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.
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