September
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0904 Sunday, 27 September 1998. [1] From: Roy Flannagan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 25 Sep 1998 17:02:31 -0400 Subj: Titus in Rome [2] From: Christine Mack Gordon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 25 Sep 1998 16:08:04 CST6CDT Subj: Re: SHK 9.0897 Titus [3] From: Tanya Gough <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 25 Sep 1998 18:15:52 -0400 Subj: Titus [4] From: William Kemp <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 26 Sep 1998 12:47:23 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 9.0897 Re: Titus in Rome [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roy Flannagan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 25 Sep 1998 17:02:31 -0400 Subject: Titus in Rome Yes, indeed, <italic>Titus Andronicus</italic> is being filmed, or perhaps is being filmed in Italy, directed by Julie Taymor of <italic>Lion King</italic> costuming and staging fame, who sees the play as Shakespeare's <italic>Pulp Fiction.</italic> Anthony Hopkins is slated to play Titus, and Jessica Lange, Kristin Scott Thomas, and John Tinturro were rumored to be interested in the production, or some of them are in it already. The last rumor circulating on the Web is that it is now shooting in Rome. And, while we are on the subject, what is the current critical take on the play? The 1985 BBC videotaped production works very well with this generation of students. It does not play up the violence, but when the bloody stumps and chicken bones finally appear, stomachs are upset even in the <italic>Scream II</italic> generation. The play, however, was recently dismissed in a book-length study of Shakespeare's Roman plays as not really historical and therefore not really Roman. Is the play more mythical or fairy-tale-ish than Roman? Or is it just Senecan rather than historical? Or is it true to the spirit of Shakespeare's other Roman plays? Does anyone know Julie Taymor's Roman e-mail address? Perhaps the list could give her a few tips? Roy Flannagan [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 25 Sep 1998 16:08:04 CST6CDT Subject: 9.0897 Titus Comment: Re: SHK 9.0897 Titus Karen Coley asked about a film of _Titus Andronicus_: the film will be directed by Julie Taymor (of Broadway's _The Lion King_, among other significant theatrical productions; the latest issue of _American Theatre_ has a profile of her) and star Antony Hopkins; according to the Internet Movie Data Base, it's in pre-production, ready to start filming for three months in Rome. The current working title is _Titus_. Chris Gordon [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tanya Gough <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 25 Sep 1998 18:15:52 -0400 Subject: Titus For Karen Colley, who asked about the film Titus: the film is in production, and Anthony Hopkins has been confirmed, at least according to the Internet Movie Database. As for Tom McCamus' participation, I believe you are correct, although he will be unavailable for shooting until the Stratford Festival ends in mid-November. I'll ask him about it next time he comes in my shop and see if I can't cajole some more info from him. Tanya Gough [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Kemp <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 26 Sep 1998 12:47:23 -0400 Subject: 9.0897 Re: Titus in Rome Comment: Re: SHK 9.0897 Re: Titus in Rome Karen Coley asks for confirmation of a new film of Titus with Anthony Hopkins. The IMDb list the film as in preproduction, scheduled (as of 14 September) to start shooting in Rome in three months. The director listed is Julie Taymor. No information about the production company (and no source cited for the information given). Go to http://us.imdb.com/Details?Titus+(1999) Bill Kemp Mary Washington College Fredericksburg, Va.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0903 Sunday, 27 September 1998. [1] From: Justin Bacon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 17 Sep 1998 07:14:10 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 9.0838 Re: Hamnet [2] From: Alan Dessen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 26 Sep 1998 09:32:17 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 9.0900 Re: Tempest Doubling [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Justin Bacon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 17 Sep 1998 07:14:10 -0700 Subject: 9.0838 Re: Hamnet Comment: Re: SHK 9.0838 Re: Hamnet > One can understand a joking self-reference, but would Shakespeare have > wanted to make a semi-private reference about Hamnet, considering his > short life? I am, of course, an author of nowhere near Shakespeare's quality-however, I have often used veiled references in my work in order to work through and cope with tragedy in my own life. I would find it completely believable that Shakespeare may have done the same. Justin BaconThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alan Dessen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 26 Sep 1998 09:32:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: 9.0900 Re: Tempest Doubling Comment: Re: SHK 9.0900 Re: Tempest Doubling Since 1987 ACTER has toured the U.S. with four five-actor productions of *The Tempest*, all with the same casting breakdown. The current Fall 1998 version has John Kane as Prospero-Antonio-Ceres-Master, Paul Greenwood as Caliban-Gonzalo-Iris, Mairead Carty as Miranda-Ariel-Adrian-Francisco, Patrick Miller as Ferdinand-Sebastian-Trinculo, and Stephen Simms as Stephano-Alonso-Juno-Boatswain. The group has just finished a week at U. of Memphis and will be doing residencies at Roanoke College, Ohio State U., Lawrence U., U. of Texas-San Antonio, Pomona College, Wellesley, and U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. As might be anticipated, the doubling and tripling is most daunting in the final ensemble scene, but one of the high points of this show is the switching near the end of 5.1 between Trinculo-Stephano-Prospero and Sebastian-Alonso-Antonio. Alan Dessen, Director of ACTER
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0902 Sunday, 27 September 1998. [1] From: Justin Bacon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 17 Sep 1998 07:07:42 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 9.0820 Re: Globe Merchant [2] From: Justin Bacon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 17 Sep 1998 07:17:07 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 9.0837 Re: Globe Merchant [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Justin Bacon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 17 Sep 1998 07:07:42 -0700 Subject: 9.0820 Re: Globe Merchant Comment: Re: SHK 9.0820 Re: Globe Merchant > Exactly. For several years the Globe's has had spokespersons telling > people to come and cheer or hiss during the performance. The binary > responses to H5 were bad enough, but in MV this treatment clearly rides > roughshod over the subtlety of the thing. I would, personally, have no problem if the groundling audiences naturally assumed the role they have assumed over the past two seasons-but the fact that they are literally pushed into it depresses me. Could not Rylance and crew have allowed their audience to find their *own* voice in the relative freedom of the Globe instead of encouraging this half-cocked, second-rate roleplaying? Elizabethan audiences behaved like themselves. They were not coached. Justin BaconThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Justin Bacon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 17 Sep 1998 07:17:07 -0700 Subject: 9.0837 Re: Globe Merchant Comment: Re: SHK 9.0837 Re: Globe Merchant > Portraying Shylock as a "stage Jew" is like saying Shakespeare is just > another playwright. The people who come off as monsters in the play are > the Christians, those kind, generous people who spit on other people, > and encourage daughters to disobey their fathers. Sure, boo Shylock, if > you can do it without feeling queasy, if you can do it without seeing > yourself as one of the people doing the spitting. A slight point of order: Remember that Shakespeare felt that daughters disobeying fathers in the name of love was a *good* thing. (Hermia in MND, Cordelia in Lear, Desdemona in Othello, and even Ophelia in Hamlet.) Of course the way it is done in MoV is reprehensible. Like so many other things in Shakespeare, this possesses a double edge. Justin BaconThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0901 Friday, 25 September 1998. From: Ed Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 25 Sep 1998 11:32:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: New Electronic Journal: *SRASP* SHAKSPERians may be interested to know of a new electronic journal devoted to Shakespeare and Renaissance literature and culture: *SRASP* -- Shakespeare and Renaissance Association [of West Virginia]: Selected Papers. This annual journal publishes the best papers from the yearly West Virginia Shakespeare and Renaissance Conference, a national conference that draws participants from all over the United States and Canada. The journal has been published in paper form since 1976 and is indexed in *MLA* and *The World Shakespeare Bibliography,* and both the journal and its editor are members of CELJ, the Council of Editors of Learned Journals: EDITOR Byron Nelson West Virginia University EDITORIAL BOARD Sharon Beehler, Montana State U. H.R. Coursen, Editor, *Shakespeare and the Classroom W.L. Godshalk, U of Cincinnati Albert C. Labriola, Duquesne U Harrison T. Meserole, Texas A&M U Phyllis R. Rackin, U of Pennsylvania John Rooks, Morris College John T. Shawcross, U of Kentucky Edmund M. Taft, Marshall U Volumes 20 (1997) and 21 (1998) can now be accessed through the WWW: http://www.marshall.edu/engsr/indexsr.htmlx. The online editor is Edmund M. Taft: <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. >. Below are the contents of Volume 20 and Volume 21: Volume 20 Approximations: Iago as Plautine *leno* --K.J. Gilchrist (Iowa State) The Lute as Mediator in the English Renaissance --Brian Holloway (The College of West Virginia) Election, "Dialogue-Wise," in *The Pilgrims Progress* --R. J. McCutcheon (Davis and Elkins College) "Swift hart" and "soft heart": Elizabeth I and the Iconography of Lyly's *Gallathea* and Shakespeare's *A Midsummer Night's Dream* --Julia A. Bowen (Duquesne U) A Text of Shreds and Patches: Shakespeare and Popular Culture --Annalisa Castaldo (Temple U) Plus, reviews of current books by H.R. Coursen, Byron Nelson, Rudolph P. Almasy, and William French. Volume 21 Poetical Historiography: Milton's *History of Britain* --James Egan (U of Akron) Vincentio's Fraud: Boundary and Chaos, Abstinence and Orgy in *Measure for Measure" --Brian Holloway (The College of West Virginia) The Sanctification of the Tudor Dynasty in Bernard Andre's *Vita Regis Henrici Septimi* --Daniel Hobbins (U of Notre Dame) Commodification and Representation: The Body in Shakespeare's History Plays --K.A. Ewert (Shakespeare Institute) How "Unpopular" were Philip and the Spanish in the Popular Opinion of Mary's Day? --James H. Forse (Bowling Green State U) Shakespeare's *Edward III* --W.L. Godshalk (U of Cincinnati) Plus, reviews of current books by Byron Nelson and William French. As online editor, I hope that many SHAKSPERians will have occasion to access this new electronic version of *SRASP*. In the past few years, the journal has published essays by W.L. Godshalk, H.R. Coursen, James Egan, Michael D. Friedman, James Forse, and other Renaissance scholars of note. Again, the journal is easily accessed: http://www.marshall.edu/engsr/indexsr.htmlx Thanks for your time. Edmund M. Taft, Online Editor *SRASP*
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0900 Friday, 25 September 1998. [1] From: Susann Suprenant <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 24 Sep 1998 09:39:54 -0700 Subj: Re: Tempest Doubling [2] From: David Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 24 Sep 1998 17:48:48 GMT Subj: Re: SHK 9.0890 Tempest Doubling [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Susann Suprenant <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 24 Sep 1998 09:39:54 -0700 Subject: Re: Tempest Doubling Jimmy Jung brought up an instance of doubling Ariel/Miranda and asked about a comparable doubling with Caliban. I haven't seen it done, but doubling Caliban/Ferdinand could work to emphasize a sort of Beauty and the Beast reading of Caliban and Ferdinand (Beast/Prince). They are naturally compared since Miranda has never seen any other man other than her father. Caliban and Ferdinand both are sensitive to the music of the isle, are accused of trying to usurp Prospero's control of the island, and recognize Miranda's beauty. They both encounter Prospero's hostility in protection of Miranda-the possible violation of her "honor"/"virgin knot" is one of Prospero's chief concerns. Caliban and Ferdinand are both imprisoned and fed a similar diet, given the task to carry logs and the test of remaining chaste in the same "cell" with Miranda. Ferdinand's entrances are often immediately after a similar scene with Caliban. An actor playing the two roles could manage if Ferdinand and Miranda exit (V. i.) after their union is blessed by Alonso. Has anyone seen a performance with this doubling? Take care, Susann [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 24 Sep 1998 17:48:48 GMT Subject: 9.0890 Tempest Doubling Comment: Re: SHK 9.0890 Tempest Doubling In the Shared Experience Tempest (1997) Antonio doubled the part of Trinculo, Sebastian Stephano (and Caliban was also the Boatswain). This made some sense, in terms of doubling two versions of conspiracy. The motives may have been economic, but the doubling made dramatic sense, and actually required remarkably little adaptation of the final scene. The Compass Theatre Company (1998) attempted a performance with 6 actors, in which Miranda doubled Antonio, Caliban Alonso, Gonzalo Trinculo, and one actor played Sebastian, Stephano and Ferdinand. The director began his programme note: 'It would be dishonest to claim that economics played no part in our decision to double up parts in the Tempest. However, virtue can be made of necessity, and in this instance the doubling of roles illuminates the heart of the production.' He argued, for example, that the play was about 'the acceptance of the base or gross' within all of us - hence the doubling of 'the innocence of Mranda with the evil of Antonio', etc. It meant, however, that the final act became, of necessity, a farce, as actors rushed from one side of the stage to the other to assume their different roles. (The director saw this as the 'celebration of both the play and the theatre' - I wasn't convinced). David Lindley School of English University of Leeds