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Shakespeare Magazine 05

Issue 5 of Shakespeare Magazine celebrates the amazing Shakespeare documentary film Muse of Fire. We also investigate Shakespeare and the Tower of London, and take a trip to the American Shakespeare Center, while Shakespeare's Globe performs at the Inns of Court. Lois Leveen rethinks Romeo and Juliet with her novel Juliet's Nurse, while the Filter Theatre Company remixes Macbeth at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol. Plus! Station Eleven, the thrilling post-apocalyptic Shakespeare novel by Emily St. John Mandel.

Issue 5 of Shakespeare Magazine celebrates the amazing Shakespeare documentary film Muse of Fire. We also investigate Shakespeare and the Tower of London, and take a trip to the American Shakespeare Center, while Shakespeare's Globe performs at the Inns of Court. Lois Leveen rethinks Romeo and Juliet with her novel Juliet's Nurse, while the Filter Theatre Company remixes Macbeth at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol. Plus! Station Eleven, the thrilling post-apocalyptic Shakespeare novel by Emily St. John Mandel.

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At last! A magazine with all the Will in the world<br />

SHAKESPEARE<br />

Issue 5<br />

Off<br />

with<br />

their<br />

heads!<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

and the Tower<br />

of London<br />

Golden<br />

Virginia<br />

Join us on a<br />

trip to the<br />

American<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

Center<br />

Muse of Fire<br />

Two men. One epic journey.<br />

Giles and Dan make the ultimate<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> documentary!


November<br />

2 Read Not Dead/Rarely Played<br />

Damon and Pithias<br />

4 Setting the Scene<br />

’Tis Pity She’s a Whore<br />

18 Setting the Scene<br />

’Tis Pity She’s a Whore<br />

20 The Youths That Thunder<br />

22 <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Untold<br />

Titus Andronicus<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> and his contemporaries returned time and again<br />

to the central importance of friendship, a complex relationship<br />

that encompassed kinship, romance, eroticism and devotion<br />

beyond death. Our Friendship season explores the theme<br />

through !"#$%&'(%)"#$ staged readings, family events and<br />

scholarly talks.<br />

DECember<br />

2 Setting the Scene<br />

’Tis Pity She’s a Whore<br />

11 A Concert for Winter<br />

13 <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Untold<br />

Romeo & Juliet<br />

16 Setting the Scene<br />

The Knight of the Burning Pestle<br />

january<br />

17 Voice Studio<br />

17 <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Untold<br />

A Midsummer Night’s Dream<br />

20 Setting the Scene<br />

The Changeling<br />

24 Voice Studio<br />

31 Voice Studio<br />

The season continues until April 2015. See website for full details.<br />

#<strong>Shakespeare</strong>andFriendship


Welcome <br />

Welcome<br />

to Issue 5 of <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong><br />

This momentous year of 2014 draws to a close, and<br />

with it my first nine months as a full-time <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

journalist. It’s already been quite an education, but then,<br />

that’s exactly the point. I started the magazine so I could<br />

learn about <strong>Shakespeare</strong> and take others along with me<br />

for the ride. So far, the plan is working like a dream.<br />

I can think of no finer cover stars to round off our first year than<br />

Giles and Dan, whose wonderful Muse of Fire documentary has been<br />

reaping new <strong>Shakespeare</strong> converts across the globe. They’ve interviewed<br />

everyone who is anyone in their amazing <strong>Shakespeare</strong>an quest. Now it’s<br />

their turn to answer our questions...<br />

Also this month, I had the great pleasure of hosting <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

<strong>Magazine</strong> drinks with some of our contributors in Bristol and London.<br />

It was a chance for me to personally thank them for their excellent work<br />

this year, and to look forward to further <strong>Shakespeare</strong> shenanigans in<br />

2015 (including, I hope, at least one <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> live event).<br />

It just remains for me to thank Paul McIntyre, our estimable<br />

Art Editor, without whom this enterprise would be “but a walking<br />

shadow...”<br />

Enjoy your magazine, and Season’s Greetings to you all.<br />

Photo: David Hammonds<br />

Pat Reid, Founder & Editor<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 3


At last! A magazine with all the Will in the world<br />

SHAKESPEARE<br />

Issue 5<br />

Contents<br />

Off<br />

with<br />

their<br />

heads!<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

and the Tower<br />

of London<br />

Golden<br />

Virginia<br />

Join us on a<br />

trip to the<br />

American<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

Center<br />

Muse of Fire<br />

Two men. One epic journey.<br />

Giles and Dan make the ultimate<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> documentary!<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong><br />

Issue Five<br />

September 2014<br />

Founder & Editor<br />

Pat Reid<br />

Art Editor<br />

Paul McIntyre<br />

Staff Writers<br />

Brooke Thomas (UK)<br />

Mary Finch (US)<br />

Writers<br />

Zoe Bramley<br />

Lucy Corley<br />

Chief Photographer<br />

Piper Williams<br />

Photographers<br />

Michael Bailey<br />

Chuck G. Barnes<br />

Anne-Marie Bickerton<br />

Farrows Creative<br />

Alex Harvey-Brown<br />

John Melville Bishop<br />

Lauren D. Rogers<br />

Lindsey Walters<br />

Thank You<br />

Mrs Mary Reid<br />

Web design<br />

David Hammonds<br />

Contact Us<br />

shakespearemag@outlook.com<br />

Facebook<br />

facebook.com/<strong>Shakespeare</strong><strong>Magazine</strong><br />

Twitter<br />

@UK<strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

Website<br />

www.shakespearemagazine.com<br />

Muse of Fire 6<br />

The <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Force is strong with these two!<br />

Meet Dan and Giles, and prepare to be a-Mused.<br />

<br />

4 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Contents <br />

This must be<br />

the place 14<br />

Our US correspondent is<br />

transported by Macbeth at the<br />

American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center.<br />

<br />

Tower of<br />

Power 24<br />

In <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s day, all roads led to<br />

the Tower of London.<br />

<br />

Sound and<br />

Vision 30<br />

Filter Theatre Company take on the<br />

Scottish Play in Bristol.<br />

<br />

The Letter of<br />

the Law 36<br />

The Globe’s Read Not Dead puts<br />

the plays back in their place.<br />

<br />

Between the<br />

lines 42<br />

The Nurse’s Tale retold by novelist<br />

Lois Leveen.<br />

<br />

WIN!<br />

One of 5 copies of Station<br />

Eleven, the thrilling post-<br />

Apocalyptic <strong>Shakespeare</strong> novel<br />

by Emily St. John Mandel.<br />

Simply send an email to us at<br />

shakespearemag@outlook.com<br />

with ‘Station’ in the subject<br />

line. Don’t forget to include<br />

your name,<br />

address and<br />

contact number.<br />

Closing date is<br />

Wednesday 15<br />

January.<br />

Good luck!<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 5


Tongues o<br />

Muse of Fire<br />

6 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Muse of Fire <br />

Actors and best mates Dan Poole and Giles Terera have wowed the<br />

world with their celebratory <strong>Shakespeare</strong> road-trip documentary<br />

Muse of Fire<br />

<br />

<br />

<br />

<br />

Words: Brooke Thomas<br />

<br />

f<br />

Fire<br />

Giles (left) and Dan take centre<br />

stage at <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Globe.<br />

Images courtesy of Muse of Fire.<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 7


Muse of Fire<br />

<br />

of <strong>Shakespeare</strong>?<br />

Dan: “Sitting in a classroom in Sheffield.<br />

They took us down to a room and they<br />

wheeled in this crummy TV that was locked<br />

down in a big steel cage. They put in – and<br />

I can’t remember what it was – but I have<br />

a feeling it may have been Henry V. They<br />

did it quite consistently, every month or so<br />

you’d go sit watch another one. You can’t<br />

just do that – that doesn’t mean anything.<br />

As a result, I assumed it was something that<br />

I shouldn’t like, or wouldn’t like, or I’d never<br />

like, and I didn’t see the relevance of it.”<br />

Giles: “My first memory of <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

I don’t actually remember, because my<br />

mother told me about it. We were at a<br />

neighbour’s wedding. I was a page boy, my<br />

sisters were flower girls, so I was probably<br />

three or four. I was running around<br />

The two actors<br />

travelled all over<br />

the world on their<br />

quest to explore<br />

and understand<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>.<br />

and being noisy and this woman at the<br />

wedding said to my mother ‘Oh, that boy’s<br />

going to be a <strong>Shakespeare</strong>an actor.’ I guess<br />

because I was yakking. I forgot about it until<br />

I came to study and thought ‘That’s an odd<br />

thing for someone to say about a black kid<br />

in Stevenage in the early ’80s!’”<br />

Dan: “I then came back to it when I was<br />

14, 15. It was Macbeth, I think, and it was<br />

sitting around in a circle reading two<br />

lines each. How can you possibly get an<br />

understanding reading two lines?”<br />

Do you remember when that<br />

<br />

<br />

relationship with, or even a love<br />

for, <strong>Shakespeare</strong>?<br />

Dan and Giles: “Yeah!”<br />

Giles: “I’d decided to become an actor and<br />

did a two year BTEC course. You’d never<br />

“It’s a film for people who feel, like us, that they were<br />

slightly cut off from or intimidated by <strong>Shakespeare</strong>”<br />

Giles Terera<br />

8 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Muse of Fire <br />

“Young people are more than<br />

capable of receiving Henry VI in<br />

period costume, spoken word for<br />

word as <strong>Shakespeare</strong> wrote it”<br />

Giles Terera<br />

know there was anyone called <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

from my BTEC in performing arts, the name<br />

never came up. Then I went to drama<br />

school, where I met Dan, and that same<br />

year Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet<br />

came out, and also Looking for Richard, Al<br />

Pacino’s documentary. At the same time<br />

we had a voice teacher who showed us<br />

Olivier’s films and then the penny dropped<br />

big time for me, and I just fell in love, as lots<br />

of actors do. I just drank up everything I<br />

could, read it, carried books around, I knew<br />

I wanted to do more and see more in that<br />

world.”<br />

Dan: “I remember Henry V was the thing<br />

I got caught up in. I had three friends who<br />

went to the first Gulf War in ’91. I was a<br />

penpal to all my friends who were in Iraq<br />

or Desert Storm, and the letters that came<br />

back were so odd I genuinely felt echoes<br />

of the world of that play. There were<br />

extremes throughout. One of them would<br />

be calm for five paragraphs, then there’d<br />

be a paragraph in the middle that would<br />

look like it’d been written by someone else,<br />

like a clown or a grotesque… It just didn’t<br />

fit with anything else. It was obviously the<br />

extremes of what they were dealing with<br />

coming out in a totally different way, so for<br />

me Henry V always had a real connection<br />

with people that I knew. Since then we’ve<br />

got other friends who’ve been in that kind<br />

of environment, and when you talk to them<br />

you realise that <strong>Shakespeare</strong> got those<br />

themes really right.”<br />

<br />

film – was that intentional? Were<br />

you influenced by <br />

Richard, for example?<br />

Giles: “Yeah, because all of the other<br />

programmes we’d seen about <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

were [In boring history teacher voice] ‘In<br />

1642, blah blah blah, <strong>Shakespeare</strong> was<br />

here in a small market town’ and I’m like,<br />

‘I dunno, I dunno what you’re saying.’<br />

Even if I literally know what you’re saying,<br />

the presentation puts me off. So if we<br />

were going to be different we knew that<br />

there’d have to be no artifice to it, it’d have<br />

to be as honest as possible.” [NB In 1642<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> had been dead for 26 years –<br />

Boring History Ed]<br />

Dan: “We wanted it to be more accessible<br />

than a talking heads documentary. There’s<br />

nothing wrong with those, but they exist<br />

already.”<br />

Giles: “Look at the subject matter. The<br />

subject matter is: <strong>Shakespeare</strong> wrote in<br />

such a way that he could speak to very<br />

highly literate people, but he could also<br />

speak to the people who’d just paid a<br />

penny to be a groundling, or to royalty. He<br />

could speak to everyone. Therefore that’s<br />

what we must do. This can’t be a film for the<br />

intelligentsia, it’s not a film for the academic<br />

elite. It’s a film for people who feel, like<br />

us, that they were slightly cut off from or<br />

intimidated by <strong>Shakespeare</strong>.”<br />

People have been seriously<br />

impressed by the sheer wealth of<br />

interviews in Muse of Fire.<br />

Giles: “All the actors that we spoke to<br />

were really generous with their time, and<br />

we knew we’d only be able to use maybe<br />

a minute and a half of each interview in<br />

the film. Some of these people have been<br />

talking about <strong>Shakespeare</strong>, or performing<br />

and living <strong>Shakespeare</strong> for 50, 60 years,<br />

they’ve got incredible things to say. We<br />

were fortunate enough to see and hear<br />

that, and we knew that we wanted other<br />

people to be able to see it. In a way it’s<br />

almost… I don’t know if I can say that.”<br />

Dan: “Yeah, you can, you can say it.”<br />

Giles: “It’s almost more exciting than the<br />

film. We’d often go to find a nugget, a clip,<br />

for the film, and end up watching all of the<br />

<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 9


Muse of Fire<br />

interview because what they’re saying is<br />

so honest, rich and inspiring that you get<br />

drawn in. So we’re working with a theatre<br />

[<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Globe in London] to make<br />

these interviews available online, for free,<br />

for people to watch and enjoy for years to<br />

come. There’s some really moving moments<br />

in there.”<br />

Dan: “The greatest thing, and it gives me<br />

goosebumps just thinking about it, is the<br />

lack of vanity from everyone. There was no<br />

ego, nothing, and that’s testament to them<br />

and how human they are.”<br />

<br />

<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> and what it means to<br />

you made for a relaxed and open<br />

atmosphere.<br />

Dan: “We hope so.”<br />

Giles: “It’s good that people responded to<br />

that.”<br />

Dan: “That would have been the worst-case<br />

scenario, if people hadn’t understood that<br />

we were a conduit to open up a potentially<br />

difficult subject. If they’d thought that we<br />

were a couple of dicks – you’d have never<br />

seen us again!”<br />

<br />

<br />

<br />

Dan: “There’s lots. We’d have loved to<br />

have spoken to Denzel Washington, John<br />

Malkovich, Laurence Olivier…”<br />

Giles: “He dead.”<br />

Dan: “What! (laughter) Helen Mirren.”<br />

Giles: “There were a lot of near misses.”<br />

Dan: “Leonardo DiCaprio. We were in the<br />

ballpark for that happening, but these<br />

people are all so busy.”<br />

Giles: “Richard Attenborough, who sadly<br />

passed away. He was happy to speak to us,<br />

but he was very ill at that point.”<br />

Dan: “And Pete Postlethwaite. It was going<br />

to happen, but sadly he passed away. Which<br />

again is a tragedy, but he left a great mark<br />

on what we have today.”<br />

Dan: “I hope you print this, because no-one<br />

ever does. I just want to acknowledge the<br />

The Muse of Fire<br />

boys face the<br />

media…<br />

(Image: Piper<br />

Williams)<br />

people that made this possible, from the<br />

graphics, the animations, the music – Giles<br />

composed, but we had a team – all these<br />

people who gave up their time for free.<br />

Venues, theatres, members’ clubs all round<br />

London who let us shoot…”<br />

Giles: “The actors themselves.”<br />

Dan: “The actors themselves, camera<br />

companies…”<br />

All for the love of <strong>Shakespeare</strong>.<br />

Giles: “That’s a good title.”<br />

Dan: “For the Love of <strong>Shakespeare</strong>?”<br />

<br />

Dan: “Yeah.”<br />

Giles: “Noooooooo!”<br />

<br />

role?<br />

Dan: “Iago.”<br />

Giles: “You’d be a good Iago.”<br />

Dan: “Or Henry V, actually.”<br />

Giles: “You’d be a good Iago because<br />

everyone trusts you and also you could<br />

absolutely slay everyone.”<br />

Dan: [Laughs] “It would be an absolute<br />

joy!”<br />

10 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Muse of Fire <br />

Stars of Fire: (clockwise from top left)<br />

Sir Ben Kingsley, Brian Cox, Geraldine<br />

James, John Hurt, James Earl Jones, Ewan<br />

McGregor.<br />

<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 11


Muse of Fire<br />

…And<br />

more Stars of Fire: (clockwise from<br />

top left) Baz Luhrmann, Tom Hiddleston,<br />

Jude Law, Dame Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes.<br />

12 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Muse of Fire <br />

“It’s more than 400 years old, it’s not going to just come<br />

to you. It can do, but not necessarily, so you have to do<br />

a bit of work and meet it halfway” Dan Poole<br />

Giles: “There’s lots of parts I’d like to play.<br />

I really like Aaron the Moor in Titus. I saw<br />

it this year and was reminded what an<br />

extraordinary path that is for all of them.”<br />

Dan: “That’s actually one of my favourite<br />

plays, I’d love to be anyone in Titus.”<br />

<br />

little Giles and little Dan, how<br />

would you teach <strong>Shakespeare</strong> to<br />

yourselves?<br />

Giles: “We often ask that question!”<br />

Dan: “Get up and start speaking it, don’t<br />

sit in a circle and read it. If you don’t<br />

understand what you’re saying, keep<br />

saying it. Ewan McGregor says in the film<br />

‘[<strong>Shakespeare</strong>] has a different taste in the<br />

mouth.’ You find that out by speaking it, and<br />

then it starts to find a world in you, I think.”<br />

Giles: “I think you’re right, but maybe<br />

it’s a bit weird to expect teachers to be<br />

able to do that. Maybe if you put actors in<br />

each classroom they’d say ‘Right, push the<br />

tables back, let’s get on our feet.’ Whereas a<br />

teacher, especially if they haven’t got that<br />

connection with a play themselves, will<br />

probably teach it how they were taught it<br />

20 years ago – sitting around in a circle. A<br />

lot of the actors we interviewed actually<br />

said that the teachers should be better<br />

equipped, even if it’s just that one play on<br />

the syllabus each year. What we’re battling<br />

is people being told that it’s ‘not for you’<br />

somehow. They say ‘You’re not going to<br />

understand this, Kids, so we’re going to set<br />

it in outer space and put a pop song in it.’<br />

That’s doing the audience a disservice as<br />

well. Young people are more than capable<br />

of receiving Henry VI in period costume,<br />

spoken word for word as <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

wrote it. If you tell them that ‘You’re not<br />

going to get this so we’re going to dumb it<br />

down and put rap in it…’”<br />

Dan: “...You’re taking something away from<br />

them. It’s more than 400 years old, it’s not<br />

going to just come to you. It can do, but not<br />

necessarily, so you have to do a bit of work<br />

and meet it halfway.”<br />

Can you sum up the whole Muse of<br />

Fire experience in one sentence?<br />

Dan: “I know this sounds like I’m a total<br />

wanker, but it’s become the richest palette<br />

of colour in my life. That’s it. And it tastes<br />

good as well.”<br />

Giles: “You’re eating paint.”<br />

Dan: “I’m basically eating paint.”<br />

Giles: “You mixed your metaphors. This<br />

is the kind of kids we were at school... One<br />

sentence? It’s been the most challenging<br />

experience of my life, but also the most<br />

rewarding.”<br />

Dan: “Really tiring. Really hard work,<br />

brilliantly hard work. It doesn’t really go<br />

away, you assume that once it’s out there<br />

it’s done, but we still have an ongoing<br />

responsibility. Again, this sounds like I’m a<br />

wanker, but we have a responsibility to be<br />

an architect to the resource.”<br />

Giles: “No, we would be the night<br />

watchmen. The architect is the one who<br />

builds it, we’re the ones going around with<br />

the torch at 5am, hearing a mouse at the<br />

end of the corridor.”<br />

Dan: “Like the big lock-up at the end of<br />

Raiders of the Lost Ark.”<br />

Giles: “With cobwebs and all kinds of<br />

nasties...”<br />

<br />

Muse of Fire is available now on iTunes.<br />

You can also see full-length Muse of Fire<br />

interviews via Globe Player.<br />

http://www.globeplayer.tv/museoffire<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 13


American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center<br />

This<br />

must be<br />

the place<br />

Several thousand miles away from Stratford-upon-Avon<br />

and London, a reconstructed Blackfriars playhouse is<br />

serving world class <strong>Shakespeare</strong>. Welcome to Staunton,<br />

Virginia – home of the American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center.<br />

Words: Mary Finch<br />

14 SHAKESPEARE magazine


American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center <br />

American Tragedy: James<br />

Keegan and Sarah Fallon<br />

as the murderous King<br />

and Queen in Macbeth<br />

at the ASC. (Image by<br />

Michael Bailey)<br />

<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 15


American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center<br />

Above: <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong>’s Mary Finch outside the<br />

Blackfriars Playhouse. Below: Mary interviews ASC<br />

luminary Dr Ralph Cohen. (Images: Lauren D. Rogers)<br />

16 SHAKESPEARE magazine


American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center <br />

Drive far enough through the<br />

cornfields of Virginia and you’ll<br />

end up in the quaint town of<br />

Staunton. And if you resist<br />

the allure of the bookstores,<br />

bars and coffee shops, you’ll<br />

come to one of the wonders<br />

of the <strong>Shakespeare</strong>an world –<br />

the Blackfriars Theatre at the<br />

American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center.<br />

Such was the pilgrimage I made<br />

last summer, as have many<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>ans before me.<br />

Driving into town, I must confess I<br />

wondered if this was not the beginning of<br />

another <strong>Shakespeare</strong>an misadventure (see<br />

previous issue for examples of my many<br />

mishaps). Could we have taken a wrong<br />

turn? This picturesque town seemed<br />

more like the setting for a cliché comingof-age<br />

movie than a cultural hub for<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>ans.<br />

“We didn’t want an urban place,” says<br />

company co-founder Dr Ralph Cohen,<br />

explaining the seemingly odd choice of<br />

location. They chose Staunton because, in<br />

his words, “It’s a place to come, park your<br />

car, see a lot of shows and not have to<br />

worry about anything.”<br />

Dr Cohen’s passion for <strong>Shakespeare</strong> bursts<br />

at the seams. He began talking as soon as I<br />

arrived, hardly waiting for the recorder to<br />

start. When he discovered that I had never<br />

seen the interior of the Blackfriars, he insisted<br />

on accompanying me inside, eager to see my<br />

The balcony and<br />

interior of the<br />

Blackfriars Playhouse.<br />

(Image by Lauren D.<br />

Rogers)<br />

“James Keegan swept between<br />

extremes, portraying Macbeth’s<br />

mixture of hesitancy and<br />

consuming ambition”<br />

reactions. And he was not disappointed. The<br />

view from the upstairs seating took my breath<br />

away and slapped a goofy grin on my face.<br />

In the scene before me, patrons<br />

milled around the precise replication of<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s indoor theatre, waiting for<br />

the Wednesday evening performance to<br />

begin. Some (like myself) gaped at the<br />

detail in the woodwork of the performance<br />

space, while others went to the onstage bar<br />

for refreshments. Some even swayed to the<br />

music played by the actors in the loft above<br />

the stage. Don’t be mistaken, though – they<br />

were not playing period ballads, but covers<br />

of pop songs, such as ‘Rolling in the Deep’<br />

by Adele and ‘Locked Out of Heaven’ by<br />

Bruno Mars.<br />

And the the audience itself caught my<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 17


American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center<br />

18 SHAKESPEARE magazine


American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center <br />

Left: A suitably bloody<br />

Banquo. (Image by Michael<br />

Bailey)<br />

This page: Macbeth gets<br />

well and truly Macduffed.<br />

(Image by Lindsey Walters)<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 19


American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center<br />

stage.<br />

attention. There were people with grey<br />

hair and people with neon blue hair. There<br />

were audience members who were likely<br />

in primary school and others who were<br />

likely at university, and beyond. The power<br />

of the Bard’s words unified this otherwise<br />

disjointed crowd.<br />

While the diversity in the small audience<br />

surprised me, it seems like the most natural<br />

thing to director and co-founder Jim<br />

Warren. “[<strong>Shakespeare</strong>] wrote for diverse<br />

audiences,” explains Warren, “so if we do<br />

some of the stuff that he did, we can create<br />

that diversity because that diverse appeal<br />

was written into the play.”<br />

One Elizabethan motto the ASC holds<br />

proudly is – as T-shirts for sale in the lobby<br />

boast – “We do it with the lights on”.<br />

Throughout the entire performance, electric<br />

candelabras illuminate the actors as well as the<br />

audience. This illumination creates a unique<br />

sense of community, as the reaction of fellow<br />

audience members is easily seen, especially<br />

with the audience placed on three sides of the<br />

“One Elizabethan motto<br />

the ASC holds proudly<br />

is: We do it with the<br />

lights on”<br />

A performance in full<br />

swing at the Blackfriars<br />

Playhouse. (Image by<br />

Lauren D. Rogers)<br />

Such lighting allowed me to watch my<br />

fellow audience members as much as the actors<br />

on stage.<br />

The two young theatre goers sitting on<br />

the stage caught my attention as they pulled<br />

pink sweaters over their faces at the entrance<br />

of the Weird Sisters. And any feelings of<br />

embarrassment over my tears for MacDuff’s<br />

grief disappeared as soon as I cautioned a<br />

glance around and saw I was not the only one<br />

so moved.<br />

Before the start of rehearsal, Warren sent<br />

the actors a set of typically forthright notes.<br />

“We won’t be making Lady Macbeth one of<br />

20 SHAKESPEARE magazine


American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> CenterA <br />

The Weird Sisters of<br />

Macbeth at the ASC.<br />

(Image by Michael Bailey)<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 21


American <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Center<br />

the witches,” he wrote. “We won’t be<br />

making Macbeth the Third Murderer.<br />

We won’t have the witches costumed as<br />

cheerleaders/priests/nuns… We won’t<br />

be doing a lot of things that a lot of<br />

productions do.”<br />

Refreshingly, Warren’s production<br />

remains powerfully committed simply to<br />

telling the story with a straightforward<br />

aim of entertaining and challenging the<br />

audience. “Watching Macbeth’s descent<br />

into hell can help us to strive to never be<br />

in that situation,” says Warren. “To never be<br />

controlled by somebody in that situation.”<br />

James Keegan’s portrayal of the Scottish<br />

King swept between the extremes, lending<br />

authenticity to Macbeth’s mixture of<br />

hesitancy and consuming ambition. As<br />

“Throughout the entire<br />

performance, electric<br />

candelabras illuminate the<br />

actors and the audience”<br />

The ‘<strong>Shakespeare</strong> on<br />

the Road’ team visited<br />

Staunton on their US<br />

tour: (l-r) Paul Prescott<br />

(Warwick University),<br />

<br />

Paul Edmondson<br />

(<strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

Birthplace Trust),<br />

<br />

Inc). Image by Lauren<br />

D. Rogers.<br />

his counterpart, Sarah Fallon creates a<br />

Lady Macbeth to match, a Lady Macbeth<br />

motivated not only by ambition, but also<br />

love. Together, Fallon and Keegan present<br />

two of <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s greatest villains<br />

as two of his greatest lovers. Of course,<br />

their love proves horrifically destructive –<br />

ultimately they lose each other in exchange<br />

for a brief claim to a bloody crown.<br />

Even while descending into hell, there<br />

were moments of genuine humour. In<br />

the midst of the Porter’s monologue,<br />

immediately after the murder of Duncan,<br />

the actor strayed from his 400-year-old<br />

lines to have some fun with the audience<br />

members onstage, soliciting kisses on the<br />

cheek and ridiculing outfit choices.<br />

Through the jokes, the flashes of<br />

violence and the moments of tragedy,<br />

the production felt cohesive and fully<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>. For Warren, the comedy in<br />

the tragedy is only natural. “<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s<br />

fun!” he says, “Even if it is the dark tragedy<br />

of Macbeth, there is a lot of fun in it.”<br />

<br />

22 SHAKESPEARE magazine


History: The Tower of London<br />

Tower<br />

of Power<br />

During his lifetime it was a place of living history,<br />

a symbol of Royal authority and a much-feared<br />

prison. But what would the Tower of London<br />

have meant to William <strong>Shakespeare</strong>?<br />

Words: Zoe Bramley Images courtesy Historic Royal Palaces<br />

24 SHAKESPEARE magazine


History: The Tower of London <br />

“The Tower was<br />

also a prison –<br />

a place where<br />

the unlucky, the<br />

brave and the<br />

foolish went to<br />

suffer and die”<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 25


History: The Tower of London<br />

s a City of London Tour Guide<br />

I can talk for hours about<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> and his links to<br />

obscure ruins hidden in secret<br />

corners of the Square Mile. The<br />

smaller and quirkier, the better.<br />

“See this wall? Let me tell you<br />

about it!”<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> had a full, rich life in<br />

the City. We find him in fairly ordinary<br />

places – Carter Lane, Bread Street and<br />

the alleyways of Blackfriars. So when the<br />

Editor asked me to write about the Tower<br />

of London I demurred. Surely the Tower<br />

yields tales of kings, queens and traitors. If<br />

Will from Stratford ever went there it’s not<br />

recorded. What on earth would I say?<br />

Shakespare himself is almost silent<br />

on the subject. But there are some<br />

interesting scenes in Richard III which<br />

could reveal something of his feelings<br />

toward the fortress. In Act III, Scene I,<br />

Prince Edward speaks plainly: “I do not<br />

like the Tower...” He is a doomed little boy<br />

who, along with his brother, will shortly be<br />

swallowed up within its stone walls and<br />

disappear from history. He’s inquisitive<br />

and he asks Buckingham about the old<br />

building, wondering if it was built by Julius<br />

Caesar.<br />

Buckingham replies that is was indeed<br />

built by Caesar, and the reader wonders<br />

if this is another amusing example of<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s dodgy grasp of history. Just<br />

think of all those anachronistic clocks in<br />

plays like Macbeth and Julius Caesar, not<br />

forgetting the game of billiards in Antony<br />

and Cleopatra. For Elizabethans, however,<br />

the origins of the Tower were hazy.<br />

Squatting just outside London, at the<br />

south eastern boundary, it seemed to have<br />

sprung up at the time the Romans built<br />

their great wall around the City. Londoners<br />

did indeed know the White Tower as ‘Julius<br />

Caesar’s Tower’.<br />

Of course, we know different. Begun<br />

in 1078, the great stone fortress was built<br />

to consolidate William the Conqueror’s<br />

victory over the English and keep the<br />

population in awe of his might. By Will’s<br />

day it was a contradictory place. On one<br />

hand it functioned as a tourist attraction,<br />

with visitors flocking to see fearsome<br />

beasts such as leopards and bears at the<br />

royal menagerie. On the other hand, it was<br />

still very much a royal palace. It was also a<br />

prison. The Tower was a place where the<br />

unlucky, the brave and the foolish went to<br />

suffer and die.<br />

Most infamously, the Tower was<br />

where a Queen of England, Anne Boleyn,<br />

was imprisoned and executed in 1536<br />

– an incident which is most definitely<br />

not mentioned in <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s late<br />

collaborative play Henry VIII.<br />

In 1601, Robert Devereux, the renowned<br />

26 SHAKESPEARE magazine<br />

“Most infamously, the Tower was where<br />

a Queen of England, Anne Boleyn, was<br />

imprisoned and executed in 1536”


History: The Tower of London <br />

A symbol of royal power,<br />

the Tower was a natural<br />

target for popular uprisings<br />

like the Jack Cade Rebellion,<br />

as depicted in <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s<br />

Henry VI, Part 2.<br />

Dramatised by<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

in Richard III,<br />

the tale of the<br />

Princes in the<br />

Tower is one<br />

of England’s<br />

most poignant<br />

legends.<br />

After the 16<strong>05</strong><br />

Gunpowder Plot (which<br />

some believe is a subtext<br />

in <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Macbeth),<br />

Guy Fawkes was tortured<br />

in the Tower.<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 27


History: The Tower of London<br />

“Tower diaries record the torture and<br />

execution of Edward Arden of Warwickshire<br />

– kinsman of William <strong>Shakespeare</strong>”<br />

Earl of Essex, was beheaded on Tower Green<br />

for his failed uprising against Anne Boleyn’s<br />

daughter, the mighty Queen Elizabeth<br />

I. Perhaps unwittingly, <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s<br />

company had played a role in the rebellion<br />

by agreeing to perform Richard II at the<br />

Globe. The rebels had asked them to dust<br />

off the old classic once more and to include<br />

the ‘deposition scene’ in which Richard II<br />

is shown giving up his crown. In the fervid<br />

atmosphere of late Elizabethan England,<br />

with a paranoid, ageing queen on the<br />

throne, this was controversial stuff. Essex<br />

hoped that the people would be inspired<br />

to follow the play’s example and help him<br />

depose Elizabeth.<br />

That episode must have been frightening<br />

enough, but <strong>Shakespeare</strong> already had a more<br />

personal connection with the horrors that<br />

awaited within the Tower.<br />

In November 1583, Tower diaries state,<br />

one Edward Arden of Warwickshire was<br />

tortured upon the rack. He was accused of<br />

treason, of plotting against the Queen’s life.<br />

After a show trial at the Guildhall he was<br />

hung, drawn and quartered.<br />

This was William <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s kinsman,<br />

a second cousin of his mother, Mary Arden.<br />

The shock felt by the <strong>Shakespeare</strong> family<br />

must have been immense. The shame! What<br />

would the neighbours say? Warwickshire was<br />

a small world. William was only 19. Two<br />

years later, he disappears from sight and the<br />

seven ‘Lost Years’ begin.<br />

How had this family tragedy come<br />

about? Edward Arden was a wealthy<br />

gentleman with an unfortunate son-in-law,<br />

John Somerville. Like Arden, Somerville was<br />

Catholic in a time when penal laws made<br />

life difficult and dangerous for their kind. It<br />

seems that one day the unstable Somerville<br />

snapped. He set off for London, telling<br />

everyone he met that he was going to kill<br />

the Queen. Now, in the days of hanging,<br />

drawing and quartering, this was indiscreet<br />

at best. It makes me think there was never<br />

any actual plot, just the delusional ravings of<br />

a man who was widely regarded as mentally<br />

unbalanced.<br />

Sadly for Edward Arden, Somerville<br />

named him as one who was involved in the<br />

‘treason’ and he too was arrested, suffering<br />

his grisly fate at Smithfield. Somerville was<br />

found strangled inside his cell at the Tower.<br />

Visitors to the Tower today can see<br />

pitiful graffiti etched into the walls,<br />

testament to the lost souls who had short<br />

stays there prior to execution or who pined<br />

away for years, forgotten behind bars.<br />

Escape was not unheard of, but very rare and<br />

difficult. In Act I, Scene IV of Richard III<br />

the imprisoned Clarence tells Brackenbury<br />

of a dream in which he’d broken from the<br />

Tower and set sail for Burgundy. And in Act<br />

IV, Scene I Queen Elizabeth calls the Tower<br />

a “rough cradle for such little pretty ones”.<br />

She’s talking about the Princes in the Tower.<br />

When <strong>Shakespeare</strong> thought of the Tower<br />

it must have been with sadness and dread,<br />

knowing what had happened to Edward<br />

Arden in there. Perhaps his near-silence<br />

on that most infamous building actually<br />

speaks volumes. Considering he was one<br />

of the few playwrights of his age to avoid<br />

imprisonment, silence may have been the<br />

wisest course.<br />

<br />

Zoe Bramley leads the <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Trail<br />

and can arrange private walks. Go to www.<br />

shakespearetrail.blogspot.com or Twitter<br />

@shakespearewalk to connect with her.<br />

For information on visiting the Tower of<br />

London, go to www.hrp.org.uk<br />

28 SHAKESPEARE magazine


armour on display at<br />

the Tower.<br />

One of the<br />

iconic buildings<br />

of English history,<br />

the Tower has<br />

seen plenty of<br />

<br />

upheaval.<br />

The Duke of<br />

Clarence was<br />

supposedly<br />

drowned in a<br />

butt of Malmsey<br />

wine at the Tower<br />

– another legend<br />

perpetuated by<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s<br />

Richard III.<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 29


Filter Macbeth<br />

Following critical acclaim for their rock-and-roll comedies<br />

Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Filter<br />

<br />

Macbeth<br />

Tobacco Factory in Bristol. We met them to investigate<br />

<br />

Words: Lucy Corley<br />

Images: Farrows Creative<br />

30 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Filter Macbeth <br />

!"#<br />

$%&<br />

&'<br />

$%'(<br />

!("$ !'"$<br />

<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 31


Filter Macbeth<br />

Filter’s maverick take on<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Macbeth involves<br />

cooking up a cauldron of sound.<br />

32 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Filter Macbeth <br />

As <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Scottish<br />

play approaches its<br />

bloody end, Macbeth<br />

broods that “Life’s but<br />

a walking shadow.”<br />

The metaphor neatly<br />

epitomises Filter Theatre’s<br />

restless new production.<br />

At less than two hours long, Filter’s<br />

Macbeth powers through the play’s most<br />

famous lines at an intense pace, taking<br />

the audience through a kaleidoscopic<br />

montage of sounds and images that seems<br />

to be over before it’s really begun. Yet<br />

Artistic Director Oliver Dimsdale, who also<br />

plays the title role, asserts that this is a fairly<br />

conservative edit by Filter’s standards.<br />

“With other <strong>Shakespeare</strong>s,” he says,<br />

“we might find ourselves being a little bit<br />

bolder with the cutting and the pasting.<br />

But this particular story is just the most<br />

tautly, brilliantly written psychological<br />

thriller and we didn’t want to tamper with<br />

it too much.”<br />

This is Filter’s third <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

production. They have toured Europe with<br />

Twelfth Night (2007) and the UK with A<br />

Midsummer Night’s Dream (2012), but<br />

Macbeth marks the company’s first venture<br />

into tragedy. Their take on the classic had<br />

the audience alternating between chuckles<br />

and grimaces as Lady Macbeth drew a<br />

target on Duncan’s chest in lipstick, and<br />

Macbeth tucked into a dead crow as if it<br />

were a hot dog.<br />

The darkly playful tone is typical of the<br />

company’s style. “We try to approach a<br />

“Lady Macbeth is not a<br />

psychopath, because she<br />

has some remorse”<br />

Poppy Miller<br />

Lady Macbeth (Poppy<br />

Miller) meets the<br />

audience eye-to-eye.<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>an text with the right amount<br />

of respect but also the right amount of,<br />

shall we say, irreverence,” Dimsdale says. “I<br />

think a piece of art should keep on creating<br />

and moving. If it all has to be done exactly<br />

the way it was, then isn’t that a museum<br />

piece rather than a piece of art?”<br />

Developed at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory,<br />

the production exploits the theatre’s<br />

closeness between audience and<br />

performers to create an intimate piece that<br />

never quite leaves the rehearsal room. The<br />

actors drift casually onto the stage with<br />

the houselights still up, in drab-coloured,<br />

modern-day dress no different from the<br />

audience’s.<br />

“It’s a conscious choice with Filter’s<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> productions to have the<br />

house lights 30 percent up on the audience,<br />

to be able to see people’s faces,” explains<br />

Poppy Miller, who plays Lady Macbeth. “The<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 33


Filter Macbeth<br />

idea is that it’s available, that there’s no such<br />

thing as ‘us and them’. We are in some way,<br />

at times, all part of Macbeth, part of the<br />

action.”<br />

The action takes place on blocks<br />

surrounding a pit in the centre of the stage.<br />

Here the three witches become sound<br />

technicians, the ingredients of their brew<br />

the array of instruments and devices that<br />

make up the sound board at the heart of all<br />

Filter’s work.<br />

“Our shows always have music,<br />

composition and sound design at the<br />

epicentre of the process,” says Dimsdale,<br />

“and in this case, actually at the epicentre of<br />

the stage. We find it absolutely freeing and<br />

thrilling that we can concentrate on sound<br />

design rather than necessarily a character.”<br />

And it is definitely sound that calls<br />

the shots in this production. The witches’<br />

concoction of tangled wires, sliders and<br />

strings squeak, rumble and pulsate to create<br />

a cauldron of sound that represents the<br />

“Macbeth is just the most<br />

tautly, brilliantly written<br />

psychological thriller”<br />

Oliver Dimsdale<br />

Lost in music: Oliver<br />

Dimsdale as Macbeth.<br />

characters’ motives and fears. Radios and baby<br />

monitors hint at unknown spaces beyond the<br />

theatre, adding a wistful, intangible tone to the<br />

production.<br />

Into this heady blend wanders<br />

Dimsdale’s philosophically ambitious<br />

Macbeth, to be haunted by the witches’<br />

music. The spring reverberation unit played<br />

by Banquo (Victoria Moseley) even has two<br />

long wires, suggestive of puppet strings.<br />

A second force behind Macbeth is, of<br />

course, his wife. “When she reads the letter<br />

she goes straight into the head of the beast<br />

and is incredibly clear Duncan’s murder has<br />

34 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Filter Macbeth <br />

to happen,” says Dimsdale. Miller’s Lady<br />

Macbeth alternates this flinty determination<br />

with an unsettlingly cheerful hostess’s smile.<br />

“She’s not a psychopath,” says Miller,<br />

“because she has some remorse. Macbeth<br />

pre-analyses and analyses and therefore,<br />

perhaps, doesn’t go mad. She loses her<br />

mind because it’s a very practical task for<br />

her, in some ways.”<br />

Miller certainly has a brisk, secretarial<br />

efficiency. Her sharp, straight-backed form<br />

even stands in for the knife in the ‘Is this a<br />

dagger...?’ speech as Macbeth follows her,<br />

spellbound, around the stage.<br />

The production’s few splashes of colour<br />

come from occasional cool indigo lighting<br />

and the red grin Lady Macbeth paints on<br />

her husband’s face after Duncan’s murder.<br />

Yet this minimalist style allows the lines to<br />

“There’s no such thing as ‘us<br />

and them’. We are all part of<br />

Macbeth, part of the action”<br />

Poppy Miller<br />

The production’s<br />

minimalist style allows<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s words to<br />

have their full impact.<br />

have their full impact and, Dimsdale hopes,<br />

encourages the audience to really listen<br />

and engage with the play.<br />

“For me, a pre-planned performance<br />

can only ever go so far,” says the actor.<br />

“Just being on the line and relating to the<br />

audience keeps the text as alive as possible.”<br />

I can’t speak for the rest of the audience,<br />

but the intensity of Macbeth looking<br />

straight at us and commanding we “resolve<br />

ourselves” to kill Banquo isn’t something<br />

I’ll forget in a hurry. It’s this feeling of<br />

uncertainty about where the play ends<br />

and life begins that is unique to Filter’s<br />

productions and integral to the company’s<br />

relationship with <strong>Shakespeare</strong>.<br />

“It’s sometimes very thrilling in the creating<br />

of a <strong>Shakespeare</strong>an role to not think about<br />

what you’re going to say before you say it,”<br />

Dimsdale reflects. “Too much ‘I’ll say the line<br />

this way’ and you’re getting into the territory<br />

of something that’s artificial, when actually a<br />

lot of the time it’s there in the line. You say the<br />

line and you feel the story propelling you.”<br />

<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 35


Historic places<br />

The<br />

Letter<br />

of the<br />

Law<br />

36 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Historic places <br />

“The relationship between<br />

the law and the theatre in<br />

London is almost as old as the<br />

Inns of Court themselves”<br />

For many fans, nothing beats<br />

the thrill of experiencing<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> in a suitably<br />

historic venue. And now<br />

Read Not Dead on the Road<br />

is exploring the Bard’s links<br />

to the legal profession at<br />

London’s Inns of Court.<br />

Words and images courtesy of<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Globe.<br />

Photography by Anne-Marie Bickerton<br />

and Alex Harvey-Brown.<br />

<br />

Actors and lawyers<br />

perform George<br />

Gascoigne’s 1573 play<br />

Supposes at Gray’s Inn.<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 37


Historic places<br />

Actors<br />

“Storytelling is a core aspect of both the<br />

advocate and actor. The objective is to<br />

connect emotionally with the person<br />

one is trying to persuade”<br />

hakespeare’s Globe is on a quest<br />

to stage every play known to<br />

have been performed on the<br />

stages of London before 1642.<br />

Launched in 1995 by Globe<br />

Education, Read Not Dead<br />

brings actors, audiences and<br />

scholars together to explore<br />

and celebrate those plays by<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s contemporaries<br />

via script-in-hand, play-ina-day<br />

performances. They<br />

are not meant to be polished<br />

productions, but there is a<br />

shared spirit of adventure and<br />

excitement for the actors and<br />

audiences uncovering these<br />

hidden gems.<br />

Part of the project is to take these rare plays<br />

back to their historical context. Last summer,<br />

Love’s Victory by Lady Mary Wroth was<br />

staged at Penshurst Place in Kent. It is the<br />

rehearse Lady<br />

Mary Wroth’s Love’s<br />

Victory (c. 1620) at<br />

Penshurst Place, Kent.<br />

first pastoral comedy known to be written<br />

by a woman, and Penshurst Place is the very<br />

location it is most likely to have been written<br />

and first performed 400 years ago.<br />

At the beginning of its new ‘<strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

and Friendship’ season of public events,<br />

Globe Education is taking Read Not Dead<br />

across the river Thames to London’s Inns<br />

of Court for a special series celebrating the<br />

‘amity of the inns’.<br />

The series launched in November with a<br />

performance of The Most Excellent Comedy<br />

of Two The Most Faithfullest Friends<br />

Damon and Pithias. Written around 1564 by<br />

Richard Edwards, a little-known precursor to<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>, this tragi-comedy celebrates true<br />

38 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Historic places <br />

and virtuous friendship. Today, friendship<br />

between the Inns and among members<br />

remains a cornerstone of Inns of Court<br />

culture, as lawyers from around the world<br />

live, study and practise together in shared<br />

amity.<br />

The Inns of Court in London are the<br />

professional associations for barristers in<br />

England and Wales. The relationship between<br />

the law and the theatre in London is almost as<br />

old as the Inns of Court themselves. All four<br />

– Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Lincoln’s<br />

and Gray’s – are known as famous, and<br />

sometime infamous, venues for professional<br />

as well as amateur drama. The first recorded<br />

performance of Twelfth Night took place in<br />

Read Not Dead<br />

allows historic plays<br />

to come alive for<br />

modern audiences.<br />

Middle Temple Hall in 1602, an event which<br />

was celebrated on its 400th anniversary with<br />

a production of the play in the same venue<br />

by actors from <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Globe including<br />

Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry. The Comedy<br />

of Errors is recorded to have been performed<br />

in 1594 at Gray’s Inn. <strong>Shakespeare</strong> was<br />

interested enough in the Inns of Court to<br />

make them the setting for Act II, Scene IV of<br />

Henry VI, Part 1.<br />

Iain Christie is a barrister and trained actor<br />

who combines both practices. As a Bencher of<br />

the Inner Temple and a member of the Inner<br />

Temple drama society, he was involved in<br />

the Globe’s previous performance of George<br />

Gascoigne’s Supposes there last January,<br />

<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 39


Historic places<br />

Xpxppp xpx px ppx<br />

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pxp xp xpp xxpp xpx<br />

pxpp xppx<br />

“Modern<br />

training<br />

courses for<br />

lawyers engage<br />

professional<br />

actors to teach<br />

breathing,<br />

posture,<br />

presence,<br />

and vocal<br />

projection”<br />

performing alongside Globe actors and his<br />

fellow Benchers. “The relationship between<br />

the two professions extends beyond the use of<br />

legal venues to stage historic plays,” he says,<br />

“and the pleasure of lawyers entertaining their<br />

colleagues in after-dinner revels. It applies also<br />

to the comparative skills employed by both<br />

professions.”<br />

Indeed, modern training courses for young<br />

lawyers increasingly engage professional<br />

actors to teach presentation skills which focus<br />

on breathing, posture, presence, and vocal<br />

projection.<br />

“I am interested in how law students can<br />

use the drama-school techniques of narrative<br />

and improvisation in their work,” says Iain.<br />

This reading of<br />

Richard Edwards’<br />

1565 play Damon<br />

and Pithias took place<br />

last month at Middle<br />

Temple Hall.<br />

“Storytelling is a core aspect of the craft of<br />

both the advocate and actor. The advocate<br />

must always remember that his objective is<br />

to connect emotionally with the person he is<br />

trying to persuade.”<br />

But, as Iain explains, this transference of<br />

skills does not only travel in one direction.<br />

“When I was at drama school,” he says, “I was<br />

struck by the similarity between the process of<br />

textual analysis in rehearsals and preparation<br />

for trial.<br />

“The actor must create a consistent backstory<br />

for their character so their performance<br />

is grounded in a continuing reality. A barrister<br />

must build a case theory for a version of<br />

events he wishes the judge or jury to believe.<br />

40 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Historic places <br />

And the processes are strikingly similar.<br />

“However, whenever someone comments<br />

that in becoming an actor I am really just<br />

doing the same job I remind them that,<br />

whilst advocacy may at times be entertaining,<br />

a lawyer is engaged in a serious business. He<br />

is not there to put on a performance. Any<br />

advocate who plays to the gallery will be given<br />

a hard time in court.”<br />

Read Not Dead at the Inns of Court will<br />

continue into 2015 as part of ‘<strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

and Friendship’. Love’s Sacrifice by John Ford<br />

will be performed in the Great Hall at Gray’s<br />

Inn on Sunday 15 February. The play was<br />

dedicated to Ford’s cousin and namesake,<br />

John Ford who was a member of Gray’s and<br />

High Court Judge<br />

Sir Michael Burton<br />

also took part in the<br />

staged reading of<br />

Supposes at Gray’s Inn.<br />

who the author called “my truest friend, my<br />

worthiest kinsman.” The performance will<br />

star current Gray’s members Master Roger<br />

Eastman, High Court Judge Sir Michael John<br />

Burton and Masters Charles Douthwaite and<br />

Colin Manning.<br />

On Sunday 1 March, Inner Temple<br />

Hall will host The Troublesome Reign of<br />

King John of England by George Peele, in<br />

celebration of the 800th anniversary of the<br />

signing of the Magna Carta. And the final<br />

reading will return to the Globe, with the<br />

anonymous The Faithful Friends on 19 April.<br />

<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 41


Interview: Lois Leveen<br />

42 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Interview: Lois Leveen <br />

Between<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Lines<br />

In her novel Juliet’s Nurse, Lois Leveen takes a minor<br />

character from Romeo and Juliet<br />

centre stage. The Oregon-based author told us what it<br />

was like to rewrite one of <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s greatest hits.<br />

Interview by Mary Finch<br />

Left: Penny Layden<br />

as the Nurse and<br />

Ellie Kendrick as<br />

Juliet in this 2009<br />

production. Image:<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s<br />

Globe.<br />

Above: Lois<br />

Leveen by John<br />

Melville Bishop.<br />

Why did you decide to take on<br />

Romeo and Juliet?<br />

“It really started, specifically with the<br />

title, Juliet’s Nurse. When the title<br />

popped into my head I was really<br />

excited and I went back and re-read<br />

the play. Though I have taught other<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> plays, I hadn’t actually read<br />

Romeo and Juliet since high school.”<br />

What was it about the Nurse that<br />

made you want to tell her story?<br />

“The first scene when the Nurse appears<br />

is also Juliet’s first scene. Juliet has eight<br />

lines of text and the Nurse has over 60,<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 43


Interview: Lois Leveen<br />

and I could see here was a woman who<br />

wanted to tell her story. In that very first<br />

speech we get some glimpses into Juliet’s<br />

childhood – the day that she is weaned,<br />

a peek at the Nurse’s husband. But most<br />

significantly the information that the<br />

Nurse had her own daughter who was<br />

born at the same time as Juliet but didn’t<br />

live.<br />

“I was captivated by the idea of<br />

exploring that relationship. What would it<br />

be like to lose a child – the most profound<br />

and devastating loss that someone can<br />

experience? And then have another child<br />

to love and to comfort, but also be a<br />

servant in her household…<br />

“So it seemed like the Nurse had a<br />

rich story of her own. We think of her as<br />

minor and comic, but she has the third<br />

largest number of lines in the play and she<br />

embodies the tragic as well as the comic in<br />

Lois models a glamrock<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

T-shirt in a Veronese<br />

tower. That’s Lake<br />

Garda in the<br />

background. (Image:<br />

Chuck G. Barnes)<br />

her own story.<br />

“And then there were other things I<br />

wanted to explore in the story. The Nurse<br />

refers to Tybalt as her best friend, which<br />

was striking to me because they are not<br />

in a single scene together. So I wanted to<br />

know what the nature of their relationship<br />

was like, what their friendship was like,<br />

across class and gender and age lines.<br />

“I also wanted to know more about<br />

some of the other characters. You know,<br />

when Juliet was born Lady Capulet was<br />

not much older than Juliet is at the time of<br />

the play. We know that Lord Capulet says<br />

‘The Lord has swallowed all my hopes but<br />

she’, implying his other children.”<br />

This seems to be a polarising play.<br />

People either deeply love it or<br />

really dislike it. Why do you think<br />

that is?<br />

“We think of her as minor, but she has the third<br />

largest number of lines in the play. She embodies the<br />

tragic as well as the comic in her own story”<br />

44 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Interview: Lois Leveen <br />

“The part of me that is a historian wants to make<br />

sure people learn about the past in accurate ways.<br />

The novelist in me understands character and<br />

story needs to drive that”<br />

Left: Another<br />

exhausting<br />

research trip to<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Italy.<br />

Below: Lois has the<br />

Bard under her<br />

thumb.<br />

(Images: Chuck G.<br />

Barnes)<br />

more and more in the process of writing<br />

the novel, but I think there is often more<br />

depth to the characters than we think.<br />

And sometimes more simplicity. Romeo<br />

and Juliet were not, for many decades,<br />

considered the prime roles. It was really<br />

the Nurse and Mercutio. We get this<br />

emphasis on star-crossed lovers, which I<br />

think in some ways is a misunderstanding<br />

of how much else is going on in the play.”<br />

“I think part of it is that it is usually the play<br />

that people read first, assigned in school,<br />

usually in grade nine or ten in the US. First of<br />

all, we were never meant to read <strong>Shakespeare</strong>.<br />

He never would have thought of it as<br />

something we would read – he would have<br />

thought of it as something performed. And I<br />

think it is chosen because it is supposed to be<br />

relevant to teens. Although I think it is, it is<br />

hard to see at the age.<br />

“So people come to it because they<br />

have to, not because they want to. Some<br />

people fall for it dearly, more through<br />

film – for one generation that was Zeffirelli<br />

and for another Baz Luhrmann, and even<br />

before that West Side Story.<br />

“But to go back to the play, especially<br />

with the perspective of an adult, is really a<br />

very different thing. One of the things that<br />

I’ve enjoyed most is that reviewers have<br />

read the novel and then gone back to read<br />

the play and they see in the play things<br />

they hadn’t seen before. I hope that will be<br />

true for most readers.”<br />

“I’ve come to like Romeo and Juliet<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> is very big and very<br />

well-beloved. What does it feel<br />

like to adapt his work?<br />

“I didn’t think about what it meant to<br />

take on the best-known playwright, and<br />

perhaps best-known author in the English<br />

language, and the best-known play in<br />

the English language, when I began the<br />

<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 45


Interview: Lois Leveen<br />

project. Which maybe is an indication of<br />

my naiveté.<br />

“One of the things that I’ve realised<br />

is that anytime anybody performs<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>, they are always doing an<br />

active interpretation and adaptation.<br />

No actor delivers the lines the same<br />

way every day in every performance.<br />

And there’s not much stage direction<br />

in <strong>Shakespeare</strong> so directors are always<br />

making staging decisions, but also often<br />

making decisions about casting, changing<br />

lines, cutting lines. And so this idea of<br />

revising <strong>Shakespeare</strong> is really inherent to<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>.<br />

“I realised the enormity of taking on<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> when I spoke at the <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

450 conference in Paris, this past April.<br />

There were so many scholars from all over<br />

the world who had spent a lifetime studying<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>, and not just his work but his<br />

reception across the centuries. But I think in<br />

some ways the people who love the play, or<br />

know the play well, particularly appreciate the<br />

novel. So my paper at <strong>Shakespeare</strong> 450 was<br />

very warmly received.”<br />

Did your past experience of<br />

writing historical fiction affect<br />

your approach to Juliet’s Nurse?<br />

“Well, the novel – like the play – is set in<br />

the 14th century. It’s really that moment<br />

when Italy is beginning to move from the<br />

Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Scholars<br />

appreciate the kind of work the novel<br />

can do to bring scholarly research to a<br />

broader audience – and I have tried very<br />

hard to get that right. The part of me that<br />

is trained as a historian wants to make sure<br />

that people are learning about the past<br />

in accurate ways from my work, although<br />

the novelist in me also understands that<br />

character and story needs to drive that.<br />

So it’s about the sensory experience of<br />

whatever place the characters are in –<br />

Lois channels Juliet<br />

at the famous<br />

balcony in Verona.<br />

And yes, we know<br />

there’s no balcony<br />

in the play…<br />

(Image: Chuck G.<br />

Barnes)<br />

everything from cookbooks to fashion.<br />

Reading up on clothing, reading up<br />

on food, reading up on the religious<br />

practices.”<br />

With so much going on in the play<br />

– so many characters, conflicts,<br />

and themes – how did you decide<br />

what to focus on and expand upon<br />

in your novel?<br />

“In some ways, I had to stop looking<br />

at what the core theme might be for<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong>, because I had to discover<br />

what it was for Juliet’s Nurse. There are<br />

plot points, and certainly characters, and<br />

even lines or riffs on lines, that I pull over<br />

from <strong>Shakespeare</strong>. But it really is ultimately<br />

Angelica’s, the Nurse’s, story.”<br />

<br />

To read the opening chapter and order a copy of<br />

Juliet’s Room, go to www.loisleveen.com<br />

“Romeo and Juliet were not, for many decades, considered<br />

the prime roles. It was really the Nurse and Mercutio”<br />

46 SHAKESPEARE magazine


Contributors <br />

Brooke Thomas<br />

Our UK Staff Writer is a freelance<br />

writer based in London. She learned to<br />

love the bard during her BA at Royal<br />

Holloway, University of London, and<br />

she recently graduated from their MA<br />

<strong>Shakespeare</strong> Studies programme. You<br />

can find Brooke on Twitter<br />

@literallygeeked where she hosts<br />

a short story competition called<br />

#SmallTales every week.<br />

Mary Finch Our US Staff Writer is<br />

in her fourth year studying English<br />

at Messiah College in central<br />

Pennsylvania. Will first grabbed her<br />

attention in secondary school and<br />

hasn’t let go since – she reads, recites<br />

and watches <strong>Shakespeare</strong> whenever<br />

possible. Besides going on irrational<br />

adventures to see performances with<br />

her friend Alison, Mary also has a<br />

passion for swing dancing, dabbling<br />

in calligraphy and tending to her<br />

ever-growing window garden of<br />

succulents.<br />

Meet thy makers...<br />

Just some of the contributors to this issue of <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong><br />

Zoe Bramley is a City of<br />

London Tour Guide specialising<br />

in <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s London and the<br />

Tudor City. She qualified in 2010<br />

and then launched the <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

Trail, a guided walk which explores<br />

the hidden sites associated with our<br />

greatest playwright. Zoe’s fascination<br />

with <strong>Shakespeare</strong> began after reading<br />

A Midsummer Night’s Dream aged<br />

17 and wishing she could meet<br />

Bottom! Zoe can be contacted via<br />

www.shakespearetrail.com or find her<br />

@shakespearewalk on Twitter.<br />

Lucy Corley has loved <strong>Shakespeare</strong><br />

in performance since watching Emma<br />

Thompson as Beatrice in Much<br />

Ado About Nothing, and through<br />

studying English at Exeter University<br />

she found she loved writing about it<br />

too. She graduated last summer and<br />

currently lives and works in Exeter,<br />

where aside from theatre, she enjoys<br />

singing, photography and occasional<br />

Appalachian dancing. Go to<br />

www.lucycorley.wordpress.com for<br />

her blogs on theatre.<br />

SHAKESPEARE magazine 47


Next issue<br />

We hope you’ve enjoyed Issue Five of <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong>.<br />

Here’s a taste of what we have coming up next time…<br />

Sara Pascoe<br />

Comedy’s golden girl stands up for the Bard.<br />

<br />

As You Like It<br />

<br />

Anthony Del Col<br />

Meet Rosalind, the smartest girl in the wood.<br />

<br />

Andrea Chapin<br />

The Kill <strong>Shakespeare</strong> co-creator gets graphic.<br />

<br />

Young Will reimagined by the author of The Tutor.

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