, through the Freudian approach, discussed the extra-textual

relationships between the key characters and emphasized the subtle and

the less than obvious.

99

All in all, Boughton considers Davies to have taken an “extra

step:"

The literary critic is primarily concerned with the meaning of the text, and this (Davies) is concerned with the extra step of visualization and projection beyond just what the text means. And so from that point of view, some of the impressions of the kind of effect an actor created can be helpful to another actor, whether he agrees with it or disagrees with it (B. 1793-1800).

Many of the aspects of "impressive, useful criticism" which

Davies* essay doesn’t attempt to achieve are found in J. W. Lever’s

Arden edition. Both Boughton and Giles seemed to want a "full and

balanced" script to work from, one which includes both text and

criticism. Lever’s edition included textual and biographical con­

siderations such as discussions of corruption in the text, the date

and the sources. It also included consideration of archetypal issues

connected to Measure for Measure such as "the disguised ruler" and

"the substituted bedmate." His introduction also included what

could be called a "critical essay" which is concerned with the

central themes of the play.

However, some considerations are missing in both. Neither

included discussion of images or structure, per se, and Davies dis­

cussion cannot really be considered a complete treatment of "stage

history," in the tradition of Trewin.

However, on the positive side, both do provide a fairly

objective view, and both try to avoid a superficial treatment of the

approach they have chosen. By contrast, Lever’s introduction seems

much more valuable than the highly slanted Cambridge edition. The

100

whole motive behind introducing an edition of a play seems undermined

by Dover Wilson’s pointed opinion. The reader is so cajoled by the

comments, that Giles was quite accurate in calling it "perverse."

Boughton*s rejection of Spurgeon and his use of Wilson Knight instead

seems to defend the view that criticism—in this case, an image

study--should be complete and consistent.

Proposal for New Critical Approach

There might be a practical application for the observations

made about the directors* comments about the criticism they used.

These observations can be organized in the form of what might be

considered a new critical approach.

First, this study is not promoting the idea that a critic should

write with a director in mind. However, the use a director has for

criticism does, I think, say something about how criticism can try

to be useful. While the director has needs for criticism that not

all readers of criticism share, the basic nature of the director

relates directly to the reason most people have for reading criticism.

It seems logical to assume that all readers of criticism are

trying to form an interpretation of a literary work. They may have

few, if any, ideas before seeking criticism and are therefore, like

Giles, looking for something to "start" their imagination. Or they

may, like Dr. Boughton, have "some general ideas and some emotional

reactions" and are in search for something which will "corroborate

the suspicions" they have begun to have. At any rate, they want

criticism to aid in their interpretation-making process.

101

As Dr. Boughton pointed out in his discussion of Lawrence and

Victorian criticism, critics are often so concerned with the whole

cannon of Shakespeare that their criticism loses sight of the plays.

What seems to be a promising direction for criticism to take would

be an approach which would take into account "the whole cannon of

a given work."

Dr. Boughton seemed to regard as a major shortcoming the fact

that most criticism deals with one aspect of a play while the director

must deal with all aspects. However, there seems to be no reason

why criticism cannot do this. A critical edition like Lever’s

presents the opportunity and format for such an approach, but in his

case, some major aspects were omitted. These aspects could be in­

cluded at slight expense to the textual and biographical considera­

tions. The directors* discussions gave the impression that while

those matters are valid areas for scholarship, they do not play a

major role in the development of an interpretation.

The key to this approach, in my view, is the fact that it in­

cludes both specific and general considerations. As this study

found, there is a greater opportunity for discussion and analysis of

an issue when there is an interplay of facts and ideas.

Thus, there is no reason why criticism could not include with

theories about form, theme, and characterization a discussion of a

production or productions of the play. It should be remembered that

finding a particular type of production is not important. The

Stratford production that Davies wrote about and that Boughton used

9

102

featured an’Angelo orientation.” This type of discussion should not

be seen as "out-of-the-realm" of the critic but as merely an extended

and enlarged definition of stage-history criticism which is a common

emphasis of literary critics.

A significant feature of the critical approach being endorsed

is its recognition of its audience. This feature is the one element

that I most noticed in be either de-emphasized, neglected or missing

in the bulk of the criticism covered by the experiment the method

used. While I am not actually insisting that the critic have "the

burning desire" Giles mentioned, I do think that the critical analysis

form does often lose sight of the fact that it is, like all forms of

writing, designed to communicate to an audience. Criticism has to

realize that its audience is there for a reason. Davies* very ex­

plicit and unpretentious explanation of his approach was refreshing

and yet effective as well.

This type of criticism uses a total and open approach, because

it is based on the recognition of the fact that it might be used by

a reader for many reasons. Not including some aspects of a play

immediately limits usefulness. Not being open and direct discourages

the reader from considering the criticism useful.

Although not essential to the central ideas behind this approach,

the form that seems to be suggested is that of a critical edition.

Both directors seemed to want text and criticism together in the same

work. There seems to be no reason why text couldn’t be compiled with

included line notations referring to more than just textual matters.

103

A variation of Dr. Boughton’s script book could be employed where

the entrance of a character was marked with references at the bottom

of the page (in keeping with Giles* view) to a variety of critical

opinions. Thus, the discussion of all the aspects of the play would

be brought to the text itself where the director (I think rightfully

so) think it belongs.

The Significance of Direction Study

on Teaching

This is one ’’related issue” that the study did not directly

collect information on. The study was not designed to consider as a

subject that the directors would be asked about. However, many of

the comments given in the previous section are of course applicable

to this area. A teaching perspective could be adopted that would

parallel the perspective being outlined for the critic. Teachers

are also often guilty of emphasizing some aspects of a play which

means that others are being neglected. It seems even more important

for a teacher to provide as many avenues of approach to his students

as possible. Dr. Boughton’s comment that the things which turn on

actors are not necessarily the things that turn a director on seems

directly applicable to students and teacher. The other advantage of

applying this approach to education is that it would be geared to

encourage a student to develop interpretation. It might be criti­

cized for doing too much for a student, but such criticism would be

overlooking the fact that any comments it would include in the text

would only be, as the passages were in Dr. Boughton*s script-book,

104

capsulized comments, and as such they would serve to encourage

follow-up study not discourage it. However, the relevance of this

study to such a practical application as teaching may be an exag­

geration of the significance of the information collected. Future

similar studies might provide a broader base on which to establish

such commentary.

Such a base could not only be established by more studies on

the use of criticism by directors but also by studies which used a

different perspective. During the preliminary investigation phase

of this study, several other perspectives were considered. "The

use of Shakespearean Criticism by high school teachers" was one

such perspective. It might well be a fruitful approach, because,

by interviewing teachers who are working on a relatively basic

level, an understanding might be gained about which critics have a

reputation for discussing Shakespeare in the clearest of terms.

Such a study would no doubt require a follow-up analysis of the criti­

cal works mentioned by the teachers, in order to determine how this

"clarity" was achieved. This present study only set out to establish

that this type of scholarship is legitimate and feasible. A study

such as the one mentioned might well establish reasons why this type

of scholarship is beneficial.

A Final Comment on the Design

Some general observations can be made in retrospect about the

design this study used. First of all, it would seem advisable that

future studies should include a discussion, like the one found in the

105

introduction, on possible designs. Even in a future^study were to

use the same method, the "shape" of the information might differ.

Using the introduction as a section on the discussion of the

hypothesis and the design used to examine it, seems, in retrospect,

to have been one of the strengths of the design. There were so many

facets involved with the central idea of this study--so many secondary

issues closely connected with the primary ones—that an inclusive

technique such as negative definition seemed necessary. In inductive

method is able to build a definition slowly, and mention can be

made along the way about what areas are being excluded and why.

Clearly, the most difficult part of this study is the explanation of

its purpose and scope. The design alloted two chapters, hypothesis

and method, for this purpose.

The method section, however, in future studies might be made

more compact. This study sought not only to explain the method but

also to justify its use. This section, like the first one, was not

designed as "the" method but as a forum for discussion of all the

considerations involved in the selection and implementation of a

case-study method. While practices used in the various phases of

the method might change from study to study, the phases themselves:

preliminary investigation, pre-interview, interview, and post inter­

view seem to be constants that most future studies would use.

The "middle" sections, "direct influence" and "indirect

influence," I think, should remain separate in future studies,

because although the considerations they discuss do overlap at times,

all concept of structuring would be lost if they were combined. The

106

"direct influence" section is, after all, concerned with the pre­

sentation of’ data, while the "indirect influence" section calls for

systematic analysis. Although the subject matter may seem similar,

the approaches differ radically.

The "Conclusions" section can therefore be seen as filling

the need for a coordination of the previous two sections. In order

to discuss the motivations directors had for using criticism and the

way in which it was implemented into their productions, one has to

draw from material about both direct and indirect influence. What

unifies this section is the fact that all the conclusions that this

section discusses are quite specific, and they all concern the pri­

mary issues.

For that reason, the related or "secondary" issues were put in

a separate "Comments and Suggestions" section. This final section

will no doubt change in future studies. The issues chosen to be in­

cluded in this section were thought to be those areas most obviously

deserving of comment in light of the previous chapters. However,

certain of these issues might not be relevant to the aims of future

researchers and others may be substituted in their place. The value

of the section is, indeed, its flexibility.

For instance, this final section might in the future be used

for the presentation of a model piece of criticism based on the find­

ings of the study. Using the final section in that way would serve

to include more of the transcriptions into the final report. Although

all of the interview material is included in the appendix, a future

107

study might do well to have a greater amount of that material

featured more prominently.

An Index-Summary of Conclusions

Concerning Introduction;

1. Hypothesis was ’Whether Shakespearean Criticism affects Shakespearean production.’’

2. Design chosen was "Essentials Approach" (scientific method) which included hypothesis, method, data, analysis, con­clusions, and suggestions.

Concerning Method;1. Case-Study method involved four phases

A. Preliminary Investigation(1) Lack of difficulty in receiving cooperation of

both university director and professional director might not be representative of future studies.

(2) A different scope other than just one production of each type might be advisable for future studies; this study was only concerned with esta­blishing precedent rather than achieving con­clusive results.

B. Pre-Interviewfl) Interview questions need careful consideration.(2) Alternate strategies are advisable.

C. Interview(1) Flexibility on the part of the interviewer is

vital.(2) Interplay of general and' specific comments must be

to some extent manipulated to achieve balance.D. Post-Interview

(1) Transcriptions are time-consuming and may have to be done by the researcher.

(2) Information should be classified so that most appropriate design will be chosen.

2. Four-phase form appears applicable to future studies.

Concerning Presentation of Data;1. Hypothesis proven by establishment of direct influence

A. Boughton*s production(1) Robertson Davies’ Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded(2) R. G. Hunter’s Shakespeare’s Comedy of Foregiveness 13) G. Wilson Knight’s Wheel of Fire (4) Roland Frye’s Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine

108

B. Giles’ Production(1) J. W. Lever’s Arden Edition of Measure for Measure

2. Many types of direct influence found including comments oncharacters, scenes, themes, acting, text, and imagery.

Concerning Analysis:1. Indirect or "unconscious” influence was admitted to be

valid approach by directors themselves.2. Such analysis best approached by selecting critics men-

- tioned by directors but not identified as being directly influential.

3. Such analysis added critical works to body of criticism treated by study.A. Boughton:

il) W. W. Lawrence(2) Victorian criticism

B. Giles:fl) John Dover Wilson’s Cambridge edition(2) Stopford Brooke’s Ten More Plays of Shakespeare

Concerning Conclusions:1. Motivations for using criticism generally fall under two

categories:A. Giles: criticism used to "start imagination--aids in

creation of overall conception of production.B. Boughton: Criticism used to solidify "crystallizing"

process-aids in confirming initial suspicions.2. Implementation of criticism not considered vital by either

critic: ci’iticism can be considered for benefit of director.3» However, both directors considered some aspects of critical

interpretations to be "actable"A. Boughton: images and symbolic structures can be dis­

played by props and placement of the actors.B. Giles: critical opinion can be implemented by trans­

ferring idea to actor and by making him think he was the originator of it.

109

BIBLIOGRAPHY

References Cited in Text

Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1904»

Brandbrook, M. C. ’’Authority, Truth, and Justice in Measure for Measure,” Review of English Studies, XVII (1942), 385-399«

Brooke, Stopford. Ten More Plays of Shakespeare. Lond: Constable, 1913.

Campbell, 0. J. The Reader’s Encyclopedia of Shakespeare. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1966.

Chambers, R. W. ’’Measure for Measure,” Man’s Unconquerable Mind, London: J. Cape, 1939«

Daiches, David. Critical Approaches to Literature. London:Longmans, 1956.

Frye, Roland Mushat. Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 19 ¿>3•

Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces to Shakespeare, First Series, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1933.

. Use of Drama. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1947.

Guthrie, Tyrone and Robertson Davies and Grant MacDonald. Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1954.

Hunter, Robert Grams. Shakespeare and the Comedy of Forgiveness.New York: Columbia University Press, 19 ¿5.

Jameson, Anna B. Shakespeare’s Heroines. Boston; Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911.

Knight, G. Wilson. The Wheel of Fire. London: Metheun- and Co., 1949«

Lawrence, W. W. Shakespeare’s Problem Comedies. Mew York: R. Unger Publishing Co., 1931*

Lever, J. W. (ed.). The Arden Edition of the Works of Shakespeare: Measure for Measure. London: Metheun & Co., 19^5-

Pater, Walter. ’’Measure for Measure, ” Appreciations. London:Macmillan & Co., 1910.

110

Schanzer, Ernest. The Problem Plays of Shakespeare. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963«

!

Spurgeon, Caroline. Shakespeare’s Imagery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935«

Tillyard, E. M. W. Shakespeare’s Problem Plays. London: Chatto & Hindus Ltd., 1950.

Villee, Claude H. and Vincent G. Dethier. Biological Principles and Processes, Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1971«

Wilson, J. Dover, and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (eds.). New Cambridge Edition of Shakespeare: Measure for Measure. Cambridge: University Press, 1922.

References Cited in Interviews

Baldwin, T. H. (No title specified).

Boas, F. S. Shakespeare and His Predecessors. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 189'51"

Bradley, A. C. (No title specified).

Brooke, Stopford. Ten More Plays of Shakespeare. London: Constable, 1913.

. Ten Plays of Shakespeare. London: Constable, 1910.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. (No title specified).

Euripides. Alcestis. (No edition specified).

Ford, John. ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. (No edition specified).

Fry, Christopher. The Lady’s Not for Burning. (No edition specified).

Frye, Roland Mushat. Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 19&3•

Galsworthy, John. The Forsyte Saga. BBC Production, 1966.

Granville-Barker, Harley. (No title specified).

Guthrie, Typone, and Robertson Davies and Grant MacDonald.Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded. Toronto; Clarke, Irwin & Coiqpany, 1954«

Ill

Hanley, John. A Slow Dance on the Killing-ground. (No edition speci­fied).

Harrison, G. B. (ed.). The Complete Works of Shakespeare. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1952.

Hazlitt, William. Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays. New York: Everyman's Library, 1818.

Herrick, Marvin T. Tragicomedy: Its Origin and Development in Italy, France, and England. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, i’962.

Hunter, Robert Grams. Shakespeare and the Comedy of Forgiveness.New York: Columbia University Press, 1965.

Ionesco, Eugene. Exit the King. (No edition specified).

Knight, G. Wilson. The Wheel of Fire. London: Metheun and Co., 1949«

Landis, Paul. (No title specified).

Lamb, Charles and Mary. Tales from Shakespeare. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1807»

Lawrence, W. W. Shakespeare’s Problem Comedies. New York: R. Unger Publishing Co., 1931«

Leavis, F. R. "The Criticism of Shakespeare’s Later Plays: A Caveat,” Scrutiny, X (1912), 339-45-

Prior, Moody. (No title specified).

Ridley, M. R. The New Temple Shakespeare. London: Dent, 1935«

Schaffer, Anthony. Sleuth (No edition specified).

Schanzer, Ernest. Shakespeare’s Problem Plays♦ London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963.

Shakespeare, William. All's Well That Ends Well. (No edition speci­fied).

Antony and Cleopatra (No edition specified).

Hamlet. (No edition specified).

Henry VIII. (No edition specified).

112

King Lear. (No edition specified).

Merchant of Venice. (No edition specified).

Midsummer Night’s Dream. (No edition specified).

Much Ado About Nothing. (No edition specified),

Richard III. (No edition specified).-

Romeo & Juliet. (No edition specified).

Twelfth Night. (No edition specified).

A Winter’s Tale. (No edition specified).

Shank, Theodore. The Art of Dramatic Art. New York: Dell, 1963.

Spurgeon, Caroline. Shakespeare’s Imagery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935«

Thackery, William M. Vanity Fair. BBC Production, 1967.

Tolstoy, Leo. Resurrection. BBC Production, 1968.

Tillyard, E. M. W. Shakespeare’s Problem Plays. London: Chatto & Hindus Ltd., 1950.

Wilson, J. Dover and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. (ed. s). New Cambridge Edition of Shakespeare: Measure for Measure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922.

Wright, Louis B. The Folger Library General Reader’s Shakespeare.New York: Washington Square, 1965.

Interviews

Aikens, James. (Archivist, Stratford Festival Theater). Stratford, Ontario, August 10, 1972.

Boughton, Dr. Charles R. (Associate Professor of Speech, Bowling Green State University). Bowling Green, Ohio; February 3,1972 and February 10, 1972.

Giles, David, (independent British director; A. M. Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts). Winnipeg, Manitoba: October 21-22, 1972.

113

APPENDIX

Interview Transcriptions

This Appendix begins with transcriptions made from the taped interviews between this researcher and ffr. David Giles, who directed the Stratford Festival production, Stratford, Ontario, of Measure for Measure, Spring, 1969« The interviews were conducted on October 21 and October 22, 1972, at the Delaware Hotel in Winnipeg,Manitoba.

Following the Giles* interviews, the Appendix continues with transcriptions made from the interviews with Dr. Charles Boughton, who directed the Bowling Green State University production, Bowling Green, Ohio, of Measure for Measure, Fall, 1968. The interviews were conducted on February 3 and February 10, 1973, at South Hall,Bowling Green, Ohio.

The transcriptions were prepared according to the following editing procedures. Since the interviews were more of a discussion than a formal questioning period, names are used for the entries rather than ”Q” and "A.” The appropriateness of dashes, semi-colons, and paragraphs was determined by the researcher’s recollections of the actual mood and tempo of the original conversations. Ellipses indicate passages which were either unintelligible on the tapes or were omitted as not essential to the substance of the comment.Nothing is paraphrased. Conversation recorded when the interviews had been interrupted was also deleted. There is a difference be­tween the two transcriptions regarding the use of parentheses and brackets. Many of Giles* comments qualified previous conversation in such a way that parentheses seemed appropriate. In that tran­scription, brackets were used to refer to information supplied by the editor for clarity. Parentheses were used for that purpose in the Boughton transcriptions. Brackets had to be reserved in that tran­scription for the special purpose of indicating passages from the script-book that the interviews often referred to. References to page numbers such as "2 R’* or ”3 L" also refer to the script-book which was being read and consulted throughout much of the interview.

INTERVIEW WITH MR. GILES

115

Mr. MacPhedran. We should think of this interview as a discussion of the play more than as an attempt to make you rack your brain and try to remember specific things about the pro­duction. I want to ask you first about your background concerning Shakespeare and how you got interested in his work.

Mr. Giles. That’s a big one, really. I suppose one has to take it from how one becomes interested in Shakespeare and where one met him before.

Mr. MacPhedran. Was it a school boy infatuation?

Mr. Giles. Oh, yes, absolutely. I’ve always been inter­ested in the theater and never wanted to do anything else, and this leads me to view Shakespeare probably more favorably than most school boys do. One starts with Lambs * Tales as always; that seems to be how one is introduced to him—and very danger­ous, too--because, I think, that is one of the very many difficulties; that so many people have "pre-ideas" about what the play is about, based on the first thing they see. I know that, for instance, for me, when anybody says "Macbeth," the first thing I see in my mind’s eye is my illustration from Lambs* Tales, and I’ve got to get past that, before I can start on the play. So, anyway, I’ve always been interested in history and the drama, so I’ve always loved Shakespeare.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you follow this interest up and actu­ally study it?

Mr. Giles. Yes, I’ve always been avid for studying Shakespeare. I think as a student I was always much more inter­ested in criticism [than you might expect, but] ... always more interested in the acting side. That’s the way I’m built, but because of that I am very interested in criticism.

I remember, I think, one of the first critics I ever read was Stopford Brooke’s Ten Plays of Shakespeare and Ten More Plays of Shakespeare, and Tilyard, Bradley, of course. Because one has no opportunity of doing the plays then or of participat­ing in them, except in reading the plays after school, and cer­tainly Measure for Measure was never part of the curriculum, then I became more interested in the theater, became involved in an amateur theater and again had an opportunity of reading the plays and in reading the plays with other people which makes an enormous amount of difference, because immediately they start coming to life (that sounds peculiar).

But, anyway, I do remember quite vividly a reading of Measure, and it was a story I didn’t know very well at the time, because at that time, it was being pushed to the side ... This is when I was about sixteen, and I did my first production of Shakespeare at school--I directed Twelfth Night in the sixth form. Then, of course, I was bounced into the army, and that put a stop to that.

5

15

25

35

45

116

And then, I went to theater school, and since then (and, of course, studying scenes from Shakespeare and Shakespeare is all a part of that "scene'’). . . Since then I suppose I’ve done quite a lot of Shakespeare. . . It’s a very important part, certainly of my life, anyway, in that I feel to a certain extent deprived if I don’t do a Shakespearean production. Every one or two years although there isn’t always that opportunity, and I suppose this is the first great difference between a pro- ^55 fessional director and a director within a university--is that if you are the director within a university and you have a burning desire to do a play, then you can do it; whereas with a professional director, unless one is absolutely running Stratford, Ontario, or Stratford, England, you have to wait to be asked.Within that context, it is a very different approach to the play because it does mean, that (as I say, within a university frame) then you do a play because you want to do that play. Whereas, often within the professional theater, you do the play because you are asked to do it, which is very different. It just so 65happens that when I was approached to do a production at Strat­ford, Ontario, I didn’t know what play it was, and I quickly went through my mind the six plays of Shakespeare I most wanted to do, and Measure was one of those: because I have seen it a couple of times since (actually a couple of times within the last 20 years). I saw the famous Peter Brook production of Stratford,England with Gielgud as Angelo and Harry Andrews as the Duke.And I have seen a couple of student performances of the play, and have done a certain amount of reading round it. And I knew I wanted to do the play, so I was actually delighted when John 75Hirsch said we want you to do Measure, because, I say, it was one of the six plays I most. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. The other director, when I told him that, wanted me to ask you what the other five were.

Mr. Giles. Of course, Troilus and Cressida ....

Mr. MacPhedran. Oh, that’s what he was hoping to hear yousay.

Mr. Giles. The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, Much Ado about Nothing, and I’ll leave the sixth in ABSySiWCSi' 1 I Tike them all because one has something to say about them. Those are dangerous 85 words. I feel I have, not really a rapport with them, that’s wrong—it’s something within the play that you feel maybe hasn’t been seen, hasn’t been done or a feeling for it and I felt very much about Measure that it has a sort of acrid, ambivalent, very interesting atmosphere which I found fascinating.

Mr. MacPhedran. Had you acted in it?

117Mr« Giles« Never, no, I once, at a reading, read the Duke,

and it’s only today when I was sitting in the bath, thinking about it that I realized what an impression that had left with me and may be why I did some of the things I did at Stratford because I 95actually ’’played" the Duke the way I had read it.

Mr. MacPhedran. Had you directed it before?

Mr. Giles. Never.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you remember being taught it at acting school?

Mr. Giles. No, never.

Mr. MacPhedran. Never, even at acting school?

Mr. Giles. No, they did do a couple of Angelo-Isabella scenes, but I wasn’t directly connected with them, but I found them very interesting. 105

Mr. MacPhedran. So, most of this you picked up on your own?

Mr. Giles. Oh, absolutely, but then I think this is what a director must and has to do.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you find you get, take Measure for Measure for example, that growing interest more from just out of reading it itself, or do you want to seek out other people’s opinion?

Mr. Giles. Yes, of course, one wants to seek out other peoples' opinion, but the trouble is in talking about it like this, that, I think, unlike the scholar, it's very difficult to pin down 115where one got the ideas from, thought having done quite a wide spectrum of critical reading but never necessarily, for instance I didn’t read Stopford Brooke because I wanted to read about Measure for Measure. I read for Brooke, and I don’t know what seeds were left.

I think the main, I must say, once I found that I was going to do the play, the most important thing is text, and which text you use, and my own edition of the play is the Temple, which I started to collect when I was sixteen, largely because I thought they had one of the prettier bindings, but I think on the whole that they are not a good edition. But they're interesting in 125their perversity, in some ways. For instance, I have done Romeo and Juilet twice, and the Temple edition of Romeo and Juilet is so perverse it’s fascinating, and indeed one thinks, perhaps from reading it there first, that one wouldn’t have done otherwise.

Mr. MacPhedran. How did you decide to use the Arden? Did you look at several?

118

Mr. Giles. I did look at several. I suppose this does show the way one’s mind works as well. I think one always looks at the Cambridge, because Dover Wilson, is so--I don’t think he’s any good to work from, because again, I think, he’s so idiocyn- 135cratic and so mad in some ways--just mad—but very interesting, and I think what one is looking for in criticism, which I suppose is very different from the academic approach, is something that will start the imagination; and, therefore, Dover Wilson is very use­ful because he is indeed so perverse that you’ll react against him perhaps sometimes. He makes you think, and then use it in a sort of way, because then you are using him, because he’s feeding your imagination.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then, you’re using criticism more as a stimulus than literally for taking phrases? 145

Mr. Giles. Absolutely, absolutely. And then of course, I think, with the Arden, personally, I find that, if I am working on a Shakespearean Play, the Arden is generally the edition that I always come back to, because it is so full and seems to me very balanced on the whole. It has all the notes at the bottom of the page. Which is very important actually, if you’re directing, and I found it very noble. I think that the introduction to the play had an enormous influence on me, and just looking back on it here,I know there were certain passages that struck me--for instance, the idea I’m sure you see, the difficult thing about talking 155about direction like this, is that you only realize some times where your ideas come from, by looking back. . . Like. . . the thing I knew I wanted to do, from the word "go," about the play, is it seemed to me that in all productions I’d seen, the play to a certain extent was disorientated. In that, generally in the theatre, the "star part" is considered to be Angelo. And you find when you look at the cast list that Gielgud has played Angelo,Edmund O’Neill has played it, John Neville, Marius Goering,Maurice Evans. They all played Angelo, and James Mason, ofcourse, in the last production at Stratford, and very few big 165names have ever played the Duke, and yet what is the play aboutor who is the play about?

But to start with, just from the sheer bulk of lines, the Duke is a much, much longer part. . . the other thing which I think is tremendously interesting about the Duke from a purely technical point of view, is that when you look at the part on the page, just the shape of the lines on the page, and you go through the last couple acts of the play. It is following the normal kind of run of a Shakespearean Play and it follows verse with a certain amount of prose, really more verse than prose, and 175 you get the earthy character in prose and the big scenes, as it' were, in verse the Angelo-Isabella scenes, and then suddenly in Measure which I think is almost unique, there comes a point where you can almost rule a line across the text, and you suddenly get

119

great "wadges" of prose which is I think very, very unusual in this sort of play. . . and you look at where you ruled the line, and it is at exactly the moment where the Duke takes over the play. The play, to start with, seems to be about Isabella,Angelo and to a certain extent, Claudio, and the Duke takes up watching, then at the point where he comes down from the upper 185stage after the Claudio-Isabella Scene: this is the moment where he really enters the action of the play, and indeed, from then on he takes it over.

Then you suddenly get these great "wadges” of prose, and it does seem to me, that at this point, something happened to William Shakespeare, I don’t know what, either he got bored, or he had to turn to another play or something happened, anyway, and the turn of the play changes and certainly the level of writing (changes also) although there is very interesting writing, and I think he kind of gets back on to top form with the last act, which I think 195 is a marvelous last act, and he has indeed been writing at absolute top form with the Angelo-Isabella scenes, which are him at his very very best: succinct, marvelously graphic, wonder­fully actable, and in the most wonderful verse, marvelous dramatic verse. Then you come to these unwieldy, great speeches, and it seems to me that if the play is to work, then you must have a major performer as the Duke, and indeed if the play is to work and the audience not lose interest at this point then you must trust the Duke very firmly in the first half of the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is this something you realized before 205production began or something you learned from experience?

Mr. Giles. No, I learned that before production began, and I also again was doing kind of long lines, whole lot of lines. One thought about all sorts of lines together, and some of them went through and came through before production started, and that was definitely one. I remember saying that to them at Stratford, because I didn’t know the company at all.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you have anything to do with casting?

Mr. Giles. Well they kept sending me books of photographs, and I kept saying "I can’t tell from photographs. What I do want 215is to make sure that I have someone of equal stature to Angeloplaying the Duke," and very fortunately there was William Hutt who I had never known before at all (I know him very well now), but that was indeed fortunate. It also seems to me that to make the play work (that sounds very arrogant) you must go right to the very end of the play to the moment when he says to Isabella,"Will you be my Duchess?" and "You will be my Duchess." He gives her no choice that one has seen so often the audience has dis­solved in the wrong kind of laughter at that monaent.

It is such a shock; there has been up to then no sort of 225preparation (within the play there is no direct hint that this has

120

been in his mind) and it seems to me what one must do was prepare the ground for that moment and to a certain extent, in one way, the key to ray whole treatment of the play was that the whole treatment of the play was really a preparation for that moment.

Mr. MacPhedran. Have you worked with amateurs?

Mr. Giles. Yes, I gained all my first experience with amateurs, and I started off as a professional director in and out of a company when I first started directing professionally and still have enormous connections with an amateur theatre that I 235originally kicked off with. But it was an amateur theatre with an enormous, big reputation as a very good theatre. We had our theatre, and certainly when I first went there, there used to be a production every three weeks, which is an enormous thing, they'd min one for a fortnight, then they’d have a foreign film, then they'd have another play for a fortnight, so that within the com­pany, they always had three plays: one for on stage, one play in rehearsal, and one play nearly going into rehearsal.

It had very much a very professional theme about it, be­cause you had that pressure. 245

Mr. MacPhedran. What company was this?

Mr. Giles. It was the Bradford Civic Playhouse and cer­tainly one of my. . . (Major influences). It eventually got a very good professional director, who used to be head of the old Vic School before the war, Esme Church. She later started the professional school that was attached to the theatre which I went to after I’d been in the army, and I know that she influenced me enormously and my approach to Shakespeare.

Mr. MacPhedran. Were these university people?

Mr. Giles. No, straight amateurs. 255

Mr. MacPhedran. Have you worked with university people?

Mr. Giles. It’s an uncommon practice in England, except that Oxford and Cambridge have a very strong theatrical backing, as it were, and I have worked at the Cambridge Theatre, but with professionals, never students. I know that universities do bring in professionals, but I've never done that. But strangely enough, the play that I’ve just done at Edinburgh, Tis’ a Pity She’s a Whore, had Ian McKennan in the lead, who was indeed, a Cambridge University actor.

Shall we go on again about the play. We’d got to the point 265 of saying that the Duke was very important. This sort of duke orientation that I was beginning to move towards means that one has to clarify, to a certain extent, one's feelings about the Duke.

121

And, with the Duke, Isabella. I do know that Isabella is presented by two very different critical lights: that there is one school of criticism which thinks of her as a sort of paragon of virtue and the other school of criticism which thinks she’s quite the opposite, a prudish, narrowminded, hysteric.

Mr. MacPhedran. Does knowing that there is a critical school, saying she’s something, effect you? 275

Mr. Giles. Yes, it does, because immediately it means that somebody has thought this and somebody worth taking note has thought it. So it drives you back to the text, and I think that anything that drives you back to the text is a good thing, because the text is the play; and, therefore, it [criticism] makes one try to make up one’s own mind to a certain extent about an element of the Play.

Mr. MacPhedran. Does it drive you back with a sense of some­what hostility, "0 damn it, this has been thought of," and make you want to veer in another direction? 285

Mr. Giles. No, because I think that with any approach to Shakespeare one must be totally honest. I think Shakespeare is so complex that the simplest way to do him is always the best.Sometimes simplicity is extremely complicated, and the simple too is sometimes so much in front of one’s nose that one misses it.So, anything that illuminates the text is valuable, and to hearthere are two schools of thought means that to a certain extentthe text is ambivalent, and that you have to go back to it andstudy it doubly carefully (and given me, as the director,approaching the play via the Duke) and what is the Duke’s 295attitude towards Isabella? And what does he see her as? And hecertainly sees her as somebody, who is worth of being his duchess,because that comes out right at the end of the play. He sees herat first; he actually sees her first, when he asks to overlookthe scene between her and Claudio, and so he sees her refuse tosave Claudio’s life, and the scene looks as if it’s becomingterribly nasty. It looks as though it’s going to go too far atany second, and he intervenes and he comforts her and suggests athird alternative.

Mr. MacPhedran. Are you saying, that you think he has it 305on his mind, that she would be a good Duchess all along? or that she is a person "like" someone he would like to have as his duchess?

Mr. Giles. No, what I’m saying is really that he must fall in love with her, but he doesn’t think she’s a fit person to be his Duchess at that moment, because he doesn’t come down and say "Will you be my Duchess?" at that moment. He thinks, in a kind

122

of way I think, . . .He must be attracted towards her, because this is the first actual, positive action that we see him do . . .To intervene: This is the first positive thing he does .in the 315play. He mins away all the rest of the time; and, therefore,the scene must have meant a great deal to him. What does it meanto him that he interferes so strongly? I think that when I sayhe falls in love with her, I don't think he thinks "I am in lovewith her," but there is something within her that attracts him,something within the situation, which he finds immenselyattractive, because he then takes great pains to set up, as itwere, a sort of "moral gymnasium," a series of tests for her ofgreat complication, at least from the duke's point of view.Thereon, the play becomes in a way, him teaching Isabella a more 325liberal outlook, a less narrow outlook. He then leads her throughthe play by a series of shocks: He's extremely cruel to her, inthat he deliberately conceals Claudio's death, which is beyond. . .and seems to take, in the way the play is written, an intensepleasure indeed in telling her that Claudio is dead and it's alltoo late and had all gone wrong. Maybe he’s trying to give her ashock by seeing how she reacts to it all: shocking her, into amore open state (I’m putting this badly, never mind, I'll put itagain in another way). Then he leads her towards the pointwhere she makes, what I certainly think is a wrong decision, in 335the Claudio-Isabella scene. And I think the Duke thinks it's thewrong decision, because he then certainly tries to lead her awayfrom it, because he leads her to the point where he throws Angelo'slife in the balance, he throws Angelo's life to her, and shepasses the test. She actually kneels for Angelo and at that momentshe becomes a fit person to become his Duchess.

Mr. MacPhedran. What was he testing her for?

Mr. Giles. Maturity, I suppose, really.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think then that he is serious in the first act, when he says he’s going to remove himself; he’s going 345 to get out, so it would really take some momentous event todraw him back?

Mr. Giles. No, not quite that. I think he’s serious and this is partly why I did what I did. This is why the play's so ambivalent, because it 'comes how you see the Duke and Isabella, whether you think it's a happy ending or not it is a kind of happy ending in a way, because everybody goes off paired. But if one wants to say that they both deserve each other then what’s their married life going to be like--very happy maybe, because they’re both such pretentious snobs. I think that he loves living 355vicariously; he loves disguise; he loves listening to other people: This is partly why I did the thing of having a sort of prologue which isn't in Shakespeare at all, of having him already disguised at the beginning of the play because (A) I wanted to

123

plant the Duke very, very, strongly, and also (B) Because Iwanted to give him some idea of the sort of world that was goingon around him. From then on, he seems to just love disguise;he loved just being the friar. Then the way he uses it withLucio is as a man who loves disguises (it’s very funny, becauseI’m doing Sleuth at the moment and that’s all about somebody who 365loves disguises).

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think he’s fooling himself in the first act in the monastery where he’s convincing himself that he’s going into this reclusiveness for the sake of the state?

Mr. Giles. I think it’s a rationalization. He says he doesn’t do this. I mean he doesn’t go into the monastery he goes into the prison, disguised.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you mean if he were really serious, he would’ve stayed in the monastery?

Mr. Giles. Yes, of course. He just doesn’t behave like a 375 monk, he purely uses the monk’s robe as a way of getting into seeing people in extremes. He seems to get his emotion at a level; he’s a great vicarious liver.

Mr. MacPhedran. And that isn’t foreshadowed in that scene is it—that he’s going to go to the prison?

Mr. Giles. No, he doesn’t go away like he says he’s going to.

No, really what he’s done is set a trap for Angelo: He says at the end of the scene. "Therefore, I piithee/Supply me with the habit and instruct me/How I may formally in person bear 385 me like a true friar. More reasons for this action/At our more leisure shall I render you" (that’s very convenient) "only this one: Lord Angelo is precise:/Stands at a guard with envy: scarce confesses/That his blood flows or that his appetite/ls more to bread than stone: hence shall we see/lf power change purpose, what our seemers be."

Mr. MacPhedran. Then you think, that is transition for the first prison scene?

Mr. Giles. Well, he then goes to see how Angelo’s victims are really. I originally also had a thought it would be marvelous 395 to have him disguised in the scene where Claudio is being ledabout but decided against that one.

Mr. MacPhedran. You mean have him kind of invisibly in the background?

124

Mr. Giles. Yes, as it were, because he doesn’t use the monk’s costume to become a monk: He uses it as a disguise: I think that’s what I’m trying to say, because a monk can go anywhere.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is it a release?

Mr. Giles. Yes, because I think he loves vicarious living, 405 and somehow or another he wants to catch Angelo out. I do remember that in the first scene—what we tried to convey was the duke’s skepticism about Angelo--and that one bit of the Duke thinks that Angelo is a pain in the neck.

Mr. MacPhedran. The problem with that idea with me is that the Duke later on is supposed to be seen as surprised when Angelo does knuckle under. Isn’t that what the Duke, given that first statement, is expecting all along?

Mr. Giles. I think he expects to find Angelo out to a cer­tain extent, but he doesn’t anticipate the depth to which Angelo 415 falls. The other thing, to get back to the disguise and the love of vicarious living and plots and so forth, is indeed his plot.The "third alternative" that he presents to Isabella is to saythe least unethical. And also it shows a love of intrigue,enormous delight in intrigue, and I do remember, appropos of this, that doing this sort of production which I suppose you must call "Duke- orientated production," doesn’t I don’t think in any way belittle Angelo. But Angelo is so much clearer; his line is clearer; he’s Shakespeare writing at the top of his bent, marvelous picture of a man corrupted by his own rigidity, while 2+25the Duke is like a piece of supple stick. I do remember on the first night how delighted---it*s one of those marvelous moments, when I knew exactly what Bill was thinking, and he knew exactly what I was thinking about the audience. It was at the first public performance, not a preview, when he presented that mon­strous plot of slipping Mariana into the bed instead of Isabella to Isabella for the first time and via Isabella to the audience.At the end of it, he got the most marvelous, delayed, ruminative laugh, and one could see his nose go up and his hackles rise in the best sense, because we both knew, and again this is a very 435arrogant thing to say, that we’d won at that moment: that from there on, Bill knew he had them.

Mr. MacPhedran. This brings out an interesting point. Do you think of this play as having a structure and that the Duke can ad lib from that structure (the personality making the struc­ture buckle and bend) or is this the structure?

Mr. Giles. I think this is the structure; I do think one is again talking about a flaw in the play, and that sometimes the

125

structure bends to such an extent that it almost breaks, and maybeit is a compositor that allowed the section of Baraadine having 445his head chopped off and the message coming from Angelo aboutClaudio going to be executed, and also both girls being due at the prison at that moment. He gets so many balls in the air, like a juggler, that one or two, well I won’t say they fall, but they do get under his foot and he has to pull them back with his foot in­stead of keeping them in the air. And the play gets very danger­ous around here.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think he got caught and had over­extended himself or that he was trying to make it this way, try­ing to make it both a challenging, but a plastic structure? 455

Mr. Giles. Well, I think, I won’t say he overextended him­self, because I don’t think he ever does that, but I just think he gets careless for a minute or two, that’s all. Really, that bit of the play is almost unworkable as it is handed down to us.Now, how true the texts are, one doesn’t know, you know, what has been lost and what has come out, we’ll never know, I suspect.

I suppose it’s like Tis* a Pity that I’ve just been doing.We became convinced half way through the play that whoever directed the play the first place must have been an actor who said "Well, let’s move over there, or let’s move there," or may- 465be the author did it, as some people think of Shakespeare, but certainly in Tis’ a Pity we became convinced that the person directing the play had to be playing Vasques, and that some of his remarks as director had crept into the text. There is one scene where he says "this scene is scurvily played" and I’m sure it was actually the actor as director speaking not Vasques, not Vasques at all. There’s another where he says "that half of the scene you played very well, then in the other half, you became too vexed," and I’m sure that somebody was writing down the re­marks of the director, and they shouldn’t be in the text at all. 475• . .There is an apology at the end where the compositor says if apy of this is wrong you must excuse me.

So one doesn’t know if it’s a question of blame or maybe with Shakespeare it’s a question of the lack of one’s own know­ledge or imagination that has lead one to feel that a scene is difficult to work. Anyway, we did find that section of the play very difficult.

Mr. MacPhedran. What was your connection with the Royal Academy? (R.A.D.A.)

Mr. Giles. I taught there over a period of ten years, I 485suppose seven years ago. I generally directed more than taught.Although, of course, directing in an academy one’s primal thing is also to teach at the same time. And, of course, I did many other things. I still am connected with the academy as what they call an associate member. I go back occasionally and judge

126

competitions and things like that. But I never taught Measure at the Academy. It’s a very difficult play to do at any place like the Academy because it really is very short on female parts.After Isabella, which is another strange thing about the play, Shakespeare’s company seems very short of boys. Because, you 495have this very peculiar thing with Juliet appearing in three scenes and speaking only in the one, and then appearing in particularly the last scene, where she is there and never says anything, which makes one think that the boy who was playing her was also playing something else, and they just put the costume on someone who couldn’t act at all. I also have the feeling that the boy that was playing Juliet was also playing Mariana; they seem very shiftable.

Mr. MacPhedran. What kind of boy did he pick for Isabella?

Mr. Giles. I don’t know, what kind of a boy did he pick 505for Cleopatra? I always think that this is always one of the more interesting things in the plays, is trying to think which sort of company he's using. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. The question was, do you think of that?

Mr. Giles. One thinks of it, of course, when one first tackles the play, than as soon as you go into rehearsal with a real girl, it changes your mind; she’s going to play it, but it does explain so much in so many of the scenes. And, for instance, what is the most famous love scene in Shakespeare? It’s the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, and the balcony prevents them 515 from touching which he manages marvelously, but it’s always there.And in this play that sort of problem doesn’t arise, because there really are no love scenes, one really can’t call the Angelo- Isabella scenes love scenes because they’re not recoprocating in any way.

Mr. MacPhedran. I gather we’re at the point of thinking of her as the off-shoot of the Duke Orientation, where did you go from there?

Mr. Giles. Well, she then becomes (the terrible thing that happens to an actor is when he asks you should I do it this way 525or that way and you say both) I don’t think she becomes a Virago (what the youth does if you make her young is that it does explain and give her an excuse for her tremendous overreaction to Claudio’s suggestion). Of course, she has gone through a terrible time,but if you are faced with a girl who has decided to become a nun, and in a dramatic sense, this is why I think they have to be so carefully tested for the vocation because becoming a nun is such a kind of a romantic idea, and I think it appeals to Isabella in a sort of a way romantically. And it appeals to her rigidity,

127

I dare say--that’s pushing it a little far. In otherwords, 535Shakespeare presents you with a girl who is about to become a nun and then pushes her into a situation where she is forced or presented with the ghastly dilemma of either going to bed with a man who she obviously loathes, who makes her flesh creep, or her brother’s death. Therefore, it is absolutely understandable that she overreacts to Claudio. She can’t have a time vocation, of course, because at the end of the play she makes everybody aware about becoming a Duchess. Of course, two of the other interest­ing things (because they're never mentioned in the play; there­fore, they must be dead) that Claudio and Isabella’s parents must 545 be dead, because if they’re not dead where are they? And, there­fore, they seemed to have had a particular brother-sister relation­ship: a tight brother-sister relationship.

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s what you meant by saying she’d had a “terrible time?"

Mr. Giles. Yes, yes, and she obviously to having been this kind of girl who wants to be a nun must have been terribly shocked by this life that is going along around her: the sink of cor­ruption that Shakespeare presents Vienna as, and this dwells on her mind: she then meets, as though from heaven, from the upper 555 stage, this older man, dressed as a monk, what could attract her more? Or frighten her? It's just the most extraordinary scene when we get this and he suggests, as it were, in all his god-like way, this third alternative, and of course she becomes putty in his hands.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is she a lover of disguises too?

Mr. Giles. I don’t know if she loves disguises, but she certainly falls in with this terrible plot (it's not a terrible plot, but certainly a very unethical plot) with not a qualm.

Mr. MacPhedran* Is there a deception going on here, that 5&5in the beginning she's a nun and at the end she's a novice—in other words that you get this comment about the order not being strict that you think of her as a nun, but when he needs to change it, she is a novice.

Mr. Giles. No, he’s fairer than that, because right at the very beginning she says, the nun says to her you may go and speak at the door, because you are only a novice whereas I am a nun and cannot speak to men. So, no, he's fair on that, absolutely.

Mr. MacPhedran. There's not legerdemain here?

Mr. Giles. No, No. I don’t think so. There’s certainly 575legerdemain in that the Duke is not a monk, but he appears to have picked, in the guise he's picked, the particular disguise

128

which must appeal to her most. He also is obviously much olderthan she is, and so, in that first scene, in the way he gives advice, it‘s a very fatherly scene; he behaves in a very fatherly way, and from then on she is completely under his dominance. Of course, he does, as I say, teach her a great deal.

Mr. MacPhedran. I take it then, given the focal point of the Duke and given the kind of corollary piece of Isabella, that Angelo just fits in as the logical third piece? 585

Mr. Giles. Well yes, Angelo is in a kind of way the spring of the plot, isn't he? He springs the situation, and it so happens that his journey through the play parallels Isabella’s; that's putting it kind of too strongly (l*m getting woolish, can we stop, and I’ll start on Angelo again).

Angelo is the springboard of the plot in two senses: In that he is the person who the Duke leaves in charge, and he also is as we have seen earlier, one of the reasons why the Duke has gone. He feels he wants to test Angelo and test this seeming upright man, and so that is one spring. The other spring is, of 595 course, the spring of his attraction for Isabella, which is the beginning of that situation.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think of this as an independent spring, or does this Angelo plan all come from the Duke again?

Mr. Giles. It is all intertwined in the most complicated and closely-knit way and that it just so happens he’s one of those characters that fired Shakespeare like Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet:He hits some spring which is very close to the core of Shakespeare's genius, if we can use such terms, and because of that, the sections of the play in which Angelo appears are always some of the best 605written sections of the play.

And this is why I think, the play has tended toward over­balance and why Angelo has become the star part. For one thing, his soliloquies are far, far more effective than any of the Duke’s soliloquies, which are on the whole rather vague.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think that the two characters (we wanted to get to this sooner or later) show different character­istics of Shakespeare’s genius; the genius of plot, structure and the genius of the character type of character.

Mr. Giles. Yes, I think, I agree with you, although, I 6l5think that Shakespeare’s largess is so great. . . The duke is not as poverty stricken in the way of character as perhaps we’ve made him sound. That although, he's the main spring of the plot in the sense of a complex and highly rounded character. The point about Angelo is that he is the spring of verse, which is quite different spring, a spring of actual brilliance of language if you look at Angelo's soliloquies. . .

129

In II,iv., "When I would pray and think, I think and pray," that speech is more, as a piece of dramatic writing is, more telling. . . 625

Mr. MacPhedran. Did I hear you compare Angelo, in the con­text of a speech like this to Mercutio?

Mr. Giles. Yes, he just leaps off the page at you and immediately grips the imagination. Is that fair? The actor playing Angelo has immediately the most marvelous plastic and dramatic verse to use; whereas, the Duke has great "wadges" of prose.

Mr. MacPhedran. It's so interesting to hear you say that: just pringing from a conception of a character to seeing that character alive on the stage and thinking about what he's doing 635as opposed to .a critic. For a critic to come up with that idea he'd have to piece speeches together and then say that "from my criteria, this speech of Angelo’s reminds me of this speech by Mercutio."

Mr. Giles. No, I don’t have to do that sort of thing.It is purely a feeling that comes leaping off the stage.

Mr. MacPhedran. I suppose some people would throw in, while we’ve been talking about genius, that Isabella represents the "genius of theme?"

Mr. Giles. Yes, in a kind of way, she, Isabella, and to a 645certain extent, Claudio are protagionists.

There is an interesting theory that there is an allegory with humanity, justice, judge, mercy, etc. set up in this play and that the roles shift, and different characters play different roles. But, I won’t set you up by explaining it.

No, this is such, in a way, a very well know theory about the play, isn’t it? That the Duke is the god figure.

Mr. MacPhedran. Good, I wanted you to mention the theories, then I’ll ask the questions.

Mr. Giles. And I think, that the interesting thing about 655this theory, is that in a kind of way Shakespeare is clever than that. The Duke thinks he’s the god figure. If he’s god, heaven help humanity, that’s all I can say.

Mr. MacPhedran. That idea had been said by Robertson Davies, that the Duke is a god-figure (God Complex), "he likes disguise, mystification; he’s omniscient."

Mr. Giles. I think actually, this [meaning Lever’s Arden Edition Introduction says that tooj.

130Mr. MacPhedran. He (Davies) draws this parallel, saying,

first the duke has this god-complex, then Isabella has a father- 665fixation; and, therefore, she transfers her feelings, since"being a nun is being affianced to god," to the Duke who is a surrogate.

Mr. Giles. That’s very fair.

Mr. MacPhedran. I just wondered about whether to bring that.

Mr. Giles. No, I think that that is absolutely fair, the Duke indeed is like that, this is what vicarious living is about.That you do have a removed complex (a removed God complex), meaning you like to look at things.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you resent having a production thought 675of in terms of "Freudian" etc?

Mr. Giles. Not at all.

Mr. MacPhedran. No chills up the spine?

Mr. Giles. No, it doesn’t run chills up my spine at all, because what is Freud about but human behavior, what is Shakespeare about but human behavior. So, not at all. Again, harking back to Tis* a Pity which is full of Freudian images, in fact, Giovanni almost lives a Freudian image, but Ford didn’t know he was writing that at the time.

Mr. MacPhedran. Does that sort of thing ever come in at 685rehearsal?

Mr. Giles. Oh yes, because rehearsal is largely, the inter­esting thing about directing to a certain extent is that if you direct a play then to a certain extent you are doing a criticism with actual living symbols.

Mr. MacPhedran. I imagine that in your case with profes­sional actors who are aware from experience that they are symbols (they have a theory about the part themselves).

Mr. Giles. Of course, the exciting thing about rehearsals is, I think, particularly if you’re working with very good 695actors is what you discover together on the way.. VJ'nat one isalways trying to do all the time, although one has an overallfeeling, dare I say a structure of the play lined, theories about the play. That until you actually start working with the actors and working on the second by second life of the play then this in itself throws huge floodlights on such things as character and indeed on structure itself.

131

Mr. MacPhedran. I’m anticipating that this would be dif­ference between the two productions that the amateur actors would not have enough experience to put a theory forward, to have a 705preconception of a character.

Mr. Giles. Well, it is in a kind of way more difficult than this because. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. They're not independent at all?

Mr. Giles. No, they're not independent at all and that sometimes the very fact of too explicitly harping or defining something in itself kills the imagination of an actor who is having to . . .acting is an immediate thing, and what the actor has to do is, in a kind of way, worry about himself. And what he worries about himself is I think primarily his second by second 715life on the stage or what he or she is doing second by second.Sometimes, of course, they have to realize what the person they are playing with is doing as well. Sometimes they must really grasp the whole situation, but they really rely on the director to put these threads together so it does make up a coherent pattern, and to have too strong a theory of the plot before you start rehearsals, from an actor's point of view often is a kill­ing thing, because the great joy of rehearsing is the releasing of imagination, and an actor lives so much by instinct, and so often the director works objectively like the critic, and so often 725 the actor's instinct will lead him quite unthinkingly to the ans­wer to a problem of playing or of relationship which hasn’t crossed the mind of either the director or the critic.

Mr. MacPhedran. Were you aware of the actors having ideas that contributed to your interpretation? Was yourconception modified by the actors’ conception?

Mr. Giles. Yes, it’s always modified because as soon. • . this is the great difficulty of directing and of criticism, because as soon as the actors make a shape in the air, and this is the exciting thing about all production and in a kind of way 735about all drama that no matter how you imagine it, when it actually comes to it, and the actual physical people are there, then it is always different. Do you know, it's like real life, where you know you’re going to play a scene with someone in that you know you've got to meet someone for instance for an interview who you know and you know you’re going to have a row with them, and one kind of runs over the scene in one’s head. When you come to play it, it is always totally different. I'm sure that’s not been helpful at all.

Mr. MacPhedran. No, that’s what I’ve wanted to sneak in 745here was something that’s been on the committee’s mind—can you analyze whether any of the actors had a critical viewpoint--did

132

any of them say, "Now I remember reading" or "I have always thought that this character. . ."

Mr. Giles. Oh yes, oh yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. This is I take it, another way criticism gets into the production, and the director while he may not have come into it with that view may be adopting it by letting the actor "go"

Mr. Giles. I’m quite certain. . . I know for instance that 755 Leo [CiceriJ would have read a great deal around Angelo that William too and Karen (They had all read around them.) It’s like it depends you use and touch. I can remember Edith Evans when she was playing Cleopatra being asked this very question about how much notice she took of the critics, and she said "Well, I always just take a peek at Granville-Barker."

Mr. MacPhedran. I think I should explain that the reason the dissertation is putting the weight on the director to do this analysis rather than seeking out all of the actors is that there are many drawbacks to doing this in the university, they almost 765disappear, never to be seen again, and secondly, of course, Leo’s death.

Mr. Giles. And, of course, the very art of acting is to forget that in a kind of way, is that an actor will have many influences in his performance, including, I hope, the influence of the director, that is of the very nature of his being that he must so entwine these theories, so that they become not theory: they become absolute practice with them. He’s the one who’s actually to put in a kind of way theory into practice, and for that reason, eh can’t think of it, and it must become sublimated 775 to the task at hand.

It is their nature, and quite rightly so that they will think it my idea. I mean they would think that they are playing it, and that is part of the actor’s act is that they must take unto themselves (what the director gives them) and indeed one spends a great deal of trouble certainly in directing in trying to not give them ideas but to jockey them into a position where they think of the ideas themselves although that’s the idea you want them to have. So they don’t think that it is their idea although the idea that I may have wanted them to have might have 785 been suggested to me by a sentence in Wilson Knight. But they will quite rightly have no idea that they are acting upon that piece of criticism. Because one has jockeyed them into that position by saying "No, I don’t think that," "What do you think," and eventually leading them only one road out, and that’s the road you want them to go on. And then they think "yes, this is my idea," then it is theirs, and they make it theirs and the performance is, therefore, enriched and they don’t think.

133

They come to that second in the performance each night "This is the moment where David wanted me to do so and so" or 795that "I read that so and so do so and so" they think "This ismy moment." This is where it’s so difficult.

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s really beautiful when you think about it, that that is what you’ve been talking about, getting opinion and theory into it—and leaving them so intertwined that often they come out as one.

Mr. Giles. And of course any production of the play is a theory about the play, and in a way what I’m trying to say is that direction and criticism are terribly closely linked, because any director, any production of a play that’s worth its salt is a 805 piece of criticism. . . it’s a point of view and criticism--no, you canit really do the corollary and say that any criticism worth its salt is a kind of would-be director. Without the actors.But, I do think that this is the best kind of criticism, though, where you feel that somebody has such a burning feeling about the play that they must write about it and that’s fine and maybe. . .I’m floundering.

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, no, that’s exactly the point I’m hoping for, I didn’t mean for you to say it literally, but you were that when you’re reading things you're looking at the 815personality.

Mr. Giles. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s the whole point I’m trying to make-- you’re very, very, clever. Thinking back on this idea, can you come up with any specific that you can think of, where you and an actor had, not necessarily a conflict--but where there were two ideas that had to be woven or as you said "intertwined?" Or just in the play in general, where is it likely to come (in Measure for Measure) where an actor. . . Is there an upstaging problem in this play? 825

Mr. Giles. Of importance? Yes, there is.

Mr. MacPhedran. I would think there would be conflict.

Mr. Giles. Yes, there is, and you’ve hit the nail on the head; I was going to say there wasn’t, but there was. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. Between all three of them?

Mr. Giles. No. . . I can’t really go into that. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, this is one of the reasons why I did­n’t want to bring the actors in (to the study) I wanted you to be totally free. . .

134

Mr. Giles. But you see, of course, Leo was no fool, and he 835 was deeply aware, that what he thought was the star part was being subtley undermined. . . What we’ve done and talked about does mean that Angelo’s part is much lower in the scheme.

Mr. MacPhedran. Let me get you off the hook and think in terms of Shakespeare, Do you think he was trying to pit his cast against each other?

Mr. Giles. Not at all, you see, I think that they were so busy, and had so much time to do it, they didn’t really have that kind of problem, because one doesn’t know who played what part.One has the kind of feeling that you’re. . . just as Gielgud was 845a great Angelo and a great Hamlet. . . that it’s that kind of run of part. . . and that run of actor, I think he was probably very grateful for a very short but showy part as a change from having to play Hamlet and that run of part.

Mr. MacPhedran. The reason I asked you that question is that there is a general formula seen in much scholarship that goes along the lines that the more original story, and of course there are very few "original" stories in Shakespeare, this being one of them; it's just loosely based on Whetstone, that the theory about these plays is that they were the parts where he got more 855spontaneous and original and that he was doing so out of creating something for the actors. . . the kind of challenge. . . the "actor" play. . .

Mr. Giles. Oh, I absolutely agree. . . He was quite defi­nitely writing for different people.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is he kind of challenging them to see if they carry out these separate roles and still make it a coherent production? Because certainly you’ve got three. . . no you’ve really got four (major roles) when you think of the history of Lucio. It’s often been played. . . well, in times when they 865didn't know what to do with the play they've let Lucio take it over, didn't they?

Mr. Giles. Yes, yes, Lucio’s kind of the cement of the play, isn’t he? He's like Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream;He's the person who has scenes with-everybody: he’s the person, the only person who has carte blanche, apart from the Duke, who’s a special case, and even then doesn't travel in the first part:Lucio travels thru the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. You brought up an interesting point earlier, that we don't know who played in that play; although,. most critics 875 agree that Wil Kempe probably played Lucio.

135

Mr. Giles. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. That must have been something with the comedic actors playing with the tragedic actors.

Mr. Giles. Isn’t there an old, old theory or tradition which I don’t know where it came from that Shakespeare played the Duke?

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, I think that there is. . .it’s interesting to think that he pitted, perhaps that’s not a good word, but rather he had the specialists in his company that were probably not too familiar with working with each other. 885

Mr. Giles. That’s true. It’s very much, as you say, it has four points. It is also very interesting in the way that Mariana emerges in the play: she comes very late: she’s only in three scenes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is she cement too? or a theme?

Mr« Giles. Well, she seems to be. . . I think she’s a theme, isn't she. She seems to be the most marvelous contrast to Isabella, the absolute ultra feminine. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. And yet, there always seems to be the temptation among critics to think of her as just part of the 895"bed trick." And again, just a character of device. And yet,she really seems to be more than that.

Mr. Giles. She’s much more than that. Because she's presented in such a mysterious way: with everything of the; moated grange and the song: he sets her up so carefully: he sets her up so carefully in the middle of the play, because I think he feels quite rightly and knows quite rightly (one doesn’t know how much of the play he’s had in his mind before: one doesn’t know how he wrote: I think he wrote straight on most of the time) but he kind of feels that he's got to set her 905 up for someone important; and she comes smack in the middle of the play, and is set up very carefully; I mean, there’s no need for the song except to draw importance to her, and the whole scene has I feel, a quite magical quality about it: that strange scene with Isabella and Mariana and the Duke is one we always had great fun with rehearsing, because it had a. . .it’s quite separate: it feels quite different to the rest of the play, as though he feels he knows he’s going to need her later, and indeed she does, because she then becomes crucial in the last scene of the play. 915

Mr. MacPhedran. You mentioned this before, but we weren’t talking about it them. • . but I know as someone who’s taught

136

Tristan and Iseult that I felt this way. . . I think you have afeeling of embarrassment (no, thatfe not a good word) about having something archaic like the bedtrick? -- I know you said something about it before --

Mr. Giles. I just said it was unethical.

Mr. MacPhedran. I mean that it’s so anachronistic that I have a hard time getting these modem kids to accept it. That this is a feasible thing. I just wondered if a director wonders 925the same thing about an audience. [Do you wonder] While it was there and worked originally, will it work again.

Mr. Giles. This is partly why it’s an enormous challenge.I was so delighted at the kind of laugh that Bill got when he put this forward, because what the laugh said to us was that "Vie think that this is stretching things a bit."

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s what I was going to ask you, how the actors felt about the play. As a real challenge?

Mr. Giles. He knew, he felt about it as a real challenge in that he had to somehow make them believe in it and what the 935laugh said to him was that (A) they have followed him, becauseit’s actually, the plot is put forward in one long speech, and notonly that, but they did see that the speech was pretty. . . kindof stretching things, but also that they would go with him,because it’s very difficult but terribly clear in the theatrewhen the audience is laughing with you and when the audience islaughing at you, and it’s a quite different kind of laughter,and as I said before when Bill got that right of reaction fromthe audience; once he got past that dangerous comer (it isindeed the dangerous comer of the play) then we knew that we had 945a possibility of winning, if you think the performance of a playas a contest.

Mr. MacPhedran. That brings up a point that I was reminded of recently when rereading Vi. W. Lawrence who got this problem comedy business off the ground saying in his summary of Measure for Measure that the plot moves by the tricks that the Duke either conducts or suggests meaning the bedtrick, that it’s not his trick but he suggests it.

Mr. Giles. He’s the perpetrator of it.

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, and I always think of it as his trick. 955 That just as we mentioned a minute ago that Mariana isn’t really in it.

Mr. Giles. Yes

137

Mr. MacPhedran. She is but she isn't«

Mr. Giles. Yes, yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. She's supposed to be, but we never see her. She still retains that thematic quality, because we don't have to see her doing anything. Whereas, it's really his trick.

Mr. Giles. Absolutely.

Mr. MacPhedran. It’s oratorical. 9&5

Mr. Giles. Yes, and Shakespeare, very cleverly then, takes us away after the moated grange, and puts us snap back into prison, with the Duke as the center of things, with everything happening there and him waiting to hear how things have gone there.

Mr. MacPhedran. You always have to ask at this moment,"Is it because it is so peculiar a thing, perhaps, that we makemore out of it than Shakespeare would because in his day it wassuch a conventional thing, or do you envision it as something hewanted his actors to have as a challenge. Perhaps a differentreason, not because it was so unique and strange but because it 975was so trite to make something quite good?"

Mr. Giles. Yes, I think one tends to do this, there is the time that you try to make it just as believeable as possible that the audience just must go with you. It is just like all disguises for instance it is difficult for us to swallow and present their problems. They just accept the conventional disguise throughout Shakespeare, women dressed as men, for instance. And after all, the thing that he has written over and over again that the performance is not how realistic, it’s "let us pretend that." 985

Mr. MacPhedran. There is an interesting quotient here, isn’t there, between realism and fantasy.

Mr. Giles. Yes, yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. It has been known as realistic comedy; yet, you have to realize how much is artifical.

Mr. Giles. Yes, the whole business of Bamadine’s head and fortuitous death of the other prisoner.

Mr. MacPhedran. He got more Marlowan than, he'd been foryears.

Mr. Giles. Yes, the idea of the Friar-Duke disguise which seems to be inpenetrable and yet happens within seconds because one of the sheer physical problems of the last act is getting the

995

138

Duke off and on the stage and change clothes fast enough to make it even remotely acceptable to the modem audience.

Mr. MacPhedran. We have asked this question before, does it mean anything to you to know that this is a late play? This is one of his latter plays? That this was written in the period of Hamlet, Othello.

Mr. Giles. Yes it does, it does mean something, for one thing, stylistically you just have to read any speech of Angelo’s to know it’s "latish.”

Mr. MacPhedran. That by element, over ways, over the conventional or the gimmicks.

Mr. Giles. Yes, yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. You come to realize knowing that whether it is in you head or--you know you are preoccupied with it-- you can’t get it out of your head. Even if you forget it and then are overwhelmed by the verse and you realize it is mature, do you think then of the devices as a put-on, as the man who knows better but is doing it just to do it again. The way he crams all those-things, Bamadine and. . .

Mr. Giles. Yes, yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Obviously is up to something.

Mr. Giles. Yes, I absolutely agree with you he is up to something. I do think that quite apart from everything we have said about it also has an almost unique flavor in Shakespeare.As I said before, it isn’t a young man’s play at all. It’s a mature play: it is also a slightly gritty play. The feeling seems to be to me close to Trolius. It is a process that the play to a certain extent has enormous elements of disillusion.This is what gives it its ambiguity in that it has no real hero. Angelo isn’t the hero and the Duke isn’t really the hero, it has not got a hero.

Mr. MacPhedran. Was he fed up with romantic comedy; did all that tragedy go to his head?

Mr. Giles. I think he was feeling a big jaundiced actually, when he wrote the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. I only mention it because looking at it as literature, that one fact that it’s a late play means a great deal to me. I hate to hear critics who say well it’s this ele­mentary, amateurish frilly stuff in it. . . that he retreated and hds used the gimmicks. I think of it as the mature fellow who knows now how to use the gimmicks to his advantage.

1005

1015

1025

1035

139Mr. Giles. I agree with you and it doesn’t bother at times.

Mr. MacPhedran. This is a hell of a lot different than A Comedy of Errors. _

Mr. Giles. Of course it is and it is also very different from. . . I suppose we ought to say what order the plays were written in. . . I mean given roughly that there were the early comedies, the early plays you might say, with Romeo and Juliet which is early-ish mixed up among them as I suppose the first 1045tragedy and then I suppose the histories, and then all mixed up together the late comedies and Julius Caesar, the late tragedies, and the problem plays, and the last plays probably Pericles. The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline and The Tempest.

Mr. MacPhedran. The late-late plays that no one has ever found a name for.

Mr. Giles. Yes, well, I did read. . . is it Tillyard. . .I think I did read on the late plays and found very convincing his theory that they are all the same play with all different points of view, which I personally thought was very interesting. 1055

Mr. MacPhedran. There’s quite a bit of textual support to that theory too and the sources,. . . that’s the nice thing about this play: that you.don’t have any wangling over sources.

Mr. Giles. Yes, absolutely, and nor do you have too much preconception about the characters, not really, I didn’t. . . not like Macbeth where you’re faced with an insurmountable problem in that the play as written and as seen by the first audience who presumably really didn’t know the story very well. If you didn’t know the story of Macbeth, and you went to the first night of it, you would expect. . . Lady Macbeth does not appear until scene 1065five, and in the first four scenes of the play she is just mentioned, but you have no idea which way she is going to jump. Knowing the normal run of Shakespearean heroines, you would expect her, when she receives the letter to say "you mustn’t do this!" The trouble is that we all know what Lady Macbeth is going to do, so that she (the way she is played usually) broods over the first four scenes of the play in a way that Shakespeare never intended. This takes and immediately kind of castrates whoever is playing Macbeth, be­cause by the time Lady Macbeth appears, if you don’t know, if you didn’t know which way she was going to jump, the onus of guilt is 1075 firmly upon him. This is why I think the play is so difficult, and is so rarely successful. . . is that unfortunately every single member of the audience, or almost every single member, knows what she’s going to do, and the play is therefore, in performance, desperately flawed.

140

Mr. MacPhedran. That brings up a question. This play also has been thought of as a play with an odd scene division. "Stacked to the front of the deck," it’s been called. Are you aware of that when you rehearse? Did you rehearse chronologically? Do you rehearse around something like that or do the big scene first? 1085

Mr. Giles. I certainly always set chronologically, because, and again I suppose this is one enormous advantage you have in the professional theatre over when you are having to deal with people, in that they have to be there, and one tries to be as reasonable as possible. But, they fit in to you; you don’t have to fit into them, and I do feel that I can’t think of a play that I would ever want to rehearse out of order.

Mr. MacPhedran. [Giles looks at Boughton’s rehearsal schedule which starts, iir'st day: block Act V]

Mr. Giles. I do see what he’s done in that Act V is without 1095 doubt from the sheer mechanical point of view the most difficult scene in the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. He shows them how it works, and then backsup?

Mr. Giles. Well, . . .But, I couldn’t do that, because I think the process of acting is so much one of revelation that I mean revelation in the sense that how much you reveal to the audi­ence at any given time and that you can only learn that in the correct kind of scheme, but I do see that if you had a short space of time, Act V is just from the sheer bulk of numbers of 1105people on the stage is very-difficult. I’m sure I took five days to set it«

Mr. MacPhedran« Is that a mechanical thing?

Mr. Giles. Well, it’s both mechanical and. . •

Mr. MacPhedran. It’s often called a chemical reaction, because he’s built up so many things that it just has to go the way that it does--that you’ve got so much work to do in one scene.

Mr. Giles. I think Act V is a great scene; I think it’s him working marvelously well. 1115

Mr. MacPhedran. Does it make a difference Act V is only one scene? Are you aware that the fifth act is only one scene?

Mr. Giles. I was aware of it, yes, I was very aware of it.I do find the act and scene divisions very arbitrary, I must say.I used to always think of it as the last scene of the play, and

141

1125

know that it was this mountain that I had to climb.

Mr. MacPhedran. Would it have made a difference if after the Duke had called for the hand of Isabella, Shakespeare had broken it and had scene two with Lucio. Or is there a cohesion that is gained by having it all together.

Mr. Giles. Oh yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. But, not all his comedies have one scene- fifth acts.

Mr. Giles. Yes, but so many of them have denouements, like the last scene of Twelfth Night or the last scene of As You Like It.---------The more one can think up, when one is approaching a play. . •(you should think of it as) of it as unique and not perhaps fitting into a category, maybe this is why I like this play very much, and why I like Trolius and Cressida is that it’s so very hard to categorize, and this is the sort of play that I must say I find fascinating. . . This is why I love Anthony and Cleopatra, because it isn’t really a tragedy at all.

Mr. MacPhedran. What is it about, it not being a category that appeals to you?

Mr. Giles. Because, I think, this is the sort of play that appeals to, (this is going to sound like a catch phrase) a modern audience. In that we live in a world, where it is so difficult to make a decision about anything like a democratic or a reactionary decision, or that as soon as you’ve made one decision you soon find yourself running to the reverse of it, that I think that these plays where Shapespeare seems, I won’t say unsure of himself, because he doesn’t. . . I don’t think he is unsure. . . I just think he’s writing something else. . . that he doesn’t say it's a comedy, he doesn't say it’s a tragedy, he sort of says "Well, if you think of the Duke as an admirable person, then this is a kind of comedy, if you think of the Duke as a kind of villain, and you can if you want to, then the play in a kind of way is tragical, and that Angelo is cheated of his tragic destiny, and in a way this is a kind of tragedy.

1135

1145

1155

Mr. MacPhedran. What kind of an audience did you think you were dealing with—did you ask?

Mr. Giles. No, because I think that once you start thinking about the audience, and trying to aim it at an audience, you are absolutely lost, and I think that the only criteria you can use as director is to do it as you want to do it, and if the audiences like it, super, and if they don’t... (I'm very sorry, why not go) into another business or do it somewhere else.

iiaMr. MacPhedran. Did you have an image of the Stratford

Festival? 1165

Mr. Giles. Yes, of course, I had an image of what the Strat- . ford Festival was. And indeed the actual shape of the stage effects what happened to the play, but I don’t think my conception of the play would have been any different if I’d been doing it in Scotland or anywhere, because all I was trying to do--and the simple answer in any theatrical complex is generally the right answer, but simplicity sometimes is very, very complicated.

Mr. MacPhedran. Had you had much experience and do you like to work in that ’'Globe-type" theatre?

Mr. Giles. No, I hadn’t had any experience before at all, 1175 but this was one place where television helped enormously, be­cause if you are used to working on a picture frame stage, you tend to think of everything within a fixed frame--the marvelous thing about television is that it means that you have to think plastically, because as your cameras are coming in from different angles your frame changes, so I do think that having worked in television helped enormously in dealing with the Stratford stage.But, also, I must say that the Stratford stage does present enormous problems for Measure for Measure. But it does so happen that the Stratford stage is marvelous for almost every kind of 1185scene except a dialogue.

Mr. MacPhedran. Where do you put them?

Mr. Giles. No matter where you put them, particularly as I was faced with William who is a very big man and Karen who is a very small lady, no matter where you put them some of the house sees only William’s back or none of Karen at all.

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s funny, because in my office I have the poster they made of the scene where Angelo is chasing after her, and there seems to be so much distance that you made that small stage stretch out. 1195

Mr. Giles. Well, that’s why he was running, because the more she moved, the more change more people in the audience had the chance to see her. That it’s the very, very, side seats, that if you're hot careful you can’t keep them still as soon as you have three people yotire O.K. If you have four, it's marvelous.

Mr. MacPhedran. So you’re thinking in terms of audience in terms of the play (the particular play).

1205Mr. Giles. Yes, and for the Stratford stage, the Fifth Act

of Measure is wonderful, because you get the marvelous feeling of looking over someone’s shoulders and facing reality. With a dialogue it’s very difficult.

Mr. MacPhedran. While we’re on the subject of the stage, where did your idea for thè bathhouse scene come from?

Mr. Giles. From the text. It’s not in that scene, it’s act two, scene one, and it’s elbow [referring to Pompey in answer to Angelo’s question, "What are you, sir’’] "He, sir? A tapster, sirjParcel bawd:0ne that serves a bad woman:Whose house, sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs: and now she professes a hot-house:Which I think is a very ill house too.*' (62-6&) That’s where the idea came from.

Mr. MacPhedran. But you hadn’t worked with the stage before so you’d never associated that with the trapdoor.

Mr. Giles. No, but. . . yes we did. This was very specific. We had a plan of the stage and as we went through the play very carefully the designer and I, trying to fit a locale certainly in our minds for every scene.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, he worked under you? Did he get his directives for design from you.

Mr. Giles. Yes, indeed, I worked with a designer in England, a designer of ray choice (this is sets and costumes) we went through very carefully, trying to find suggestions from the text. He would go through it, and I would go through it. I couldn’t begin to tell you which of us had the idea [for the bathhouse], but one of us would say "look there’s that line which says ’she keeps a hot house’ so that we could put in the first scene, if she keeps a hot-house, let’s put it in a hot house.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now was he, like working with the actors, as you said before, that you had to work this out, this alchenjy with him, too.

1215

1225

1235

Mr. Giles. Yes, but a director wants to be mv£ch more honest with a designer, much more. Because again, he is thinking objectively and not subjectively.

Mr. MacPhedran. Was he familiar with the play?

Mr. Giles. No, I knew he’d seen it several times, but, of course, he reads it with a different kind of eye, but he’d never designed it before. And again, one reads the text- and combs it for lines like that which are immensely helpful.

144

Mr. MacPhedran. Did he think of it as a ’’hard’’ Shakespeare, a ’’challenging’’ Shakespeare? 1245

Mr. Giles. They’re all challenging. It does have. . . it’s very much your kind of green world actually, in that the main problem of the design, you know, the main secret of the design is to decide, because that’s what we’re all going to see first, the first impression of a production is always what they see straight away, the design can have an enormous impact immedi­ately, and an impact on an audience. Maybe they don’t realize, maybe they don’t formulate it in their minds, but it’s there the very thing that happens is that you see the set.

Mr. MacPhedran. Had he worked at Stratford before? 1255

Mr. Giles. No, never, we were both new to it and the main thing that one asks of the design is that convey the kind of world that you think the play takes place in and which is very, very important. It’s very much like your green world question, and we felt that the images of the play, the feel of the play, the world of the play is very much the world of the prison, and also the prison dominates so much. So much of the action actually takes place in the prison. What else does one ask of the design in Measure for Measure? That. . . we also wanted to show some­thing of the corruption that the Duke speaks about straight away 1265 at the beginning. So it is set firmly there [in the prison], and hence we used all those gibbets and bars and that kind of feeling throughout and kept the tone of the play down to very much down to greys, blacks, browns, and cream. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. I can remember that bathhouse scene so vividly. Was that scene meant to be emblematic of how you were dealing with the bawdiness of this play? That scene suggested to me certain perspective of the low life as presented in the play--It’s alright to see (to show) the bawdiness of this play?

Mr. Giles. Yes, this is a play that is very much about sex 1275and the flesh and that the bathhouse seems to be a very good image of sex and flesh, and as we have textual justification for it, it seemed to belong.

Mr. MacPhedran. It seemed to have an aire of exoticism about it rather than filthiness.

Mr. Giles. Well, one hopes that one climbs over the filthiness in the first few scenes without kind of curtain up.

Mr. MacPhedran. There seem to be so many nuances.

Mr. Giles. Yes, and that was the only scene in which we used blackouts so that three girls just had headdresses and towels, and the headdresses were very bright.

1285

145

We hoped it was a bit tinsely and cheap.

Mr. MacPhedran. I thought of that as heightening the comic aspect--to heighten the bawdiness rather than the filthiness idea.

Mr. Giles. Yes, well, the extraordinary thing about the play is how loveable the bawds are. They’re represensible, but they’re loveable. Lucio is representable and the audience always seems to love him.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is he a clown?

Mr. Giles. No, again it’s a difficult role. He seems to play at different things.

Mr. MacPhedran. He is sort of an emblematic of the play, isn’t he? That Measure for Measure wouldn’t have quite the same kind of clown as plays had had before.

Mr. Giles. The clown is surely Pompey, really. Pompey, Elbow and Froth are your comic threesome really.

Mr. MacPhedran. What do you do then with Lucio? Is he related to Jacques? Is he meant to be the pharmakos, the scapegoat?

Mr. Giles. He is the scapegoat to a certain extent. I feel that in some ways he’s much more intuned to the play than Jacques is in As You Like It. That Lucio is in a strange way a ’’touchstone."

Mr. MacPhedran More of a "touchstone" than Touchstone?

Mr. Giles. Yes, a touchstone, not in the character sense, but in the real sense, that he is the only character who mixes happily through the whole play with every strata of society. And also it’s through Lucio that we have the first images of Angelo being not what he seems. And he knows Claudio well. Well, they’re [Lucio and two others] are described as "gentlemen" when they first appear, so he’s certainly not of the lower classes.

1295

1305

1315

Mr. MacPhedran. Is that saying something about the society?

Mr. Giles. Oh I think so yes. And also he knows alot of gossip about the Duke. He’s met Angelo. And he goes through the play like another thread. It is not a direct line of the plot, but he weaves everyone together, because they all react to or from him. So as I said, he’s a touchstone.

146

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you feel that this marriage law business is anything that you have to think about--this the premise of the play—the law that Angelo is enforcing—what did Claudio and Juliet do—what is their crime? Is it again [like the bed trick] anachronistic thing that you can't get people to understand?

Mr. Giles. This is again, why we kind of used all that sort of panoply of the restrained Claudio and all those sort of musician- figures to make it—to make his humiliation as great as possible, and for the audience to accept that he was being made a special case because he is really the first case. The law never gets used and that is a bad law. A law that should be repealed. I find that very interesting. That you’re asking about the acceptance of these things.

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, I was talking about the time warp between the laws he's talking about and the laws of today—is this law important or could any law be used in its place.

Mr. Giles. I think you’re supposed to sympathize with Claudio.

Mr. MacPhedran. And leave it at that. There’s something lost in translation, but it doesn’t matter.

Mr. Giles. Yes, and that Angelo is putting an impossible strain upon this par.

Mr. MacPhedran. What is Claudio doing in the play?

Mr. Giles. He’s a very useful strain of the plot.' Again we must sympathize with him, and he is given just enough to make him sympathetic in that second scene or the play when he’s brought on, and then there is a rather extraordinary balance.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is he the kind of actor you have to work with closely.

Mr. Giles. Well, the interesting thing is that Claudio seems to serve as a useful balancing background for Isabella and as soon as he filled that function, he’s dropped,from the play. The Duke uses him as a moral gymnasium for the absolute for death then retires upstairs, and Claudio’s function in the play— although, because he’s given again something that fires Shake­speare’s imagination--the situation of man facing death.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is it fair to call him a catalyst?

Mr. Giles. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. A point is often made about why does the Duke not tell Isabella he’s alive.

1325

1335

1345

1355

147Mr. Giles. Because the text wouldn’t work. • • If Isabella

doesn’t think Claudio is dead. Then she cannot show true forgive­ness to Angelo without thinking that Claudio is dead. 13&5

Mr. MacPhedran. Is it important that Claudio is guilty as well as it is important that Angelo is making a big case out of something? Are we supposed to sympathize with him to the extent that he should have gone scot-free?

Mr. Giles. Well, shall we say, that his punishment is out of order for his crime. That he is, and again I think this is one of the subtleties of the play, he’s a bit. . . He’s presented as slightly. . . As sort of weakish.

Mr. MacPhedran. And Juliet is there to reaffirm our sym­pathies with them? 1375

Mr. Giles. Yes, the pregnant lady.

Mr. MacPhedran. To keep us from thinking of Claudio as too deserving of. . .

Mr. Giles. Yes. And that shefe had the same raw deal as well.This is again the genius of Shakespeare. That he lavishes

even on Claudio. . . Claudio is a minor character, but a very important character. He lavishes some marvelous things on Claudio.

Mr. MacPhedran. It’s so funny when you think that tradi­tionally the attention’s been on these three main characters when there are so things with the minor characters. 1385

Mr. Giles. Yes, and what a big part Lucio is, and what a big part Pompey is too, and the extraordinary peripheral characters, who are yet very important like the provost.

Mr. MacPhedran. It sounds as if there isn’t a useless character in the play.

Mr. Giles. No there isn’t. I don’t think he knows quite what to do with Mistress Overdone. She’s very useful in the beginning.

Mr. MacPhedran. I remember that the Cecil Clarke pro­duction at Stratford before yours had a veiy unusual Mistress 1395Overdone, as a woman of business who was worried about her invest­ments failing rather than the traditional physical portrayl.

We mentioned youth with Isabella, what about Mistress Overdone, should she be a well-endowed lady?

Mr. Giles. Oh certainly, absolutely. I think so.

148

Mr. MacPhedran. Is that where a critical viewpoint kind of converts with the text.

Mr. Giles. I always wonder if the man who played the part was doubling since she has so few lines, he may have been another part.

Mi*. MacPhedran. Did you know Jennifer Phipps before?

Mr. Giles. No, none of them. Well, I knew Leo, because I’d seen his work in England of course. . . and I knew Karen.

Mr. MacPhedran. But you were satisfied with her.

Mr. Giles. Well, I think it’s a very difficult part in that you never know beforehand what is going to happen because it’s a part that the audience can take against in a strange way.

Mr. MacPhedran. You wonder about a part like that, because I would imagine that to a costume designer she would be one of the first things he would design and focus. I remember that one espe­cially. It was one that they chose for their print series.

Mr. Giles. It was. . . I think he designed. . . certainly on the costumes Angelo and the Duke first and then Isabella.

Mr. MacPhedran. I remember in talking to the archivist at Stratford that he had found a note somewhere that one costume had been changed during the production--something about leather or fur?

Mr. Giles. Ah yes, we did, we took the fur off one of Angelo’s costumes. We used a lot of fur and wool. . • natural colors, because this is a kind. . . We based many of the costumes on Bosch and Bruegel.... And the big wheel Gibbets were like those that Bosch and Breugel used.

Mr. MacPhedran. Why the fur change?

Mr. Giles. It was around his color, and it was too sensuous, and it somehow gave away too much too soon actually, lie kept the fur around the bottom of the costume, but not by the neck; it was too--it was somehow too much of a giveaway, and so we gave him leather instead.

Mr. MacPhedran. Were you trying to make it lighter? Were you conscious of lightening it?

Mr. Giles. Yes, oh yes.

1405/'

1415

1425

1435

149

Mr. MacPhedran. Were you conscious of lightening to make it light or to keep it from being dark?

Mr. Giles. Well, I think we did reserve, the only real blacking--what we wanted to do--we felt that the play is ambivalent, and to not give it strong coloration in any direction is to make it look like this, and apart from the Bauches in Bosch and Breugel in their costumes, there is very little color and an enormous amount of leather, and we wanted this feeling of costumes not being sort of decorative costumy sort of costumes, but to look 1445as much like clothes as possible.

Mr. MacPhedran. Was there the same emphasis in the make-uptoo?

Mr. Giles. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. And fabric?

Mr. Giles. Yes, a lot of thickish felt and so forth. A lot of texture in the materials, so you don’t get that feeling of flimsiness. And Isabella’s costume, which is the lightest costume in many ways, and the most rich costume--this was all suade. The coat was all grey suade. 1455

Mr. MacPhedran. Was there an effort here to make her more noticeable?

Mr. Giles. Well, to make her richer. She’s you see, the only lady who appears as a lady in the play; and, therefore, one wanted, without moving away from the feeling of weight and clothes in costumes, to make her more feminine, cause she’s such a feminine figure.

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, you know, many people have gotten upset, because this play often suggests to them the costumes of tragedy: so dark. 1465

Mr. Giles. Well, there the costumes of a real world are presented.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is too much made out of this "dark" business? I mean that this play is not produced often and for instance wasn’t popular with the Victorians.

Mr. Giles. Well, the Victorians liked things to be cut and dried and again this is why one doesn’t find many productions of Trolius and Cressida either.

Mr. MacPhedran. Which comes to mind first that it’s not Victorian or that it’s modem? 1475

150

Mr. Giles. That it’s uncertainty of terms matches exactly the uncertainty of terms of our time.

Mr. MacPhedran. It’s more "modem to be modem" rather than "modem to be anti-establishment"?

Mr. Giles. Yes. I’m sure it is. Its uncertainty, and the thing that to me makes it so fascinating, and that makes it fascinating for a modem audience is that they have to make decisions, and that they can take it on several different levels at once. -

Mr. MacPhedran. The thing that interests me, that I have never made up my mind about, within this point, is that so many people have advanced the idea that he is not necessarily writing in this realistic tone to be realistic so much as to put down Puritans. . . to be a strong statement against that very vocal kind of Puritanism.

Mr. Giles. Yes, but it doesn’t seem to me and it doesn’t read to me like a tract play.

Mr. MacPhedran. It’s hard to make Shakespeare into that kind of person.

Mr. Giles. Absolutely. It seems much more to me that cer­tainly he was such an observer and an absorber that certainly he must have observed the puritans and he certainly must have absorbed them into the writing, but it seems to me that the tone of anti-Puritanism and the tone of the whole play is set by what he’s feeling at the very moment, and that he is going through a very strange phase. He seems disillusioned. It seems very much a disillused play, that-.he himself feels that the end if you want to take it as happy is a happy ending, but for the more thoughtful members of the audience there is that kind of question mark hang­ing over the end.

Mr. MacPhedran. I guess the case for the anti-puritan view is in the ending, in that it is happy in that it is a triumph over puritanism, if you see it that way, that Angelo is spared.

Mr. Giles. Oh yes. and yet "spared" in such a way that he certainly suffers public humiliation and one can’t help feeling that there is some cynicism about that. This is terribly unusual in Shakespeare.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is he trying to be skeptical? It’s so hard to think of him premediatingly infusing it.

Mr. Giles. Yes, I can’t feel that. I feel very strongly that the play is a mirror of the mind.

1485

1495

1505

1515

151

Mr. MacPhedran. One of the things that delights me about teaching an introductory Shakespeare course is that as politically minded as young people are today, my students get bothered to think that Shakespeare didn’t believe every word and that he wasn’t politically motivated.

Mr. Giles. No, he wasn’t politically motivated at all.

Mr. MacPhedran. However, in this play there is some credence to the idea that here he’s less apolitical than he normally is.

Mr. Giles. Yes, but he’s much more concerned in the writing of this, not with the anti-puritianism, but with--I think he is concerned with ideas of justice in the play and the perversion of justice.

Mr. MacPhedran. Viell, we’ve gottne through most of the major elements of the play without mentioning that word once.

Mr. Giles. Well now, I think it is a major theme in the play: the seeming trappings of justice and true justice.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is this something that you as a cast discuss--just as a way at the beginning to get people into it-- justice and mercy.

Mr. Giles. Yes, but you see, when one acts it right, the justice is a product: That you cannot just act justice or act mercy, except in the case of the Duke where it’s very much a part of the character. His concepts and feelings about justice are a part of the play.

As Angelo’s are too, to a certain extent.

Mr. MacPhedran. And justice is kind of the end product?

Mr. Giles. Yes, because apart from the Merchant of Venice, and I suppose to a certain extent Catharine’s trial in Henry VIII, and Hermione’s trial in A Winter’s Tale, and they are much less concerned with it, and the actual idea of the law is not what’s treated in those plays and the trial scene (Act II, Scene One).Is probably the nearest we have to a magistrate’s court scene we have in Shakespeare. And that scene gives us the trappings of the justice, and the opening scene is an argument on justice between Angelo and Escalus, which is very interesting. Escalus, too, whom we haven’t touched on is a very interesting point of view.He comes closest in the play to representing a voice of reason. I think the reason he is there is that Angelo must have somebody to spark off.

Mr. MacPhedran. To me he speaks in such homilies of thought and such succinct statements on justice that he’s almost a con­trast to Polonius.

1525

1535

1545

1555

152Mr. Giles. Yes. He’s sort of a wise Polonius. He’s a

kind of canon-bearer. And here are the lines as Angelo comes straight out and says (II, i.):

ANGELO. "We must not make a scarecrow of the law/Setting it up to fear the birds of prey/And let it keep one shape till custom make it/Their perch, and not their terror./ESCALUS./Ay, but yet let us be keen, and rather cut a little than fall, and 1565bruise to death."

And that is one of the major concerns of the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. And it’s impossible to read around thatline.

Mr. Giles. Absolutely. And then what we see is this travesty of justice.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is this definition of justice of Angelo’s being set up as the conventional, the traditional view of justice?

Mr. Giles. Well, by this time, we are suspect of Angelo so we are suspect of everything he says. 1575

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you want that scene?

Mr. Giles. Well, by this time, we are suspect of him and the interesting thing is that we see Angelo making these statements about justice, and then as soon as it gets difficult and gets bored and says "I’m leaving it to you, you deal with it." And then after that we see Escalus fighting his way through this morass of difficulties and divisions, and he does rather well.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is there such a thing as designed ambiguity.Can a playwright want to be ambiguous or is that merely the product of not doing something well and just doing something unconsciously. 15&5

Mr. Giles. I do think there is innate ambiguity, but I do think he’s plainly being serious and that shows itself in his bitter use of the comics to make a mock of the law, and in a way the Duke I suppose is the representative of, I loathe to call him, true justice, but to a certain extent much more. . . .

Mr. MacPhedran. You mean you’d rather call him that than leave him undefined.

Mr. Giles. Yes. I’d rather call him that than leave him undefined, and that the last scene to a certain extent is another trial scene, the trial of Angelo, although, he doesn’t know he’s 1595going to be tried. It is also the trial of Angelo and the test of Isabella.

153

Mr. MacPhedran. Is there a view a direction, of this play, that you were trying to operate in oppostion to? Have you seen a bad Measure. . . Do you work this way? Do you envision what you don’t want to do?

Mr. Giles. No, I don’t think so. What one tries to do is to absorb as many views as he can before he starts so that indeed the more you read around, the better it is.

Mr. MacPhedran. You think of trying to achieve rather than 1605 trying to avoid something?

Mr. Giles. Absolutely, and then he must go back to the text, and what does it mean and where criticism can help you I think is in preparing drafts: preparing a draft in your mind before you start in, and either acting with it or acting against it, and also [it helps] in the way that it drives you back to the text, because this is surely what all good criticism should do anyway.

Mr. MacPhedran. But do you think that critics, actors, directors have made it more ambiguous--have made it hard to see? 1615

Mr. Giles. Well, I think, indeed they have. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. But you don’t have anything specific in your mind.

Mr. Giles. Not at all, no. I think that one must think positively. You try and do the play as'clearly and as fully as possible, and that anything that gives you a clearer and a fuller understanding of the text is valuable.

[End of first day of interviews, October 21, 1972, beginningOctober 22, 1972]

Mr. MacPhedran. We want to begin I guess by getting your 1625 conception of Shakespeare—and what does this play say about his merits.

Mr. Giles. My conception of Shakespeare. I feel he is very much a working playwright. If only the work he did suggests this, within the time that he did it. His practicality is everywhere apparent in fact that so many problems that appear. . . when one looks at the printed text immediately disappear as soon as you start working on it.

Mr. MacPhedran. What are the problems in your terminology? What constitutes a problem. 1635

■J

154

Mr, Giles. What constitutes a problem? Something that you don’t understand or see why it is there.

Mr. MacPhedran. More than something that you see would be difficult to be acted? or both?

SMr. Giles. Yes, I think that one is so linked to the other, /

that as soon as one can comprehend what it’s about then it becomes / actable. I think most. . . it doesn’t matter how complicated it is as long as one can see a line through it, and a way through, and I think that generally, that if you can find..a way through Shakespeare, then it’s your fault and not his, because he writes 1645 on the whole so lucidly, and he’s so practical.

Mr. MacPhedran. It’s a textual problem first, and then a theatrical one?

Mr. Giles. Yes, so I feel very much that he’s a man of the theater. One feels that he’s a successful writer. He obviously likes actors, because he writes such marvelous parts for them. I can’t believe that he would write parts of such complexity if he hadn’t had a group company. Cause actors in those days, I feel probably were even more of an entity than they are now, in that as the lived together very much as a company, there must have been 1655 an enormous company feeling. I think you get this as you read through the plays that you see which parts go in lines, where he had a good boy so he writes parts marvelously well. Whereas if the boys maybe aren’t so good, so the girls parts then becomes less important. You feel him all the time writing for the major actors.I’m quite sure that Burbage was a major actor. The Elizabethan Theatre itself is the most wonderful and plastic form of theater, very free, veiy bold; I don’t think we’ve improved it much really.So that I feel that there is as a man of the theatre, working very much within a company. He seems to go through phases in his own 3.665 personal life that we can only guess at, which the plays must surely reflect to a certain extent.

Mr. MacPhedran. Does that bother you or do you like the fact that we don’t know much about him?

Mr. Giles. I quite like it I think, because this is why one loves the plays, because they have hardly any stage directions.One isn’t bogged down by anything. . . by any real facts about the man. I don’t know. I don’t miss it too much, I must say, I was trying to think how I felt about Tolstoy, another writer that I like enormously, and a writer that we know an enormous amount about him, 1675 and the only thing one feels about Tolstoy, knowing so much about him is the pity that his own personal views about life really cut off his writing. I don’t think that would ever have happened to Shakespeare but then he happens to be the great genius in the understanding of the human mind. How he happens to have come by this talent, one can’t say, whether It was by accident or whether

155

these particular circumstances helped: they certainly helped for a whole host of other great writers of the theater. My main feeling about Shakespeare I guess is privilege and pride.Privilege that he is there to perform and pride, because he is 1685British.

/

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think that the manuscripts we have / are probably collaborations that actors did, or do you like to /think that it’s all his words?

Mr. Giles. This is where the fun comes ih'. I do think that when hé writes a play he isn’t thinking about it being printed; he is thinking about it being acted. He seems really comparatively careless about what happens to the manuscript once it’s been put on the stage. I do think that there are several kinds of mystery story problems about elements in the play where the compositor 1695and the printer have obviously made mistakes. We worry about them enormously, and none of them are of vital importance. Some of them,I think, show interesting insights into his mind. I mean there where almost two versions of Romeo and Juliet and has to decide when you’re faced with so many textual choices rally with Romeo and Juliet. I must say I feel no compunction about bits I like best from both. I feel no compunction to do ’'a" first folio. I just take bits from all of them; I don’t think he'd mind.

Mr. MacPhedran. I was just going to say--you don’t think he’d mind? If there had been stage directions, would he have 1705wanted you to follow them?

Mr. Giles. No, I don’t think he would. He really isn’t that kind of writer. I mean the Elizabethan stage is so free: it would be very difficult to give stage directions for it. I mean it’s very clear when he intends you to be on the upper stage, and when he intends you to be on the lower stage, and one is forced into it quite rightly and that’s fine: That doesn’t matter.I mean he’s not like Shaw as a director. I mean the stage directions are another play with Shaw or O’Neil.

Mr. MacPhedran. As a director, how do you reconcile the 1715fact that his plays are so much poetry?

Mr. Giles. I think that this is. something that is much more of a problem on this continent than in England. I don’t think for me it’s ever been a problem. I do think it is a problem in certain plays. For instance, I do think it’s a problem in Romeo and Juliet, where he is writing the most beautiful poetry and at least some of it is not dramatic poetry. And this is what I meant yesterday when you were picking out some of Angelo’s speeches and ideas or Angelo-Isabella scenes, and one knows that he’s absolutely back in his mature period, because by this time, he has 1725

156

forced a verse, which is both wonderful verse and wonderfully speakable, and I mean, he never asks later actresses to do any­thing like the battery of puns that Juliet has on "I" which are kind of fun to do actually. It’s a great challenge for an actress to do. She has, I think, six puns on ”1" and it’s like a firecracker: very hard to do, and some of the. . . even the /balcony scene, from the dramatic point of view, although it’s the most famous scene in the play, yet dramatically it pushes the /plot on very little, and it’s beautiful verse, but no necessarily beautiful dramatic verse. Whereas every line in Anthony and 1735Cleopatra is wonderful to be used dramatically,"in that he pushes the actors forward all the time.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you in handling actors, let them emphasize the poetry; let them recite, or do you always want them to ’’act."

Mr. Giles. I always wanted them to act. I think the great secret of speaking Shakespeare is that it’s what we call "thinking along the line," which means that you must think along the whole line: that’s the whole secret. And breath, of course. The other thing is that one must have breath. A part like Macbeth, for instance, calls for the most incredible breath control. And lungs 1745 like a tiger. You have to do the banquet scene that leaves you absolutely drained.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think he’s trying to be sadistic with some of his actors?

Mr. Giles. I don’t think he’s sadistic, but, actors like to be stretched, and write "stretch" parts for Burbage all the time.But I do think that the verse is how can I say it, it’s like in singing where a great opera singer like Calas manages to sing along the notes. You feel, with her, that nothing is even inevitable: that th'6 thought is fresh all the time, and yet because of the 1755breath, it doesn’t break up the flow of the verse too much, and this is what I mean by dramatic poetry. And the thing is in some­thing like the balcony scene you are faced with enormous problems because actually, although the verse is beautiful, it is static where all the time in Measure, in the great plays, the verse moves the thought along.

Mr. MacPhedran. You kind of overlook, or subdue the idea that Burbage probably spoke this in a very stilted kind of iambic— every other beat.

Mr. Giles. Well, we don’t know really, do we? 1765

Mr. MacPhedran. No, we don’t know for sure.

Mr. Giles. I don’t know, because you see, it seems to me with a line like "To be or not to be that is the question." Once

157

you think along the line, the ’’iambic’’ is Hamlet, and of course the couplets, which I adore, and he always throws in some reasons.

Mr. MacPhedran. If you take that speech and try to say it in that stilted way; it's almost impossible.

(Both in Unison) ’’To be or not to be, that is the question.”//

Mr. MacPhedran. On the other hand, to go to the other end of the spectrum, what did you think of say, the Nicol Williamson 1775Hamlet of a few years ago, if you’re familiar with it, where he used that Midlands accent of his and spoke the lines structurally.Do you know that approach?

Mr. Giles. Yes, I do know that approach, and you know, I think there's a happy medium in that, although the recordings don't give him justice, I think by far the finest Hamlet I ever heard is Gielgud, who has this incredible breath control. I talked with Ian McKenna, who is this young English actor, who's Hamlet I tele­vised not long ago, about this fact that Gielgud was this wonder­ful Hamlet, and he also happened to be the fastest and the funniest, 1785 because he had the most magnificent breath control. I think part of the fun of it in a way is the speed, the marvelous thing about Geilgud's Hamlet was that you felt this wonderful rapidity of form.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think the Williamson approach is sort of condescending to an audience; that was supposedly the purpose: to make it more readibly understandable, by putting in the structure of modem day grammar. Does that seem too much? more than an audience needs?

Mr. Giles. I think it’s more than an audience needs, be­cause I think you do damage to the other structures. You're not 1795 really restoring structure, you’re destroying structure.

Mr. MacPhedran. To get back to the other point then--you think that poetic structure is the most important thing?

Mr. Giles. Sense is the most important thing. I must say, that with a great writer like Shakespeare, structure and sense go hand in hand; I've always felt this.

Mr. MacPhedran. It's always amazed me how the lines can be kept the same but different actors can say a speech, like that one of Hamlet's, in several different ways.

Mr. Giles. If you are a dramatic writer, I think it is what 1805 you write for: you write for actors. I think he’d be very pleased that his plays are still being done. He does marvelous things.He often leaves things to the actor. For instance, the incredible boy, who must have played Cleopatra. There is that marvelous

158

scene, which again I will misquote, where someone comes to her from Caesar and says if you’ll give into Caesar, he’ll understand: He does know that actually you weren’t a willing victim of Anthony. . .That you were forced. And all that Shakespeare has written on the page for Cleopatra is Cleopatra capital 0 exclamation mark [Cleopatra: 0.’]. There is marvelous freedom for an actor. What 1815 Edith Evans did with it was to move three octaves. [Giles /demonstrates]. /

Mr. MacPhedran. It’s the kind of thing .that I imagine an amateur wouldn’t understand. It would just be shot. How do you know it was deliberate. I take it that there’s no question in your mind that he meant it to be quite a moment for an actor.

Mr. Giles. Absolutely, because he marks it.—I mean moments for actors are, of course, reactions, and he advertises them sometimes in the play: one can feel tjhem in the rhythm of the play. One can feel when a pause is to come, and for 1825him to mark something like that is that he’s kind of saying "Well,, we’ve played with that for a while, here’s another point. There’s absolutely nothing to say for that but ’O'."

Mr. MacPhedran. In the same vein, what about the argument that we would be less interested in him if there weren’t this mystery about him: if we knew more about him? Do you think it is the mystery which interests us?

Mr. Giles. I think one thing that is interesting is that one would like to know just a little more about this overriding genius, because that he is; there’s no doubt about it. I suppose 1835 it would be interesting to know a little more about him, but that is going to make any difference about his genius or about his work.

Mr. MacPhedran. We were discussing last night, whether when you direct you’re thinking of the opposite type of direction.

Mr. Giles. No.

Mr. MacPhedran. It’s often been thought that when Shake­speare was part of Lord Chamberlains men he was writing against the fetyle, in opposition to the Admiral’s men.

Mr. Giles. I am sure that there was a rivalry between two companies, and that indeed had they not been up against this style 1845[this other style]. . . that’s a great thing about the theater is that its rivalry between companies is something that successfulcompanies do.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you get the feeling of oneupmanship in hisstyle?

159

Mr. Giles. I don’t know about oneupmanship; it is just one up: It's just better than someone like Marlowe, nothing less, and I like Marlowe.

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s something I wanted to ask you; it's something that's always interesting to ask Shakespeare 1855people; what they feel about Marlowe. I don’t know if it’s true in your experience, but I have found that anti-Shakespeare people like Marlowe, and vice versa.

Mr. Giles. I never actually directed a play by Marlowe, which makes an enormous difference, because immediately unlike the critic or the student, we [directors] are a lazy lot, I think.And unless one knows. . . and of course one can’t [know he is going to eventually direct a play by a certain author],

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you ever feel a compunction to know more about him. 1865

Mr. Giles. Oh, of course, I think about it, and I’ve read him, and indeed know bits of him, and seen him played, but until you know you are going to do a certain production of a play, one doesn't spend the time on it. As soon as you know, you’re going to do a production, immediately one seems to want to change it. Completely. And you can move into it. And it's not something you can imagine. You can't say to yourself "Well, now I’m going to imagine that I’m going to a production of Tamburlaine."It's usually hopeless. It doesn’t work, because it’s got to be practical. It's got to be "I'm going to do a production of 1875Measure for Measure or Tis1 a Pity."

Mr. MacPhedran. Was there a difference in the way you prepared for Tis' a Pity and the way you prepared for Measure for Measure? Did you have to do more for Tis a Pity?

Mr. Giles. Well, this may be answering one of your ques­tions. I suppose one has to do more for ’Tis a Pity in a way, because one is much less critically prepared for it. One has read much more round and about Measure; and, therefore, you’ve got to do your own spadework when one is asked [to direct something like a Ford play]. 1885

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you find yourself reading editor's comments and critics on that play? [’Tis a Pitx]

Mr. Giles. Yes. And I must say that the editor of the copy I used give comments which just infuriated me. But just doing the play is so difficult that that is problem enough without trying to think about doing it in opposition to someone else. I mean, every production is bound to turn up so differently, because of the differences in the directors, the differences in

160

many of the actors, the style and everything. The marvelous thing about Shakespeare is the all-embracing quality of the writer, that 1895 he embracfes so many different interpretations.

I might say, quite by chance, there was another production of Tis * a Pity that went on almost at exactly the same time we did. And I certainly preferably didn’t go to see it, during rehearsal. I’d love / to see it now, but I absolutely kept away from it, in case, one /either directed too violently against it, with it, or for it. And in case that what one thought were original ideas were not really and were being done in front of you, and one changed them because of that, which isn’t a right reason for changing anything. The right reason for changing anything is if you feel it’s wrong. If 1905 you feel it's right, you must do it.

Mr. MacPhedran. Does an experience like getting infuriated by one editor’s comments make you want to find. . . to read some­thing else? or make you want to turn away from’criticism?

Mr. Giles. Oh yes, to read something else. Although, certainly, to a certain extent, I felt a great pleasure in doing some scenes, and one felt where he said "This is only a kind of poor scene. It has nothing to do with the nature of the movement of the play" and rehearse it: we went around saying: "Wrong: You are wrong. It’s of vital importance: ’It's a very good scene,”’ 1915 and certainly that’s pleasurable.

Mr. MacPhedran. If you were to do Measure again, would you at least want to see if there was a new way of doing it?

Mr. Giles. Oh, indeed yes and not only see what had been written, but how it had been acted elsewhere. I think everyone changes all the time. Just as the body of criticism changes; you, yourself, change.

Mr. MacPhedran. Many books have come out about Measure in the last three or four years. Does it strike you odd, that most of them have emphasized or mentioned the "Christian aspect" of the 1925 play? The allegorical approach?

Mr. Giles. Yes, I know.

Mr. MacPhedran. Does that strike you as a sign of the times, or as something about the play? Does that sound like some­thing you would want to emphasize in a production?

Mr. Giles. Oh yes, and productions have done this. I think the Guthrie production did this. I do see what such pro­ductions are about, but it seems to me that the most interesting part of the play is the fallibility of the characters rather than their infallibility. 1935

161

Mr. MacPhedran. Then it would somewhat go against your grain to think of Isabella as a Virgin Mary? That would de- emphasize the fallibility.

Mr. Giles. It goes absolutely against my grain, and I’m sure it isn’t as Shakespeare intended here. If he is [doing that with her], he’s very unchristian about it.

Mr. MacPhedran. And the Duke isn’t God?

Mr. Giles. And the Duke is not God; if he is God, give me chaos.

Mr. MacPhedran. I guess the only thing one can say about 1945 (to agree with it) that theory is that Claudio is Humanity.

Mr. Giles. Yes, and that Angelo is the Devil then and Lucio is the Devil. Is Angelo the Devil or is he just a commander of deeds?

Mr. MacPhedran. And have Claudio and Juliet committed original sin?

Mr. Giles. Well, yes they have. That’s very interesting.

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s what I was trying to get at last night, whether the law is important or whether it could be any charge. 1955

Mr. Giles. Of course, the law is important, but if you try to simplify the play, I think it has that element in it, but it has a great many other elements as well.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you find your view changing once you started production or from what you thought it would be. When you actually started working with the actors?

Mr. Giles. Well, of course, one doesn’t have a stage play...What one has are a number of (things). . . A feeling for the line of the play, what I suppose you would call the structure of the play, and a feeling about the different characters and the 19&5world they’re in. But this only becomes flesh during the process of becoming flesh, it’s changed, because it would be a sad pro­duction where the director starts off with a rigid idea of the play, and where there is not change in him.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think there is some kind of simi­larity in the way that it changed with all the actors becoming into the flesh? or were there differences between characters as to how they came off the page and became flesh on the stage?

162

1975Mr. Giles. That’s very difficult to say, because so much

depends on the actor. If you’ve got one that is idiocyncratic and quirky, like Bill (Wm. Hutt) is, it of course illuminates who, areas which lesser actors would not be able to uncover. He’s got a very fast and quirky mind, and of course, that’s exactly what I wanted for the Duke.

Mr. MacPhedran. Are there characters that come off as more memorable on the stage than on the page?

Mr. Giles. Yes, the Duke comes off much better on the stage than he does on the page. This is due to the very fact of his being there such a large quantity of time.

Mr. MacPhedran. And some of the minor characters too? Mistress Overdone? Pompey?

Mr. Giles. Yes, the audience responds to them. . . and Elbow. Yes, of course, they do [come off better on stage than on the page], and of course with the clowns particularly. A great deal is in the acting. The very fact that we had a thinner Pompey, which was his idea, makes an enormous difference. . . I do think that Pompey is plumpish, and I know why I think that, be­cause the very first Pompey I saw was plumpish, and he made an enormous impression on me.

Mr. MacPhedran. I want to ask you about this quotation. This fellow starts by talking about the play as the three principal scenes, the two Angelo-Isabella one and the Isabella Claudio scene, do you see that as the way the play evolved? That he was setting up situations and then just completed the plot around those scenes?

Mr. Giles. No, I think they are certainly the scenes that appeal to him and make him write at a very high velocity. The Claudio-Isabella scene, the first part of the first scene in act three, and there is the major bulk of the play to come afterwards.I don’t think that he would ever consciously structure a play like this. This is how it turned out. This is what I was talking about yesterday when we started.

Mr. MacPhedran. Does this make this a "bastard’' play?

Mr. Giles. It makes it a bastard: I don’t know if it’s a bastard play.

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, a lot of people have felt this way, that’s very unbalanced.

Mr. Giles. I think this is true. It does redress that balance, that one wanted the Duke so strongly played. Cause this

1985

1995

2005

163

is the only way to redress the balance: that’s the point. Hereit is. . . when the duke says "0 hear me Isabella. . 2015

It’s just as though you could mile a line across the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you find difficulty, because as you said last night you did it chronologically, in getting the actors /' interested in doing the rest of the play after that third scene Z1(HI, i).

Mr. Giles. Well, I know I was very Interested in doing it.

Mr. MacPhedran. Was there a let down? Was there an emotional release after that?

Mr. Giles. No, I think the main body of actors are not 2025 in those scenes. They only concern three people, and they exclude one of the major characters, the Duke.

Mr. MacPhedran. But they feel, Angelo, Isabella, Claudio— did they feel the bulk of their work was done. They were over the hump?

Mr. Giles. No, far from it. They all knew that the bulk of the work was to come. . . in a kind of way, Angelo is over the hump, in that he’s only got two more scenes to play and one of them is very, very short. I mean that the extraordinary thing about Angelo, if he is the leading part, is that he then disappears 2035 from the play for about an hour and a quarter of playing time.

Mr. MacPhedran. I’ve always thought that this is one of the things I would hopefully find that when you read it as literature, you tend to look so much at the proportions, how long the. scenes are, how the scenes are connected, and I’ve often wondered whether the actors notice that.

Mr. Giles. Oh absolutely.

Mr. MacPhedran. He notices that, but it doesn’t make that much difference to him as far as concluding the end of the play.He still has two and a half more acts. 2045

Mr. Giles. You see. For Angelo actually is finished, almost, by that time. He only has his coda to do, as it were.He’s done the bulk of the part and so he has, in a way, a terrible time because he’s just going to have to go into his dressing room and just wait for an hour and a quarter before he goes on again.And in the meantime, the Duke takes over the play. So for the Duke and to a certain extent for Isabella, because she still has

164

lots of things to do, and a lot of difficult things to do and they are working with much less plastic material. Therefore, for them, it is the time when you roll up your sleeves and get down to it. There’s the real work.

Mr. MacPhedran. You think then that the bulk is where it is, mostly in the second act, just because that’s where it comes in the story, that he was just, as you say taking off on what excited him and not worrying about how long it was?

Mr. Giles. I think, it seems to me, that he gets to the point where he had to finish it quickly because he’s got a lot of plot to get through.

Mr. MacPhedran. Does it start to get careless, afterwards? I think I did hear you say that before. This is often thought, that he’d forgotten everything he’d ever known.

Mr. Giles. It’s not that he’s forgotten everything he’d ever known, because it’s all workable; it all works so well on the stage, which is guess the proof of the pudding, but as litera­ture it’s much less cohesive and he does become--either the com­positor or he or someone becomes—very careless around Act IV,Scene II.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think that this carelessness, or whatever you want to call it, came just because he let himself go or because of that pressure to get it done; and, therefore, couldn’t let himself go as he like to--that he does things just to get them done?

Mr. Giles. Oh, of course.

Mr. MacPhedran. You think he had the problems of modem playwrights (working for deadlines, etc)?

Mr. Giles. Oh absolutely, I think that company was on his neck like anything. Like all writers, there are offsetting ideas about a part, and the "I wish I could do so and so” and also the pressure of "We’ve got to have the skit."

Mr. MacPhedran. That he wrote Twelfth Hight in one/was pressured?

Mr. Giles. Well, Twelfth Night looks like a very careful thing, and that he’s had time to do what he wants with it.

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s interesting, concerning what you think about his genius that if he wants to take time, he has to take it. You don’t think he’s the kind of genius who can in a pique rip something off if he has to.

2055

2065

2075

2085

165

Mr. Giles. Yes, I’m sure he’s the kind that doesn’t go over his work. And I’m certain that although Shakespeare was pro­bably pushed this far (locked in a room at night and forced to 2095complete the last act before morning). I’m sure he did, like all theaters do, have crises and the last play isn’t as popular as you thought it would be so you need a new play, and so they’d all be down on his back. I’m sure that this happened, and that sometimes he copes with it marvelously and sometimes he has to write fast and carelessly.

Mr. MacPhedran. When you read one of his plays, do you think of him having written it in order?

Mr. Giles. On the whole I think he writes in the order it’s in. I do think from time to time, when they said "We’re going to 2105 do it at court,” he might have changed a scene or two, and I do think four, three: the end of four, three is the great difficult in Measure for Measure. I wish I had my original copy here to see how we solved it; I know we did Juggle about with it.

Mr, MacPhedran. I want to make sure I as you about Coleridge.I don’t have the whole thing here [Coleridge was quoted by Giles in the "director’s notes" part of the program] but he said "the comic elements were disgusting and the serious ones horrible." When you were talking about the comments that the editor made, the editor for Tis a Pity, does a comment like that kind of inspire you? out- 2115 rage you to the point of inspiring you? I was curious as to why you included it in the program, whether you just wanted to show different reactions there have been to the play?

Mr. Giles. Why I included it was to show that there has been such a critical division on the play, and that it has pre­sented a problem for the critics.

Mr. MacPhedran. I gather from what we’ve said about the scene and the costuming, you tried to emphasize the lighter rather than overemphasize the dark. It’s often done that way. . . to rub it in. 2125

Mr. Giles. Well, we had kind of a lot of light and tattered, and I remember going very carefully, for instance, at the beheading of the body, because I think it’s important at that moment that one realizes what is happening. Again this is our dangerous scene, where (four, three) the dead body is suddenly found.

Mr. MacPhedran. What kind of head did you want?

166

Mr. Giles. I didn’t think they showed it, what we did was to drag a body from out of a cell, just to show the audience 2135 what is happening. . . a dead body out of one of the side cells.And pulled it to the back of the stage and beheaded it almost in the audience’s eye. Then put it in a cloth so that you didn’tsee it, but I think it’s much more horrible, and then Bill opened the cloth and had a quick look at it.

Mr. MacPhedran. You answered it then. You thought by doing it that way it would be more horrible?

Mr. Giles. Yes, suggestion is. . .1 mean the imagination is always more horrible, the fears that we don’t see.

Mr. MacPhedran. I think this discussion introduces the 2145 subject of realism. Is it important how realistic you make this play? Do you want it to come off as a slice of life? Or are there elements of fantasy that have to be in there? Let me read you this quotation around these three principal scenes. He says that grouped around these scenes are "Many excellent and vigor­ously realistic passages treated in a spirit which afterwards revived in Hogarth and Thackeray."

Mr. Giles. That’s very good. Yes, I think this is per­fectly true. I think you’ve just got to trust him. That if you do Shakespeare, you must trust him,; and, therefore, you cannot do 2155 for instance the Pompey scenes in anything but the realistic and vigorous way. It doesn’t work in any other way.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you feel that with Vanity Fair, that although there was this attempt at an expose of realism that Thackeray was interested in, there was also this manipulation, these tremendous coincidences.

Mr. Giles. Well, it’s very different because it’s a novel and you can accent on the written page. . . [what you want to accent].

Mr. MacPhedran. You were more worried then about coming 2165 off more contrived than even Thackeray wanted to be?

Mr. Giles. We did come off more contrived than even Thackeray meant to be. But what one hopes one does in that kind of situation is perhaps just tickling peoples’ palates. I hate cut­ting to juggle lines, but we did juggle about seven lines in Act IV, Scene III, and that we tried to do in several ways, just to make it work. It’s where Isabella knocks at the gate and the messenger comes, and the head is there and the provost goes, and Lucio appears. When the Duke enters they all say good morning and later on then they’re talking about dawn. So we tried it 2175

167

several different ways, and I must say what we finally did was a communal suggestion by myself, my assistant, Bill, who played the Duke, Ken Pogue who played the Provost, and Karen (Farinard).

Mr, MacPhedran. But I would think it would be more of a problem in a play than when dealing with a novel like Vanity Fair, where to one person something is a contrivance, where to another /it would be true life. //

Mr. Giles. Yes, but when you just read something on the page. • .

Mr. MacPhedran. Whereas, no one is going to think of the 2185 bedtrick as true life.

Mr. Giles. Non, but when one reads something on the page, one is much more likely to accept it, because you read it in your own home in the quiet of your own imagination, ’and one just accepts much more in a novel. Whereas, when it is presented on stage, right in front of you, your mind boggles much more. We came across this problem in The Forsyte Saga around the point of Bosiney’s suicide or is it a suicide; now if you just read the book you have no idea what happens to him. Now you cannot just leave an audience. It doesn’t matter on the page; he can just say "Bosiney was found dead.” But 2195 for television, one must decide how he was found dead, because you are seeing him.

Mr. MacPhedran. I’m trying to get at the question of whether you read criticism because it’s there, or because you’re looking for something to understand to get into or to be able to say ”1 have tried.”

Mr. Giles. Yes, tried to my utmost yes, to understand it.But yousee, the thing is as well that the most valuable weapon; weapon is not really the wrong word in either an actor’s or a director’s repertoire, is the imagination. So that, therefore, one 2205 would tend to or tends to read criticism which stimulates the imagination, rather than criticism which stimulates the imagination, rather than criticism which stultifies him.

Mr. MacPhedran. I take it then, that whatever you’re approaching, you think of yourself as using the same general approach; through the text.

Mr. Giles. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. You don’t think of yourself as one type of person here, and one type of person there?

2215Mr, Giles. No. I think it’s the only way I can do it.I know also that anything that illuminates the text is valuable.

Mr. MacPhedran. How did you rehearse Measure?

Mr. Giles. I did it first chronologically.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you think of an act as a unit or go, scene one, scene two, etc.

Mr. Giles. It varied: you know where the act division comes: you always know where the scene division comes.

Mr. MacPhedran. I suppose the most important question is Two Two and Two-Four, did you try to separate the two confrontations between Isabella and Angelo, and do them on separate days?

Mr. Giles. Well, in setting, and in plotting, I think you call it blocking, I loved the play chronologically: partly because that is the way the audience is going to see it; and, therefore,I want to see it that way as well, myself the first time through. After that, it’s much easier to abstract certain scenes, and I know for a fact that sometimes I would spend an afternoon, for instance, working with Karen and Leo on only their scenes. And the same thing for Karen and Bill and only their scenes. I worked with everybody separately on every scene.

Mr. MacPhedran. When you worked on the first big Angelo- Isabella scene did you keep the second on in mind, when telling Karen for instance how much to put out, knowing that she was going to have to come back again shortly?

Mr, Giles. Yes, of course, the second scene affects the first because you’ve got to lay the seeds for the second scene in the first. I mean, everything is laid out beforehand. . . that it isn’t that you don't know what is going to happen because you do know: you’ve got the play text right there in front of you.As I said yesterday, one of the things I planted was that event­ually the Duke is going to marry Isabella, and that this knowledge therefore sets itself forward right in the beginning of the play.So, for instance, William at the beginning of the play knows that he is going to marry Isabella at the end of the play, and this can be sometimes one of the great stumbling blocks for the audience. They can say "I’m not prepared for it." So that part of his part from the word "go" is to go from being bachelor-Duke, lover of disguises to husband figure via father figure. . . he has that line in his mind.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do all these roles point to a theatrical

2225

2235

2245

169

character rather than to a Freudian character, as we discussed before? Rather than psychological roles, are these theatrical roles? or both?

Mr. Giles. Both, because, I think that the disguises are part of the interest of the play, in a way, very Freudian, in that he literally is putting on a mask, and that there is something within Isabella which calls him forth.

Mr. MacPhedran. In working with Bill did you want to emphasize that? Did you want him when he put on that costume to feel as though he had a new personality?

Mr. Giles. Oh, yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Was it a problem then of shade?

Mr. Giles. Well, it’s not that he has a new personality, because what one must try to do and the introduction says "Look, in some respects, this is a play about a man who is in a position of power, who relinquishes that power for certain mysterious reasons, partly because he enjoys disguise, partly because he seems to want to observe life more freely, partly because he can’t cope with the situation, partly because he wants to test someone who he knows, who seems to be overzealous, and in so doing this, he meets a girl, who's really as overzealous as Angelo: Angelo and Isabella are very much alike in many ways, and he meets her under circumstances when he’s in disguise, where he can play the role which he seems to love, which is a sort of "God-like" role. He somes from God without being God, and he designs in a kind of way, the perfect foil for his love of moral gymnastics, and he takes her through a whole set of moral gymnastics to change her. In the process of so doing, she becomes necessary to him, so this is the very simplistic way of doing it, that he then. . . it is absolutely understandable and right that she should become his duchess. But, that’s not a "line" for the play but a kind of "line" for the actors.

Mr. MacPhedran. In working with her, in the first big scene, knowing that she has two others, was there a direction here, telling her to control her energy or spend it on each of the three occasions? Did she have to give everything each of those three times, or just a thrid each time.

Mr. Giles. Well, not a third each time. . • the peak for here in the sense of expended energy is that she in the first scene with Angelo has a clear line, as she doesn’t really have that much energy to expend: she has a lot when she’s pleading for her

2255

2265

2275

2285

2295

170

brother’s life. The second scene is the one of real action, where she’s presented with this horrifying choice, and in a sort of way, and in the third scene is the reaction to that one and here she has to present that choice to her brother.

Mr. MacPhedran. What did you conceive of as the purpose of Lucio in the first confrontation scene? What is he doing there?Is he necessary? Should there just be the two of them?

Mr. Giles. No, it’s marvelous that he’s there. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. Is he the net?

Mr. Giles. Yes, that’s very good; he’s the net between the 2305 two. He’s also the umpire: he’s also the most marvelous contrast / to the two of them. He kind of heightens the whole situation, and if he wasn’t there, the scene would be different.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is he not there in the fourth scene (II,iv)—is he not necessary, because there’s more action, as you say.

Mr. Giles. No the fourth scene must be private, because, in the first scene, Angelo would not reveal himself, because Lucio was there. So in the fourth scene Lucio cannot be there.He’s really a sort of umpire in the first scene, but also he 2315interprets the scene for the audience, sometimes quite wrongly, but that makes it all the more exciting when they find out what’s

"'really happening.

INTERVIEW WITH DR. BOUGHTON

172

Mr. MacPhedran. So then there were five critics that you used Hunter, Frye, Knight, and Davies primarily] if we include Spurgeon She was included in his files of notes on critics, but there were

no quotes from her book in script copy as there were for the other four.], but I don’t recall seeing her in there. 5

Dr. Boughton. No, there’s nothing. I don’t find her useful in those terms. I just find her useful in terms of imagery, in drawing your attention to major clusters and things like that. I don’t find her useful as far as production is concerned — in that her counts are inaccurate, by recent standards that is. She has a very simplis­tic definition of image; and she catalogues and concentrates on only one half of the metaphor and usually the most obvious half, but it’s pioneering work. I look at it before I start a play but not beyond that.

Mr. MacPhedran. I thought that we could dispense with a lot 15 of elementary stuff that I’ll need eventually about your background, etc., but the only thing I’m interested in today in terms of your background is your experience with Measure for Measure before the pro­duction in question.

Dr. Boughton. I guess I had very little experience with it be­fore the production in question. To tell you the truth, as a matter of fact, I’m not sure I had even studied it: I had read it, but I’m not sure I’d ever really studied it with the idea of producing it un­til that particular time. It had cropped up in some stuff I had been working on. It had been mentioned. It was really a quick decision 25 to do this particular play.

Mr. MacPhedran. You’d never been in it or directed it?

Dr, Boughton. No, Nor I think ever seen it.

Mr. MacPhedran. Can you remember being taught it?

Dr. Boughton. I’m not sure I ever was. I think in my under­graduate Shakespeare class it was not one of the plays we covered.I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.

Mr. MacPhedran. Your situation is very similar to that of David Giles. I know that he said he was always kind of fascinated with the play, because it had always been off limits and never in the school 35 system.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I studied Shakespeare under Paul Landis at the University of Illinois, and I’m sure it was not one of the plays that we studied in that class. And then in the graduate work that I did.(Other than that Shakespeare cropped up in nearly every litera­ture course and survey course.) In terms of graduate school in the course I had with Moody Pryor at Northwestern, I concentrated on

173

Richard III in that class. I think that Measure for Measure was per­haps a play that someone else studied in that seminar. So, I may have gotten interested and intrigued with the play at that particular time. 45

Mr. MacPhedran. You’ve told me, but I’ve forgotten. It was your choice to do Measure for Measure. You told the students, as I remember, that they could do Shakespeare if they did Measure forMeasure. Is that right? /

""" ... /

Dr. Boughton. I was going to do something else that year: I think maybe The Lady’s Not for Burning or something like that. That was almost set, but we were talking with students at that time, get­ting the bill ready for the coming year and suddenly realized that it had been a couple of years since we’d done Shakespeare. The stu­dents were wanting to do Shakespeare very badly. So, I started taking 55 a look at things they might enjoy doing and read Measure for Measure and decided that I would like to do it. I had been sort of toying with Merchant of Venice and decided that Measure for Measure would be more intriguing to do at that particular time. I was very much into tragi-comedy and the mixture of the tragic and the comic, and I thought Measure for Measure would be intriguing to work with from that point of view. And I think also I was interested at that particular point in power and the uses of power and so on, and it was this that first attracted me to the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. Before casting itself, were the students in- 65 terested in doing it too? Was this what they had in mind?

Dr. Boughton. I don’t know that they had that in mind. I don’t think they really cared. They felt that they needed experience in Shakespeare. I think at that particular time, several of them were involved in summer work, and one of the things. . .and we were also beginning to send students to national auditions of the U. R. T. A. and this kind of thing, and they suddenly found when it came time to do auditions that one of the things people were interested in was classical experience and by that they meant Greek and Elizabethan.And so that for auditions, you’re expected to do usually a period 75 piece and a modern piece of some sort; and many of them felt that they were inexperienced in terms of doing Shakespeare and doing the Greeks, and they saw that as a very necessary part of their college training. So, that fact was probably in back of the students’ desire to do Shakespeare. I don’t think they cared which Shakespeare it was as long as they were doing Shakespeare. This changes from time to time. I find that now for some reason the students want to do the comedies of Shakespeare. A few years ago it was the darker plays.These things change.

I think also that I was very much into theatre of the absurd 85 at this particular point, and I think that the dark comedies blend in with this sort of world view.

Mr. MacPhedran. When it was set that you were going to do it, when did you start collecting the criticism?

174Dr. Boughton. During the summer, during the late spring and

summer. Before doing the play in the fall. As soon as we had set the bill. It was going to be the second show of the season as I re­call, so we had to cast it in the spring. And I didn’t have much time looking at criticism then at that point, and I spent my time reading the play again and again trying to get it together and try- 95 ing to get an overview of the play: a view of the play as characters with casting purposes very immediately in mind. So we went into casting right way. And we had two meetings, two discussions of the play before school was out, and at that stage, the kids were search­ing and so was I. I couldn’t tell them what I wanted at that stage except within certain very wide parameters.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then you had an overview before you started doing the criticism?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, and so the criticism is very selective because it is not the kind of thing that I would do if I were going 105 to write a paper on Measure for Measure and trying to get into the tradition of criticism surrounding the play. It was rather only in the things that turned me on as a potential producer of the play that I was reading at the time that proved to be helpful.

Mr. MacPhedran. So, you were seeking out specifics to fit the view that you had begun to formulate.

IDr. Boughton. Well, I don’t think it was that solidly formu­

lated. I tried to keep it open-minded. I think you go into tryouts with a sort of range of possibilities in mind when you listen to actors who may fit that range of possibilities, but I think it’s only 115 when you’re really working on play that you really discover things like the best kind of Lucio you can get out of this particular actor, given the kind of overall effect that you think you want. So, I wouldn’t say I was set. I just had some rather general ideas and some emotional reactions to the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. As I recall, the tryouts involved reading from the play itself. In looking at the cast list, I was wondering if you had enough of a view of the play to look for specific things in the actors or were you just looking for good solid actors who could handle whatever treatment of the play finally evolved. 125

Dr. Boughton. I was looking for groups of characters I think in that you have the more or less serious characters and the more or less comic characters, so I was looking for good clowns as far as the clown characters were concerned. And I think that I already had in mind that it had to be a kind of dark comedy to blend in with the other part of it — that Shakespeare was not being merely facetious; but he was making a point with this comedy, so I needed that kind of comic-tragic blend in the comic part. I felt that the Duke was the most crucial role, so I was trying to get the best damned actor I

175

could get in that particular role. And then I think you cast the 135 rest under principle and try to set them up as best as possible.

I felt Angelo was the second most important role, and I was already aware in my mind that the Duke, Angelo and Escalus were going to be a kind of triangle so I wanted some kind of relationship be­tween the three of them.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, when you say a group of characters, do you mean the actual personalities of the actors themselves, that you wanted people who knew each other and could get along, or did you want a group of parts?

Dr. Boughton. As parts, and you know it is a very large cast, 145 and you’re not necessarily going to get people who know each other, and who get along. Although, I think the cast did generally get along quite well. I felt pretty good about most of the major roles by the time the casting was over.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you remember if you had a good turn-out and a lot of people to choose from?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, there were a lot of people to choose from.We were casting two shows together and the other play was Slow Dance on the Killing Ground which has a very small cast, and for the most part there was no conflict in the casting. I would like to have 155 used the girl who played the female lead in that, but I was willing to trade her for some of the others.

Mr. MacPhedran. You said that you wanted the best actor you could get for the Duke. Now, did this decision come from your read­ing: this idea that the Duke was the part to be looking for.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I felt that he was a controller of the action, and he participated in both the serious and the comic scenes, and I think I was probably aware of Herrick’s comment that the pres­ence of the Duke is the guarantee to the audiences that things weren’t going to get out of control. So I felt that as a presence, as a 165 personality, that he was very, very important.

' Mr . MacPhedran. Do you think this was a preconceived notion that when you started reading it you just expected the Duke to be the dominant character?

Dr. Boughton. That’s hard to say — as to whether it was pre­conceived or not, or really came out of the reading of the thing.I elected as you probably noticed to keep the Duke on stage longer than he is required by the script to be on the stage, to be an ob­server of the action and responding to it, and seeing it get almost out of control and finally deciding yes he should enter the situa- 175 tion to keep things from getting out of hand. So, I guess I felt his presence was very important from almost the very beginning...

176

In addition to his very real participation in the play. But whether it happened during the course of the reading or was a preconceived thing, that I’m not sure. But that view of the Duke was a very strong thing with me from the beginning.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think of that view as a typical treat­ment or an unusual one? To use the Duke rather than say Angelo as / the character who would be the ”star”-part. /

Dr. Boughton. I, of course, did become aware of the earlier 185 production at Stratford in which James Mason had starred and had elected to play the role of Angelo. And I also knew that John Gielgud had played Angelo in Measure for Measure, but I think I would have regarded that as the unusual thing. . .the concentration upon Angelo as being unusual because it seems to be that it is very importantly Angelo’s.play early in the play, but then the focus changes and shifts later on to Isabella as far as the major supporting character is concerned. So I did not regard Angelo as being. . .1 think it’s a very difficult role and a very rewarding role, but I don’t think it’s as pivotal as the Duke’s role. 195

Mr, MacPhedran. Then you think of a "Duke orientation," if you want to call it that, as the, I hate to use the word, "authen­tic"?

Dr, Boughton. Well, it’s more usual, more standard, I wouldguess.

Mr. MacPhedran. More rooted in the text?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I suspect so. I can understand a star wanting to play Angelo, but I would think he would be aware that he is taking a major supporting role rather than the principal role in the production in doing so. Now, I think it would be possible to 205 suppress the role of the Duke in various ways, but I think that by letting it (the play) go its own way, the Duke comes out as the more pivotal of the two characters.

Mr. MacPhedran. You actually tried to do the opposite then and tried to amplify the Duke?

Dr. Boughton. I think probably, a little bit, yes. And I think that Angelo suffered more than the Duke in the cutting I did, for a variety of reasons. I think he becomes less subtle. Now, this I think was not deliberate because I was trying to — I had done Richard III and thought I had cut it enough and hand’t: It ran 215much too long, so I was determined to get this one down to the bones.I was cutting everything I thought I could possibly cut and still have a script that was clear. I think that in the process of cutting as I read it over, this time, looking at the full text as against what I had cut. I cut the subtler things as far as Angelo was

inconcerned. So that his role became a boulder type thing. I won’t say melodramatic, but that was the danger that I felt I was dealing with as far as that role was concerned and also considering the actor that I cast in the role. Lenny played it very strong and with­out a great deal of subtlety. 225

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, let me clarify something. When you cut the character of Angelo, are you getting farther away from the melo­dramatic treatment or closer to one?

Dr. Boughton. I think we’re getting closer to it. In other words some of the subtleties get left out. If you had a star play­ing Angelo, you wouldn’t make any cuts in Angelo’s role. If you were trying to tailor it around him, you wouldn’t make any cuts or very few. Although I did know the casting at the time I was cutting,I tried to put that aside in my mind and was just cutting toward the text I wanted to get out, trying to get down to things that I 235. felt would play — things that I felt would be clear to the audience and this kind of thing, and I can remember very vividly becoming aware that I was going to have to cut almost all of the counterfeit images in the show because they weren’t going to play to contempo­rary American audience who didn’t know about English coins and counter­feit and all that kind of thing, and I resented it very much, because it’s a very important part of the play. But, I could find no way of clarifying it for an audience, and I thought I would wind up with a muddy kind of thing. I didn’t have any character or highlighting or shadowing of character in mind in doing that. It was just a case 245 of trying to get a script that I thought our audience could under­stand and that our actors could play. I don’t think that I was de­liberately doing this as far as Angelo is concerned, but as I look at the final result I feel that one of the great dangers that I was leaving myself open to was a fairly melodramatic Angelo, given the actor I had cast and the cutting I had done.

Mr. MacPhedran. In general, when you’re considering a play for production, do you read it with cutting in mind, or do you read it just to decide whether that’s the play you want to do, and then once the decision is made look for where to make the cuts. 255

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think it’s usually my practice to deal with the whole script first, and our initial readings were without cuts, looking at the whole play. I think you want to find out what you’re losing when you make a cut. So, you know, you read the whole play with the idea "do it or not do it" to decide if you’re going to do any cutting.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is time the principal factor?

Dr. Boughton. I think clarity has something to do with it because you know there are certain terms that you’re going to have 265to translate one way or another for an audience. Clarity has something

178

to do with it, and time has something to do with it too because you’re dealing in an educational theatre with amateur actors who just simply can’t sustain something as long or as effectively as professionals might.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is there an unwritten law at the university that most productions shouldn’t last past a certain length of time? /'

Dr. Boughton. No, I don’t think so. Although, I’m sure all of us have had experience with productions that we thought should’ve been cut and weren’t, and I think if you’re going to cut, you should reach that decision before you get into rehearsals, as far as I’m 275 concerned. If you try to make extensive cuts very late in the pro­cess, it’s, very demoralizing for the actors and very difficult for them. If the cuts are made before you’re very far into rehearsal, they’re quickly ignored, and then you can get on with the job, and it doesn’t become a personal thing, or whatever the case might be.I think your decision to cut or not to cut oom&s early.

Mr, MacPhedran. Was Angelo, I take it, the thing you focused on first as the role to cut?

Dr. Boughton. Oh, no. I just made the comment as a reaction to looking at my cutting now after the fact [the comment that Angelo’s part seems quite noticeably cut]. I was cutting things that I didn’t feel would play: where there are a series of things I was trying to pick out the most effective imagery and so on and so forth. . . without destroying the rhythm of the play. I tried to cut so that, in the scenes that are in poetry, that I cut, [I cut] one Caesura to the next or whatever so that the line still makes sense, and the rhythm is still there. But, you do get rid of some of the repe­tition, and you get rid of the things that just don’t seem likely that an actor could make clear to an audience. . .clear to a degree because „how clearly is an audierice ever going to understand a 295Shakespearean text at one hearing. . .so, [i cut] where there doesn’t seem to be any hope of making it clear.

Mr.,MacPhedran. Images and lines then are what you cut as opposed to scenes?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I was brought up to believe that you keep the scene sequence in tact as far as Shakespeare is concerned, as far as that is possible. . .that you don’t cut whole scenes or even rearrange scenes because I feel that the scene was probably very important as an element of composition as far as Shakespeare is con­cerned. You’d wind up with a different play if you do this, unless 305 a scene is just unplayable or whatever: [for instance] if you were really making extensive cuts. Otherwise I would never cut a whole scene. I try to cut proportionally within the scene.

Mr. MacPhedran. In looking it over did you think of other

179

things that struck you about the cuts besides the fact that it took Angelo "down to the bones"?

Dr. Boughton. Well-, I wouldn’t state it quite that strongly.

Mr. MacPhedran. I’m sorry, I thought I was quoting you.

Dr. Boughton. I don't think he’s anymore down to the bones than the rest of it is. I was trying to get the whole play down 315 to the bones to a degree. But, no, I guess I didn’t have any other major reaction to the cuts. There are always things you’d love to have in.but which you feel are not absolutely necessary, and there were, as you might have noticed, things that I had cut out that I later put back in. I restored a couple of things I thought were needed to round off the scene or were needed just because of the sound of it or whatever the case might be.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then cuts came almost exclusively from look­ing at the text rather than the talents of the actors?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, although the need to cut the text is in 325 part the result of dealing with some beginners.

Mr. MacPhedran. But in general?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, right.

Mr. MacPhedran. Rather than thinking the idea "this person is inexperienced; he couldn’t handle it"?

Dr, Boughton. Usually, you don’t know that. You usually are cutting before you cast. I did cast before I cut in this particular case, but I didn’t really consider the casting very much in terms of the cutting. I did consider the casting in terms of the block­ing, and several of the actors, I felt Angelo particularly, would 335 say while we were blocking, "Gee, that feels good.". . .while I was giving him moves. I had seen him do some things, and I think I was able to do some things with him.

Mr. MacPhedran. In other words, you considered casting in terms of actors who you had seen block and who you thought could handle the blocking well.

Dr. Boughton. I could have an image of the actor in mind as I was planning movement for him in the scene.

Mr. MacPhedran. How many of them had you worked with?

Dr. Boughton. Not a whole lot. I’d say I’d worked with about3^ half of them before.

180

Mr. MacPhedran. The Major roles? Angelo? Duke?

Dr. Boughton. No, I’d never worked with Lenny [Durso] before: I’d observed him before. The Duke? No. I’d seen him do a lot of things, but I’d never worked with him before.

Mr. MacPhedran. Isabella?

Dr. Boughton. No.

Mr. MacPhedran. Lucio?

Dr. Boughton. No. I’d worked with some of the clowns: Bob Arnold [PompeyJ, Jim Burton [Elbow], the Justice [Chuck Radune]. 355Betty Buechner [Mariana] I’d worked with before: quite a few I hadn’t.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then to get to the criticism; I take it that the cuts weren’t at all final by the time you were looking for par­ticular criticism. You were still in the planning stages?

Dr. Boughton. Yes. You read as much criticism as you can.And you would like to take more time. I know I would like to take more time. But, there comes a point, you have to make creative de­cisions. In this particular case, I had the summer, and I worked early to get the classes I was teaching planned so I could spend the latter part of the summer pretty much on the show, and I went 365 over it and over it, cutting it again and again, and dividing it into smaller units and at the same time reading criticism.

(Mr. MacPhedran. You don’t always seek out criticism or seek

out a lot of criticism, but with this play, you felt that you were going to have to, or that you would like to?

Dr. Boughton. I would always, in Shakespeare and the Greeks especially. . .1 was always brought up that you examine the critical conditions surrounding the play and by seeking out criticism you at least become aware of problems. This way, you may not find a solution, but you at least become aware of things — things that 375have puzzled you — that have bothered the critics in the past.You become aware of varied interpretations of things and this helps you be wary of problems that are there, I think. In some modern plays, plays simple enough, you might read a review or two. There . is no particular reason to get into criticism. I think you may often be bringing to bear general criticisms that you have read in the past. For example, with comedy, as you become aware of many theories of comedy, this may help with dealing with a particular show, a particular sequence or scene in the show. But I don’t, if it’s someone like Neil Simon, feel a particular need to go out 385 and read criticism. In terms of some modern non-realistic styles I frequently use, during some shows, the production as an excuse to go out and read criticism that I would like to anyway. And so

181that if I am doing a show — when I was doing Exit the King, for example, I had already been into Ionesco as such and the theater of the absurd. And I took that excuse to get into looking at some modern French history to figure out what the mood in France was at that particular time. . .what the world view of France was, and I found it quite helpful.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think you were bothered by the same 395 things that most critics were bothered by?

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think, given my. own pre-dispositions I am likely to find that I can pretty much ignore a lot of, say,Victorian criticism or that my reaction to it as a mirror image kind of thing. The things that they object to are often the things that excite me the most.

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s why I ask.

Dr. Boughton. That kind of thing doesn’t bother me. I do like to see what turned them off and what turned them on.

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s why I asked because I think that this 405 play has that kind of a history.

Dr. Boughton. You know that before going into it. For instance,I was doing Ibsen a few years ago and the plays that the critics liked during the period are just the plays that you wouldn’t have any use in doing now. And so when you find negative criticism you know it’s something like "Here’s something worth looking at — some­thing I can understand."

Mr. MacPhedran. The interesting thing to me is that this play seems to get publicity in the Victorian Era as being "a problem comedy." 415

Dr. Boughton. Yes

Mr. MacPhedran. And now we still take heed to that publicity but don’t come up with the same conclusions. The more recent works on the problem plays seem to indicate, and I am curious if you agree with this, that it's still a problem play but not the same problem.

Dr. Boughton. There are problems of motivation. There are problems of clarifying characters, but I think the mixture of the tragic and the comic is something that we find fairly natural now, and I guess I think that some of the problems are theological and psychological. I think today we find it to be a very carefully 425written play, carefully structured.

Mr. MacPhedran. I remember reading a recent study of the problem plays by a man named Shanzer, and he said that the only plays you could truly consider to be problem plays are plays that had moral

182

problems. Do you think it qualifies?. . .When you said theological?

Dr. Boughton. Well, as you know, I enjoyed the Hunter book, the comedy of forgiveness, in that I liked it in that it called at­tention to the play as a play in which the central problem is really one of mercy rather than the way around it. He points out the fact that Isabella, not Angelo is the central figure during the very 435difficult scene where she must forgive him and that she is passing this test rather than it being him. That doesn’t make Angelo’s problem any easier. I think it throws focus where it ought to be, on Isabella. I think it becomes — to me it became a problem, of justice. Well, it’s a problem of government, of self-government and of the government of the state. But the problem that is in­volved, it seems to me, is what is just and the relationship between wisdom and justice and mercy and forgiveness and just punishment and all those kinds of things.

Mr. MacPhedran. When you think of the emphasis in this play 445 on mercy, do you think of this play as belonging more in the camp with Merchant of Venice rather than, say, All's Well, which it is traditionally coupled with, or are there just too many differences?

Dr. Boughton. I think the issue of mercy is more central in this play if anything than it is in Merchant of Venice, but I see some similarities.

Mr. MacPhedran. I’m trying to get at the label that has dogged this play so long, and whether you think that is an important con­sideration. In other words, when you were looking for criticism, even before you looked things up, was that an important considera- 455 tion — that I want to find out what the problems are?

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think defined in that way, every play is a problem play; every play has its problems that need to be solved.And I think that the treatment of Angelo and Isabella and other characters do present some problems. I don't think I would want to call the play a problem play in quite the same sense that we talk about modern social problem plays, although there is that element to the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. But it's not all that important to you?

Dr. Boughton. No, character and action are more important to 4&5me.

Mr. MacPhedran. I guess the thing that I’m interested in getting into, and maybe this is a general question and not just about Measure for Measure — when you’re at the stage of beginning to for­mulate your overview and knowing that you're going to be looking for criticism spmetime, do you tend to have a positive view such as "I am looking for something to support this view that is growing.” or

183

are you looking from a negative or cautious viewpoint "I want to avoid the way it’s been done in the past. I want to react against the traditional way it’s usually done to be cautious and avoid the 475 pitfalls?" Do you think of yourself as a positive person or a nega­tive one?

Dr. Boughton. I guess maybe there’s a little positive and a little negative in everyone. I think, one if looking for anything / that may help. And one’s first job is interpretation, and you look at a script, and you try to say "What are the values in this script that I need to embody and project whatever they may be?" without trying to impose a profusion frame on the thing. Eventually, you have to get more and more practical, and eventually you have to start making decisions, but I think that at least in the first place, 485 you’re trying to say "What really is Shakespeare saying and what really does it mean in terms of contemporary understanding of the thing?". . .It seems that most literary criticism is partial. . .The literary critic has a technique and an approach. He has one aspect that he's trying to get across, and he can ignore the parts of the play that don’t support this or don’t concern this and so on and so forth, but the director can’t. . .He’s got to find a way to deal with every moment in the play. So I think that certain critics are helpful here and here and here, but they are not help­ful here, here, and here, and you have to find a critic that can 495help you find some way to deal with these things. Nonetheless, the crystallizing process is occurring, and yes I suppose you do get excited about something because it suddenly does corroborate the suspicions that you’re beginning to have as far as the play is con­cerned. And yes, you may reject something because you already con­sider that problem irrelevant or the particular kind of thing he [the critic you’re reading] is talking about as not making any sense anymore.

Mr. MacPhedran. You seem to be giving me the impression that you were certainly trying to be very objective. 505

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think you certainly try to be open- minded. And I think you try to see "Is there anything about this comment that makes any sense." And you may not yet be able to tie that [answer] up with what you’re trying to do with the thing, but if it sounds good, you write it down because later on you may be able to tie it in.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is this the scholar side of you coming out?

Dr. Boughton. I don’t know. You know I talk with students about doing research, and they say "When you’re reading a long time, how do you decide when to take a note or whether not to take a note?" 515 and I say "Well, when you get a chill down your back that says 'Oh boy that sounds good* then you’d better get it down." Well, when directing you run across something like this, and you may not know

184

how or why you’re going to use it at that particular moment, and you might not use it ultimately, but whenever you get that feeling whatever it is [the comment], you take the note.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, there seems to be an implication in your point. There seems to be a kind of dichotomy here. I kept feeling when you said "a critic tends to have a criticism that is both posi­tive and negative, pro and con," there seems to be a trail (in your ' 525voice — implying) that the critic does this as opposed to, I guess you would have said, the director.

Dr. Boughton. Well, the director has to take it a step further, We’ve been talking, for example, in our own department about whether or not dry run production theses make any sense, and to me they do because, you know, I don’t see any point — I think there’s a dif­ference between an interpretive study done in Speech and one done in English. And I think, if you don’t take criticism beyond just the interpretive stage, interpretive in terms of literary interpre­tations of the text, if you don’t take that on to the next stage and 535 say "What are the production implications of this?" then it ought to be in the English Department. But I think the theater question, supposedly, is bringing a certain amount of theater skill to bear on the thing. And I think criticism can be suggestive to him, as to what he can do about it in production, and that is the difference,I think, between the two kinds of theses.

Mr. MacPhedran. It sounds like what I’m doing is being done in your department all the time.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, yes. You know, you try to come up with an interpretation of the play, but then how are you going to get 545this over into the acting, the directing, and so on and so forth.Ideally, the way to test it is to do the show, but you can’t always do that.- You have to do it in one paper and guess.

Mr. MacPhedran. From what you’ve just said, it seems like studying as you said, interpreting a play, and then trying to see the implications of it in a production is something that you’re used to seeing students do.

Dr. Boughton. Yes. Of every production thesis, the opening chapter is analysis and interpretation, and the next is production formation — having looked at the script and discussed the style 555of it, then how as a director you are going to interpret it.-

When you start researching a play, in terms of what critics have written about it, you have no idea what you’re going to find until you explore what actually has been written, and I think then it challenges you and gives you ideas as you’re dealing with the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think the fact that you are in a

185

university makes you seek out criticism more than if you were a pro­fessional director.

Dr. Boughton. I suppose it does, and I think, especially be- 565 cause I teach so much criticism, and although, I started out to be a theater historian, I found myself preferring to get into criticism and theory rather than history and found myself seeking out those courses in the various universities that I’ve studied at. I hope it also makes me somewhat more open-minded because as a teacher, I have to try to get students excited about all kinds of critics and all kinds of critical methods. So one has to try and find poten­tial value rather than being always negative about various kinds of things. But I hope it makes me somewhat more open-minded about critics as well. But I’m sure that it predisposes me to a respect 575for criticism and an awareness of what it might do. And my own training has been in this direction. My own dissertation was in that direction of seeking out what the major critics have had to say and even somewhat the minor ones and starting with that as the basis of interpretation.

Mr. MacPhedran. I keep getting this feeling that there are two ways of looking at something — from the critical viewpoint or,I can’t give the other a name, because certainly a director could have a critical influence as well.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I define criticism rather broadly, and I 585 tend to equate criticism with interpretation. The critics’ chief job is to interpret rather than to sort — "This is good, that is bad." — The value of that criticism is like sorting a box of straw­berries, and that’s the value of if, it’s not the major job or job of criticism to me.

Mr. MacPhedran. What is the director’s chief job?

Dr. Boughton. It’s to a degree the same thing and in many of my classes suggest that any production is an act of criticism, if criticism is defined as interpretation rather than something else.This will throw something at you, going beyond that. One of the 595 texts we used in theater aesthetics suggests that the actor is a co-author because the playwright only gives him the words. The actor must add how they’re said. How they’re said is part of the meaning.

After interpretation, in terms of the literary aspects of the thing, whatever you find out, as far as the criticism is concerned, that’s just the first step because you’re still trying to make this play live for a contemporary audience, and you want to soak up the period; you want to know as much about the history of the period; you want to try to figure out what the hell Shakespeare was talking 605 about. But, ultimately, you’ve got to try and make it mean sense too and with contemporary actors for a contemporary audience.

186

Mr. MacPhedran. Then both are important, the authenticity and yet the effectiveness? Which wins out in the end, if you have to choose?

Dr. Boughton. I hope it’s not a case of choosing in many in­stances. I hope that the two can be combined. We’re going through a kind of a transition now in theater, I think, partly under the influence of Antonin Artaud and the "total theater" boys, and so on and so forth. And I would say that the contemporary flux of aes- 615 thetics theater is generally that the script is like an iceberg, only one tenth if visible above the surface, and the rest of it is beneath the surface, and that the words are very important, but they are not the only important thing, or sometimes even the most im­portant thing in the whole script. Now I was brought up to believe that your script is your Bible, when you’re working in the theater, and the playwright is your God, and you have all kinds of respect for it. Recent approaches have a little less respect for the script and even for the author at times, and you’re trying to create a total theater experience of which the words are just one part, and 625 the rest of it is as important in many instances as the words them­selves.

Mr. MacPhedran. I would take it then that it would be easier to maintain that perspective ("playwright is God, and respect, etc."), or do you still want to look at him objectively?

Dr. Boughton. I still want to look at him objectively, insofar as I can. I like to deal only with playwrights that I can respect.And I like to deal with playwrights who are poets. That doesn’t ¿35mean they have to write poetry, but they have to have poetic imagi­nation and so on. And I like to let the playwright lead me where he wants to lead me insofar as it’s compatible.

Mr. MacPhedran. We did seem to bypass something that I did mean to bring out even without getting into a history of your ex­perience, and that is your relationship with Shakespeare as opposed to your relationship with drama in general. In other words, do you consider Shakespeare an important part of your work in the theater?

Dr. Boughton. Oh yes, very much. It was the subject of my dissertation, and so I suppose I’ve spent more time on that particu- 645 lar fact. The things that interest me as a director, if given my own lead, you know, I would probably do Greek or Elizabethan one year, and then something very avant-garde the next. I’m very in­terested in recent things, and I’m also interested in pre-modern drama. And I suppose in working on my doctorate, I suppose I wanted to fill in as many holes as I could all through the history oftheater, but I also wanted to know as much as I could about the Greeks and Elizabethan as I could.

Mr. MacPhedran. Was your interest in Shakespeare long-standing?

187

Dr. Boughton. Yes. From the time I first read Macbeth when I was in the seventh grade, I think.

Mr. MacPhedran. The quote that I’m interested in is "Any pro­duction of a play that’s worth its salt is a piece of criticism; it’s point of view and criticism. And the correlary would be that any criticism worth its salt is a kind of would-be director." How / does that strike you? /

Dr. Boughton. I guess I would buy the primary statement more than I would buy the correlary because I think that it’s important to discuss themes, images, so on and so forth about plays. And I think people can do this who are not directors, and who do not have 665 production in mind, probably. What I’m saying is that I think lit­erary, almost purely literary, criticism is of some potential use to the director. But I think the director and the actors working together have got to be interpreting and making it have a point of view of the play that they’re dealing with.*' —*

Mr. MacPhedran. But do you think of a critic as, whether you want to use it that way or not, as providing a kind of "direction", that you either agree with or disagree with or can take something from?

Dr. Boughton. The worst critic may have one phrase that really 675 turns me on, not even a whole sentence, just one phrase, that may suggest something to me as a director.

Mr. MacPhedran. I’m trying to get at your conception of a critic’s role because I think this is something that is going to come out — more maybe than some of the other questions.

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think, from the point of view you’re talking about, a critic has a point of view. A critic has an atti­tude toward the play that he has developed, and I suppose that you would say there’s a kind of direction that you can either agree with or disagree with. 685

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think then that the critic is really interested in something else other than giving the play an interpre­tation? That he’s interested in developing his own ideas — his own mental development?

Dr. Boughton. Some critics are, and then some critics have developed — I’m thinking of Knight at the moment, with his two folds of imagery and so forth. He’s bound to fit everything into this ultimately, sooner or later. I think the critic can be involved in explicating the text on a purely literary level, that may appeal only to the imagination. It’s like the difference between reading 695 the novel and seeing the play. And I think the literary critic can treat the play text quite legitimately in the same way that he would

188

treat a novel or a poem or something of this nature. So that there is a gap to be reached before you get what was in the production.

Mr. MacPhedran. And then some criticism is of an imaginativetype.

Dr. Boughton. What do you mean by that?

Mr. MacPhedran. I was trying to pick up on a word you used that you find some criticism as just serving to fire the imagination of someone, rather than giving a full-scale interpretation. When 705 you read criticism, do you decide with yourself what' the critic is trying to do?

Dr. Boughton. Oh yes. I would think you know you try to guess what the assumptions underlying the criticism are.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is he understanding himself or is he under­standing the play?

Dr. Boughton. And you try to look at the method the critic is using and see whether it is appropriate. I mean that you read one critic and obviously he is into theological ideas, and he is interpreting the theological ideas in this play, and that could be 715 very useful. And then you’re dealing with actors of course, and some actors are turned on by something and others aren’t. And some­times actors are turned on by things the director isn’t particularly turned on by. But if it turns on the actor, then fine. So you need to know as much about the show as you can because maybe the things that would help you act the role won’t help the actor to act it.

Mr. MacPhedran. What keeps coming out from the transcripts I’ve read so far is how much production affects criticism.

Dr, Boughton. In this case, one of the things that I found useful about Davies which was in part an impressionistic reaction 725 to a production and it was the result of not just seeing it once but seeing it a number of times.

Mr. MacPhedran. The study has made me evaluate criticism, and what I’m trying to find out from you is — is there a type of criticism or is there a personality of a critic that you tend to respond to more than another?

Dr. Boughton. . . .1 don’t think so because you’re interested in structural criticism, because you’re dealing with the whole structure of the play. And so you’re interested in formal criticism. Anything that has to do with the form of it may help you to get a 735 view of that. You’re interested in the images because your actors have to make those images live, and they may inspire costumes, they may inspire treatment of scenes, or whatever the case might be.

189

You’re interested in psychological criticism because that may be helpful to...You know, all kinds of things.

Mr. MacPhedran. If I’m following you then, something like structural criticism or comments on the structure of a play, that you would find helpful, could come from any sort of critic. It could come from a critic who is merely in his own world, developing his own intellect, and it could be found in a critic trying to be 745 didactic and trying to fully explain the play.

Dr. Boughton. It could even be found in Coleridge. . .in try­ing to find out about the imagination and how it works.

Mr. MacPhedran. When you read, do you find ever a critic that you think is thinking about production, when he’s analyzing a play? Do you ever find critics speaking to directors?

Dr. Boughton. I don’t think usually they do, and that’s the reviewers, on a conscious level, but I think that critics very often go to the theater, and they may be aware of things, and so that I think it’s interesting when you’re reading Hazlitt or whatever, to 755 think what Hamlet or what Lears he may have seen. What kind of Lear did Charles Lamb see on the stage that he was responding to when he suggested that Lear can’t be staged.

Mr. MacPhedran. Would this interest you if there were such a thing?

Dr. Boughton. A critic who would speak to a director and tell him what to do?

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, say if A. C. Bradley had done a series of articles on advice for directors or would that turn you off?

Dr. Boughton. It would be a very interesting phenomenon. 765I’d like to see it happen, I guess just to really respond to it.I think A. C. Bradley speaks to directors without intending to and probably better than if he had intended to.

Mr. MacPhedran. Probably better than if he’d intended to?

Dr. Boughton. A. C. Bradley’s insights are probably more valuable here and there to a director, who’s sensitive to that kind of thing, than if he were trying to tell the director what to do.I see it as trying to explain what he’s done, after he’s done it, ideally. How of course, in the French neo-classic period and so on and so forth this was not the case, but I think for the most part 775 the artist has an embryonic idea that he’s trying to express through his media he doesn’t pay a damn bit of attention to critics in the process of doing it.

190

Mr. MacPhedran. Now let me try to piece this together.

Dr. Boughton. I’m thinking of the playwright now. I don’t think playwrights need to be critics. The point of criticism seems to me to be to make the work or art accessible to the intellect, and I think many literary critics can do that.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now let me try to piece this together because I think this is somewhat crucial. Maybe I’m overemphasizing it. . . 735but you don’t see a critic trying to tell a director how to inter­pret a production?

Dr. Boughton. Well, how to interpret is one thing and how to stage is another. Let’s put them both together.

Mr. MacPhedran. But you do see critics at times speaking about how a production has been done.

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. And yet you find yourself going to critics in order to help you in putting the play together again. . .

Dr. Boughton. I think I’m back at that stage where I said 795you do all this reading and as much as you can and then the time comes, and you have to start making creative decisions and the cri­tics have helped you, I think, in interpreting the words and in see­ing potential values, potential problems, potential approaches in the words. Then, you have to go start making your critical state­ment about this play. . .’’Let’s see these people, in this set, in this theater. .

Mr, MacPhedran. Then, if I understand you, that a director then can find something helpful in a criticism of a production to prepare for his production of the same play. 805

Dr. Boughton. Yes, but it will be a totally different work of art.

Mr. MacPhedran. What I was trying to get you to agree with was the idea that although you don’t really find critics speaking to a director and saying this is how to do the play in the future

Dr. Boughton. They are saying this is what the play means.

Mr. MacPhedran. Yet, this information, although it’s not directly presented for the director can be gleaned by him for future productions. So that in essence, they [the critics] are pro- 815viding this service for the director whether they know it or not.

191

Dr. Boughton. I know, but say critics generally, because I’m sure that a great many have written and done some things here that resulted from specific reading [i did] for this particular produc­tion, but I’m sure that all the reading and studying that I’ve done generally over the years also provided a lot of points of view, and a lot of ways of doing things.

Mr. MacPhedran. [He’s saying subconscious influence by critics as well as conscious influence.]

Because the idealistic purpose of this dissertation is to 825show that whether a critic knows it or not or whether some directors know it or not, there is an "avenue of communication" between the two —that it does exist.— and some directors have made use of it. This is why I’m interviewing directors, [to get an understand­ing of this avenue of communication], because as you imply it would be rare to even think of a critic ever considering a director or even wanting to.

Dr. Boughton. In my own mind, I’m deciding by reviewing some criticisms. I think that someone might try influences the way a lot of people look at literature, and ultimately this may influence 835 production, if only because it’s a twentieth century way of looking at a piece of literature — you know, the whole Frye business, the whole artifact business, and the whole Cambridge school of anthro­pological criticism, and so on and so forth, fits right into the whole literal approach to the theater.

’/ Mr. MacPhedran. Were you familiar, well certainly you were with G. Wilson Knight, but with the other critics beforehand? Were they names that you recognized? Roland Frye, Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine —?

Dr. Boughton. I was aware of that book, but I don’t know 845that I’ve used it before.

Mr. MacPhedran. R. B. Hunter’s Comedy of Forgiveness?

Dr. Boughton. That is a book which interests me because it deals with genre criticism, and it’s trying to explain the genre by tracing it back to the medieval form.

Mr. MacPhedran. Robertson Davies, of course, is known for other things before this essay in Twice Has the Trumpet Sounded.Wilson Knight, (Wheel of Fire) of course. . .

Dr. Boughton. I think one looks for critics, and I think G. Wilson Knight is a very dangerous critic, but.if applied 855well. . .you have to be very careful. But, he has an occasionalinsight that is invaluable in organizing. . .His essay on Measurefor Measure has to do with the four gospels in Measure for Measure, and you know after all, the Bible was being translated at this

192

particular point and so on and so forth. I’ve never looked at the Duke as a Christ figure in any literal sense, but on the other hand, you have this father image and the father image of putting on a religious smock, and therefore being literally a father in a way. And, as Davies pointed out, the very close relationship be­tween God figures and father figures in Dreams, and so it’s on a 865 subjective level and a figurative level, so I think it’s useful.

Mr. MacPhedran. Disagreeing with the literal level view, then, doesn’t hurt you from seeing him as a figurative Christ figure?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, yes, right. To see him as wondering through this world of evil and responding very much to the kind of things that he sees there as Christ must have responded.

Mr. MacPhedran. Before we get to the four works you did use,— we were at the point when you were realizing that you were going to have to review some criticism and again this may be a question 875that you can .answer more readily in general rather than by trying to rack your brains about this particular play. Do you just go into it cold and look for anything — go through catalogues and bibliographies or do you get to a library and respond to names or respond to titles you see on the shelves, or do you have specific things in mind before you get there?

Dr, Boughton. You have your favorites I suppose, and you’re likely to look at what they have to say, if they have anything to say, regarding the particular title. I guess I’m in the habit of reading shelves because things are misshelved so regularly in li- 885 braries, and as you know, they’re essentially lost when they’re misshelved. And I used to read shelves in the Shakespearean col­lection about once every two weeks. We go to the city library once a month and take out a shopping cart full of books for the family, and I usually visit the Elizabethan collection while I’m there and look at anything' new that’s come in.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now were these — I’m speaking primarily of the relatively contemporary ones, Hunter, Frye, Davies — all published in the sixties — can you remember, one that you had taken out ahead of time, before you connected them with working on 895

Measure for Measure?

Dr. Boughton. I can’t remember when I first read the Hunter book, really. Whether it was before or during production. I know that I was aware of it very early in the process as, you know, as a way of going at some of the problems of the play. At the same time, I was systematically going through things and, you know, look­ing at indices and tables of contents to see which books treated the play. So I was looking for everything I could find. Whether I’d read it before, I’m. really not sure.

193

Mr. MacPhedran. I was just curious because so many of them 905 were books that were published within a few years of the produc­tion, whether they were things that you’d seen.

Dr. Boughton. I think probably many of them were. Things that I had glanced at.

Mr. MacPhedran. Before we get to the ones you did use, I suppose we should talk about the ones you didn’t use. Can you remember, or maybe this is in general with Shakespeare, rejecting things.

Dr. Boughton. Do I have a list of people I don’t listen to?Is that what you're after? 915

Mr. MacPhedran. No, but I mean that you said previously that you went in this particular case looking for a specific thing, and I thought that perhaps I could gain insight about your view of criticism not only from the interpretation of the play that you did use. I thought maybe this might be a blind alley completely, but I thought I should ask anyway in case I could find out the things that you were disposed against. Maybe you took out books and thought they might be useful, and they weren't. I take it then that all the notes you took on these books are the ones here on these sheets, the ones that you did use. [He used the sheets of 925notes by copying passages from the sheets into his script book.]

Dr. Boughton. Yes, well for one, my dissertation dealt with the tragedies and so I have been less interested. . .1 mean I feel like I’ve plowed that field to a degree, and so I've been more in­terested in the other plays and in pursuing that kind of thing.I guess I was probably looking for recent criticism rather than older criticism. Not that I don't think the older criticism is useful. It frequently is. But in a play like Measure for Measure, you don’t find as much of it that is written. And that is pretty one-sided and kind of likely to be a little bit outmoded and so 935on.

Mr. MacPhedran. I was thinking specifically about the whole group of. . .These criticisms that you did use all would be what I would classify as very specific types of interpretation rather than, you know, a survey of the play, and the way it has been done.And I just was curious if you could remember even considering that type of general consensus criticism. . .for instance, with this play. One of the reasons why I chose it is that the criti­cism seems to fall into nice categories. That there is the whole group of critics that have written on this play as a problem 945comedy, dating back to Boas, who I noticed you did quote in one of the works. And then W. W. Lawrence’s William Shakespeare’s Problem Comedies. . .

194

Dr. Boughton. I think I listed Lawrence. I don’t know whether I took any notes from him, but I did look at him.

Mr. MacPhedran. And then, Tillyard followed up on Lawrence.And then there's been a recent book — Ernest Schanzer’s Problem Plays.

Dr. Boughton. I don’t believe I do know him. I have nothing against any particular critic. I have a great deal of respect 955for Tillyard, as a matter of fact.

Mr. MacPhedran. But again I guess it’s hard to divorce specific comments from the kind of overall view since 1920 or 1930?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, there was a tendency then to look at the whole canon and to see some sort of pattern in the whole canon.And I guess one finds the more specific things likely to be more helpful to one in a particular play.

Mr. MacPhedran. As I said, you probably had answered that ques­tion ahead of time. 965

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think probably if I had more time I would have gone into more extensive work and gone clear back to the earliest things, but I just didn’t. And I was getting what seemed to be helpful.

Mr. MacPhedran. What about the one book you have listed, the Robertson Davies part of Twice Has the Trumpet Sounded? I was curious because that’s not the kind of book you’d think of somebody just taking down [off the shelf] to study Measure for Measure from. But I guess you said you were aware of the production it’s about? 975

Dr. Boughton. I was aware of the book, but actually I had forgotten that Measure for Measure was one of the plays that was treated in it. I either came across it, or happened to remember it [the essay].

Mr. MacPhedran. I suppose the obvious question, although I think you had the fewest notes on it of the four, was how did G. Wilson Knight get in there with the other three?

Dr. Boughton. Only by drawing my attention to biblical parallels.

Mr. MacPhedran. I think you’ve answered this, but since you’ve brought it up, let me pursue it because it was a question I thought might be significant. Is there any importance, should I be looking for any significance in the fact that most of these

985

195

works are recent works. I think most of them with the possible exception of Knight were all published in the sixties. Is that a significant factor?

Dr. Boughton. Maybe, the modern critic speaks more to the modern director. Beyond that I don’t know. I read a great many books I did not take notes on. And these other ones that turned me on enough, I wanted the notes. /z995,

Mr. MacPhedran. Is that a general thing that you find true about you most of the time?

Dr. Boughton. No, not really.

Mr. MacPhedran. With Shakespeare more than with other things.

Dr. Boughton. Maybe, this particular kind of play of Shakespeare’s.

Mr. MacPhedran. Where there has been a kind of moral inter­pretation that’s a little bit outmoded?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. I just couldn’t resist that. As I said I 1005 was looking through the dates and realized this and wanted to know if it was conscious. I think it would say something about your disposition if it were — if you said I don’t want to pay attention to anybody who wrote. . .

Dr. Boughton. No, no. I don’t think that’s true. I think with perhaps the more universal tragedies, and so on and so forth, some of the older critics occasionally have interesting things to say and .valuable things to say and sometimes a critic is good just to make you react against. . .to make you face the problem and solve it on your own terms. 1015

And there’s a way around that, so this, doesn’t make any sense anymore, whichever the case may be.

Mr. MacPhedran. But, I take it that the ones that you really attention to—these four, Hunter, Frye, Davies, and Knight — were all ones that you were reacting to, most of the time posi­tively.

Dr. Boughton. Most of the time positively, or at least, they illuminated an aspect of the play for me and seemed to give me suggestions as to ways that I might go about doing it.

Mr. MacPhedran. This was the question I was asking you 1025before. Do you look for critics to support a positive view or do you look for something you can react against.

196Dr, Boughton. Well, I think both. I guess the other answer

still stands. There is that in me that likes to respond against things.

Mr. MacPhedran. You've said that about doing both. About looking for things that support you and looking for things that you can react against.

Dr. Boughton. Not necessarily that support me — that give one ideas that I can respond to positively. 1035

Mr. MacPhedran. But just a fact. I don't recall seeing a quotation, for instance, from someone other than these critics.From someone, for instance, that you’d put in as a quote to react against.

Dr. Boughton. No.

Mr. MacPhedran. None of it got to that stage?

Dr. Boughton. No, there wouldn’t be any point at that stage, I was putting in here things that I wanted to read be­fore I blocked the scene, before I planned the scene, and that I thought might be useful to actors if they were the types that 1045wanted to take a look.

Mr. MacPhedran. Because I think in several of the things I've read in trying to. . .it seems a little late in my studies to take on a new thing, but I’m now trying to understand directors and of course, this is something I’ve never really had to study — and have found mentioned, I don’t think I can place any names, but studying the works of some directors and in their biographies find them at times getting charged up in their production over a comment that they are reacting against and using this almost as a motto for their production, that they are saying in a facetious, 1055 sarcastic way. And you don’t find yourself doing that. . . going to that extreme.

Dr. Boughton. Well, other than that to produce Measure for Measure at all is to react against a great many critics.

Mr. MacPhedran. But I mean, when it came to actually getting to the stage of finding the critics to help you, or that you could react to in a positive sense, that those were the critics, those were the comments that really were useful in the final stage.Say, for instance, I get the idea that you think of yourself as sometimes as reacting against something, but that is a kind of an 1065 initial stimulus, not something that goes with you to the point where you would want to put a negative quotation in to remind you to go in an opposite direction.

197

Dr. Boughton. I would convert the negative reaction to a positive approach then and forget it.

Mr. MacPhedran. Good, I’m glad you said that. When you talk about converting it you mean finding a critic that does the converting.

Dr. Boughton. No, not necessarily.

Mr. MacPhedran. Doing it yourself in other words?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Again, a question that I have is I no­ticed that a good percentage of the comments were the actual quo­tations themselves rather than your paraphrase of them. Do you think of that as rather superfluous, as unnecessary? You remember how you feel about it and so you don’t need to write your comments in the text?

Dr. Boughton. Yeah, and I may want to react to it again.

Mr. MacPhedran. So that a quote just stands by itself, rather than any interpretation.

Dr. Boughton. Yes. Now you’ll find for example, some of it’s in green ink and over in the column marked one of the things that you’ll find is an interest in death and rebirth, figuratively speaking, throughout this play, and that also comes out of some criticism that I was reading, and I was probably finding it every­where. I didn’t the actors that, but I wanted them to do things at a slow tempo at this point whatever and that was saying that to me, about their being bothered with this.

Mr. MacPhedran. That’s interesting about reading some­thing that you react against and yet considering that as food enough for your thought without trying to find a critic that would provide rebuttal for the first critic, you do that your­self?

1075

1085

1095

Dr. Boughton. Oh sure, I’m a critic too, after all.

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, that’s the point I was trying to get at. We keep skirting that, and maybe since you mentioned it. . .do you consider yourself as having a conflict between being a critic, being a scholar, a teacher and then being a director as well?

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think that probably everyone has some problem at one point or another in separating the critical from the creative function, which I think you have to learn

1105

198

to do. . .As an actor you have to play the moment, you can’t let very much of your mind be devoted to saying "Was that good or was that bad?’’. While you’re acting you have to go ahead and act and direct all your energies in that direction and then after you exist the stage then you can set back and look at it critically. I think the same thing is true of the play­wright. If he writes a sentence and then starts examining the sentence critically he might never write a second sentence, 1115you know, as if he just had to let it flow, and then come back and look at it critically and correct it and so on and so forth. I think the critical function will inhabit the creative function if you aren’t able to separate them.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is there.any specific time in a produc­tion where the many hats that do wear come into conflict?

siDr. Boughton. Sure. You show there’s a stage when you’re

working very close with the actors and you’re up on the stage, and you’re trying to interpret this thing in terms of character in action and so on and so forth, and you’re not terribly 1125critical then. You’re trying to make it work, trying to make it play. And then you try to separate yourself. You get out in the auditorium, and you try to look at it as an average spectator or as a critical spectator. You try to find things that could be improved and things that aren’t working. There’s a time in production when you are being primarily creative.There’s another time when you’re trying to be primarily crit­ical, in order to help the students create.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then this happens when you’re working with them. . .1 gather from that you mean when you’re beginning 1135to work with them. . .as opposed to after they’ve gottenscenes or acts fairly well down. !

Dr. Boughton. Yes, you’re a collaborator at the first and trying to create along with them, and then you have totry and pull back and be objective which is hard.

iMr. MacPhedran. And do you try to get them to be

critical too?

Dr. Boughton. After they’ve performed, yes. Not while (they’re performing). . .Acting is something you do; it’s some­thing you talk about, but you can’t get the two mixed up. 1145So you do it, and then during the act break, you get down and talk about what you've just done, and whether there are some things you can do better. . .differently, next time. . . whether there are some problems you need to get rid and so on.

Mr. MacPhedran. Say, the next day that you would do that same scene, do you give therri coaching before you do it? Or do 1

199

you just let them do it and then comment afterwards?

Dr. Boughton. Not too often, because one of the things that they have to learn to do is to prepare, and you can’t do that for them, much as you would like to. You just can’t get inside their own skulls and do it; and they have to learn to prepare;and if they haven’t prepared, they have to learn to take the consequences for not having done it. And they have to recreate the experience every night. Last night doesn’t make any difference: that’s over. Now, tonight you have to start and live through the experience again. Now, you have habit patterns that you’ve been building up over this time, and the next time the habit will have been reinforced by one more time, but you have to keep the habit fresh.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, when you speak of "from one night to another" are you still talking about rehearsal or are you talking about performance?

Dr. Boughton. Rehearsal and performance.

Mr. MacPhedran. So that you are still instructing them so to speak, from one performance to another?

Dr. Boughton. If there’s need for it, yes. I’ll put up notes in the make-up room on the basis of last night’s performance. Sometimes it’s just one or two things that I have to say to each of them. I think it’s good to have these sessions with the cast before you begin, but my own respon­sibilities as a director have usually demanded that I be elsewhere for one reason or another. So that I have never had the opportunity of doing that. Maybe I’d do it if I were free from other things. But, at least for the first several years that I was here, I was in charge of running the house as well as the rest of it, and so there was no way I could be with my cast. I had to be out here making some decisions.So, you have to try to get them ready, and then it’s their job.

Mr. MacPhedran. Was that the case with this play?One question I’d almost forgotten to ask was whether you consciously tried to change the play from one performance to another.

1155

1165

1175

1185

Dr. Boughton. No, only to warn them if something seemed to be a little shaky or if something seemed to be happening that — well, for example, if someone starts to milk faucets a little bit, you know, then you could talk to them about this. Tell them, you know, "Watch it!" because they’re getting all these dead spots in: They may not be saying as much as you want them to. One actor decided to experiment during one performance and tried something he hadn’t tried 1195

200

before, and it didn’t work. And I warned him, ’’Get back to the rehearsal pattern because what you’re doing is not working." This sort of thing for the most part: "Last night was pretty good, but there’s maybe something we can work on tonight."

Mr. MacPhedran. What was the incident about?

Dr. Boughton. Claudio, I’ve forgotten which night it was, tried something totally different with regard to working on the images in the scene in the cell, and it just "splat" didn’t work. He was a very young, probably inexperienced actor, and he just wanted to try something.

Mr. MacPhedran. Let me be simple-minded — what do you mean by "It didn’t work."?

Dr. Boughton. It was dull. It wasn’t as effective as far as the audience was concerned.

Mr. MacPhedran. This brings up a question I had wanted to ask, how conscious were the actors of the criticism you were using? Did they for instance, work from prompt copies similar to yours?

Dr. Boughton. No. No.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did they see yours?

Dr. Boughton. One or two of them did.•!

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you ever quote some of these pas­sages to them?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, occasionally. . .depending on the actor. To some actors, who are more intellectual, this kind of thing might be helpful. To others, it would merely muddy the issue.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, if they’re ever involved in a produc­tion like this, the teaching of the play? Do they get credit for this?

Dr, Boughton. No. We’re talking about it now, and at one time they could have enrolled for 146 and 346, and they could get one hour’s credit for so many hours, but I think at this particular stage, we had already dropped that, and we haven't yet started anything again. ,

Mr. MacPhedran. So then, there was no element of teach­ing them the play as well as getting them to act in it?

1205

1215

1225

201

Dr. Boughton. Well, there’s always an element of teach­ing them the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. But not an official thing? 1235

Dr. Boughton. No. One of the difficult things is that several of these actors were being on the stage for the first /or second time, and you have to tell them what their upstage /foot is and what their downstage foot is and how to make a cross.In the same cast, you may get a Master’s candidate who’s hadsome summer stock experience. And you know to keep them all going, it’s really rough. ,

Mr. MacPhedran. Then, I take it, that in your comments to them, you were kind of paraphrasing the critics that you were using, rather than saying "Here is a quotation that I like 1245and that you ought to keep in mind." and that type of thing?

Dr. Boughton. I would get them to do things that would embody the criticism rather than either paraphrasing it or quot­ing it to them.

Mr. MacPhedran. And they didn’t know what they weredoing?

Dr. Boughton. Yes. Well, they didn’t know the critics, but hopefully they were embodying his object. And then in general, comments, for instance [i was] going after the dark humor that I felt necessary and was talking about these people 1255who are from the brothels, and Shakespeare doesn’t find them jolly good people. They’re very funny, and they have to be funny, but they have a threatening quality.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then, I take it, your comments tended to be in a kind of cryptic sense, or in a way, telling them "No, that’s not quite right," rather than spelling it out — you know, trying to make them do a trial and error thing?Or do you find yourself spelling out things specifically andsaying, "no, I wanted it this particular way," or "You’re notkeeping such and such in mind."? 1265

Dr. Boughton. "I’d like to have that a little more ironic at this particular point." For example, Lucio is a sensualist — we give him things to eat and things to drink all the time and want him to touch other people a bit, but if I had quoted criticisms to that particular actor, I would have just been wasting time. He wouldn't have understood it, and it would have been lost.

Mr. MacPhedran. You are. manipulating them, but you don’t want them to be aware of it?

202

Dr, Boughton. You want them to improve what they’re saying until they’re saying what you want them to say, and you want to encourage them to do more of this.

Mr. MacPhedran. Are you giving them the impression that ' it is their interpretation they are giving or are they always

aware that ”1 am doing this the way he wants."

Dr. Boughton. I think, I hope it’s a collaboration. I would say that the director needs to know more about the characters going into rehearsal than any of the actors. By the time rehearsal is over, the actors should know more about their character than the director does. The control has to go from here to there. It has to become their show. They have to get ready to do it for an audience by the time you’re through, and the umbilical.cord has to be cut. So they need guidance at the’beginning; they need help; they need —[a comment like. . .] "I think that’s a blind alley you are exploring there, so let’s try this instead." ,

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think this varies from the experi­ence the actors have? That the more experienced actors are more

• prone to want to create?

Dr. Boughton. To a degree. And I think it varies with ‘the show and the style also. I mean you have to decide how heavy you want your hand to rest on this production and how much you want it not to. Now I think one of the problems of doing Shakespeare in amateur theater is that we're doing Shakespeare, and they’re frustrated for two weeks at the mere thought of the thing. And you have to get over that, and you're creating character and action. I did not want a very heavy directional hand on this show. I wanted to encourage as much inventiveness on the part of the actors as I could, while selecting from the things that they were doing. And there were enough kids in the cast who were very, very, inventive that the others began to see that they had some responsibili­ties too.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did the actors you had worked with before feel encouraged to be creative to go their own way, despite the fact that they were playing, for the most part, minor roles?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I think so maybe. Although, the show did differ tremendously. I had done Oh Dad, Poor Dad the year before and that I directed rather tightly, imposing a style upon them. But I did not feel that this was that kind of show. I was after an easier style than that, a more flow­ing style.

Mr.|MacPhedran. Do you think there's something in the

1275

1285

1295

1305

203

play that makes Measure that just requires a loose direction rather than a tight direction?

Dr. Boughton. I guess so. I guess I don’t think it as formal as some of Shakespeare’s plays -are.

Mr. MacPhedran. I wondered because there always seems to be in a discussion of this play a discussion of the arrange­ment of the characters and the kind of proportioning of the emphasis which concludes that this play doesn’t have the kind of set value system or. . ,

Dr. Boughton. Oh, I think it does.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think it really does? I mean in terms of performances. Do you think it has a set hero, foil, etc.?

Dr. Boughton. Oh. From that point of view!

Mr. Mac Phedran. A lot of critics are very disappointed that it has such great scenes in the second and third acts and then nothing. They put this as a reflection on his talents — that he kind of ran out of steam so to speak.

Dr. Boughton. They don’t understand renaissance drama. That’s the way most of the plays are written. You have the big central scenes. This is the old fourth act problem — you hear that all the time: The climax in most renaissance dramas is in the third act or the beginning of the fourth act. It’s very near or just beyond the center of the play. In Lear you have the storm and the heath scene.

Mr. MacPhedran. So this is very predictable?

Dr. Boughton. Oh sure. You reach your big, your most in­tense climax just past the middle of the play and then you start moving toward the conclusion so that most of the plays are in two movements.

Mr. MacPhedran. So you don’t see it as any problem or any weakness of the play — that it has its big moments early.

Dr. Boughton. If it’s a problem, it’s- a problem in every one of Shakespeare’s plays. The only reason it’s a problem is because we are built to expect a different kind of play in terms of structure than this, and so you have to find some way of dealing with that fourth act problem.

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, it kills me when we put our view­points — that the fourth act problem is for us, not for him.

1315

1325

1335

1345

204

Dr. Boughton. That’s the way he always wrote the plays. That’s as a matter of fact how I got started on my dissertation . . .his tendency for a leading character in the play to be de-emphasized about that point in the play. Hamlet goes to England, Romeo goes to Mantua.

Mr. MacPhedran. But then, in your blocking for instance, you weren’t consciously trying to construct a triangular view. . .

Dr. Boughton. No, except that most stage compositions are triangular. They tend to group themselves in threes. If you only have two characters on a stage, then you’re in trouble, because all you can get is a line in terms of dealing with them. When you have three, then you have different centers of interest. And when you have more than three characters, you tend to group them in subgroups so that you wind up with something close to a triangle most of the time. . .measurably, not all the time, I was aware of judge figures, of parallel to law.

Mr. MacPhedran. Were you consciously trying to, say, for instance, with Claudio, instill this feeling of the of­fender role in him in the beginning, humanum genus?

Dr«, Boughton. Not particularly. I think we were just wòrking toward a young man who was sowing his wild oats and happened to get caught.

Mr. MacPhedran. Let’s see, the one that changes according to this interpretation is Isabella who starts as the advocate of mercy and then becomes the judge-god figure. Now, in working with her, were you, again, trying to tell her or make her see without telling her that her role was changing? Again, maybe I’m being a bit too literal.

Dr. Boughton. I don’t think I was trying to make her see a changing in that sense, in that pattern literally.

Mr. MacPhedran. Does her role change?

Dr. Boughton. I think it does. I would like the per­formance to have changed more than I was able to get out of this particular actress. I think Isabella should mature in the play. . .as the play continues. I wasn’t able to get enough of that out of her, as much as I would have liked to.I think she matures through experience as the play continues.

Mr. MacPhedran. Since we’re talking about her, I found something I thought was curious in light of what Robertson Davies says about Isabella in Twice Has the Trumpet Sounded;

1355

1365

1375

1385

205

1395

I don’t know if you’re familiar with another book of his, Shakespeare’s Boy Actors.

I happened to be looking at that book for something totally different and stumbled upon his discussion of Measure for Measure in terms of the feminine parts and so forth; he said something there that I thought was peculiar — that Isabella is never once required to change from her pose of rec­titude: "She is a subtle piece of stagecraft, but only one pose. In many of Shakespeare’s most impressive scenes, an approach from an actor’s viewpoint will reveal one actor ac­tive and the other actor passive." And he sees her role as totally passive, and not requiring much expression at all and perhaps being a boy that was not experienced. And I thought it almost out of character with what he says in other articles. And I gather from what you just said, that you see her as changing, as maturing.

Dr. Boughton. Yes. I think Shakespeare brings her out of the cloister, and he brings Angelo out of his cloister, and I think they have to face the real world and all the pressures that are in it. And their ethic doesn’t hold up in that case. And so they have to make some adjustments: They have to learn. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. I wonder, maybe this is something more apropos of a university production was this girl a fairly experienced girl?

Dr. Boughton. No.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did that bother you?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, because I thought it was an impor­tant role, and I needed really someone more experienced than I had. We all worked with her. Everybody worked with her.She came pretty close, and I guess we had one fairly good performance.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is this a tough role?

Dr. Boughton. Oh God, yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. That one (The Davies’ view in Shakespeare’s Boy Actors) was one of the few modern views downplaying the part — Is there trouble working with a girl in this part, convincing her of the kind of bends and twists this character has to take? Or did you find her identifying with Isabella?

Dr. Boughton. She seemed to understand everything up here (pointing to his head), but that’s only the first step,

1405

1415

1425

206and to get it and understand it in here (pointing to hisheart) I don’t think she could. She had a younger brother,and she understood some things on the basis of that, but I 1435just could never get the emotional range from her in the performance.

Mr. MacPhedran. How about the end of the play? Was this something she was able to accept, marrying the Duke?

Dr. Boughton. Didn’t bother her a bit, apparently.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think of it as natural, as prepared for, I should say?

Dr. Boughton. We made an attempt of sorts to prepare for it, although I really enjoyed, I have forgotten which critic now it is who suggested that they would probably have one 1445of the most richly neurotic marriages in the world. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. You see all the functions then re­lated together?

Dr. Boughton. If it’s a work of art that is successful then it would seem to me that you would have a welding of them rather than a separation. This business about a struc­tural character being bad — as a director I can’t somehow allow myself that luxury. A character is a character.

You see, no character is pure theme to me. Someone who is thematically important is not automatically on the 1455value scale (gesturing upwards) up here, and someone struc­turally important down there.

Mr. MacPhedran. Let me. . .that explains to me. . .I was as guilty as the kind of criticism that I’m, I think, against. . .that seeing the one critic as structural —Hunter is structural, trying to sort everything out, and Davies as much more theoretical and thematic. I was wonder­ing now why would he put those two together, but when you don’t think of them as piecing things out, they actually go together rather well. 1465

Dr. Boughton. His diagrams you can shove (Hunter’s).But the function is important.

Mr. MacPhedran. Let’s find a quotation to discuss.Here we go.

(Page 45/from Davies, inserted at the end of IIiv)"Isabella’s fierce chastity is another aspect of her love for her father; there is no talk of chastity from her, or of her nun’s vows, when she is claimed as his own

207

by the father Duke. And this brings us once again to the theme of incest. . .Is the poet’s unconscious incestuous wish directed toward his mother, as is suggested by Hamlet? or toward his daughter as is suggested by the foregoing examination of this play? In the psychoanalytic point of view, mother and daughter figures in the unconscious mind often merge one into another.” (Boughton includes along with the passage a concluding sentence of what I judge to be his own making:"Perhaps Isabella must mature from daughter-figure to mother-figure as the action progresses.)(Davies calls this section of his essay ”Das Ewig-Weiblich" pp. 82 and 84)

Do you think of this as a different point he’s making or as part and parcel of the Freudian analysis that you’ve already used?

Dr. Boughton. The basic Freudian analysis merely under­girts this —

Mr. MacPhedran. Let me ask you one question that I remember asking Giles, because I want it answered on both sets of tapes — in the big scenes, the Angelo-Isabella scenes, did you work with them separately ever or always together?

Dr. Boughton. Always together.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you take them aside separately?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, largely because the actor playing Angelo couldn’t get to campus. We started rehearsals before the quarter began, but the actor playing Angelo had a job and couldn’t get here, so I was rehearsing with the rest of the cast before he arrived. And so in terms of making up for lost time, we worked separately for awhile.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now again, I haven't asked a question about Isabella before. How do you get this kind of idea across to her, to this actress, that "fierce chastity is another aspect of her love for her father"? Do you, in this propo­sition scene make her ignoring of Angelo, "thick" to what he is saying, or is she putting on a front?

Dr. ..Boughton, I think she’s emotional in her response to life, and I think two of the most important things you do in this play is cast the Duke and Angelo. But I think she is not the kind of young lady who’s about to be propositioned in this way, and I think, you know, most virginal young

1475

1485

1495

1505

1515

208

ladies can play that kind of thing reasonably well

Mr. MacPhedran. Does she catch on quickly?

Dr. Boughton. She catches on, and she doesn’t catch on, you know. She gets the idea, but she’s not quite sure she’s understanding what she’s hearing so it has to be reinforced, and then she knows what he’s after.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, is she ever suppressing this, in other words, trying to not understand?

Dr. Boughton. Yes. She tries for awhile to put a better construction on it, and he keeps pressing to the point where she can’t ignore it.

Mr. MacPhedran. And to get back, this chastity then is something that is second nature to her?

Dr. Boughton. Well, almost, but it’s also. . .1 think any girl can relate — this is the kid that your folks don’t want you to date, and he’s trying to put the make on you, and you’re not about to have any, but her reaction to some­body that she really wants to marry, who is quite acceptable to her, would be a different kind of situation perhaps.

Mr. MacPhedran. And then that’s why there’s no problem at the end? She’s not hypocritical. . .was it Hazlitt who hated her for that reason?

Dr. Boughton. Well, she’s not that intellectual I don’t think. I think she responds emotionally or theoretically.

/Mr. MacPhedran. There again it’s a question of situation

ethics is it? I gather from this; here again I want to know if I'm being too literal or not; is this quote "There’s no talk of chastity from her, or of her nun’s vows." — an im­portant thing, that this nun business doesn’t really have anything to do with it, that as you said any woman could relate to her — that it is a man propositioning a woman, as far as she’s concerned, not a man propositioning a nun?

Dr. Boughton. I don’t think — Well, the one thing sug­gests that it is only a saint that would get through to Angelo and that makes sense to me. To him, it’s important that she’s a saintly woman, and I don’t think he’s aware of her until quite a ways into that scene.

Mr. MacPhedran. But to me, if I were being given this and were using this as a stimulus, I would think that this would make in portraying her is that she is thinking of her­self as a girl who has an attachment for her father that

1525

1535

1545

1555

209

enforces this chastity and that this. . .

Dr. Boughton. Her attachment to her father would be unconscious. She would sublimate that.

Mr. MacPhedran. I'm trying to sort out the roles. Is she slow to catch on because this is the kind of girl she was even before she became a nun? 15^5

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran.' The fact that she is a nun and is receiving this kind of proposition doesn’t increase the time that it takes her to catch on.

Dr. Boughton. No.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is that an important detail?

Dr. Boughton. Oh sure.

Mr. MacPhedran. Someone once said that there is a trickhere.

Dr. Boughton. There are lots of tricks in this show. 1575There are lots of one line "safe-way’’ outs for the Duke, and it’s just because of the subtle way he phrases it that you can interpret it one way or another.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is there a trick here in that he wants us to believe that she is a nun at the beginning of the play and to make the contrast sharp and remember at the end that she’s a novice and that she hasn’t taken her vows.

Dr. Boughton. I think it’s quite clear that the sister says to her: "Let him in, and you may talk to him because you are not yet professed, and I am, and so if he sees me, 15&5I can’t talk to him." I think he’s made it quite clear that she has not yet taken her vows. He takes her out of the cloister and applies the cloister ethic and finds it doesn’t hold up.

Mr. MacPhedran. And that it’s easy to wipe it away because she hasn’t taken the vows.

Dr. Boughton. I think by the time we are in the prison scenes, we ought to be thinking of her as a woman rather than as a nun.

She has to solve a problem, and she’s going to try her 1595'damndest to do it.

Mr. MacPhedran. She’s very emotional you said. Does

210

it hold forth then as the next step, that she’s psychological as well?

Dr. Boughton. Isn’t everyone.

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, I mean that she’s that type, I don’t want to say "type", but that this is being emphasized?

Dr. Boughton. Her relation to her father?

Mr. MacPhedran. That, and her debating with herself when she tells Claudio of what has happened. In other words, is 1605this a girl who’s telling somebody because she just has totell them — she’s emotionally active and she has to get itoff her chest, or does she want to sound him out? Is shedebating this at all in her mind?

Dr. Boughton. I’m not sure what you mean. If you mean whether she would give in to him: I don’t think there’s any chance she would give in. . .to Angelo.

Mr, MacPhedran. I’m just trying to piece together. . . in other words when you go to use an interpretation that can be called something like Freudian, I think that there’s the 1615danger, well maybe not the danger, but the question of try­ing to figure out how psychological you mean that. In other words, do you mean, by saying she fits in to in any way a Freudian analysis, does that automatically make her a "psy­chological character" who goes and examines all her thoughts — you know, the stream of consciousness — and is analyzing her role?

Dr. Boughton. No, everyone has a mind.

Mr. MacPhedran. Right. (I agree) because I don’t see her as that reflective. 1625

Dr. Boughton. No, I don’t either.I don’t think just because Freudian interpretation has

a meaning, let’s be very careful because much of what Freud is dealing with is the unconscious. For example, if you’re going to play around with the Oedipus complex, no character who has an Oedipus complex knows he has one: It’s entirely unconscious, and so he will repress the actual fact, and if it came up at all to the conscious mind, they (actual facts) would come out as the opposite, that's what they are, because he couldn’t face the real facts in his conscious mind. And 1635so, a character who has an Oedipus complex hates his mother:He doesn’t appear to love her.

So, you have to be very careful with this kind of thing, and Isabella would never be aware of any unnatural attrac­tion to her father.

211

I’m using Freudian because it organizes three characters for me because it helps to explain the relationship between Isabella and a couple of other characters in the play: That doesn’t mean she’s nuts. I think that Freud would say that everything we discover in the unconscious, we all experience. 1645The only person that’s troubled. . .is someone who’s fixated. zThe rest of us get over these things.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then you’re saying that she isn’t debat­ing this at all, consciously, but, just to tell Claudio, really opens the can of worms.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, and I think at this point, she has extreme sex nausea as far as Angelo is concerned: There is no way — that’s almost physical besides emotional. He would have to rape her, which I think he does figuratively speaking.

Mr. MacPhedran. One final thing, do you-think Shakespeare 1655 provides us insight as to why she joined the order? All we hear is. that she likes discipline and complains about it being too liberal.

Dr. Boughton. I would think she would find the world of Vienna as Shakespeare describes it a very uncomfortable kind of thing, and I would think that as a proper kind of young lady she might very well consider the cloister.

Mr. MacPhedran. For security?

' Dr. Boughton. Yes. And with her father gone the kind of discipline and authority and protection and all that kind 1665of thing.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is the nun’s habit then somewhat of a disguise for her? Protection?

Dr. Boughton. Sure.

Mr. MacPhedran. The same way the Friar's robes are for the Duke?

Dr. Boughton. Yes. And I suppose so is Angelo’s puritandress.

Mr. MacPhedran. I thought what I would do in going through the quotations is to do some minesweeping and see if it’s a 1675"yes’* or "no" thing then we’ll just leave it at that, if it’ssomething we think should be pursued then we’ll spend moretime on it. I don’t think from what the committee has saidto me that we have to worry about going through the wholething.- I’ve tried to organize my questions about certain pages

212

and quotations.Just a simple question: You mentioned Herrick but not

which work?

Dr. Boughton. Tragicomedy. He was a teacher of mine, and so I guess I’m prejudiced. 1685

Mr. MacPhedran. I suppose I was remiss in not asking before if you had a course from him in tragicomedy, even though it didn’t perhaps cover this play.

Dr. Boughton. No, I had the basic criticism courses from him, from Plato to whatever it was, wherever we stopped, at the end of the Renaissance I think it was and then the Ren­aissance to Modern. However, he was very much into that (tragi­comedy) and tended to stress that kind of thing.

Mr. MacPhedran. The big question is how the quotations themselves got into the text (the quotations from the critics). 1695I assume you took the notes first hand, and then you editedthem and placed them in.

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you do it chronologically (I-V) or did you do like one author at a time?

Dr. Boughton. I don’t really remember for sure except that I marked the parts of the criticism I thought were im­portant , and I probably went through it more or less chrono­logically. I put some things at a character’s first appear­ance that I thought might be helpful as far as the actor was 1705concerned, and then I put things that seemed to relate to particular parts of the play close to them so I could review that as I was getting ready to block.

Mr. MacPhedran. I want to know this to figure out about the proportion of the various critics, whether it was (is the result of) because you were at a moment which reminded you of certain criticisms or whether you were doing by critic where there might be the tendency to use more of one than another just because you got in the habit of using one critic and just kept going — starting with him for one character 1715and just staying with that book for all characters?

Dr. Boughton. I’m not really sure. I suspect that I reviewed the criticism and put it in the text where I thought it would be useful.

Mr. MacPhedran. I wanted to ask that especially because the question of proportion does come up.

213

Dr. Boughton. I would guess that that isn’t particularly relevant. Except that perhaps I might have put the. . .from Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded (might have used it more) because it is, does have, production in mind, and I thought 1725it might give some suggestions as far as actors are concerned, might not.

Mr. MacPhedran. Since you mentioned it, that is a ques­tion I have, about that book because it did, again this might be purely coincidence, but it did show up almost twice as much as the others, and I was wondering whether it was that kind of thing. Whether it was his overall interpretation that you liked or whether it was because of the fact he relates the interpretation to the play, to an actual production.

Dr. Boughton. I think an awful lot of it is because 1735he seemed to have reviewed the production originally and then gone back to it several times after it had been playing, and he several times indicated what had happened, you know, with the characterization during the course of the run and par­ticularly noticed some things that were not particularly ob­vious that seemed to work there, and it seemed to give some possibilities for some more subtle approaches to some things or some less than obvious approaches that might be useful to the actor or to me. So I don’t think that was particularly important in terms of interpretation, that kind of criticism 1745wasn’t particularly important in terms of interpretation, the main thing out of him was his Freudian reading, with Isabella and her relation to the three father figures.

Mr. MacPhedran. But you did think it might be helpful in terms of working with actors?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. This sort of lends itself to the main question of the dissertation, is this type of criticism a type there should be more of?

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think good impressionistic crit- 1755icism is all too rare. This type of criticism is usually like sorting a box of strawberries; someone is saying "This is good. . .that’s bad." and that sort of thing; it isn’t really very helpful. But, when you get an honest impression, of what someone did, it offers suggestions of the kind an actor can work with, I think frequently.

Mr. MacPhedran. I think we can probably cover several birds with one stone, do you think you found yourself, kind of consciously having an opinion about the Stratford per­formance, by using him — for instance, I noticed that you used 1765

214

something from him for almost every entrance of a character. Did you — can you remember developing an opinion about that production?

Dr. Boughton. I have a pretty positive opinion about it. I think as we covered last time, I really feel the Duke is central rather than Angelo, and so I felt that maybe there was a bit of distortion to keep Mason in a rather more important role perhaps than the play itself really justifies. But most of the things sounded interesting, workable to me; I think I had a pretty positive approach to it and attitude toward the particular production. I wasn’t trying to imitate it in any way, but I did want to take advantage of those sug­gestions as possible avenues that could be explored in working with the actors.

Mr. MacPhedran. This again may be something that you don’t remember, but I’m interested in whether or not this book kind of presented itself as different from the other critics and that maybe (that explains why it’s used so much).

Dr. Boughton. Of the critics that I read, this was the most thorough going Freudian interpretation of the play, and as I’ve indicated, that helped me a little bit in seeing re­lationships especially between Isabella and the various men.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then it was a combination of it being a Freudian interpretation, which you wanted.

Dr. Boughton. I didn’t want it, it seemed to work to me, seemed to clarify some points.

Mr. MacPhedran. And the fact that it spoke to actors.

Dr. Boughton. Yes. It takes that extra step. The literary critic is primarily concerned with the meaning of the text, and this is concerned with that extra step of visu­alization and projection beyond just what the text means, and so from that point of view, some of the impressions of what . . .the kind of effect an actor created can be helpful I think to another actor, whether he agrees with it or disagrees with it.

Mr. MacPhedran. It just seems to be shaping up that this will probably be the element of criticism that you used that I will be emphasizing the most.

Dr. Boughton. You could make a similar kind of thing in that you look at the Stratford Ontario production, and while there isn’t that kind of criticism about it, there are pictures and reviews of it and so on and so forth, and that

1775

1785

1795

1805

215

gives you a different slant, a different approach, and you can ask yourself "Why would the director have chosen to do this kind of thing?" which was different from what was done at Stratford, Connecticut as contrast to Stratford, Ontario. "How did this come about," and you can see ways how this interpre­tation could come out of the script.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think, and again this might be hard to remember, while it was an attractive source to continue to use, do you think that it in any way limited the use that you made of the other critics?

Dr. Boughton. I don’t think so, because there are vast sections of the script the Freudian interpretation doesn’t really help you with very much and so you can use it as an approach to certain sections but not to all.

Mr. MacPhedran. I asked that, because I noticed, unless I’m being. . .unless I’m not understanding I seem to notice or what I thought were many items that you had quoted that didn’t seem to me to relate directly to the Freudian question, and so I was wondering, whether or why when this seemed to develop into a pattern I wanted to ascertain whether it was coincidental or not, as to whether this got to be somewhat of a "friendly companion"; this might not have been on the conscious level; something that was a much more expeditious thing to keep going back to when you had a character enter­ing, rather than having to sift through a Knight or a Frye or a Hunter to find this specific reference, because neither of those three, as I recall, really divide things by charac­ter. (Davies to a great degree does.)

Dr. Boughton. Yes, they’re less interested in charac­terization than, I think, they are in theme and in structure and this kind of thing, sure. But, for instance, I don’t think, the Freudian interpretation helps you very much with the subplot character. It’s useful as far as Isabella is concerned: It’s useful as far as her relationship with her brother and her father is concerned, and certain other kinds of things like this, in that main action, but it’s not going to help you too much with Pompey or with the other characters in the play.

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, that makes me feel better because I noticed that with all the minor characters that Davies ap­peared as the principle source you used with each of them, and I wondered about this because I didn’t think of those characters as fitting into the analysis directly (And I won­dered about the fact that the quotations were saying anything about that.).and quotations not saying anything about that, and yet you used them for those characters as well. So, I

1815

1825

1835

1845

216

1855

was trying to see if there was a broad appeal.

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think, many of the other critics hardly ever mention those other characters or mention them rather briefly and so I don’t give any particular insight to them, and they (the characters in question) aren’t terribly difficult to work with it seems to me, if you have a basic comic approach that seems to be working. I think there are two aspects to the Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded, one is this impressionistic criticism of the whole production; the other is a comment on the Freudian approach that the produc­tion seemed to take.

Mr. MacPhedran. So, it does provide a kind of inclusive­ness, doesn’t it, that makes it perhaps a little more handier than the others?

Dr. Boughton. Inclusive, if you want to speak in terms of comment on characterization, yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. That it would be good in that it would probably have something substantial about almost any charac­ter. Whereas, with the others (critics), you may have to hunt to find things?

Dr. Boughton. Yes. Well, the things that other critics might say about the character may be mainly related to theme, rather than. . .or some other thing, image or whatever the critic’s thing is at the moment, but it might be a little less useful as far as helping an actor is concerned.

Mr. MacPhedran. I was especially curious, maybe we should get to some specific quote because I thought that some of the things that you had quoted from Davies about some of the minor characters, again, seemed to a certain extent to present a contrast to what I thought was your general inter­pretation of the character (in question). Let’s see, if we can get a specific example. For example, Mistress Overdone; on page 6, you quote his interpretation of Marianne Johnson’s portrayal as the woman of business as opposed to the woman of what he calls "the bawdy housekeeper of tradition", and yet as I understand you. . .

Dr. Boughton. We used the bawdy housekeeper of tradi­tion, yes (with a laugh).

Mr. MacPhedran. So that this is one instance, where there is, I suppose we should establish some kind of termi­nology, a sort of, for want of a better term, negative stimu­lus, in a way (isn’t there?)

1865

1875

1885

1895

217

Dr. Boughton. I don’t disagree with what he says about Mistress Overdone, I found no particular way to make this clear in our production; I think this could be a part''of the charac­ter, but I also think she’s a bawdy housekeeper, and that’s the main point, and I wanted to get that across, and the actress was doing that, and that’s fine. I suppose there’s a little bit (of that Davies idea) in the mime that we put in in the beginning, where she is concerned with the pesos involved.

Mr. MacPhedran. Was this then, I think you mentioned, that there were quotations of this nature, was this one of the quotations that you put in somewhat for future reference.

Dr. Boughton. I think I just wanted to let Bonnie (Banyard) know about this as a possibility; I don’t think I had any real deep reason for putting it there. I didn’t feel it was essential: It’s just another one of those possibilities of subtlety or variation on the obvious that might be useful.I don’t think we really made very much of it in the produc­tion.

Mr. MacPhedran. I did notice to go back a page to page 4 with Lucio, that there seemed to me, to my way of thinking, compared to the other characters, quite a bit of comment both of your own’and from critics about his entrance. . .

Knight: Lucio is a typical loose-minded vulgar wit. He is the product of a society that has gone too far in condemnation of human sexual desires. He keeps up a running comment on sexual matters. His very exist­ence is a condemnation of the society which makes him a possibility. Not that there is anything of premeditated villainy in him: He is merely superficial, enjoying the unnatural ban on sex which civilization imposes, be­cause that very ban adds point and spice to sexual gratification. . .Lucio can only exist in a society of smug prosperity and self- deception for his mind’s life is entirely parasitical on those insincerities. His false-because fantastic and shallow pur­suit of sex, is the result of a false, fan­tastic denial.of sex in his world. Lide so much in Measure for Measure he is emi­nently modern." [Up to the ellipsis is from page 89. The rest is from the middle of page 90, Wheel of Fire.]

And I was just curious why you seemed to have quite a bit of ’’direction" concerning his entrance.

Dr. Boughton. Well, partly because of the particular

1905

1915

1925

1935

218actor who was cast in the role (Bob Arnold) and the readingswe had at the end of the spring semester before the summer.He didn’t know quite what direction to take Lucio in, and I 1945didn’t either at that particular point, and I felt he wanted some kind of very strong direction from me as far as dealing with Lucio was concerned and looking at the character as Shakespeare wrote him, as I read it, I felt his age range could /be quite wide, there’s very little, you know, that says he has fto be young or he has to be old or he has to be middle-aged or /whatever the case might be. He’s a funny character, but it’s a dark kind of comedy, so I think because I knew the actor wanted strong guidance as far as general directoris concerned from me, I wanted to be able to give it to him, and I think 1955the idea of him being a pleasure-seeker was a very helpful one, and I did try in terms of props, in terms of business and so on and so forth to have him drinking, eating: a sen­suous kind of person, from beginning to end.

Mr. MacPhedran. And a strong physical appearance?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. I wonder, again, I hope I do better than last time, I think I didn’t quite adjust and understand — I’m wondering, from what I gathered you said last week, whether there is a correlation between this picture I seem to be getting, 19&5 and the Knight quote, the main comment of which is "Lucio is a typical, loose-minded, vulgar wit. . .a running comment on sexual matters," and it seemed to be a little stronger in language from what you said.

Dr. Boughton. "Attractive vice" is one way I think he puts it, and I bought that to a degree, the attractiveness of vice, but it needs to be a dark attractiveness, because as I’ve said, Shakespeare is not suggesting that these charac­ters are to be emulated in any way.

Mr. MacPhedran. I gather that you would go along with 1975Knight primarily for the line "He is merely superficial." but I wondered how that jelled with his emphasis of Lucio as a "comment-figure". To me there seems to almost be a contra­diction between being a superficial character and being a social comment character.

Dr. Boughton. Well, I wouldn’t think so, if the society is superficial that he’s commenting on. Frequently, I suppose a "cause figure" is expected to be somewhat removed from the situation and to be reflecting on it.

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, I wondered about that because 1985he’s said to be something of a "running comment”.

219Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you remember trying to keep him on the stage a long time?

Dr. Boughton. No more than usual, he’s on stage quite a lot for a character who has no more lines than he does. /But I didn’t bring him on where he doesn’t have lines.

Mr. MacPhedran. And the final comment Knight makes here is that "He is eminently modern." and I thought you could go mi 11 inns of ways with that, how do you take "eminently modern"? 1995What does that mean?

Dr. Boughton. It means very many things on the surface, superficial things: he’s a gossip; he’s clever; he’s skeptical; he’s a lot of things that I think people can relate to. We all know Lucios in other words.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think he’s an easy character to gain audience acceptance from? Is he a kind of a builder-up of approval?

Dr. Boughton. I know I was looking for someone who I felt the audience would kind of like, but only kind of like 2005and not completely like: I was looking for someone who wouldhave impact with an audience and who would talk with theaudience easily, you know, the asides and the direct addressto the audience, someone who would enjoy haying a "schtick"with an audience in that way.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is he a warm-up device?

Dr. Boughton. Might be. Might be.

Mr. MacPhedran. I remember asking Giles, but I don’t think I’ve asked you about the fact that Lucio is in that scene with Angelo and Isabella the first time, and whether 2015or not you gave him any particular staging device in that scene.

Dr. Boughton. The Provost is also in that same scene as I recall, and I regarded them as two different audiences, reacting to the same situation, but for different reasons.They both have considerable interest in Claudio’s case, itseems to me that earlier in the scene, there is a Justiceon stage, and does he leave before that sequence. (Justiceleaves at end of scene one with Escalus in another part ofAngelo’s house, and is not in Ilii at all). . .The Justice, 2025who was there, leaves with Escalus, and I felt that theProvost takes the place of the Justice figures by sittingthere during that sequence. The Provost is an instrument

220

of justice; he is not a policy setter: He has to carry it out, and he doesn’t want to execute Claudio, but he’s finding out in this scene whether he’s going to have to anyway conduct this unpleasant duty with which he tends to disagree. It seems that Claudio’s case is very much Lucio’s case except that there are some extenuating circumstances and differences in character, as far as Claudio is concerned, whereas there aren’t 2035as far as Lucio is concerned, and so Lucio is interested in finding out what the state of Claudio is going to be under this new ruler, and therefore what Lucio might be able to expect, if and when he gets in a similar situation. So I felt we have the Provost, who is a justice kind of figure on the one hand, and we have the criminal over here, watching night court as it were, watching the situation developing: Both have an in­terest in it but different reactions.

Mr. MacPhedran. So they are at the ends, and the central characters are in the middle? 2045

Dr. Boughton. Yes, that’s right, and I think his presence is very important in that scene, and his sub-text, his reaction to what is going on, which must be a different sub-text from what Lucio has. So, you get two different characters reacting to the same sequence in a different way,hopefully.

Mr. MacPhedran. Can you structure this, I suppose I should ask you about this in general, about the movement of Angelo and Isabella in that scene — Are they close or are they far apart, and then I take it that the Provost and Lucio are somewhere in the fringes. 2055

Dr. Boughton. Yes, they’re on the sides. She begins, of course, next to Lucio, who brings her to the confrontation, and who keeps egging her on, who keeps saying "After him, after him, you know, you’re too cold." and trying to get her to be more persuasive as far as Angelo is concerned. They begin at some distance; she works closer to him, then away, then closer again, and then encircles him, and ultimately he comes to her, and then they are separated at the end of the scene. . .One of my totemistic circling movements I’m so fond of. 2065

Mr. MacPhedran. That scene always seems to present an interesting situation. There was one reference speaking of Lucio on his entrance "blind birds of prey who love darkness" (inserted next to Lucio’s entrance, middle of page 6). (He didn’t know where it came from but added. . .)

Dr. Boughton. It looks like very much like the kind of thing that I might say about this situation. . .

221Mr, MacPhedran. I don’t want you to be afraid to say

when a comment is original.

Dr. Boughton. It probably is a reflection of that bib­lical quotation that men prefer darkness because their deeds were evil. But, "blind bird of prey" is the kind of phrase I’m not saying that it was original; but it’s the kind of image that I might very well get.

Mr. MacPhedran. Still, on that same page, there are four on the left, and I wasn’t sure how they fit. Most of the things you have on that left hand page seem to be different from those on the right — repetition of lines and comments of your own —

Dr. Boughton. One of the things that I frequently do when I’m first beginning to work on a script is the same sort of thing that image critics do, is to take some of the figura­tive things out of the script and copy them in the left hand margin, just to take the figurative language away from the text itself, to look at it, just in terms of the images them­selves with regard to the scene. Very often I find that in Shakespeare’s darker plays and in the later plays, the images are ironic, seems to me, and sometimes you can get a consis­tent pattern of irony going by doing this kind of thing, so that what this was.

Mr. MacPhedran. These specific green ink notes on page four seem to be a grouping of things that are all different forms. Do they represent a composite of ideas? Usually you use a sentence structure in your comments. . .

Dr. Boughton. And these are all phrases. A good deal of the stuff that’s over there (On the left in green/the red ink markings on the left hand page are stage directions.) re­lates to the big interest I had in figurative death and fig­urative rebirth (One of the left hand page comments from page four is "death — restraint from too much liberty".). As I was going through the show, I didn’t bother the actors too much with it, except that I would want certain things to be slow, and If they wanted an explanation, I’d give it to them and frequently that was just enough right there, and I was working some of those kind of things out here.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, one specific thing there that I won­dered about; "ignore the law/only pretense of following it."

Dr. Boughton. I think this comes out of an interest I think Shakespeare had in the spirit of the law as opposed to the letter of the law, and I think frequently he has figures who followed the letter of the law very carefully but who

2075

2085

2095

2105

2115

222

ignore the spirit of the law and you get this in Romeo and Juliet and so on and so forth.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then you’re talking about the charac­ters doing this rather than yourself.

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. To clarify, do you think of the law a key point in the play or just as a complication device?

Dr. Boughton. Do you mean the law that Claudio’s offended or the laws generally?

Mr. MacPhedran. Let’s take the Claudio-Law first of all.

Dr. Boughton. Well, yes, I think it’s very important.I mean in that all these characters and their attitude towards it becomes a crucial kind of thing, a grouping, contrasting, and so on and so forth. It’s sort of like a Spanish play where you have various concepts of honor: A noble has one concept of honor, the peasant has a concept of honor, and the military man has another, and the kind has another, and so on, and all of these concepts of what the honorable action in a situation is become crucial as far as the play is concerned. Lucio’s attitude twoard the law, Pompey*s attitude toward the law. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. So it provides insight in character as well as helping to carry the plot.

Dr. Boughton. Character and character relationship, yes. The whole thing, I think. Besides there’s the number of trial scenes obviously, advocates, and all of this.

Mr. MacPhedran. Some critics like to see it as a mere physical detail, and I’ve never seen that.

Dr. Boughton. I think it’s more than that, sure. I think the Elizabethans were, as the Greeks, very interested in law.They were. . .you know, half the records we have about various Elizabethans were the times they went to court (trial) over this and that and the other. And as free men, one of their recourses was to go to law about -things rather than having to bring these up and be just decided by authority. And certainly, when Shakespeare wrote the play, he’s talking to a new king.What is his attitude going to be towards the Puritans and others? So I think it’s farily crucial to Shakespeare.

Mr. MacPhedran. One more thing about that margin. You had the comment "Claudio dying./Juliet/Overdone."/does that mean that you were fitting them all into the birth-death ritualistic

2125

2135

2145

2155

223

idea you mentioned before. It was a bit elliptical and I couldn’t tell for sure.

Dr. Boughton. That’s a loaded margin isn’t it. I may have been thinking ahead at this point.

Mr, MacPhedran. Well, just now, in retrospect, do you see each of those characters fitting into this birth-death ritualistic treatment?

Dr. Boughton. Yes. Overdone "dying’' because her occupa- 2165tion has been taken away from her. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. Do Claudio and Juliet "die" for the same reason? They’re linked so, linked by the same law, but is there a distinction made?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I guess they do (die for the same reason")^ But I don’t see Isabella having anything to do with the figurative death of Juliet, and she does have to do with the figurative death of Claudio and with Claudio’s rebirth for that matter. I suppose Juliet "dies" only because she gets caught, and the law gets applied more rigorously than it 2175usually is, and it seems to me that she accepts the responsi­bility for what happens.

Mr.' MacPhedran. Is the fact that she’s pregnant ironicthen?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I suppose so. It’s also a guarantee of her eventual rebirth. . .in a double ironic sense.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is it a guarantee of audience sympathy for her? Is she an easy character for them to accept?

Dr. Boughton. That’s difficult to say because she’s around so little. Now, I did have her in the mime at the be- 2185ginning, and was relating her to Claudio rather importantly.But she’s around such a short amount of time: I think we sympa­thize with her as with a confessing sinner, and a daughterfigure as well as a "sweetheart figure".

Mr. MacPhedran. We see no negative characteristics for her so much as we do get a more human portrait of Claudio.

Dr. Boughton. Except that she does recognize that she had done something that she shouldn’t have done, and she accepts full responsibility for it. But other than that., yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Calling the scene with Juliet and the 2195Duke disguised as Priest, a daughter-father scene, is that a

22L,conception you had or do you recall reading that.

Dr. Boughton. I don’t recall reading that anywhere. I may have. One of the things that I have found in working with Shakespeare, and that I found in Winter’s Tale, is that it may be a good idea to take the figurative as literally as possible, some of the figurative things, in playing certain kinds of scenes just as an image to play the scene, and I felt that that was the case here.

Mr. MacPhedran. Just as a scene not necessarily as some­thing to carry out throughout the. whole play?

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think in this particular play, the idea, that if a man has committed adultery in his mind, it’s almost the same thing as if he had actually done it in terms of scriptural ethics, and I think that this kind of thing is in back of this particular play, and so I. felt that the Angelo-Isabella scene is figuratively a ’’rape" "scene, just as in Richard III, in the wooing scene with Anne, all you need is a bed, practically. During the course of the scene I attempted to play it that way, and I felt very much that way here. But I’m not sure how much of that we got into production in the time vre had, and I felt that this is both a literal confession to father as priest but to father as "father" as well, and I wanted almost a literal father-daughter relation­ship between those two characters, as a way of projecting the values in the scene.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then both Isabella and Juliet think of him as a father?

Dr. Boughton. Each with her own difference because it’s father-priest, and father-"father", and "father-figure," and one “on one half of that metaphor and one on the other.

Mr. MacPhedran. Let me get back to the beginning and yet stay with the death-rebirth business — on the first page I take it that most of this idea came from Knight.

Dr. Boughton. It’s primarily from the script, and Knight happened to talk about it. . .In that there’s this concept, for example, of Angelo, in the script as a kind of "frozen man," as a mannequin, who doesn’t really have blood in his veins: He has snow in his veins, this kind of ice in his veins, this kind of thing, and with several other characters as well,I thought there was this kind of figurative coming to life, withdrawing from life, "going back into life," and this kind of thing in much of the script.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then I guess I can take the beginning of his quote there somewhat literally.

2205

2215

2225

2235

225

Knight: It is essential first to feel death’s reality strongly as the ender of what we call ’life’ only then do we begin to feel the tre­mendous pressure of an immortality not known in terms of time. We then begin to attach a different meaning to the words ’life’ and •death*. . .(bottom of 84). Life is a se­quence of unrealities, strung together in a time-succession. Everything it can give is in turn killed. Regarded thus, it is unreal, a delusion, a living death. . .(very top of 84: the rest of the quotes are also from the same page, the next two from the top first paragraph and the last two from the middle or second paragraph). . .decayed appearances which death is known to end. . .The death of such a life is indeed not death, but rather itself a kind of life. . .In the problem play we find the profound thought of the sus- pence tragedies already emergent and given careful and exact form. . .profoundly mod­ern. ” G. W. Knight: (Wheel of Eire)

Then, you think of all of those characters we just men­tioned as "dying” as going collectively present a kind of realistic portrayal?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

2245

2255

2265

Mr. MacPhedran. That it is reality, it is to be expect­ed for all of them to be going through this type of experience?

Dr. Boughton. . . .for everybody to go through this type of experience in a way. I suppose the existentialistics and others would say that death is a part of life, and only by facing death and what it means and so on and so forth, can you really see the value of life as you lead it, and this part of maturation to a degree. It’s also related to the poet’s problem. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. — That’s what I wanted to get to —

Dr. Boughton. Because the poet is always going through phases and Brown of Syracuse University has talked about Adonais and the other early poems of its type and it’s paral­lel to adolescent initiation rituals, and you know the basic primitive kinds of things. . .that the adolescent has to die before the adult can be born, and this kind of idea. "The old kind of poetry that I’ve written is going to die, I’ve gotten beyond that now, and the old me is going to die and the new me will be born."

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think he was?

2275

2285

226

How much in keeping with what you think he was trying to accomplish in this play and the type of images that he tends to use. . .how much in keeping with that it a ritual analysis? Do you think it’s something that he would readily accept?

Dr. Boughton. Oh. He’d probably think it was very strange. I don’t know. No one is going to exume him. . . breath back into him so we’ll never know.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think then you have to dig to find parallels to this sort of ’’birth-death-life” type of ritual analysis or are they on the surface and you can skim them off?

Dr. Boughton. I think they’re in his unconscious, so it’s there in it to a degree, and after all how different is this from the Christian idea, which I’m sure was influencing him too. . .maybe not Christian, but any sort of religious attitude of sin and remorse and retribution and rebirth, you know, into cleansing oneself of sin and being able to start afresh, and this sort of thing.

Mr. MacPhedran. And also the fact that there was enough of the birth-death-resurrection ritual — built into comic theory already?

Dr. Boughton. Very likely, even though the playwright around then may not be aware of it, and then there is the plague in London that is going around, and the ever presence of death and this kind of thing. There is the death of the Elizabethan age and the birth of the Stuart age: There all kinds of things like this that could have influenced him.

Mr. MacPhedran. I’ve never been able to make up my mind, just how influential Aristophanes and the old Greek Comedy was in the Elizabethan drama.

Dr. Boughton. Well, you wouldn’t have to go to that, because there was an English type of ritual, May Day and Mid­summer’s Eve and all this kind of thing: It doesn’t have to go back to Aristophanes. It can go back to earlier English pagan rituals.

Mr. MacPhedran. But there is a tradition of some sort?

Dr. Boughton. Yeah. I guess.

Mr. MacPhedran. In the use of ritual in comedy.

Dr. Boughton. I think every age is going to look at Shakespeare in terms of its own age, and I think this works

2295

2305

2315

2325

227

with us, and as long as it works then what the hell, whether Shakespeare would approve or not. Everyone is going to under­stand Shakespeare in terms of contemporary experience.

Mr. MacPhedran. I don’t know how aware you are of it, but my Master’s was based on Northrop Erye.

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. He just dismisses this play from appli­cation to ritual analysis for the simple reason that it’s not a romantic comedy. That’s it; one line (in Anatomy of Criticism)

2335and out

Dr. Boughton. Well, sorry. . .Northrop Erye. . .But!

Mr. MacPhedran. This is why I have to try to get beyond my prejudice.

Dr. Boughton.. Well, you see, Frye himself ought to know, that the' same basic ritual is used to explain both comedy and tragedy. I recall the story of the Sitwells who asked their father if he liked the kind of thing they wrote and he said no because he liked happy endings, and they said, "But life isn’t like that, daddy, things don’t end happily all the time." He said "Oh yes they do, it just depends on when 2345you want to stop the story." And that usually the young man will get the girl, if he wants her badly enough. . .Ten years later it may be a tragedy, but at the moment it’sa comedy. . .If you end with the wedding ceremony. You cansay the same thing ab&ut the crucifixion. If you end the(story of) crucifixion before the resurrection you havetragedy, if you let it go to the resurrection, you havetechnically a"happy ending. The things that are writtenabout comedy explain characters in tragedy just as well asthey do about comedy. 2355

Mr. MacPhedran. I’ve always thought that as little we know about what were the primary influences on Shakespeare, we know that the comic writers preceding him, Lyly and Greene I think especially, were "university wits" and they were the ones that brought in this mixture (tragedy and comedy) in the first place, and so I’ve always taken that to mean that well I guess one can assume they knew what they were doing, and certainly if nothing else Shakespeare was in­fluenced by all of his contemporaries.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, and we really have to go into what 2365the typical education of the time was, before we can assume that Shakespeare was terribly ignorant, not having gone to the university. Basic education was over before you went to

228

the university. You went there to specialize. You don’t have to have a degree to be educated. But those "university wits" did, and so they probably were quite premediated, and it rubbed off on him, if for no other reason than that (one can "prove" the consciousness of his use of ritual elements).I always hate to pussyfoot on that issue, but I’ve learned to try to.

Dr. Boughton. Well, Shakespeare didn’t know about Freud either.

Mr. MacPhedran. We should mention that. I remember asking Giles that. . .whether you think in a hypothetical sense, that this is something that had he known about it, would he accept and investigate. . .or again, given the background of the times, is this something they would have incorporate into their view on comedy.

Dr. Boughton. I’m not sure Shakespeare had a view on comedy. He wrote many kinds of comedy, depending on the situation.

Mr. MacPhedran. No, I agree, that’s why it’s, as I said, safer to go to his contemporaries to get a little more consistency.

But in general you don’t see any conflict in using some­thing like Freudian analysis with Shakespearean comedy?

Dr. Boughton. As long as they’re using it to under­stand the work, rather than to understand Shakespeare. I don’t think you can psychoanalyze. . .1 don’t think there’s any point in trying to psychoanalyze the author.

Mr. MacPhedran. And say "He had this in mind all along."

Dr. Boughton. Or that "this" is symptomatic because I think what a writer writes is not symptomatic or his own emotion necessarily. What he writes grows out of his own emotional experience, but it doesn’t grow out of any specif­ic emotion. I think it works in the imagination like a crystallizing process. When a playwright chooses to write about a certain situation, everything he knows about that situation that’s related to it, crystallizes around that, so he’s not writing about any particular aspect of his own life, but what he’s observed, what he’s felt, all the kind of past experience of this kind of thing he’s had.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think that Davies was trying to do this too — use the Freudian analysis to interpret the play and not the author?

2375

2385

2395

2405

229

Dr, Boughton. Yes, he does talk about what he calls certain biographical facts, as far as Shakespeare’s life is concerned because he thinks he would have certain kinds of preoccupations naturally at this particular phase in his life, and if that helps you to justify using this particu­lar critical tool then O.K., but that’s not particularly important as far as I’m concerned.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you tend to think of other critics as trying to interpret Shakespeare and not the play?

Dr. Boughton. I think some do yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Are those ones that you generally turn away from?

Dr. Boughton. Not necessarjJLy, if they have something valid to say about the play. But I may question their mo­tives if not the results of their brain.

Mr. MacPhedran. What about Knight. . .as you said, he uses some dangerous analogies. Do you think his motive is understanding the play or understanding Shakespeare?For example, his motivation to use the gospels in this play?

Dr. Boughton. I think in this instance, there’s enough biblical, if not quotations, then something very close to it. . .echoing of biblical language at times. I think it throws a useful insight on the play. . .But, when he writes about Richard III as Hitler, then this is something else again, or when he takes the imagery associated with Claudius and compares it to the imagery associated with Hamlet and doesn’t get the irony involved in the situation, he draws erroneous conclusions about the character of the two men:Then I think him dangerous. . .or when he tries to force everything in his dichotomy of chaos on the one hand and order on the other. Then. . .Well, I think there are chaos symbols and order symbols in Shakespeare’s and what he has to say about that can be useful at times.

Mr. MacPhedran. So he runs hot and cold?

Dr. Boughton. Yes. He also, incidentally, is one of the few critics, who is active in Shakespeare.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think this shows up in his criticism?

Dr. Boughton. Some of it yes. Hamlet’s insanity, his talk about that. I think his experience as an actor shows us there.

2415

2425

2435

2445

230

. Mr. MacPhedran. I noticed that in many cases, you have a biblical quotation or the notation from the Bible along­side it. Am I to infer that most of these are from Km’ght or do you remember getting them from the Bible yourself?

Dr. Boughton. I think most of them are. I may have put in a few myself, but I think most of them are his.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think of the references or the passages in which you use biblical quotes alongside the text.. . .Do you think of there being biblical allusions in this play or simply biblical parallels?

Dr. Boughton. There are some allusions. There are some where the language is close enough to biblical language that I would call it literary allusion to a certain extent. They occur often enough that I think they have some thematic and structural significance.

Mr. MacPhedran. I noticed some critics very hesitant on this point, and I think you were a few minutes ago if I remember. . .as to whether Shakespeare was definitely using the Bible, which of course, he often did, or whether, there seem to be, if you look at it in that light casual parallels.

Dr. Boughton. Well again that’s something one can never prove. If the parallel is close enought that it rings the bell as far as the modern person who knows something of the Bible, listening to the play, then you really can’t help that.

Mr, MacPhedran. Let’s take one — the light and the torches business, that’s on page two. Next to the line "Heaven doth with us as we with torches do." (li, 1.34«) You quote from the Sermon on the Mount. "Ye are the light of the world.A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light under all that are in the house." (He does list whether this came directly from Matthew, V.14, or from Knight, page 77, who also compares it to the same line.)

Do you think of that one as casual or seemingly pre­mediated?

Dr. Boughton. It could well be casual, except that I think that the quotation is helpful to me in finding a value to that particular part. Whether Shakespeare is di­rectly alluding to it or not, I don’t know.

Mr. MacPhedran. I wonder because I do remember reading Knight on this point, and I came away again unclear either he or you are going one step further here and saying not only is there a parallel, but there’s a sermon. Do you think

2455

2465

2475

2485

2495

231

he is sermonizing — I mean the character more than Shakespeare?

Dr. Boughton. No, I don’t think of the Duke primarily as sermonizer, but I think he’s concerned with ethics at the moment, and he’s going to do something that may be dangerous, and he’s concerned with the people to whom he’s about to zturn over the power. /

Mr. MacPhedran. Is there sermonizing in this play? '

Dr. Boughton. Oh, I suppose you could regard the whole play as a sermon in a way.

Mr. MacPhedran. This does bring up a mention of Claudio 2505on Page 8, you quote Davies who seems to stress Claudio’s speech on the terrors of death. I don’t think the speech is there, but you used it because that’s where he first comes in.

Robertson Davies: Twice Have the Trumpets Sounded:Claudio. . .is a difficult part, for he mustfill at least part of the role of hero withouthaving anything heroic to do. He appears firstas a convicted seducer, which as an undesirablethough perhaps not irreparable, handicap if 2515he is to gain the full approval of the audience.We sympathize with him when he appeals to Isabella to take the course which will save his life, but when she gives him her famous tongue-lashing, he has no satisfactory re­play. Even at the end of the play, when Claudio is released, his sister gives him no greet­ing. . .(curiously, Boughton cuts off the sentence at this point and leaves out whatthe rest of the sentence and the next couple 2525of sentences say about what a director usu­ally does to handle that final meeting of brother and sister; one of the few mentions of ’’director" by name in Davies. He resumes a few sentences later.) Douglas Rain. . . gave Claudio a dignity in misfortune which commanded our pity, and he spoke his famous speech about the terrors of death with a degree of imaginative power which was oneof the high points of the production. 2535(Pages 95 and 98)

Davies put quite a bit of emphasis on this speech, not really as sermon, but as a very indicative passage.He emphasizes the idea that Shakespeare is trying to get us to sympathize with him and as he says give him our "pity" and then Davies compliments Douglas Rain for giving Claudio

232dignity, and then went on to say it gave him "imaginative power" and was a "high point of the production." I have two questions, about that. First, is Claudio a kind of voice?I know it’s Hunter, who uses Claudio as the "human genus," the everyman figure. Do you think of this as a conscious or as a strong impression that Shakespeare is building into the play?

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think the poetry is more im­portant than the sermon: that it (should) be an imaginative moment. I mean, I think, it’s a moment where a man has to face the possibility of death and what his attitude toward it is and so on.

Mr. MacPhedran. I wonder about this myself, in that I think of Claudio as being subject to ridicule as much as sympathy. His humanness is not just in a positive light but that we recognize our cowardice, our weakness in him as well. I guess it makes be balk a little bit to think of him as delivering a speech, a sermon, and I was just won­dering whether you went along with the idea or whether you thought as Davies seems to that this is quite an important moment in the play?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, poetically, and I suppose in a way, dramatically. I agree with him, but I think we are . . .that Shakespeare wants us to sympathize with Claudio, and yet he’s under arrest when we first see him, and we hear nice things about him from some of the other characters; it's almost like Euripides trying to make us think (in Alcestis) that Admetus is really a great guy, when we don’t see him do anything that seems to be very great, but, every­one in the play’s attitude is that he doesn’t deserve the fate that he seems to have, and so I think it’s very dif­ficult to play — reminds me a little of Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, who also is supposed to be a nice and charm­ing guy, but he does some things that really make it dif­ficult for him to maintain audience sympathy.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then, we’re identifying with his strengths and his weaknesses?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, but I think as every man faces death, there is something a little noble in this. You think of Eunesco’s Exit the King where his Bourangir figure is somewhat .more noble than he usually is, and he seems to be implying (Ionesco) that even Bourangir facing death makes a "king" of him figuratively, an enobling kind of experience.

Mr. MacPhedran. To me, this Claudio is a little easier to take than the other one.

2545

2555

2565

2575

2585

233

Dr, Boughton. Yes, indeed, but the same kind of danger is there. The audience could easily think "What a schlump." and that would be the end of it.

Mr. MacPhedran. This one seems to be more of a well- rounded personality.

Dr. Boughton. Yes. The harshness or the realness of the character seems to be instinctive; the other one seems to be pushed into acting as he did. Obviously, Isabella has a heroic image of Claudio that doesn’t quite jive with 2595his real self, a fantasy image of him, almost as Nora in A Doll’s House; she thinks that her husband is going to do all these marvelous things as soon as he finds out, and it’s anything but that, when he actually does find out what she * s done. And I suppose, to a mature audience at least, this is as critical of Isabella as it is of Claudio. She doesn't really know her brother.

Mr. MacPhedran. This brings up a side-point. (Dis­cussion of Papp’s Much Ado.)

Dr, Boughton. In much of the drama of the Elizabethan 2605period. . .they did tend to believe because of the humors people can change very suddenly and very suddenly. This comes out in Angelo in his sudden attack of honesty and con­fession, and all of a sudden he’s supposed to be a new man, after having been caught with his pants down as it were, and not being able to talk his way out of it, although he tries valiantly for quite some time: That kind of sudden reversal is a problem of most pre-modern dramas, very difficult sort of thing to play.

• Mr. MacPhedran. (What about the Stratford Connecticut 2615Measure?) I take it you have an unfavorable view.

Dr. Boughton. I didn’t really think of it as a pos­sibility, because I knew I was going to have to use our basic set of costumes for the play, so I was stuck with setting it in period, and so I didn’t consider the possibility of shifting periods or doing anything of that kind with it because I didn’t have a choice.

Mr. MacPhedran. But, you’d pretty much made up your mind to use a dark period rather than a light one.

Dr. Boughton. Yes. I wanted the comedy to be as funny 2625as it possibly could be, but I wanted it to have a dark quality too. I have a feeling that’s necessary in terms of the unity of the plot, which is a misleading thing, as there is a dominant overall tone, but.it changes and grows as the play develops, I

231,

think, but you can violate unity of tone.

Mr. MacPhedran. You just mentioned a "unity of tone," this play has often been thought of as ambiguous.

Dr. Boughton. Of course, it’s ambiguous.

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, all right, now here’s the simple- minded question that I wanted to make sure I asked you both. 2635Is it, if there is such a thing, consciously ambiguous?

Dr. Boughton. In a controlled context? Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is the poet emphasizing the ambiguity of the.verse?

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think we would be inclined to, whether he did or not. . .in that we have lived through the existentialists and the theatre of the absurd and all this sort of thing and even going back to Eliot’s interest in meta­physical poetry and many contemporary theories of poetry and so on. Vie tend to emphasize this sort of thing. I think 2645we would seek and emphasize ambiguity in interpreting the script, rather than avoiding it.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, you see a unity of tone, you don’t see disparate tones.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, there are disparate tones, but there is darkness within the lightness, and there is lightness with­in the darkness in the poetry.

Mr. MacPhedran. And they blend?

Dr. Boughton. They partly blend, and they partly jux­tapose. 2655

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you see it as continuous enough, as consistent enough to, in your view, be premediated?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. This is something where we’re certainly on firmer ground. We know more about his poetic history.

Dr. Boughton. I think he had a vision of the play, and it stayed with him all the time he was working on it, and, you know, as a creator you make a series of choices and each of the choices you made limits the other choices that we can make in certain kinds of way, and we keep adjusting and making these 2665choices until you feel you’ve said what you want to say, and in

235

that point of view it’s an honest piece of work, which fits together. Of course, I think the previous age was frightened of ambiguity, and I think we’ve had to live with it and with the relativity that tends to go along with it — We’ve had to live with it, until we’ve learned to find some virtue in it, so I don’t think it bothers us the way it did a previous age.

Mr. MacPhedran. But you definitely see it as "poetic ambiguity" rather than, as some critics do, as "accidental," that this is a playwright losing his impulse and having things ambiguous because he has lost the capability of making them clear.

Dr. Boughton. No, I think that’s nonsense. I think you can get into this kind of thing, if you’re trying to deal with the whole canon, and you feel that you have to evaluate, that you have to put this play here and this play there, and put them all in a string or all in some kind of arrangement. When working with the individual play, I don’t think that has to concern you too much. If it’s an honest piece of work, and if it fits together, that’s all you need to ask.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then the lightness and the darkness seems to be one of the best ways of showing this consistency?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I think so. I think these are all citizens of Vienna; they’re on several different planes, but I think the moral situation of the city effects them all in one way or another.

Mr. MacPhedran. You didn’t find any real drastic juxta­positions?

Dr. Boughton. Oh, of course there are drastic juxta­positions.

Mr, MacPhedran. But ones that after awhile you weren’t expediting? Is there a code here? Where you can anticipate where there’s going to be a juxtaposition, this is what I meant by purposeful ambiguity.

Dr. Boughton. I think the Elizabethans wrote in scenes, and they were aware of juxtaposing one scene with the next one. You frequently have a violent scene juxtaposed by a quiet one juxtaposed by another violent one, and the two violent scenes are all the more effective by having the quiter scene in the middle. Where it shifts from a serious to a lighter kind of tone. Now, in some plays, you get the plot-subplot alterna­tion, which is almost geometrical. You don't always get this, however, so that, for example, I think in Hamlet, you could

2675

2685

2695

2705

236

call the Laertes-Polonius-Ophelia sequences almost a sub-plot to the main plot, but it doesn’t quite alternate, like the Lear-Gloucester scenes alternate in Lear, but you have that tendency for one scene to be a distinct change in mood, or whatever from the next.

Mr. MacPhedran. And this play does that.

Dr. Boughton. I think it does it, not in geometrical fashions as some plays do.

Mr. MacPhedran. More in tone than in plot structure?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. There’s so much comment, that this is a play that he just didn’t bring off that he "lost the name of action" in the middle.

Dr. Boughton. As you were saying last time, you could say the same thing about Macbeth from that point of view.You know you have this very tight thin until the murder of Duncan and then all of a sudden the subject of the play be­comes not Macbeth becoming king, but the results of Macbeth becoming king: the rule of the tyrant, the self-destructive ultimately mile of the tyrant, and it has been said about Macbeth that that’s the way most of the plays work, you know.

Mr. MacPhedran. To clarify, we’ve mentioned in dis­cussing the juxtaposition scenes and tones Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, is this to be expected in that they were all written at the same time, and that there’s no reason why this tech­nique can’t be used in a comedy, although it’s so often as­sociated with tragedy.

Dr. Boughton. Well, you know I grew up with T. W. Baldwin’s five point structure hanging over our heads, and I think that what Shakespeare knew of dramatic structure, he knew in terms of Terrance and the traditional five act struc­ture.

Mr. MacPhedran. I remember reading the Bradley piece on structure not long ago and commenting that although it was written about tragedy, it seemed to apply to Measure.

2715

2725

2735

237

Mr. MacPhedran. I gather that you would say "yes” but it 2745 would apply to almost all Shakespeare.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, King Lear is based on the Terrentian comedy of intrigue, so that would be an extreme statement if you don’t press it too literally.

Mr. MacPhedran. You would say, I take it, that most of his plays would fit this common structure, and that Measure for Measure and the darker comedies don’t necessarily have a comer on the use of "tragedic" structure?

Dr. Boughton. No, you always have the big emotional explosion just beyond the center of the play, and you build up to that; well, 2755 from there your problem is resolution, you’re building toward the final dramatic clash, if you consider the fourthact a problem,you’ve got it everywhere. I’m using "Fourth Act" not exactlyliterally now, because sometimes the explosion is a bit earlierand sometimes a bit later. But you expect, as you read more and more plays, you expect the tone. . . the tension to shift from a character who’s been very important to someone else, and you look for an empathetic action to begin to rise at that particular point.

Mr. MacPhedran. I want to make sure I’ve pinned this down,I take it then that you don’t particularly see him when he wrote 27&5 this play as being in a "tragic mood."

Dr. Boughton. I think, yes, it’s a dark mood for Shakespeare,I don’t think he could have written a light frothy comedy or was interested in writing a light, frothy kind of comedy. Now, (let me emphasize) he’s not writing tragedy, and so if you get all bent out of shape because it isn’t King Lear (you should get bent out of shape), because he’s not trying to write tragedy.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now to follow up what we just said, that all of his plays, comedy or tragedy, tend to fit this five act structure, do you think he's aware that he’s doing something different. We 2775 have always isolated this play and All’s Well, and have said that these are problem plays, do you think he’d be surprised by this?

Dr. Boughton. I think that he thought every play he was writing was something different, and it is.

Mr; MacPhedran. When he wouldn’t have seem himself as being in phases or periods? Like Picasso.

Dr. Boughton. Oh sure, any writer is aware of that. Picasso knew when he was going from a rose period to a blue period, or was it vice verse, I can’t remember.

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, I get him mixed up and also Anouihl vrith 2785

238

his "gray” and his "pink".

Dr. Boughton. Yes, "pink," "black," and "sparkling world."

Mr. MacPhedran. As I said, this is a legitimate thing to say about other artists, in that they are aware of periods.

Dr. Boughton. In so far as any man is aware of a change in the kind of work he does and why.

Mr. MacPhedran. You’re saying then that he thinks of any play as different rather than getting in this one and saying "this is not like any comedy, I’ve written" and yet some of the other comedies are similar. 2795

Dr. Boughton. You never let theory interfere with practice.And criticism comes after the fact. Criticism is a way to help us deal with works of art in a logical way, to help us understand what the artist was doing. But the artist doesn’t go to a critic to find out how to write a play: He just writes a play.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then I figure you would disagree with the notion that he was trying to write an unconventional play.

Dr. Boughton. Everything he does is unconventional.

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, but do you think he would have thought he was being unconventional writing a comedy unlike any other in the 2805 period when he wrote Midsummer Night’s Dream for example?

Dr. Boughton. I just think that’s the critic’s way of looking at a work of art rather than an artistic way. . . you know, you finish the last play, and you start the next one. You search for an idea, and you get it, and you find that turns you on, so you go with this play, and you do the best you can with this particular play, but the fact that you wrote a successful play last time means nothing. You have to start all over from scratch.

Mr. MacPhedran. I don’t mean to beleaguer you about this point but as you may have guessed, this is a point Giles spent a long time 2815 on, and I wanted to get your view. He was convinced there was a mood there, something drastic; that this was so different.

Dr. Boughton. The period does make a difference, that kind of general mood, there are times when you just can’t do comedy, and time when you just can’t do tragedy. . .Victor Hugo (with a laugh)

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you think that some of your feelings in this regard about treating each play as a new experience, as some­thing unique, is somewhat influenced by the fact that this is

239

Shakespeare, or do you tend to feel that way about any playwright?

Dr. Boughton. I would feel that way about any playwright 2825who had the poetic and the imagination, I have to have a play­wright I can trust, and I trust Shakespeare. Coleridge was right: he was not an idiot; he knew what he was doing, and he knew far more about what he was doing than I am likely to know. I feel the same way about Euripides, with whom I’m working now. I know a lot of critics who have said a lot of negative things about Euripides, but I don’t think they knew what the hell they were talking about.

Mr. MacPhedran. I think a lot of the things we are mentioning about finding avenues of analysis and probing in a play relate to something Coleridge said that it bothers him when people say that 2835 Shakespeare is not to be understood. He used the analogy that these people think of his works as one of those Gothic ruins, that there never was, they think, a complete temple. He was disagreeing with them and saying that it was always worthwhile to pursue. . .

Dr. Boughton. Sure, any attempt. Who was it that talked about unexplained beauty, was that Brooke, that that’s always a good place to dig. Well, there’s something in a work of art which attracts you, but you don’t know why, and there is a why if you can find it.

Mr. MacPhedran. That reminds me, thinking about Coleridge, 2845 I wanted to ask you about some of the things Giles put in his director’s notes that were put in the program they used, to get your view. Yes, here it is, "Coleridge called the comic elements ’disgusting,’ and the serious ones ’horrible’ did you know that view Coleridge had of this play?

Dr. Boughton. I’m sure I must have. I would have guessed it. I don’t know whether or not I reviewed what Coleridge had to say about this particular play, as I was getting ready to do it, or not.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is a big guffaw the best way to respond 2855to that?

Dr. Boughton. No, not really. I probably would have felt the same thing if I’d been alive then, but thank God I wasn’t.

Mr. MacPhedran. But then on the other hand, how do you explain the fact that Hazlitt said the work was "full of grace."In fact, he leaves something out there, Hazlitt even goes farther than that. . . in commenting on Isabella.

Dr. Boughton. What do you think he means by grace?

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, that’s true.

240

Dr. Boughton. If he’s using the term in a Christian sense, there are a good many critics who would agree with him.

Mr. MacPhedran. One question I totally forgot to ask you, and it’s a good thing I happened to look over my old set of ques­tions, is about the edition of the play you used. Did you have a debate in your mind, or was this a simple matter?

Dr. Boughton. It’s a very pedestrian one. I’ve been using the Folger Shakespeare, in part because they have a half-way decent set of notes, and with it the kids can dig things out on their own, and you don’t have to go into quite so much explanation.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, did you use the same one they did. I mean, besides this, did you have a different edition of your own that you consult as well as this.

Dr. Boughton. Oh yes, I’ve got Parrott and Parrott, and Harison and several others.

Mr. MacPhedran. But you pretty much used the one.

Dr. Boughton. I made my promptscript out of this: I studied the others. I think I read Harison when I was originally looking at the play. I think I basically use the Folger because they have that blank page where the kids could write their notes in.

Mr. MacPhedran. This is very much what he (Giles) did. The theatre, I guess, had contracted with a company for their prompt copies. But he hated it and used the Arden. While I’m speaking about him, let me throw out something from the one critic that he did seem to use and see what you think. He did pay attention to J. W. Lever who wrote the preface to the Arden, and he quotes him as saying: "Measure for Measure stands out amongst the dramas of Shakespeare’s middle years with equal emphasis upon the forces of discord and harmony."

Dr. Boughton. That sounds almost like Knight, doesn’t it?

Mr. MacPhedran. And Hunter, isn’t it?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I guess so.

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, there's someone, that I was going to ask you about, that I think I’ve skipped that you used that used almost that exact phrase.

Dr, Boughton. I would have said that harmony is a little more pleasant in the beginning and the end and discord is in the middle.

2865

2875

2885

2895

241

Mr. MacPhedran. (Here’s what I was thinking of) It’s Hunter; the hatred within love, the discord within concord (in his text on page two in conjunction with Act I Scene I).

Dr. Boughton. That’s a Lear-like kind of phrase that I kind 2905 of like.

Mr. MacPhedran. It’s interesting to me, talk about directors being influenced by critics, I always want to know if one critic can be influenced by another that they could subconsciously come up the same phrase. I’m always curious about that.

Dr. Boughton. And how much is in the play (I guess he’s gone back to referring to how much what a director is influenced by is actually infused into the performance.)

Mr, MacPhedran. Is it possible that Shakespeare can inspire people to come up with almost the same phrase? 2915

Dr. Boughton. Yes, that’s kind of interesting, in terms of analysis. It’s just crossed my mind that when I was doing End Game, I was doing a "beat’’ analysis, and I asked my assistant director to do one also with both of us working independently, and we put them together, and they were almost exactly the same. . . as difficult as that play is.

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, as I told you, I think it’s Frye said a great deal of the stuff that I said in my Masters thesis. I’m just happy that he waited until after 19 66 to write his book. And it was this kind of thing that stuck me with the similarity between 2925 the quotes of Lever and Hunter.

Dr. Boughton. Well, there’s discord and chaos and harmony and this kind of thing. It was probably, I think we’re more inter­ested in the characters and their psychology, but I have the feeling that this kind of thing is probably very important to the Eliza­bethans, much more than perhaps to us, the whole idea of getting things back into kilter at the end of the play which tends to be kind of sappy to us.

Mr, MacPhedran. Well, let’s maybe accentuate things and exaggerate things. Say you have a choice in presenting a production 2935 which tried to recreate, what you think of as the Elizabethan. . . (treatment)

Dr. Boughton. No way!

Mr. MacPhedran. You want the contemporary?

Dr. Boughton. You can never know what the play meant to the Elizabethans. You can never know what it meant to Shakespeare

242

really, and you always have to redo the play, maybe I ought to draw your attention to a book that I use in the aesthetics course, Ted Shanks’ book on the Art of Dramatic Art. He points out that the script is an unfinished thing, and indeed he would like to call the 2945 actor the "co-author’’ of the script because the script can just tell the actor what to say, the actor and the director have to discover zhow to say it. And half of the meaning is in how it’s said rather / than in what is said. So that he regards interpretation as just / the first step that you go through. Now, I think the critics are very useful and very important up to the point where you decide what you’re going to do with them, and then youhave to start-- you have to make your own creative decisions.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now even if this had been, say, we weren’t working with the Elizabethans, but we were instead dealing with 2955 another period that we knew better, and that we knew conclusively that the playwright was speaking toward his audience.

Dr. Boughton. There was a very good examply here on campus just recently with the production of the Anouihl Antigone in which Anouihl was obviously using the play because the story was one that would enable him to say something that would mean one thing to the French and something else to the Germans (occupying France). And with the German occupation of France in mind. I don’t think that plays anymore. The average audience, especially the kids over here in a university who go in (to the play) don’t know that much about 29^5 occupied France and World War II and don’t care. So I think there’s no way you can play the script that way, and I don’t know but I suspect that the Cornell production probably emphasized certain things in terms of business and movement and so forth more than they were done originally in France in order to get this message-"across directly after the war. The pictures of her in the so-called third degree scenes and this sort of thing, looking as though she’d just been arrested by two gestapo agents and this sort, of thing. I’m sure it’s much more exaggerated than it was in France. It wouldn’t need to have been. 2975

Mr. MacPhedran. I think we said this before, but let me throw it in again, because I think we’re saying things a little more literally now. Where does satisfying yourself fit in? We’ve talked about satisfying authenticity and satisfying the audience.If you had that same play, an interpretation that was perhaps esoteric, would you feel a compunction to do it as opposed to one more readily understandable?

Dr. Boughton. Oh dear, I’m such an ecclecticist. It’s dif­ficult to say. I must admit, I usually do a thing or two just for me that I don’t expect anyone else to understand or to get anything 29&5 out of, but hopefully it’s somewhere in the background, and it’s not going to bother too many people too much. I have to admit, I do that.

243

Mr. MacPhedran. This is one aspect of the possible findings part that we set up (in the dissertation proposal) so that we can possibly learn about the amount of attention that’s paid to audience. Both of you de-emphasize audience to a great degree.I think Giles mentioned the audience about once.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, well, you know, you’re trying to do the damn play and you hope the audience will enjoy it. I guess. . . 2995you do have the audience in mind always in mind, I think, but the people who are going to get the most out of production , maybe I would feel less this way if I were directing commercially rather than in educational theater, but the people who are really going to get the most out of any production are the actors and directors who are working on it for this extended period of time, and Ithink we owe something to those actors, and we owe something toourselves for that matter to. . .to use the production to learn something that rill be beneficial to classes and to perhaps publication. And so we have that kind of responsibility too, I 3005think. And maybe we’re a little self-indulgent at times, I don’t know.

Mr. MacPhedran. Another major question I forgot to ask is what is your experience in the commercial theater?

■ Dr. Boughton. None.

Mr. MacPhedran. Have you been in amateur groups or in community theater groups?

Dr. Boughton. No, I’ve always been quite deliberately in university theater. I wouldn’t want to go the off-off Broadway route or the commercial Broadway route. That doesn’t interest 3015me. I suppose this is one of the reasons Elia Kazan has never gotten to do Measure for Measure you know. He’s got to do another ’’Kazan’1 show all the time. It’s so interesting that when he founded the Repertory Company the first show he chose to do was The Changeling, of all things. One of my favorites. Well, me too. But he’d been doing Tennessee Williams and that sort of thing and eventually had to go back to doing that.

(Discussion of contemporary Eliz. plays I’d read that interesthim: just titles)

Dr. Boughton. Well, look at the difference in attitude 3025towards those plays today from what they were twenty-five years ago, and that’s why some of the things about Measure for Measure don’t bother you anymore.

Mr. MacPhedran. One thing we overlooked/Quote on page two.The large quotation by Hunter about Angelo as a man ’’ignorant of

244

human nature including his own" and the quote on Page 3 by Daviesthat he "was a man against whom ordinary temptation would have beenpowerless." There seems to be a concentrated effort on the part ofboth of these critics to see Angelo, maybe not as extraordinary,but as non-ordinary. Do you see that? 3035

Dr. Boughton. I think Shakespeare suggests that he’s not ordinary in the beginning, and also that he’s untested.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now do you think he’s saying that about any Puritan?

Dr. Boughton. I think he’s saying that about the particular law that the Puritans would liked to have had placed into effect.

Mr. MacPhedran. Or is he an extraordinary Puritan? Even as Puritans go. What I’m getting at is how relative are these personalities. Is he really a remarkable character? or does his iciness really get emphasized because of its relativity? 3045

Dr. Boughton. Well, of course, it is relative, because he’s not yet been tempted. I guess I think a little bit of Hypolytus in relation to him in that Hypolytus is a very moral young man as far as sexual ethic is concerned, and it’s like the high school sophmore whose’s the great big gorgeous football star and all the girls are madly in love with him, but he just hasn’t taken a tumble yet. And the kind of thing he’s likely to say, he’s likely to unsay in another two or three years, when he happens to open his eyes and take a notice and react to what's going on around him.

Mr. MacPhedran. But there’s enough of Angelo here to stand 3055 by himself, rather than just fitting into a diagram.

Dr. Boughton. Well, he’s a character: He's not a symbol, entirely. I think it's important to Shakespeare that he’s a Puritan. I think that he's obviously an educated man who has shown extraordinary qualities as an administrator, and in whom the Duke obviously places a good deal of trust and faith and yet is curious about.

Mr. MacPhedran. Nov; one thing that we still did not quite cover—still on that business of Davies on Page 2 (actually Page 3)*

He lists several kinds of characteristics of James Mason’s 3065 Angelo:

ROBERTSON DAVIES: (p. 3 L)

James Mason’s performance as Angelo was. . . a deeply considered, 'subtly imagined study of a man at war with

245

himself. . . Here was a man genuinely good, though not wholly good; here was a man deeply ambitious, yet with a fine integrity and sense of justice; here was a man against who ordinary temptations would have been power­less. It seemed to me that the key to this character­ization lay in the lines: ‘0 cunning enemy, that to 3075catch a saint/With saints does bait thy hook!*

Mr. MacPhedran. This Angelo had much of the saint in him, and his struggle was not a war in which gratification of lust lay on dne side and power and reputation on the other, but a conflict between frightening desire and genuine virture. (p. 103)

Are these characteristics that just collectively go to reaffirm the view that you have of the character, that you say [upon read­ing it] "Well, all things considered, I agree with that." Or are these things that you can try. . . are these specific phrases things that you can work with? Can you make a character appear 3085 deeply considered, deeply ambitious?

Dr. Boughton. You can’t make a character appear deeply considered, and I think there he’s talking about the actor rather than the character. That it was a very thoughtfully, deeply considered approach to the character, not just a superficial approach to the character. One hopes that every character is deeply considered; they aren’t always, but one hopes that they will be.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you see that (those qualities) as in­dicative of any performance of this play? That the actor who 3095plays this part has to really take great stock of his role?

Dr. Boughton. I think it would always be helpful if he did; I think it would be helpful, however, with any role. You know the saying "There are no small parts, only small actors: and that kind of thing. With regard to the "ambitious" (line), yes, I think this is something that you can show, and yet there is a certain modesty in the man also. He really wants this power, and I think an actor can show that. He can show that, for one thing, by this attitude toward the commission that is handed him. . . and the honorthat he feels, and his surprise 3105and pleasure at finding himself in the position he is in re­garding to power and Escalus in the situation.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is there incongruity here that he is "deeply ambitious" and we see him in quest of power, and yet on the other side he does something in making this proposal to Isabella that would seem to jeopardize ambition, wouldn’t it?This is not the kind of thing one who is trying to climb the ladder does.

Dr. Boughton. Isn’t it?

Mr. MacPhedran. Well, that’s the question. You see it as the spoils of office? Taking advantage of the position then is half the reason for wanting it in the first place?

Dr. Boughton. I don’t think he’s aware of any goal likethat.

246

3115

Mr. MacPhedran. He is surprised isn’t he by how he’s behaving?

Dr. Boughton. He’s very surprised.

Mr. MacPhedran. He’s very surprised, then this isn’t some­thing he’s had in the back of his mind all along.

Dr. Boughton. No. 3125

Mr. MacPhedran. That having a position like this would afford him fringe benefits.

Dr. Boughton. But I think he’s never taken account of himself as an animal.

Mr. MacPhedran. His human nature?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, he tries to behave like a saint. He’s like a moral sophomore, who’s never been tempted yet and so is a very moral and yielding kind of person, as regards justice and lav; and all that kind of thing. And he suddenly finds himself feeling this temptation very deeply and doesn’t know how to 3135handle it.

Mr. MacPhedran. Both he and Isabella are disillusioned?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. (Disillusioned about) The ability of a human to be saintly?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Now we mentioned before that you found, in the cuts, to be taking the subtleties away from Angelo.

Dr. Boughton. This was only in hindsight, that I was aware of this. 3145

Mr. MacPhedran. But even looking at it with hindsight, was that something that you would have wanted to do?

247

Dr. Boughton. No.

Mr. MacPhedran. You would have wanted as much subtlety as time could afford you.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I was cutting for length, and those were some of the things that I thought could go.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then you think you can have a "strong Duke" orientation. . .

Dr. Boughton. (continuing) And then I guess I would say that I had the actor in mind to a degree, in that I felt that this was an actor who could play a very strong simple line, but maybe couldn’t give me all the variations on that.

Mr. MacPhedran. You think though that you can have a very strong Duke orientation even in a production that has a very subtle Angelo. You don’t have to tear one down to allow the other to develop.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I think, as we said before, it’s a group play, but if anyone does dominate it, I think it’s the Duke, and it, think that that is built into the play, to me.

Mr. MacPhedran. And it doesn’t matter how much you amplify Angelo?

Dr. Boughton. Well, you know, given the kind of actor who might try to upstage and this kind of thing, you could get into difficulties of that sort.

Mr. MacPhedran. But you don’t see, as I asked you before, Shakespeare as purposely trying to present a problem here?

Dr. Boughton. No.

Mr.. MacPhedran. With two characters competing to be thehero.

Dr. Boughton. No, I don’t think so, as I say, I think Angelo ’becomes--you know, the first part of the play is his.But it’s almost the Duke’s, and the rest of the play is the Duke’s, except the part that’s Isabella’s.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you notice anything unusual about the division of prose and verse? In this play, the way it’s distri­buted?

3155

3165

3175

Dr. Boughton. No, I guess I didn’t. Is there?

248

Mr. MacPhedran. Only in the fact that the Duke tends to have rather long prose passages.

Dr. Boughton. I guess I didn't really notice that, when he’s tKe iriar primarily?

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, in the strategy scenes.

Dr. Boughton. And more poetic when he is just the Duke?

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes.

Dr. Boughton. That is to he expected. It’s kind of like Henry V, I guess.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you tend to see his division of prose and verse as a strategic one or as poetic license?

Dr. Boughton. I think it started out as a very conventional thing probably, that he was doing what everybody else was doing and then may be it (the type of language) began to be used more individually as time went by.

Mr. MacPhedran. And this would be a play that would qualify under the second category.

Dr. Boughton. Maybe a little bit, yes. But, by now, you expect the low characters so-called to be speaking in response most of the time with the so-called aristocratic characters in verse.

Mr. MacPhedran. On page 3 again, one other basic thing.

Dr. Boughton. My, but you like that page, don’t you?And I cut half of it.

Mr. MacPhedran. What about this quote about the three men:

ROBERTSON DAVIES: To Whom Have the Trumpets Sounded:

But let us return to the puzzle of the Duke, and his two deputies, Angelo and Escalus. If Measure for Measure were a dream, instead of a play, a pschoanalyst would say that these three men are all aspects of a single man, and that single man is a father-figure, as a father appears in the mind of childhood; the supreme and arbitrary power of a father resides in the Duke, the wisdom and tenderness of a father are found in Escalus, and the rival in love Is found in Angelo who attempts to come between Isabella and here her affianced bridegroom. And, as dreams and works of art have much in common, such speculation is not

3185

3195

3205

3215

21#

unhelpful in prying into the conundrum which is Measure for Measure« (p. 80 in a section Davies calls "Three Fathers")

I thought the ideal about Angelo being "the rival in love" needed a bit of explanation as far as what that meant to you. How does that fit with the "fatherly" role?

Dr. Boughton. The female child is likely to be attracted to her father, and her mother is her rival for her father’s love.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then it’s a kind of "forbidden fruit" sort of thing?

Dr. Boughton. Yes. You don’t need to take that sexually necessarily. And here again, this is one of the problems of Freudian interpretations.

Mr. MacPhedran. You were talking about groups before.Is this an idea you had from the reading or did this Davies quotation which tends to group things, solidify this view?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is this something that you look for in general, do you try to group things.

Dr. Boughton. Oh yes, sure, the character relationships.

Mr. MacPhedran. It wouldn’t necessarily be something that. . . came from the criticism.

Dr. Boughton. It wouldn’t necessarily be Freudian, and I don’t really know if I had that idea about the play before I read the criticism or not, I think I did. But it was rather germinal, and this (the quotation) made me say "Ah, yes, I see how this works."

Mr. MacPhedran. Good.

Dr. Boughton. I love this line "I love the people/But do not like to stage me to their eyes." I love that line, [(on p. 3/li 72-3/Duke)].

Mr. MacPhedran. I hate to say it, but I have one more question on Page 3«

Dr. Boughton. Alright, I’ll give you one more question on Page 3 and that's it, O.K.? (laugh)

3225

3235

3245

3255

250

Mr. MacPhedran. As we said last time, you tend to have much more at the beginning. There’s a quote there, talking about Lloyd Boehner’s (portrayl of) the Duke. Again, I’m not sure if it amounts to a contradiction, but it was just interesting to me.

ROBERTSON DAVIES:

. . . to much power, and too little humanity. . . (omits’’for him to be wholly likeable"). The problem is togive the Duke humanity. There are opportunities for this,as when Lucio slanders the Duke to his face; Lloyd Boehner,who played the Duke at Stratford, seized upon these oppor- 3265tunities, and did a great deal with them. He also madethe Duke a rather better actor than noble amateurs usuallyare; as Friar Lodowick his gait and countenance were surelylike a father--as Shakespeare says in another place. Weadmired this meddling friar, whenever we could forget thathe was the all-powerful Duke in disguise, and Mr. Boehnermade it easy for us to forget. He. . . contrived, theplot with Mariana in a way that gave not suggestion of asanctified Pompey—a very considerable feat. For sheeracting virtuosity this performance exceeded anything else 3275in the production (98 and 100. . .)

Abolit this part when he says that the actor "made it easy for us to forget. . ."

Dr. Boughton. . . .That the Duke was masquerading.

Mr. MacPhedran. And I wondered about this in light of what Davies had said previously that here is a man that Shakespeare is representing as a lover of disguises as someone to whom disguise and the artificiality of it, the theatricality of it is something that he likes and that; Davies I think gave the impression; Shakespeare was trying to play up, why then the 3285comment that Boehner's performance was good when we forgot that it was a disguise.

Dr. Boughton. I think he was stating negatively, but he as well have stated it positively that Boehner did create a distinct, different character as the friar rather than letting it just be a convention, just put the hood up, and now you're a friar. I think he’s just saying that he (Boehner) didn’t do the obvious that he did not just remain the Duke with a different costume on. He created a second character when he was being the friar. 3295

Mr. MacPhedran. Then you would see this as part of that "lover of disguises" idea, as taking on a part and being con­vincing in the disguise rather than feeling uncomfortable as always showing us. . .

251

Dr. Boughton. Oh yes, and I think he delights in it, and we tried to even get a little bit of delight, even when he was angry at something that Lucio said to him, for example. We tried to get a little bit of delight even in that anger, and playing that anger as a "little old fuddy-duddy" kind of thing.

Mr. MacPhedran. Then I take it that you didn’t, some critics and some directors I gather have tried to play this as a character who kind of hesitates when a situation comes up.You didn’t want that "hesitation-step" stuff—then the Duke just responds very quickly to a situation, even though he is the Duke and not used to being the friar.

Dr. Boughton. He hesitates, as we played him. . . his hesitation is "when is it necessary for me to interfere" he lets the experiment take its course in sofaras this is possible, when the danger point had been reached, and he felt something had to be done, to keep things from getting out of hand, then he (snaps his fingers) goes immediately into action.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is he hesitating about when to be a Duke or when to be a friar?

Dr. Boughton. When to enter as the friar in a situation.

Mr. MacPhedran. But not showing any difficulty in handling the Friar’s duties in the prison.

Dr. Boughton. No. I felt the very careful way the Duke phrases things in several instances makes it unnecessary to do this, I think. He leaves himself an out. He phrases the theolog­ically questionable thing very carefully and so on and so forth.

Mr. MacPhedran. I have read somewhere that some directors have played this as a kind of obvious snif of roles when he’s asked or addressed as the friar. . . that it’s an obvious show for the audience.

Dr. Boughton. No. we didn’t do that at all. We kept him as soon as he appeared as the Friar, he stayed in character as the Friar most of the time except in instances where no one was looking at him.

Mr. MacPhedran. He does that then, I take it, because he considers himself capable of pulling it off.

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. The only minor character I haven’t mentioned in terms of the criticism you used iB Pompey. Page 7* Now I

3305

3315

3325

3335

252

remember that with Mistress Overdone you said that the quote was something that you found interesting but you didn’t use it. With this quote, I was wondering because I don't remember talking of Pompey as someone with villanous, cynical brutality.

DAVIES:

[Pompey (Douglas Campbell) is an amusing villain, but he is a villain none the less. . . "let the carmen whip his jade;/The valiant heart's not whipt out of his trade—" and as he vanished from sight (down a tunnel) he gave a prodigious heave to his codpiece in which all of the cynical brutality of Pompey was displayed. . . the actor brought a fine unction to the role, and a wonderful power to depict dismay, as when he staggered back from the stench that arose from the dungeons.] (p. 90)

Dr. Boughton. Cynical, yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. He seems to give a pretty heavy treatment.I think we mentioned last time about Pompey's usefulness as a comic spirit in the dungeon. This you would think is one of his primary functions beyond any darkness. . . that he's a light figure in a dark situation, rather than. . . (vice versa)

Dr. Boughton. He’s certainly light by contrast than the headsman.

Mr. MacPhedran. Because I get from this quote a playing up of the darkness.

Dr. Boughton. No, I think it’s just that we played up the lightness, but the Darkness has to be there. This has to be a character who's a bawd: He makes his living that way. And he was damned well determined to keep at it, even though he's been warned by Escalus.

Mr. MacPhedran. I guess the one word I was objecting to, reacting to, was brutality, because in at least the one scene,I think he’s chicken-hearted, not wanting to dirty his hands.

Dr. Boughton. I think it would be in keeping to feel that he would be capable of physical brutality, if the situation demanded it.

Mr. MacPhedran. I was thinking of when he’s asked to Abhorson's assistant, and the idea is repugnant to him, aiding in an execution.

Dr. Boughton. Not after he finds out it's a mystery. I

3345

3355

3365

3375

253

don’t think his ethics go very deep in that situation: Thetitle takes care of him nicely. We have him in the mime, for ex­ample, being the go-between, seeing Lucio there, playing with his money, and (Pompey) sending Kate Keepdown to attract him and it was then he who set up the situation with Overdone to give the key to Lucio and so on. .

Mr. MacPhedran. I remember someone asking one time "What /does Lucio do for a living?" 3385

Dr. Boughton. What does the leisured clasp ever do for a living: He clips coupons.

Mr. MacPhedran. What’s the difference between the two of them; do we need both of them?

Dr. Boughton. Lucio and Pompey? Yes. One is the customer, and one is the bawd. He’s making his money“of£ of lust, and it’s the Lucios of the world that he’s making the money off, who of course appear to be perfect gentlemen, on the surface. . . well not quite perfect.

Mr. MacPhedran. One tends to almost think of him as a "low" 3395 character in the way like in Twelfth Might where you have the "low" comedy done by Sir Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek.

Dr. Boughton. He’s clearly introduced with two other gentle­men. And he’s a friend of Claudio’s.

Mr. MacPhedran. But, it’s that broad type of humor.

Dr. Boughton. Yes, very physical with him.

Mr. MacPhedran. In like of that (the fact that Lucio is a gentlemen) do you still think of them as a group? Who is Lucio grouped with? Who is Pompey grouped with? Or is Lucio not in a group? 3405

Dr. Boughton. Maybe, he goes back and forth between groups.

Mr. MacPhedran. Nov; Pompey, I think Davies mentions, fits in with Mistress Overdone and Kate Keepdovm that’s a group then by occupation?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, and I think you think of the prison clowns by definition or high or low comedy as being a group.

Mr. MacPhedran. And again in terms of being kind of apart, what about the Provost? Does he fit in a group? I found myself

254

agreeing with everything Davies and Knight said about him andcouldn’t really think of a question, except that I didn’t ask you 3415much about costuming or make-up for him, was there an attemptto make him. . . Davies (it’s really Knight) talks about "softness, when it’s least expected," (concerning him) (p. 8.)(as Provost enters)

/Davies: "The steeled goaler who befriended his fprisoners." (p. 86.)

Knight: .(Boughton includes beneath the Davies guote inbrackets and without notation. . . "softness of heart whenleast to be expected") which is almost a direct quotefrom Knight, (p. 82.) He then mentions Knight and gives 3425a paraphrase of his view. Knight parallels him with theCenturion in whom Jesus finds a simple faith'when he leastexpects it. (He then quotes him directly) "Jesus movingamong men suffering grief at their sins ...arid deriving joyfrom an unexpected flower of simple goodness in the desertsof impurity." (p. 82.)

Dr. Boughton. Yes, He’s that one good man that you encounter in the midst of all this, almost like in restoration comedy ’where you have one good woman as a contrast to all the others, just so you can measure the rest off against her, you know, one relatively 3435 pure creature. He’s that in the midst of all this sin and evil.

Mr. MacPhedran. Do you let him speak for himself or do you try to make, say in costumes, to make him a more visual character, easily recognizable as a kindly, good man? or did you introduce him as the jailor and have (make) the audience find out that he’s not the traditional hard-hearted type.

Dr. Boughton. He’s introduced, I think, in that first court room scene with the clowns, rather than in a prison scene. I decided not to put him in a uniform (also on P. 8, next to the other quotes, Boughton wrote "played at Stratford Connecticut by 3445 Morris Camovsky as a white gloved uniformed man.") In a sense,I know there have been several productions where he’s a uniformedfigure. He wore a costume originally made for Burghley in MariaStuart, which was a fitted doublet and trunk hose, smaller metertrunk hose, which are made of fairly dark gray, it was quilted,and then he wore over that a silver robe, a very solft silver,with hanging sleeves, and it came down not quite to floor length withlittle white ruff, so that in terms of color, he was neutral. Hewas neither among the browns of the one group nor the greens ofthe other. Since, he’s called a man of steel at one point, I 3455felt the gray would be appropriate.

255

Mr. MacPhedran. We talked about costume and makeup and image for the Duke last time, but both Knight and Davies make some­thing of his God-like image and God-complex, and is that some­thing you can portray.

Dr. Boughton. I think it may be, I don’t happen to agree with the God complex as far as he’s concerned. I think if anybody has a God complex in the play it’s Angelo. He’s the kind of man who likes to play God. You know, Duke does not really enjoy that. He’s sometimes forced into a position, where 34^5 he has to play God, but I don’t know that he really enjoys play­ing God: I think he’s too human, too aware of his own limitations to seek power for that reason. As far as "God-like," I consider this as just plain "power figure" in terms of Freudian dream image, that you know one tends to associate the father symbol or the authority symbol with the Godhead. . . and even further if he’s a royal figure. A point I should ought to mention is that my Duke looked a lot like Christ. So I really didn’t feel that I needed or wanted to push that at all in any direction.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you for instance use crosses? 3475

Dr. Boughton. For Isabella only, I think. I can’t remember if we had a Rosary for the Friar or for Isabella only, I think.We had cross that was set with rubies that had been given to us by a Moseignor, and I remember considering using it for the Duke, but I don’t remember that we really did. . .we may not have.

Mr. MacPhedran. Did you have Isabella do anything special with her cross, that has been used before, or did you think of that as too overworked?

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think it can be, and it, I think it’s the kind of thing that an actor can get out of hand with, 3485especially if it starts to get a reaction, as far as the audience is concerned. I remember going to a basketball game with aCatholic friend of mine and one of the players would cross himself every time before trying a free throw, and my friendfe reaction was very negative: he said he didn’t care to see his religion practiced on the basketball court, and I guess I was sensitive to the fact that some people can object to this, kind of thing.Then the guest star we had in Richard III tended to overdo the crossing, of himself, I think, and using it in an ironic kind of way. So we played that down and I would not usually play it 3495 up.

Mr. MacPhedran. to mind is the head.

We didn’t mention props—one that comes Did you go all out?

Dr. Boughton. No, I had it in a gunny sack. We had a prop

256

head, that we had made for Richard III, which wasn’t a very good one, it was too heavy, so I don’t know if John (Hepler, the set designer) used that one or something else of roughly the same shape and size but we kept it in as a head in a sack, but did not display it, but we did have the character carrying it, who’s that the Provost? We had him cross down the stage and take it right under the noses of the audience in the first row, but by then he was almost out of the light and off on his way. (discusses head use in RIII and Macb).

Mr. MacPhedran. The only other character I have basic questions about is IsabeHa. On Page 14:

Davies: IsabeHa is a woman of emotion, rather than inteHect. . . soft, strong, contralto (Paraphrase: selected terms). She (Frances Hyland) found places where a relieving womanly tenderness could be given expression. She settled into her actions and role, and broadened her emotional conception of it, until we felt that Isabella’s actions were not the expression of a somewhat embittered mind but rose from the depths of her being, and expressed uncontrollable emotional needs, (pp. 100-1.)

I gather that you didn’t try to do too much with the IsabeHa you had, but my question is would this be something you would want to do?

Dr. Boughton. Oh yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. You think of this as a very justifiable approach, of giving her these periods of tenderness as well as the coolness.

Dr. Boughton. And wanting increasingly as the play con­tinues to make a warm-blooded woman out of her.

Mr. MacPhedran. You see this as a continuing process, not as. . . are there moments of this womanly tenderness early on too?

Dr. Boughton. There should be one or two planted early.

Mr. MacPhedran. So it shouldn’t be a surprise?

Dr. Boughton. No.

Mr. MacPhedran. You think that in the text that this ispredictable?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, I think that there’s a difference between

3505

3515

3525

3535

257

imagination and reality with Isabella, for example, when she thinks about Claudio being in trouble and so forth, before she’s really gotten into the situation, she’s very tender about it and very sympathetic with him and so on, and then she gets herself enmeshed into the situation, and she reacts, I think, with almost a sex nausea against the situation she finds herself in, completely / out of control of that, and again her sympathy for Claudio returns / but, she just can’t bring herself to do what is asked of her. I / think in the scene with Mariana, it’s very helpful if Isabella 3545comes across as compassionate, understanding. . . that’s very difficult, because you have exit-re-enter, mind'having been made up, while the Duke makes one speech, you know. We kept them on stage, rather than having them exit, but that ’’silent mind’’ per­suasion is very difficult.

Mr. MacPhedran. This is probably a routine thing, but I was curious about the phrase "emotional conception" or I wasn’t sure if I was jumping to conclusions, whether“in the theater that meant something I wasn’t aware of and thought I’d better ask for a definition. 3555

Dr. Boughton. Well, heaven knows what he really had in mind when he wrote it, but what it meant to me was that this is not primarily a character who guides her actions by reason, by thinking, by philosophy, but she’s primarily an emotional, in­tuitive, person who doesn’t really stop to think about things-- that she responds to situations in which she finds herself and usually on a rather purely emotional and intuitive basis.

Mr. MacPhedran. And that one of the emotions she is capable of is...

Dr. Boughton. Tenderness and sympathy, yes. 3565I'wanted you to feel that she was a good girl but that she

wasn’t beyond temptation, that she wasn’t. . . I guess, I have a friend in mind, who at one time very seriously considered entering a convent: She didn’t, and is a very womanly kind of person, mother of three or four kids. . . one of the almost, I guess I would say holiest people I know. . . not as a mather of blind faith, as a matter of very deeply considered understanding and a very mature kind of state. But, well I just feel Isabella is a girl, and she just grows up during the course of the play. And so, I think she has to be womanly and warm. I think the best 3575performance we had from Isabella was the evening her father was in attendance. I wished to hell he’d come to opening, so she could have been as good the rest of the nights.

Mr. MacPhedran. I wonder about this Hunter idea. He in talking about her mentions talks about the rigidity often used in common characterization, and I take it that you tried to downplay having to have her comee off as too rigid.

258

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think she starts off as rigid at the beginning. I think that’s one of the meanings of the convent scene. She starts off as rigid, but I think Shakespeare is 3585saying she comes to terms with living with life and so on and so forth. . . I think she would have made a very good nun if nothing kept her from leaving the convent, but I think the fact /that she does leave her postulant status and come out into the /world, and she does adjust to that world. One has to live in a /sensuous world, faith or no faith, you know.

Mr. MacPhedran. I’m glad I’m noticing many of these things on later pages we have taken into account already. .' . that’s what I v;as trying to do.

One thing I did want to ask you about (Hi) the trial 3595scene, I don’t know as I picked out any particular quote. That’s on eighteen of your pages. But I was just curious that there was a great deal of notation there, and I think that you mentioned, that it v;as an important factor that there word trial scenes.Do you consider that an important scene? There’s so much atten­tion always paid to a few scenes in this play—the big scenes,I just wondered if I could draw the inference from the amount of (notes on the page) that you thought that it was an important scene.

Dr. Boughton. Yes. I think it’s a kind of parody and paral- 3605 lei of the Claudio trial, which we don’t see.

Mr. MacPhedran. I wanted to seize this opportunity. . . because I think it’s interesting because that scene often gets overlooked, as being important. I guess, maybe because it has that frivality to it.

Dr. Boughton. Well, the interesting thing is that when Angelo leaves he says "and I trust they will all receive a sound whipping." This is his way of dealing with the situation, that each of them ought to be whipped and then probably set free.Escaluq of course, gives everyone a verbal reprimand and that’s 3615the end of it.

Mr. MacPhedran. That made me curious that this did, given your interest in justice, law, and trials—it’s quite obvious that it would seem important to you. I was just curious, in general,I think even beyond this particular instance, do you find your­self ever wanting to emphasize a scene because you will have read (did read) something about it. In other words, that you have amassed notations about a scene that will make you kind of cling to it. . . Does this happen that you get kind of attached to something. . . either again out of personal interest. . . that 3625 it just happens to fit or whether. . . what I’m really interested in. Can you ever overread a scene?

259

Dr. Boughton» Oh, sure.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is it possible, for instance, to just find a critic who just happened to have lighted on a minor point, and you find yourself like his criticism of the point that you make that scene, maybe not more important than it usually is, but definitely clinging to having that scene as something for instance— you wouldn’t want to cut. I just noticed there, in light of what you’d said before in trying to pare things down, that 3&35I noticed that in a scene where there is a lot of frivolity, where you often think that type of humor as something that is interchangeable.

Dr. Boughton. You know, that’s rather curious about cut­ting comic scenes and so forth because I think one of the pre­judices that I came out of undergraduate school with was that premodern comedy is much harder to do than premodern tragedy, because it tends to be rooted in contemporary events, and comedy tends to date rather quickly. I found myself in cutting winter’s tale not want to cut any of the comic lines: They 3645all seemed playable to me, all of a sudden, after some time had gone by, and I guess I found most of these (MfM, Ili) lines playable.

Mr. MacPhedran. I just thought it a little curious?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, it may be also. . . I had some awfully good clowns' in that production, and it may be that I thought they were very stageworthy, and I wanted to give them as much scope as pdssible, but I do think that the scene is relatively important, and you have to have enough to make it reasonably clear, or else get rid of it. It isn’t terribly long. . . it 3655doesn’t play terribly long. It plays at a faster tempo than what you’ve been doing, because it is comedy. I was just going to inject the idea that the scene that no critic has mentioned sometimes is the scene that you may. . . you’ve really got to find a way to make play, you know, and you may tend to over detail that by contrast to ones where you are aware of certain values from the beginning.

Mr. MacPhedran. It just seemed as I recall, several versions- comments on things on that page.

Dr. Boughton. I think this is one of those things that 3665a careless critic is going to call irrelevant. . . that it doesn’t fit. . . you see, I’m beginning to work with Euripides at the moment, and of course that’s one of the traditional comments made about Euripides’ chorus. It’s an easy kind of charge to make and to justify but as a director you’ve got to find the relevance, and play it.

260

Mr. MacPhedran. I didn’t want to skip over important things, big things, for instance, Angelo’s speech (on 36 )i. Iliii.... ”0 cunning enemy that to catch a saint With saints does baith thy hook!” . . . Let me ask you straight out, and then 3675I’ll get to the criticism, whether you think of that. . . some­one once said that it’s the only true soliloquy in the play. . .

Dr. Boughton. Yes, someone mentioned that, Herrick I think.

Mr. MacPhedran. Given the fact that there are all kinds of soliloquies in Shakespeare--I think Harrison categorizes the types of soliloquies, whether they’re for exposition, character develop­ment, or audience arousal. How do you characterize that one?Is that a good piece of poetry?

Dr. Boughton. It sure sounds nice. . . Yeah, it’s a good piece of oral poetry.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is it structually important too, or does the poetic aspect of it kind of take over?

3685

Dr. Boughton. I guess I thought of it more as introspec­tive more than anything else. I think that he’s fighting with himself; he’s fighting something within himself he doesn’t under­stand, and he’s trying to come to crigs with it. He’s trying to be as honest with himself as he can be at this point. No one else is around to hear at this stage.

Mr. MacPhedran. Like a Hamlet soliloouy? as opposed to a Richard III? ' *" 3685

Dr. Boughton. Little bit.

Mr. MacPhedran. He isn’t playing that to the audience?Is he trying to get them to laugh?

Dr. Boughton. No, heavens, to laugh? Who says it’s funny.

Mr. MacPhedran. Just a question.

Dr. Boughton. Does Giles think it’s funny?

Mr. MacPhedran. No, no.

Dr. Boughton. It’s a very difficult transition for him at this point, and I felt that we had to externalize what was going on inside himself, insofar as possible, and I found myself using 3695 a small number of very big movements, bigger than had been used before, and rather more distorted in terms of the pattern on the floor plan, than we had been using. He was moving in a way, almost, in the way he moved in the later scene with Isabella.

261

Mr. MacPhedran. Then the poetry kind of adds to the seriousness of the moment. . . if you want to call it seriousness, austerity maybe? In that you said he was being introspective.

Dr. Boughton. I think in a way it’s almost the poetry that is necessary in almost an aesthetic distance way. You know, Eliot for example, often speaks of dreadful things in such beautiful things, that one can face the dreadfulness of it, and I think that’s almost necessary.

Mr. MacPhedran. That was. . .

Dr. Boughton. Apparently a satisfying moment for the actor. I remember when I blocked it with him, he said , "Oh, gee, that feels good!". . . he felt that the movements I had given him were probably better than what he could come up with.He felt very good in it, I think. I think, it needs to hush insensity deeper than it got in the previous scene and prepares us for what’s going to happen next time we have a confrontation between the two.

Mr. MacPhedran. I was a little curious because there were about three places, and in this particular place you used a quote by Knight, ("In a sense, he sins in loving virtue. A prey to his own love of purity and asceticism. It is her purity, her idealism, her sanctity that enslave him.") That didn’t seem to fit, but that I think fits now, after what you’ve just said. . . that you see it as a moment of awareness, that this is not a statement of premise, of the plot, that that really has been done-- the way for this scene has been paved long ago, when the Duke said he was setting a trap for Angelo. This is Angelo feeling the pinch of the trap.

Dr. Boughton. Yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. I’m curious about that line (catch a saint), because I think if you took it out of context and showed it to somehow who didn’t know this play they’d swear it was a first act line; it sounds like an exposition line almost.

Dr. Boughton. Yes. . . it grows out of his growing aware­ness of Isabella in the previous scene. When she first comes in,I think the whole case was theoretical to him. You never thought of this man, whose life he was taking as having a sister, and .suddenly "this broad" comes in, and he’s going to have to sit through it, listening to her, and only gradually does he become aware of her; he’s preoccupied in the first instance, . . and when he does, he really becomes aware of her, and it’s primarily a sexual thing, just as I think Almetus reaction to returning Alcestis is first of all a sexual thing, then something else.

3705

3715

3725

3735

262

Mr. MacPhedran. On 38, I wanted to talk about a cut. . . actually I’m interested in both the part of the speech (Angelo: Iliv, 1-18.) on 38 and the part on 39- (The cut includes lines 8 through 13, starting with "The state. . and ending with "which the air beats for vain." and lines 16 through 18, begin­ning with "Blood, thou are blood" and going to the end of the soliloguy.’’). This was a passage I was a little bit confused about anyway, in light of the critics, who seem to leave this very open. Let me ask you this: you quote both Knight and Frye there.

[Knight: Sexual desire has long been anathema to him(Angelo), so his warped idealism forbids any healthy love. Good and evil change places in his mind, since this pas­sion is immediately recognized as good, yet, by every one of his stock judgments, condemned as evil. . . he has no moral values left. Since sex has been synonymous with foulness in his mind, this new love, reft from the start of moral sanction in a man who ’scarce, confesses that his blood flows,’ becomes swiftly a devouring and curbless lust. . . he is at a loss with this new reality—embarrassed as it were, incapable of pursuing a normal course of love.In proportion as his moral reason formerly denied his instincts, so now his instincts assert themselves in utter callousness of his moral reason. He swiftly becomes an utter scoundrel. He threatens to have Claudio tortured. Next, thinking to have had his way with Isabella, he is so conscience-stricken and tortured by fear that he madly resolves not to keep faith with her: he orders Claudio’s instant execution. For, in proportion, as he is nauseated at his own crimes, he is terror-struck at exposure. He is mad with fear. . . this is the reward of self-deception, Pharisaical pride, of an idealism not harmonized with instinct. . . The coin of his moral purity, which flocked so brilliantly, when tested does not ring true, Angelo is the symbol of a false intellectualised ethic divorced from the deeper springs of human interest.

Roland Frye: Shakespeare and Christian DoctrineThe ultimate form of pride, according to the loth century theologians, was pride in one’s own righteousness, the pride of man in his own ability to do good works. A man holding to this form of pride, furthermore, would be most likely to judge harshly of others. "No one judges and thinks so harshly of others as do those who are devoted to human exertions and works" Luther declares. This: essentially, is the pride of an Angelo and of a Shylock. . . ’One of the virtues of counterfeit sanctity (Boughton boxes this phrase) is that it cannot have pity or mercy for the frail and weak, but insists upon the strictest enforcement and

3745

3755

3765

3775

3785

263

the purest selection; as soon as there is even a minor flaw, all mercy is gone, and there is nothing but fum­ing and fury.]

Mr. MacPhedran. I had a little bit of difficulty seeing the scene together and the scene cut, because I’m not used to that. 3795 Is what the critics are saying (Knight and Frye) kind of in favor / of cutting that speech or against it? <

Dr. Boughton. Oh, they’re not in favor of]cutting it.

Mr. MacPhedran. I didn’t want to say that.

Dr. Boughton. He’s saying this as a pathetic touch (Aside from the Knight quote already cited this page has a smaller quote connected by an arrow to the cut lines, 8-11. The quote is from Knight: ”a pathetic touch which casts^a^xevealing light both on his shallow ethic and his honest desire at this moment to understand himself.’’) In this speech, which helps the charac- 3805 ter. This is one of the things I was suggesting when I said we lost some subtleties, when we cut.

Mr. MacPhedran. Alright. I see. I wasn’t sure, because it seemed like both of those quotes were making quite a bit out of this speech, and that you had them there right along side the cuts, and I was a little confused.

Dr. Boughton. Well, you see, I cut the play in several stages.I went through it and cut. And then I went through it and cut again and again and again. And at the stage when these quotes were added this speech was in tact. This was not cut originally. 3815 It was cut in the late cutting, where I still wanted to get a few nri.ny.tes out of the script. . . that’s a late cut. That explains it.

Mr. MacPhedran. I thought maybe I’d misread it. (the criticism). r ' ' ‘' 11

Dr. Boughton. No, you hadn’t.

Mr. MacPhedran. I thought that both of those seemed to enforce the speech. . .

Dr. Boughton. Yes, they do. And this is one of those (speeches or groups of lines) that I regretted losing very much.

Mr, MacPhedran. It was just one of those regrettable things'? * "Charing to 'cut it.)

3825

264

Mr. MacPhedran. About the Frye quotation: when he says ’’One of the virtues of counterfeit sanctity is that it cannot have pity or mercy on the frail and weak. . .’’is he implying that Angelo’s sanctity has always been counterfeit?

Dr. Boughton. Yes. . . in that it is not based on self- knowledge. It’s based on theory rather than on life as she is lived, and this kind of thing, and since he has no awareness of his own weakness, his own potential weakness, he’s less likely to understand weakness in others. And so, he judges, the way a high school sophomore judges, anyone who shows any slight moral weakness of any kind.

Mr. MacPhedran. I was a little thrown by that, because I didn’t think. . .

Dr. Boughton. That doesn’t mean it isn’t sincere.

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, that as Knight says, he’s not a conscious hypocrite.

Dr. Boughton. Right, right.

Mr. MacPhedran. ’’Self-deception and pride in his own righteousness," but then he’s not pretending there.

Dr. Boughton. No. No. Isabella says, you know, "Look into your own nature and see if there is anything within you that is like my brother." And there is nothing within him that is like her brother. There will be in a very few minutes, but there hasn’t been up to this particular time. And the kind of man who has felt no such temptation is not likely to be very merci­ful towards another man who is caught in the act, so to speak, and that same man can turn around and do worse.

Mr. MacPhedran. As I mentioned last time, I wanted to ask you about the fact that you had so few quotations listed in Acts Three and Four.

Dr. Boughton. You get started and I think you frequently find that the hardest act to do is the First Act, and once you get it started you need less.

Mr. MacPhedran. And also most of the criticism you put in the beginning. . .

Dr. Boughton. Refers to later parts too, Yes. Once you get the characters going and get off to a start, the rest of it, if the direction is good, the rest of it tends to fall in place, except for problem spots that occur here and there.

3835

3845

3855

3865

265

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, I didn’t want you to get the impres­sion I was giving some parts short shrift.

Dr. Boughton. Well, some of the critics give it (MFM) short shrift, I’ll tell you.

/Mr. MacPhedran. I’m trying to be fairly inclusive without /

being totally pedantic. I was interested in the Hunter quote !on p. 105. (Vi):

[(Robert Grams Hunter, Shakespeare and the. Comedy of Forgiveness of Bertram in All’s Well. The passage quote comes 3875from Chapter V not from Chapter IX which is on Measure for Measure.The passage Boughton quotes is preceded in Hunter by an explanatory sentence: "That happens to Bertram would, I think'," have beenclear to Shakespeare’s contemporaries.")

"The scales fall from Bertram’s eyes, he sees what he has done. . . (Boughton omits the end of the sentence," and he is filled with shame and a sense of the necessity for pardon:" and goes right into the quote Hunter uses from Griffith’s Homilies) ’Vie have a common experience of the same in them which, when they have committed any 3885heinous offense or some filthy and abominable sin, if it once comes to light, or if they chance to have a through (SIC/Boughton’s version corrects it to "thorough") feeling of it, they be so ashamed, their own conscience putting before their eyes the filthiness of their act, that they dare to look no man on the face, much less that they should be able to stand in the sight of God.’

Out of such an experience, a new man is bom: (the following end of this sentence is in Hunter another quote from Griffith’s) after his repentence he was no more then 3895 the man that he was before, but was clean changed and al­tered. (Boughton’s passage from Hunter ends with a sentence which is not as the rest has been from Page 131 and which seem not to be a direct quote at all. It is perhaps a paraphrase of Page 225 and maybe other pages as well.)

Awakened from a nightmare, being caught and sin made public, self aware for the first time, relieved that con­cealment is over. Longs to atone. Grace descendent through the Virgin.] 3905

Mr. MacPhedran. It talks about the "New man is bom" idea. . .

Dr. Boughton. "Scales fall from his eyes" and all thatstuff

266

Mr. MacPhedran. I guess the whole Idea (represented here about Angelo "dying" and being "bom" again, etc.). . . was this something about it that you discovered from your reading,(of criticism) or does a criticism give it more credence?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, it reinforces it. It does give it more credence to a degree. You know, I think that one of the things I had in mind was an alcoholic going to Alcoholics Anonymous. . . 3915the hardest thing in the world was to get up and state "I am a drunk" in public. If you can do that, then you can do the rest of it, seems to me, and so given Angelo’s particular type of char­acter, his foxiness and his trying to brazen it out on sheer guts here at the end, just before this. . . to finally see that there is no way out and that he is trapped and finally caught, and he does it before (in front of) ever;,'•one else: that’s the really difficult thing for him, and for him to come out and confess is almost the equivalent of a long sentence in jail, you know. He’s been trhough hell inside to enable himself to do 3925 this. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, is there a harthasic action here?Is there a kind of transformation? that is visible in his accep­tance of his guilt? That "new man is bom"--is that something you try to do visually?

Dr. Boughton. Only in that he kneels and rises again, beyond that. And the expression on his face. I tried to ask the actor; he didn’t have to tell me, but think of something that you’ve done that you’re not too proud of, and that you really wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the BG News in full 3935details, and go over it to yourself, as though this were being published for all the world to see: how would you feel?

Mr. MacPhedran. Is this a moment that Shakespeare’s trying to sneak in, that is, a tricky thing, that he wants to kind of smooth over. . . that as you said in the Elizabethan theatre there often were these radical changes or is this the kind of thing that you can make a great dael out of, that you can em­phasize and blow up and' have a stage transformation. . . a huge ritualization.

Dr. Boughton. Like "birth of Venus?" No, I don’t think 3945so. Again, I think it’s one of those things that there’s no point getting bent out of shape about: It is difficult. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. You’re just adding more trouble.

Dr. Boughton. I just think that the Elizabethans believed that people 'can'"ch.ange very suddenly. So I don’t think Shakespeare’s

266

Mr« MacPhedran. I guess the whole Idea (represented here about Angelo "dying" and being "bom" again, etc.). . . was this something about it that you discovered from your reading, (of criticism) or does a criticism give it more credence?

Dr. Boughton. Yes, it reinforces it. It does give it more credence to a degree. You know, I think that one of the things I had in mind was an alcoholic going to Alcoholics Anonymous. . . the hardest thing in the world was to get up and state "I am a drunk" in public. If you can do that, then you can do the rest of it, seems to me, and so given Angelo’s particular, type of char­acter, his foxiness and his trying to brazen it out on sheer - guts here at the end, just before this. . . to finally see that there is no way out and that he is trapped and finally,caught, and he does it before (in front of) everyone else:'-that’s the really difficult thing for him, and for him to come out and confess is almost the equivalent of a long ^en^ence in jail, you know. He’s been trhough hell inside to enable himself to do this. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. Now, is there a harthasic action here?Is there a kind of transformation? that is visible in his accep­tance of his guilt? That "new man is bom"—is that something you try to do visually?

Dr. Boughton. Only in that he kneels and rises again, beyond that. And the expression on his face. I tried to ask the actor; he didn't have to tell me, but think of something that you’ve done that you’re not too proud of, and that you really wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the BG News in full details, and go over it to yourself, as though this were being published for all the world to see: how would you feel?

Mr. MacPhedran. Is this a moment that Shakespeare’s trying to sneak in, that is, a tricky thing, that he wants to kind of smooth over. . . that as you said in the Elizabethan theatre there often were these radical changes or is this the kind of thing that you can make a great dael out of, that you can em­phasize and blow up and' have a stage transformation. . . a huge ritualization.

Dr. Boughton. Like "birth of Venus?" No, I don’t think so. Again, I think it’s one of those things that there’s no point getting bent out of shape about: It is difficult. . .

Mr. MacPhedran. You’re just adding more trouble.

3915

3925

3935

3945

Dr, Boughton. I just think that the Elizabethans believed that people can change very suddenly. So I don’t think Shakespeare’s

267

trying to sneak it over. I think he’s just saying that in this situation, this kind of person would be just instinctly drained, and he’s not you know, really a terribly. . . well, he’s an evil man, but he didn’t mean to be. He had good intentions most of the way through. He’s at least honest with himself. . . He’s a little like Macbeth, you know, as he wades into sin, he knows precisely what he’s doing: his ethical sense is very sharp; he hasn’t kidded himself at any moment. He's paying for it all along in terms of his conscience and so on. And I don’t see any point in tricking it up particularly; I think Hunter’s right, the emphasis belongs on Isabella, and I think what he feels is what any criminal might feel in a similar situation, but I don’t really see any point in trying to act as though you’ve suddenly discovered the Holy Grail or something.

Mr. MacPhedran. He talks how this is a test of Isabella, doesn’t he? (Hunter)

Dr. Boughton. Yes, and Angelo’s already flunked his earlier on and he’s getting the booby prize at the moment.

Mr. MacPhedran. I wanted to ask you this last quote by Hunter you use (on p. 106) that we must see ourselves in Angelo.

[R. G. H.:

"For the Duke, the solution to the problem raised by the strong and swelling evil of our conception is. . . marriage. Justice must learn from iniquity—from the iniquity that is inevitably within every human striver after justice--the necessity for pardon. . . "If we don’t see ourselves in Angelo, we have taken the play and the moral very imperfectly.’ F. R. Leavis."(Leavis: ’’The Criticism of Shakespeare’s Later Plays:A Caveat." Scrutiny, X(l942), 339-45./quoted on p. 226.)]

Dr. Boughton. Well, I think he’s saying that if the audience rejects Angelo throughout and pulls themselves back from him and feels morally superior to him; therefore, does not identify with him ever, then the play has failed, as far as the audience is concerned. . . that they must understand his weakness and his desperation and his confession and his determination to be a new man.

Mr. MacPhedran. More than say his trying to build up an empathy and identification for this confession of Angelo’s?

3955

3965

3975

3985

268

Dr. Boughton. Yes, oh yes. I think it’s got to be all the way along, that he’s got to be human kind of person, you can understand, not perfect but human.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is this meant to be, and as Leavis was implying, an emotional moment for the audience? as you find in a tragedy?

Dr. Boughton. I think the emotional moments come earlier.I think it ought to be a relief to a degree. You see, I think the audience really enjoys empathizing with villains, who do terrible things that the audience are not themselves going to be able to do. It would be nice, with Richard the Third, for example, it would be nice to just "rrrrungh" (growl) with your enemies, occasionallyt Vie can’t do that, but we can enjoy empathizing with someone who does in that particular situation, and then we have to punish ourselves for having empathized with this bastard, when he was being bastardly, and so there’s increasing empathy, and then it decreases, and we withdraw from him, and we get another character that we can identify with; then v;e can punish ourselves for having sinned eirpathically by identifying with the evil guy.

Mr. MacPhedran. Is this why Lucio gets "punished" so to speak at the end?

Dr. Boughton. I think it’s one reason, yes.

Mr. MacPhedran. Does it tend to balance out?

Dr. Boughton. Well, and because we’ve enjoyed Lucio’s dirty remarks throughout the play: he’s very funny, and I think ' we can see ourselves, maybe, being foolish enough to make some of the same remarks or something very like it, and enough that we ought to get our knuckles rapped for it at the end of the play, and then too, like the scapegoat, we may need one person to lump all the sins of the community on at the end.

Mr. MacPhedran. I guess this is just at the end itself.I guess this is just at the end, although Frye mentions it fairly literally, about mercy and justice and the balance between them.I wondered whether as a final question; were you trying to stage this balance? Was there a conscious effort to make a kind of finale. . .

3995

4005

4015

4025

Dr. Boughton. Oh God, it’s there throughout the Fifth Act. You can’t help it. Yeah, you do try to do that.

269

Mr. MacPhedran. Remember you were talking earlier about the Isabella, Angelo, Lucio blocking for that one scene, was there that type of concentrated balance in the staging?

Dr. Boughton. There were groups of characters. It’s harder to do in this act, because you’ve got everybody on stage, /but we tried to keep many of them up around the periphery, many 4035of them. But there was, as in the comic trial scene earlier, /where you have all these people, and Escalus is sort of goingaround questioning this person and that person, and throwing himself where he needs to be at the moment and "sb- forth, and then readjusting positions, and finally dismissing characters: the justice from one side of the stage, the lawyers, figures having a certain amount of function, moving around the witnesses and this sort of thing. I think the whole set, the-basic meta­phor behind the set attempted to encourage this kind of feeling, that we had essentially a pair of scales that were out of balance 4045 and at the center a fulcrum point.

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, I meant to look as to who was on the ’’scales" at the very end.

Dr. Boughton. It changes, rather repeatedly.

Mr. MacPhedran. Oh, I meant to ask you about this page.(the last)* Was this done before or after?

Dr. Boughton. I wrote that as I was reviewing (for this interview)' trying to collect my thoughts. Let’s see. . . we have the Duke in the center, and Isabella is stage light at first with the prisoners. It is Isabella and the Duke who move 4055in the last part of the scene. Well, Mariana moves too, because she comes around to Isabella’s side to ask her to plead for her. There is, at least, an attempt to keep groups separate, and to have the justice figure moving from one group to another, and this sort of thing to make a picture out of what’s going on in terms of justice.

Mr. MacPhedran. Yes, that’s what I thought. . . that you’d probably be working for, in light of what you’d said be­fore, that the audience ought to catch this.

Dr. Boughton. Well, I don’t know if they catch that kind 4065of thing or not. A directing student catches it. The picture ought to be attractive and appropriate and supposedly meaningful, whether they interpret any symbolic meaning behind movement is quite something else.

Mr. MacPhedran. But then not necessarily blatant?

Dr. Boughton. Yes.