Shakespeare in performance from the page to stage and screen
Ranging from the first performances of Shakespeare’s plays in the late sixteenth century right up to the most recent film adaptations, this course will examine Shakespeare’s texts as they come alive in performance. Combining close readings of individual plays with analysis of contemporary political and cultural trends, there will be constant reference to the plays as they were – and are – performed on stage and screen.
Productions at Shakespeare’s Globe on the banks of the Thames and at the world-famous Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon will be directly tied to seminars and tutorials in Oxford. There will also be extensive use of video in classes, as well as the opportunity to watch entire Shakespeare films in the hours outside regular class time.
Weekly tutorial and seminar programme
Week One - The Shakespearean Stage
Using contemporary documents including eyewitness reports, illustrations, and legal decrees, we will build up a picture of the theatrical scene in Shakespeare’s day. Looking closely at the controversial early history of Richard II we will also begin to look at some more general questions as a springboard for the study of subsequent weeks. Where were plays performed? Who went to the theatre? How much did it cost? Who owned the plays? Who performed in them? Who regulated the theatres and the plays performed in them? How did Shakespeare’s plays fit in to the broader theatrical, social, and political scene?
Week Two - Romeo and Juliet: issues of adaptation
In presenting Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare gave us a tragedy of ‘star-cross’d lovers’, a major change to his source material’s violent condemnation of two disobedient teenagers. David Garrick’s eighteenth-century adaptation of the play, which held the stage for nearly two -hundred years, kept the lovers alive and talking together in the tomb. Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film places the lovers in the urban kitsch and drug culture of ‘Verona Beach’. Beginning with the difficulties of finding an ‘authentic’ Shakespearean text for the play and comparing our findings with the work of Garrick and Luhrmann, we will ask: ‘Is adaptation a crime or a necessity?’
Week Three - Much Ado About… Cutting: fundamental issues in filmed Shakespeare
Ranging from the earliest filmed Shakespeare (King John in 1899) to the recent adaptation of Titus Andronicus starring Anthony Hopkins, this week’s seminar and tutorials will continue the focus of week two, focusing on the fundamental issues facing the creators of Shakespeare on film. How much of the play-text should remain in a Shakespeare film? Can image replace speech, and is silent Shakespeare a self-evident contradiction? Are modern versions of the plays on stage and screen failing to be ‘authentic’ or is such a notion of authenticity false?
Week Four - Hamlet and Macbeth : staging the supernatural
Hamlet : a play which opens with a ghostly haunting. Macbeth : infamous for its depiction of evil, despotism, and witchcraft. We will examine the presentation of the Shakespearean supernatural, starting with the stage tricks and conventions of Shakespeare’s time and moving right up to the present day with film versions of the plays. How should witches vanish ‘into the air’ as Macbeth tells us they do? Should language do the work or should we see ghosts and magical ‘daggers of the mind’? Are modern special effects a distraction or a boon? In addressing these questions we will have the advantage of seeing either Hamlet or Macbeth as part of the Royal Shakespeare’s 2004 summer season.
Week Five - Henry V : Shakespeare for all time?
Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film of Henry V is full of ostentatious pageantry and is patriotically dedicated to the Allied troops landing on the Normandy beaches. Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film presents us with an inward-looking, distinctly unglamorous monarch. Productions by the English Shakespeare Company in the 1980s and at the Royal National Theatre in 2003 gave an unflinching presentation of Henry as self-seeking warmonger whose followers are little more than thugs. In each case the same core text thus gives rise to widely varying interpretations. Close reading of the text alongside a historically informed examination of its performances down the centuries will enable us to bring a new perspective to Ben Jonson’s famous claim that Shakespeare ‘was not of an age, but for all time!’
Field Excursion
The field trip of most direct interest to those taking the Shakespeare option will be the day spent at the Globe theatre in London. This will include a performance in the famous open-air auditorium and a guided tour of the theatre and its related museums. Key texts of the course will include Macbeth and Hamlet and one of these plays, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company will be seen by the entire Summer School. In addition to seeing an evening performance, a day in Stratford will enable us to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace and the church where he is buried.
Primary Bibliography
Richard II, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth,and Henry V are required reading for the course and reading the texts in advance is undoubtedly helpful. A good Complete Works of Shakespeare will be a necessary tool for each seminar and tutorial. The Norton (ed. Stephen Greenblatt, 1998) or Riverside (2 nd edition, ed. G. B. Evans, 1995) editions are recommended.
Seeing as much Shakespeare as possible before arrival – both on the stage and on the screen – will be to your advantage too.
General Reading
- Jonathan Bate, The Genius of Shakespeare (1998)
- A. Davies and Stanley Wells (eds.), Shakespeare and the Moving Image (1994)
- Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage (Third edition, 1992)
- Peter Holland, English Shakespeares: Shakespeare on the English Stage in the 1990s (1997)
- Russell Jackson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film (2000)
- David Scott Kastan, Shakespeare and the Book (2001)
- Robert Shaughnessy (ed.) Shakepseare in Performance (New Casebooks) (2000)
- See also relevant chapters from the Players of Shakespeare series, published by Cambridge University Press, Volumes 1-5, published in 1988, 1989, 1994, 2000, 2003.
If you have any queries about the above course please feel free to contact dominic.oliver@spc.ox.ac.uk
Dominic Oliver
St Peter's College
New Inn Hall Street
Oxford
OX1 2DL