What are the meanings and effects created for young audiences in the Globe’s Playing

Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank series?

Marvin Carlson argues that audience reception in the theatre,

‘among the most haunted of human cultural structures’,1 ‘is deeply

involved with memory, because it is memory that supplies the codes

and strategies that shape reception’.2 Carlson’s theories about the

revenant dynamic of theatre provide a useful launching point for

exploring the significance of Globe Education’s Playing Shakespeare with

Deutsche Bank series, created in 2007.3 Just as reception of the Playing

Shakespeare productions must be haunted by memories the audiences

bring to the theatre, so too these performances enact hauntings of

their own. Globe Education knows it is involved in a game of firsts.

For many members of their young audiences, this is a first trip to

the theatre. For more, it is a first trip to the Globe and their

first experience of Shakespeare on stage. For more still, it is

their first viewing of a particular Shakespearean play. With primary

attention to three productions in this series, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

1 Marvin Carlson, The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2003), p. 2.2 Ibid., p. 5.3 Fiona Banks, ‘Learning with the Globe’, in Shakespeare’s Globe: A Theatrical Experiment, ed. by Christie Carson and Farah Karim-Cooper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 155-165 (p.164).

(2012)4, Romeo and Juliet (2013)5, and The Merchant of Venice (2014),6 all

directed by Bill Buckhurst, this essay seeks to explore the meanings

and effects of these productions on young audiences, the haunting

images left in their minds and how these hauntings might mediate

future engagement with the theatre, the Globe, Shakespeare and his

plays.

In approaching an analysis of these potential hauntings, it is

crucial to remain critically aware of the dangerous ‘tendency to

confuse individual and group response’.7 Interpreting audience

reaction is further complicated by how ‘a single person can

experience multiple responses to a show which may well be at odds

with one another’.8 How, for example, might awareness of peers

intervene in the process of individual response and the hauntings

enacted by a performance? How might one school group’s awareness of

another produce responses of its own, out of shyness or an attempt

to ‘out-cool each other’?9 Although Rosenberg and Prendergast claim

that an audience of children is more ‘homogenous’ than an adult

4 A Midsummer Night’s Dream dir. Bill Buckhurst, Shakespeare’s Globe, recorded 25 February 2012, Globe Theatre Archives, acts. Emma Pallant and Russell Layton.5 Romeo and Juliet, dir. Bill Buckhurst, Shakespeare’s Globe, recorded 27 March2013, Globe Theatre Archives, acts. Jade Anouka and Will Featherstone.6 The Merchant of Venice, dir. Bill Buckhurst, Shakespeare’s Globe, 24 March 2014 and 29 March 2014, acts. Catherine Bailey and Ognen Drangovski.7 Helen Freshwater, Theatre and Audience (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 5.8 Ibid., p. 6.9 Interview with Pocket Propeller actor Babou Ceesay in Abigail Rokison, Shakespeare for Young People: Productions, Versions and Adaptations (London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2013), p. 124.

audience,10 the potential plurality of response remains salient when

exploring the reactions of young audiences, already somehow

collectivized by the label and in danger of being patronised by the

adult. To mitigate and enrich my observations, I followed the advice

of various researchers who notice an ‘aversion to engaging with

audience response’ among critics and advocate ‘gathering and

assessing the evidence’ by ‘asking “ordinary” theatre-goers’.11

Perhaps the Year Ten students who completed a survey12 in response to

Buckhurst’s Merchant cannot be described as ‘ordinary’ theatre-goers,

but they were members of Playing Shakespeare’s target audience. In

designing the survey, I sought to gauge the students’ overall rating

of the performance according to research-based indicators of young

audiences’ values,13 and to discover the extent to which Bill

Buckhurst and the Playing Shakespeare production teams intuitively or

intentionally appealed to these purported aesthetic values, as well

as elicit candid responses that might indicate the production’s

meanings for the respondents.

10 Helane S. Rosenberg and Christine Prendergast, Theatre for Young People: A Sense of Occasion (New York: CBS College Publishing, 1983), p. 18.11 Freshwater, p. 4.12 Paul Larochelle, The Merchant of Venice Post-Production Survey [survey], 24 March 2014.13 See Jeanne Klein and Shifra Schonmann, ‘Theorizing Aesthetic Transactionsfrom Children’s Criterial Values in Theatre for Young Audiences’, Youth Theatre Journal, 23.1 (2009), 60 – 74 (pp. 62 – 3) and Matthew Reason and Alison Reeves, Young Audiences and Live Theatre: An Investigation into Perceptions of Live Performance (York: York St John College, 2005).

One of the barriers impeding young audiences’ appreciation of

live theatre relates to a sense of access and acceptance. Tom

Maguire notes that ‘for many children the experience of

spectatorship is one in which adults force conventions of spectating

onto them’.14 Many of us have probably tutted, glared or sighed at

the mutterings and distractions of children at the theatre, not

fully aware of our contribution to the alienation of future

audiences who find theatres restrictive, hegemonic, elitist

socialising spaces ‘defined [for them] by unfamiliarity and

otherness’. 15 The discouraging hauntings that these experiences

perpetuate have been well documented by researchers, noting the

distress caused ‘by ushering staff who spoke abruptly and appeared

to anticipate poor behaviour’.16 Ironically, while young audiences

often feel fenced out by theatre’s vibe, they also feel fenced in:

‘Unlike adult patrons, they cannot escape the venue if they do not

enjoy a performance’.17 Shakespeare’s Globe prides itself on the

freedom of movement it offers, noting particularly that ‘For many of

the younger members of the audience the ability to move around is

14 Tom Maguire, ‘There is No Audience: Meeting the Dramaturgical Challenges of the Spectator in Children’s Theatre’, in Theatre for Young Audiences, ed. by Tom Maguire and Karian Schuitema (London: Institute of Education Press, 2012), pp. 9 – 21 (p. 11).15 Reason and Reeves, p. 5.16 Madonna Stinson, ‘The Context of the Performance Event’, in Young Audiences,Theatre and the Cultural Conversation, ed. by John O’Toole, Ricci-Jane Adams, Michael Anderson, Bruce Burton and Robyn Ewing (London: Springer, 2014), pp. 49 – 60 (p. 57).17 Klein and Schonmann, p. 67.

prized over the ability to sit still in a comfortable seat’.18 To be

addressed anxiously by officious clipboard-wielding stewards at the

Globe, instructing exactly where and how to stand outside the

theatre with my two coach-loads of Year Ten students, was a worrying

first encounter. However, once we entered the theatre, the spirit of

the place quickly alleviated any concerns about an invidious

haunting of my students’ memories of theatre or Shakespeare. If

anything, the experience inadvertently designated the theatre as a

place belonging to youth: public piazza, no; public playhouse, yes.

By the time we were ushered to our seats, the onstage musical

trio (a quirky combination of sousaphone, trumpet and percussion)

had already begun to play and the crowd of youngsters, not waiting

to be invited, were already singing along, unlike the mostly adult

audience who chatted over the music during Merchant’s final

performance. Their unified voices, together with the playful spirit

of the instrumentalists and cast members issuing carnival masks to

the crowd, established the Globe as a ludic space, a

playhouse/ground. Their selection of pre-show songs, which included

‘I Feel Good’, ‘Bring Me Sunshine’ and ‘Sunshine of Your Love’,

familiar to the students despite not being contemporary, and the

final pre-show song that corralled the cast to the stage, the

18 Christie Carson, ‘Democratising the Audience?’, in Shakespeare’s Globe: A Theatrical Experiment, ed. by Christie Carson and Farah Karim-Cooper (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 115-126 (pp. 121 -22).

current hit ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams, energised the audience,

drew their attention to the stage and answered the critical question

over ‘who “owns” the…auditorium as a public space’.19 The answer was

decidedly the young, causing a couple students to cite this initial

burst of energy as the most memorable aspect of the production.20 As

if the use of the yard and the sing-along were not enough, Buckhurst

and designer Simon Kenny surrounded the perimeter of the Globe’s

thrust stage with metal fencing, spray-painted gold, the colour

symbolising the play’s mercenary theme. The fences had no practical

use after the opening few moments when the cast banged on them in

rhythm then shuffled them offstage during the carnivalesque opening.

So why bother? The message was clear. The barriers had been broken

down. Shakespeare’s Globe was open for business and serving to

minors, and judging by the minors’ reactions, they were ready to

consume.

In both The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet, barriers continued

to be breached by Buckhurst’s fervent use of audience interaction

and participation through direct address, use of the yard and

solicitation of response. As Abigail Rokison notes, ‘The use of

audience participation has been a feature of most of the Shakespeare

productions for young people, breaking the barrier between actor and

19 Reason and Reeves, p. 8.20 Larochelle [survey].

audience’.21 While some students have indicated feeling ‘vulnerable’

when addressed by actors in performance,22 a risk that ‘can be a

turn-on or a turn-off’,23 it can also empower students, providing

‘wider contexts for meaning’ where ‘the child is more obviously a

creator’.24 In both productions, audience members were cast as

characters in the play, particularly in terms of objects for

attraction or repulsion. When Will Featherstone as Romeo pleaded

with Benvolio to ‘teach [him] how [he] should forget to think’

(1.1.224)25 of his consuming love for Rosaline, Joshua Williams

kneeled behind Featherstone and pointed around the audience as he

counselled, ‘Examine other beauties’ (1.2.226). Given the girlish

giggles that were audible in the yard whenever the charming Williams

approached the stage’s edge, the possibility of being cast by him as

‘another beauty’ would have been an exciting mix of titillation and

intimidation. When Romeo then requested, ‘Show me a mistress that is

passing fair’ (1.2.232), the singularity of the request heightened

the stakes for the adolescent girls in the audience. An audience

member was chosen, and Romeo delivered his next few lines directly

to her. By activating the emotions associated with attraction and 21 Rokison, p. 119.22 Stinson, p. 58.23 John O’Toole, ‘Introduction’, in Young Audiences, Theatre and the Cultural Conversation, ed. by John O’Toole, Ricci-Jane Adams, Michael Anderson, Bruce Burton and Robyn Ewing (London: Springer, 2014), pp. 1 – 13 (p. 9).24 Richard Courtney, ‘Making Up One’s Mind: Aesthetic Questions About Children and Theatre’, in Theatre for Young Audiences, ed. by Nellie McCaslin (New York and London: Longman, 1978), pp. 19 - 35 (p. 24).25 William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, ed. by Rene Weis (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2012).

preferment through this potential and eventual casting of an

audience member, Buckhurst and his actors invited the young audience

to see and feel, empathically, the volatile adolescent urges and

concerns that drive the play’s tragedy.

Similarly, though with differing effects, Buckhurst used this

technique in The Merchant of Venice as Nerissa questioned Portia’s

reactions to various suitors. Although, in the fictive world of the

play, these suitors are absent from Portia’s chamber, the allure of

casting individual audience members as undesirable grooms seemed

impossible to resist in the shared lighting of the Globe. Playing

Nerissa, Racheal Ofori scanned the audience for each potential ‘cast

member’, building tension before finally selecting one with a point

and a wave, ensuring the role was acknowledged and accepted.

Portia’s criticism of each individual delighted the audience, while

it likely produced some anxiety for the men and boys. Of particular

joy for the students was the potential to see one of their male

teachers mocked by the actors, yet another assertion of which

generation ‘owned’ the playhouse. Which student would not revel in

the subversive public spectacle of seeing their teacher criticised

for doing ‘nothing but talk’ (1.2.39)26 or ‘nothing but frown’

(1.2.45), or for being ‘a dumb-show’ (1.2.70) or ‘drunk’ (1.2.8), or

merely for ‘pass[ing] for a man’ (1.2.53)? Through these

26 William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, ed. by John Russell Brown (London: Methuen & Co., 1955).

participatory techniques, the audiences’ memories of Shakespeare

were haunted not only by visual and aural imagery, but also through

the triggering of emotional responses. Shakespeare in performance,

they might remember, knows what it is like to be them, knows how to

push their buttons.

While play selection has at times been motivated to provide

‘an opportunity to see in performance the play [students] were

studying for their National Tests’,27 it has also featured an

interest in drama with generational conflicts. The link in Romeo and

Juliet seems too obvious to mention, which was the play in 2009 and

2013, commonly ‘an appropriate choice for a contemporary teenage

audience’.28 Though not the most memorable aspect of A Midsummer Night’s

Dream, the play opens with a vexed father forbidding his daughter to

marry her love, the conflict that leads the Athenians into the

subversive dream state of the woods, and the play later features the

poorly produced ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’, itself a story of star-crossed

lovers. Still less obvious is the link in Merchant, where the

important subplot concerning Jessica’s rebellion against her

religion and her father’s stifling protection received more

directorial and design attention in Buckhurst’s staging than it

might normally when produced for adult audiences. Even Macbeth,

produced in 2010 and 2011, features children who are tragically

27 Banks, p. 164.28 Rokison, p. 19.

caught in their parents’ battles for power. To date, the programming

of the series appears determined to confirm Shakespeare as the

children’s playwright laureate, working to address the concern that

‘Many young people consider Shakespeare to have no relevance to

modern life or learning’.29 As one student claimed, the most

memorable aspect of the performance was ‘the way they made it

modern’.30

The manner in which Buckhurst staged conflicts between parents

and children drew empathy with the child while not simplifying the

consequences of rebellion. Matthew Reason wonders if theatre for

children is impossible as it always starts from adult authors and

therefore ‘requires us to acknowledge the unequal power relationship

between adult and child, with children in our society largely

constructed as powerless and vulnerable, in need of protection and

needing to be spoken for’.31 Of course, the rehearsal of these

productions remain an entirely adult affair, but in the attempt to

portray young characters as restricted if not abused and then given

the agency to take control of their lives, Buckhurst’s productions

work to legitimise Shakespeare as possible children’s theatre. In

2012’s Dream, Egeus dragged Hermia from stage right and hurled her

29 Priscilla Morris, Introducing Shakespeare to Young People (London: Oberon Books, 1996), p. 7.30 Larochelle [survey].31 Matthew Reason, ‘The Possibility of Theatre for Children’, in Theatre for Young Audiences, ed. by Tom Maguire and Karian Schuitema (London: Institute of Education Press, 2012), pp. 23 - 34 (p. 25).

by one arm onto the semi-circular apron extension, demanding his

legal right to her death for disobedience. Having flown a distance

of about ten feet, Louise Collins as Hermia slowly managed to kneel

to face Theseus up-centre. The mise-en-scene foregrounded the

subjugated position of the daughter. Her positioning at the stage’s

downstage edge placed her in the subjective gaze of the audience,

semiotically linking her position with that of the visiting youth,

motivating them to support her rebellion. Similarly, in Act Three,

Scene Five of Romeo and Juliet, when Jason Baughan’s Capulet chastised

Juliet for disobedience, calling her ‘Mistress minion’ (3.5.151),

‘green-sickness carrion’ (3.5.156) and ‘disobedient wretch’

(3.5.160), a chase around the stage ensued, with Juliet’s terrified

sobs clearly hinting at a history of abuse. After raising his hand

to hit her, Capulet threw Juliet to the floor by the wrist.

Merchant’s form of oppressive parenting was different:

restrictive not abusive. Here, Buckhurst laboured to make Shylock’s

love for his daughter prominent, part of the work of ‘correction’32

needed to make the text playable to a modern audience. In Act Two,

Scene Five, after instructing her to ‘Lock up [the] doors’ (2.5.28)

and not ‘thrust [her] head into the public street’ (2.5.31), Shylock

placed his hands on either side of Jessica’s face, bent down to kiss

32 Maria Jones, ‘The Cultural Logic of “Correcting” The Merchant of Venice’, in World-Wide Shakespeares: Local Appropriations in Film and Performance, ed. by Sonia Massai(London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 122-129.

her head, then shook her head while clucking his tongue

patronisingly before departing. His infantilising entrapment of

Jessica invited us to empathise with both characters; we could

understand Shylock’s affection and Jessica’s exasperation.

Additionally, her caging, symbolised by the gold metal gates

securing the central opening of the tiring house, made escape seem

all the more justifiable. In Buckhurst’s emendation of the script,

Shylock spoke for himself some, though significantly not all, of the

lines that Solanio claims ‘the dog Jew did utter in the streets’

(2.8.14). All of Act Two, Scene Eight was cut from Buckhurst’s

production, with just these lines added to the end of Scene Six,

revealing Shylock’s immediate discovery of Jessica’s departure with

his ducats and jewels. Buckhurst ended Shylock’s lament with ‘find

the girl’ (2.8.21), though both Q1 and F1 continue with one more

line, ‘She hath the stones upon her, and the ducats!’ (2.8.22).33

This significant cut emphasised familial loss and betrayal, rather

than pecuniary concerns, correcting some of the Anti-Semitism in the

play and aligning the moment less problematically with Shakespeare’s

other overbearing parents. At this point, student audiences must

have viewed Shylock as a doting father. At least one student cited

33 William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, First Quarto (1600), Internet Shakespeare Editions, The University of Victoria <http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/2.8> [accessed 10 April 2014] and First Folio (Brandeis University Facsimile) (1623), Internet Shakespeare Editions, The University of Victoria <http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/bookplay/Bran_F1/MV/1009/> [accessed 10 April 2014].

the betrayal as justification for empathising with Shylock:

‘everyone hated him even his own daughter’.34

The most conspicuous costume featured throughout the series, a

traditional school uniform, further aligned Shakespeare with

adolescence. Benvolio in the 2013 Romeo and Juliet, all four Athenian

lovers in Dream, the two young actors who wandered through the

audience during the pre-show for Macbeth later to emerge ‘bloodied

from body bags on the stage to become two of the witches in the

opening scene’35 and Jessica in Merchant all wore school uniforms for

these productions. The semiotics of the uniform signified not only

the characters’ youth but also the restrictive, moralising influence

of an older generation, to be shed in the woods, in the dark arts,

or after rebellion. In Benvolio’s case, the costume distinguished

him from the urban street dress of his peers, suggesting his more

benevolent and moralising presence among the youth despite the

‘street cred’ he earned by performing tricks on his BMX.

Anecdotally, in its efforts to gain ‘street cred’, the Globe found

itself as a chastised adolescent, receiving ‘a “complaint” from a

nearby tenant about BMXing in the car park’.36 Conversely, for

Jessica, the dark uniform primarily represented her oppressive

34 Larochelle [survey].35 Fiona Banks, Creative Shakespeare: The Globe Education Guide to Practical Shakespeare (London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2014), p. 197.36 Adam Moore, Rehearsal Notes for Romeo and Juliet, 25 January 2013, Globe Theatre Archives.

parenting, as she reappeared in Belmont in a tight-fitting dress

splashed with colour. However, the final image of Buckhurst’s

staging of Merchant, after all of the happy lovers retired, featured

Jessica alone, clad in this new, liberated guise, staring probingly

at a wad of money, apparently questioning the wisdom of her

rebellion. The ultimate message suggested through these costuming

choices was appropriately complex. While parents and other adults

can be oppressive forces, making rebellion natural or necessary, the

volatility of adolescent emotions can sometimes lead to undesirable

consequences (murder, suicide, regret), suggesting the possible

benefit of the tempering and edifying effects of school,

synecdochically present through the uniform. The series resists

simplistic moralising, avoiding the danger of failing to believe in

or respect the young audience, which often results in a ‘wish merely

to please, cater to, and indulge’37 or the pedantic belief that ‘No

matter how entertaining…this would be yet another educational

experience’.38 Once again, Shakespeare might appear as a playwright

empathetic to youth’s rebellion while aware of its risks.

Despite Shakespeare’s thematic relevance to youth, researchers

in students’ responses to Shakespeare have noted that ‘The language…37 Zenovi Korogodsky, ‘Respecting the Child Spectator’, in Theatre for Young Audiences, ed. by Nellie McCaslin (New York and London: Longman, 1978), pp. 13 - 17 (p. 17).38 Jan Wozniak, ‘Starting with Shakespeare: Performative Writing, Shakespeare and Young Audiences’, in Theatre for Young Audiences, ed. by Tom Maguire and Karian Schuitema (London: Institute of Education Press, 2012), pp. 129 - 141 (p. 132).

was described frequently as being disengaging and confusing’ making

‘the play very difficult to follow’.39 Clarity or ‘comprehensibility’

ranked as the highest value in evaluating theatrical performance for

six- to twelve-year-olds and no doubt continues to be valued beyond

that age.40 Buckhurst and his production teams laboured to make

moments as clear as possible, at times in ways that purists or

experienced theatre-goers might find excessively explanatory and

presentational. Ninety-two percent of respondents to the post-

production survey on Merchant found it ‘Pretty easy’ or ‘Very easy’

to understand.41 One of Globe Education’s rehearsal techniques for

exploring language with students asks them to point on every pronoun

in order to ‘have a clear idea about who a character is talking to

and about’.42 Evidence of this technique appeared in the first scene

of Buckhurst’s Dream as characters pointed sharply and conspicuously

on the pronouns, helping the audience understand the complex

dynamics of the love quadrangle that sets the play in motion.

Similarly, there were moments in all productions when props were

used to clarify language. When Juliet prepares to drink Friar

Laurence’s potion, Jade Anouka held up the vial and showed it around

to the groundlings asking, ‘What if this mixture do not work at all?

39 Bruce Burton, Penny Bundy and Robyn Ewing, ‘Theatre Literacy’, in Young Audiences, Theatre and the Cultural Conversation, ed. by John O’Toole, Ricci-Jane Adams, Michael Anderson, Bruce Burton and Robyn Ewing (London: Springer, 2014), pp. 145 - 155 (p. 153).40 Klein and Schonmann, p. 62.41 Larochelle [survey].42 Banks, Creative, p. 58.

| Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?’ (4.3.21-22). After

getting ‘No’ as a response, she continued, ‘No! No! This shall

forbid it’ (4.3.23), pausing before ‘This’ to pull out a knife,

which she held aloft to ensure students knew what ‘This’ was. Her

actions continued to be explanatory, as she moved to her bed and

demonstratively placed the knife beneath her pillow saying, ‘Lie

thou there’ (4.2.23). In Merchant, Mark Kane, as Launcelot Gobbo,

pretended to rub tears from his eyes with fisted hands as he said

‘now will I raise the waters’ (2.2.46), interpreting the metaphor

for the audience through his gesture. While these non-naturalistic

actions, which could be termed pronoun management and gestures of

translation, betrayed some anxiety about comprehensibility, they

were also an outstretched hand to the fresh audience, acknowledging

the potential difficulties of the language and teaching them how to

visualise implied stage directions in the text. Several students

referred to the importance of seeing the play on stage ‘rather than

staying as a book in a classroom’, while another crucially stated

she ‘can picture it better’. Most astutely, one student remarked,

‘they helped us understand what was going on and tricky

Shakespearian words with melodramatic actions’.43 Not all forms of

assistance are patronising.

43 Larochelle [survey].

The third most highly valued element of performance for

children found in Klein and Schonmann’s study is ‘humorous

entertainment’, a value shared by Buckhurst’s productions.44 Students

noted how the performance of Merchant helped them ‘realise how it is

a mix of comedy/tragedy’, one stating, ‘I understand the humour

now’.45 Given the play’s Anti-Semitism and an awareness that in the

modern world it ‘can only be read as a disturbing recollection of

the Shoah’, Sabine Schulting wonders ‘whether it will be possible to

find The Merchant of Venice funny ever again’.46 One hundred percent of

the students found Merchant either ‘Quite’ or ‘Very’ humorous, while

the most memorable moments listed by students were humorous ones,

Kane’s physical comedy as Launcelot Gobbo appearing as the most

frequently cited memorable moment, with the caricatured portrayal of

Morocco (Tyler Fayose) and Aragon (Thomas Coombes) in the casket

scenes as a close second.47 Notably, Kane’s performance as Launcelot

did not produce much laughter from the mostly adult audience at

Merchant’s closing performance; his exaggerated vocal inflections and

physicality appeared pitched perfectly to the Playing Shakespeare target

audience. Were it not for the play’s success in engaging the adult

audience elsewhere, it might have served as evidence that

44 Klein and Schonmann, p. 6245 Larochelle [survey].46 Sabine Schulting, ‘“I am not bound to please thee with my answers”: The Merchant of Venice on the Post-War German Stage’, in World-Wide Shakespeares: Local Appropriations in Film and Performance, ed. by Sonia Massai (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 65 – 71 (p. 66).47 Larochelle [survey].

‘performances…created with a very specific audience in mind…have no

purpose for existence without the spiritual and vocal presence of

that specific audience’.48

Another student claimed that ‘the comedy inserted in’ was the

most memorable aspect of the production, her use of the word

‘inserted’ suggesting either that she does not see it inherent in

Shakespeare’s text or that she understands the interpretive effort

required by performers to make comedy work.49 Unwittingly, the

student provokes debates about adaptation and fidelity that permeate

Shakespearean performance research. As Fischlin and Fortier argue,

‘Theatre does things to the drama text that cannot be justified as

acts of fidelity, and yet are necessary for any production to take

place’.50 While Buckhurst’s productions haunted students’ memories of

Shakespeare with the potential for comedy, they must also have

developed a sense of a play as a source for creative inspiration, as

‘a dynamic process that evolves over time in response to the needs

and sensibilities of its users’.51 Buckhurst’s decision to make

Portia’s Belmont some kind of resort, with a hot tub placed in the

centre of the yard emblazoned with ‘Belmont’ on its cover, served 48 Susan Kattwinkel, ‘Introduction’, in Audience Participation: Essays on Inclusion in Performance, ed. by Susan Kattwinkel (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), pp. ix –xviii (p. x).49 Larochelle [survey].50 Daniel Fischlin and Mark Fortier, ‘Introduction’, in Adaptations of Shakespeare, ed. by Daniel Fischlin and Mark Fortier (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 1 – 22 (p. 7).51 Margaret Jane Kidnie, Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation (London: Routledge, 2009), p. 2.

the needs of the play’s multiple settings in an imaginative way that

delighted the young audiences. Similarly, Simon Kenny’s grand neon

‘Venice’ sign, which partially obscured the musicians’ gallery and

was cued to turn on or off by actors’ claps or snaps on stage,

represented an effort to clarify place while contributing to the

decadent atmosphere of the piece. Neither of these elements, both

mentioned by students as contributing to their enjoyment of the

performance,52 is called for by the text but might be examples of the

kinds of interpretive, procedural choices suggested by Fischlin,

Fortier and Kidnie as natural to the stage life of a play. Many of

the specific choices already discussed in staging these plays for

young audiences are evidence of what Kidnie calls responding to the

needs of their ‘users’. Purists often get anxious about textual

edits or interpretive qualities of productions that seem

‘inauthentic’, while critics often riposte that the lack of any

Shakespearean manuscripts, the notable differences between varied

early modern publications of the plays and Shakespeare’s own

penchant for adaptation and collaboration mean that ‘Recognizing the

inherently adaptive nature of theatre…connects productions to the

spirit of the age that produced the plays first’.53 None of the

students commented negatively or doubtfully about the transposed

period of Merchant, suggesting that Playing Shakespeare’s young audiences52 Larochelle [survey].53 Andrew James Hartley, The Shakespearean Dramaturg: A Theoretical and Practical Guide (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 45.

develop a healthy sense of the Bard’s plays as open to

interpretation.

It must be acknowledged that the Playing Shakespeare audiences are

not blank slates and do bring with them the kind of haunted memories

that Carlson sees as fundamental to any theory of audience

reception.54 Two examples springing from student responses to the

post-production survey make this abundantly clear. Several students

referred to the ‘homoerotic subtext’ or to ‘Antonio and Bassanio’s

bromance’ as memorable moments, key themes or justifications for

empathy.55 These elements were invisible to me in the production.

Much of Act One, Scene One, where a director might normally

emphasise this dynamic, was cut. Bassanio still said, ‘To you,

Antonio, | I owe the most in money and in love’ (1.1.130-31), but it

was said at such a pace and at such a distance that no sense of

intimacy could be seen. In fact, Buckhurst seemed deliberately to

separate these two men with vast gulfs of space on the Globe stage

throughout most of this dialogue. Similarly, when, about to die,

Antonio instructs Bassanio to ‘Tell [Portia] the process of

Antonio’s end, | Say how I lov’d you…bid her be judge | Whether

Bassanio had not once a love’ (4.1.270-73). Buckhurst placed Antonio

(Cameron Moore) on the central platform erected in the yard and

Bassanio (Nick Howard-Brown) in the yard amongst the groundlings.

54 Carlson, p.2.55 Larochelle [survey].

The line was delivered with only the intimacy of a handshake,

awkwardly separated by their different levels. The students’ English

teacher told me they had read about a third of the play. It seems

clear that much time was spent discussing the ‘gay subtext’ in the

opening scene and that, haunted with that memory, the students came

looking for it on stage and somehow found it.

The second example relates to reactions to Shylock. David

Calder, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Shylock in 1993, claims,

‘You can’t do the play that is on the page. It has attitudes of its

time which are not acceptable today’.56 Buckhurst attempted to elicit

empathy with Shylock through some textual edits, depicting him as a

loving if overbearing father, isolating him on the Globe stage for

the ‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’ (3.1.52 -53) speech while he was heckled

by Christians in the galleries and, finally, by giving him a

lengthy, silent exit after acquiescing to his conversion, leaving

his kippah and tallit on the central platform. This final moment was

fraught with danger and complexity for the performance, as its early

fostering of boisterous laughter meant the audience was primed for a

comic triumph leading to a happy ending. It fomented varied and

uncertain responses, some audience members gasping while others

laughed when Antonio demanded Shylock ‘presently become a Christian’

(4.1.383). Most remained silent for Shylock’s exit but the reactions

56 David Calder, RSC Education, 1993, The Merchant of Venice Production Pack, quoted by Jones, p. 123.

that followed were less unified. At the first performance I

attended, there was applause once Shylock was gone and Antonio and

Bassanio celebrated. Additionally there was laughter, apparently

provoked by Gratiano’s offensive spitting on the sartorial symbols

of Shylock’s Judaism abandoned on stage. In the archival recording,

there were tentative claps coming from various audience members that

never manifested in unified applause.57 Reaction to this moment,

regardless of Buckhurst’s attempts to temper it, seemed dependent on

a negotiation between the play’s generic category and individual

audience members’ knowledge and subjectivity. When asked which

character they empathised with most, seventy-one percent of the

students mentioned Shylock, justifying their response because ‘he

had to give up his wealth’, he was ‘honest’ and he was ‘hated so

much for being a Jew’. One student noted that ‘he had to detach

himself from a religion that meant so much to him’, her use of the

word ‘detach’ suggesting the impact of Buckhurst’s directorial

choice to show Shylock removing the symbols of his faith. One

student’s response makes the importance of a haunted memory in the

theatre vividly clear: ‘I am Jewish and what happened to him

affected me’.58

At the end of Buckhurst’s Romeo and Juliet, Emma Pallant as the

Prince addressed the audience earnestly, almost out of character, to

57 Recorded 6 March 2014, Globe Theatre Archives.58 Larochelle [survey].

instruct, ‘Go hence to have more talk of these sad things’

(5.3.306). The line was honest advice. They had witnessed attempts

at self-harm, murders and suicides, disturbing issues opened by the

performance in need of further discussion. Similar discussions were

warranted by the unstable meanings surrounding the portrayal of a

Jew as villain. The Playing Shakespeare series haunts its audiences’

memories with powerfully inspiring experiences of live theatre and

its creative potency as well as the complex issues at the heart of

Shakespeare’s plays, issues which are just as relevant to young

audiences as to old. But the process of exploration and discovery

does not end when they leave the playhouse. In response, one student

summarised, Shakespeare was ‘fun but complicated’.59 An appreciation

of Shakespeare is a process; both his language and his ideas are

‘complicated’, and exploring those complexities is part of the

‘fun’. Perhaps this is the ultimate meaning and effect of the Playing

Shakespeare series: it opens young audiences to the rewards of working

beyond Shakespeare’s challenging language and gives educators

compelling foundations for further work.

59 Larochelle [survey].

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Appendix A: Student Response Survey and Overview of Results

Survey

Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank at Shakespeare’s Globe

The Merchant of Venice

Post-Production Survey

I understand that by completing this survey, I consent to my responses being used anonymously in an essay to be submitted to academic staff at Birkbeck College / Shakespeare’s Globe by a degreecandidate in Birkbeck’s MA Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance.Individual names will not be used and the school will be identified generically.

1. How familiar were you with Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice before seeing the production? (circle one)

Not at all Vaguely Somewhat QuiteVery

2. How easy was it for you to understand the play in production? (circle one)

Very difficult Pretty difficult Got about halfPretty easy Very easy

3. How lively and engaging did you find the production? (circle one)

Not at all A bit Somewhat Quite Very

4. How humorous was the production? (circle one)

Not at all Vaguely Somewhat QuiteVery

5. How believable did you find the performances of the characters? (circle one)

Not at all Vaguely Somewhat QuiteVery

6. How interesting were the visual aspects of the performance (set, costumes, props, etc.)? (circle one)

Not at all Vaguely Somewhat QuiteVery

7. What was the most memorable aspect of the production? _________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

8. Based on this production, what would you say The Merchant of Venice is mainly about? ____

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

9. Did you identify with or empathise with any of the characters?If so, who and why?

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

10. How has seeing this production affected your understanding of Shakespeare or the play, if at all?

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

11. In what ways, if at all, did seeing the production in a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre affect your experience today?

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

Summary of Quantitative Results (26 Respondents):

1. How familiar were you with Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice before seeing the production?

Not at all Vaguely Somewhat Quite Very2 (7.7%) 11 (42.3%) 9 (34.6%) 4 (15.4%) 02. How easy was it for you to understand the play in production?Very

difficultPretty

difficultGot about

halfPretty easy Very easy

0 0 2 (7.7%) 17 (65.4%) 7 (26.9%)3. How lively and engaging did you find the production?

Not at all A bit Somewhat Quite Very0 0 0 11 (42.3%) 15 (57.7%)

4. How humorous was the production?Not at all Vaguely Somewhat Quite Very

0 0 1 (3.8%) 11 (42.3%) 14 (53.8%)5. How believable did you find the performances of the

characters?Not at all Vaguely Somewhat Quite Very

0 1 (3.8%) 7 (26.9%) 15 (57.7%) 3 (11.5%)6. How interesting were the visual aspects of the performance

(set, costumes, props, etc.)?Not at all Vaguely Somewhat Quite Very

0 2 (7.7%) 9 (34.6%) 6 (23.1%) 9 (34.6%)

Summary of Qualitative Results (26 Respondents)*:

7. What was the most memorable aspect of the production?Comment Highlights:‘Antonio and Bassanio’s bromance’‘when the three princes had to decide which case held Portia’s portrait as it was very funny whilst also remaining suspenseful’‘The court scene was the most memorable because the tension of the scene was displayed very well’‘The way they made it modern’‘the singing at the beginning’

‘The hot tub part was very funny and I liked the comedy aspect aboutthe rings’‘Lancelot Gobo mainly because it was the funniest part’‘the comedy inserted in’‘the portrayal of Portia was really engaging, especially when she isback in Belmont after pretending to be the doctor’‘when Shylock changed’‘Shylock being converted to be a Christian’

Quantitative Assessment of Responses:Court scene—5Casket scenes—7Antonio/Bassanio Relationship—1Lancelot—9Modern—1Singing—2Portia’s Entrance/Hot tub—3Disguise/Rings—4

8. Based on this production, what would you say The Merchant of Veniceis mainly about?

Comment Highlights: ‘The degradation of Jewish people’‘highlights the Anti-Semitism of the time as Shylock is portrayed asa villain, but appears to be the only truly moral character’

Quantitative Assessment of Responses:Revenge—3Love—10Debt/Money—12‘Homoerotic subtext’—2Religion/Anti-Semitism/Prejudice—10Gender Differences—1Promises—3Marriage—2Equality—1Moral ambiguity (‘people are all good and bad’)—1Comedy—2Friendship—1Power—2

9. Did you identify with or empathise with any of the characters?If so, who and why?

Comment Highlights:‘Shylock because he had to give up his wealth’ (2)‘Shylock was easy to empathise with in his final scene as he is persecuted for doing nothing but being honest’‘hated so much for being a Jew’‘everyone hated him even his own daughter just because he was a Jew’‘They could have introduced Lancelot Gobo, his father and Antonio’s other friends because I kind of lost track’‘Antonio cuz he (heart) Bassanio—Homoerotic’‘he had to detach himself from a religion that meant so much to him and he felt so strongly about’‘Antonio when he has to give up his life for his bro’‘Shylock—I am Jewish and what happened to him affected me’‘Antonio—he gives everything, blind in love and ends up alone’

Quantitative Assessment of Responses:Shylock—15Antonio—7Portia—1

10. How has seeing this production affected your understanding of Shakespeare or the play, if at all?

Comment Highlights: ‘fun but complicated’‘It’s memorable as a production rather than staying as a book in a classroom’‘good to see it on the stage and as a whole “play” not as a book’‘This play has shown me another side of Shakespeare; different from the comedies and tragedies I have read in the past. It had some intense moments but was sprinkled with light humour.’Several girls simply say it helped them understand more clearly.‘Greatly deepened understanding and love for it’‘I now know the characters and plot’‘It has made me realise how it is a mix of comedy/tragedy’‘they helped us understand what was going on and tricky Shakespearian words with melodramatic actions’‘I understand the humour now’‘can picture it better’‘The law was very important and there were clear differences in religion’

11. In what ways, if at all, did seeing the production in a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre affect your experience today?

Comment Highlights:‘Big theatre and they all used as much of the space as possible’‘text as a play created for an audience instead of a text’

‘I understood in a modern day concept the conflict that people have everywhere’‘it felt very authentic—I didn’t get bored once’‘knowing that that is where people would have seen it and also the shape of the theatre’‘we saw it how people would have actually seen it ages ago!’‘somehow the seating and atmosphere of the theatre made me more interested’‘It was fun and comic and groovy and traditional and easy to watch’‘It set the atmosphere slightly by being surrounded in a place that had been set in the time of Shakespeare’‘brought me back in time to complete the whole experience’‘It was beautiful and gave a better “air” to the play’

*Some of the 26 respondents who chose to answer the Likert scale questions opted to omit responses to some or all of the open-ended questions.