Paper Session 9

Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Blackfriars conference! Today is very exciting for all of us because it features a keynote session with Andrew Gurr, and the debut of Shakespeare on Ice, but that's later today. We start off at nine with our ninth paper session, moderated by Dean Nancy Kripple of Mary Baldwin College.

Christopher Hodgkins: "Infinite Varietie": Phillip Stubbes, Cleopatra, and Staging Shakespeare's Anti-Theatrical Muse

"Shakespeare" and "anti-theatricality" don't regularly occur in the same sentence. Shakespeare describes Cleopatra's beauty as infinite, yet also has characters refer to her as a "royal wench." Shakespeare exploits the "endless variability" of the stage to create his plays, but this endless variability can also be one of theatre's shortcomings to some. English writers have historically considered infinite variety as a sign of vanity or weakness, and it is possible that Shakespeare was aware of Stubbs' use of the word. Enobarbus usage of "infinite variety" suggests a transformation of the phrase.

Hodgkins argues that Shakespeare deliberately staged the anti-theatrical, in this sense meaning the treatises against theatre, as a way of exploring it within the world of his plays. This seems to have been a common theme on the early modern stage, as character curse the world of the stage and leave it behind.

Clay Drinko: Shakespearean Flow: Psychological Possibilities of an Improvisational Performance Technique at the Globe

Sam Wanamaker's reconstruction of The Globe features casts that use modern acting techniques, and their performances would benefit from adopting an approach closer to original practices. Drinko suggests that improvisational acting techniques could help actors recreate the immediacy of performance on the early modern stage. Improvisational theatre with audiences gives actors immediate feedback on the performance. It seems as if Drinko is suggesting a blend of improvisational exercise and rehearsal, perhaps in the presence of the audience, to enhance the overall immediacy of the performance. This is training for the non-conscious mind to deal with the realities of performance in OP methods.

Dan Venning: "Insides Out": Grotesque Violence and the Shifting Popularity of Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus explores the realities of death, "no one dies of a broken heart." Venning argues that it's unpopularity is because of "the Senecan bloody spectacle" in which peoples insides are literally removed. He cites Peter Brooks production, which used symbolic violence, and was better received than other performances of it had been. Traditional proponents of Western Literature dismiss Titus as a "stupid," and worse, but in its own time, Titus was popular with both common playhouses and with the nobility. It was one of the few plays to be published multiple times in quarto before the folio versions.

Venning argues that the violence of Titus was part of the reason for its popularity. Heads of traitors and bodies rotting in gibbets were some of the first things that one would see when entereing London. Public executions and bear baitings were popular forms of entertainment in which the insides of live bodies were often exposed.

Brooks production, by contrast, used symbolic artifacts suggestive of violence. No stage blood was used, the killings of Chiron and Demetrius were performed off stage, and red streamers were used to represent blood flowing from Lavinia's severed hands. The performance was extremely well received, and within a few years Titus was again regarded as a serious tragedy. However, in more recent performances, production values have used extreme violence.

And then the bear brought an early end to a very interesting paper.

Mariko Ichikawa: Pindarus Alive

Dr. Ichikawa explores the entrance and exit of Pindarus in Julius Caesar. Noting that Pindarus has no explicit stage directions in the Folio, Ichikawa suggests that Pindarus might not have proceeded as far as to the balcony. She notes that to do so, Pindarus must have either moved very quickly, or Cassius must have moved very slowly.

Ichikawa notes that, in similar fashion, the Doctor in The Court Beggar likely did not appear in the balcony, but peaked from behind the upstage discovery space, and that the "he speakes above" direction in the Q2 Merry Wives that accompanies Falstaff's "no mine host." would require Falstaff t move too quickly if "above" is interpreted as the gallery.

Dr. Ichikawa's actors demonstrate how Pindarus' exit may have worked. It is sufficient for Pindarus to exit and then describe Tritinius' capture.

Mark Muggli and Laura Mohs: The Thematic Resonance of Overlapping Exits and Entrances.

Muggli and Mohs propose that, in Shakespeare's theatre, entrances and exits would be overlapped, and cite Ichikawa, Desson, and Gurr's work. This is pretty standard practice here at the ASC. Again we see a paper presentation that would have really benefited from the use of actors. Muggli and Mohs explore a couple entrances/exits in Much Ado, but it's hard to see the thematic significances they're trying to show when each of the two presenters is playing multiple roles.

Holly Pickett: Death by Ritual: Incense in Women Beware Women

Pickett explores the smells created within the playhouse as an olfactory design element. Within the context of the lust, incense, and revenge of Middleton's Women Beware Women, the olfactory spectacle of the use of incense in the climax matches the accompanying visual spectacle.

Pickett explores the liturgical influence of incense as well, and points out that incense itself was explicitly prohibited in the English Church, but an injunction had been set against any images within the church that had been sensed. Sensing was considered to be part of the Catholic polemic, and some reformers thought of the use of incense as a remnant of pagan idolatry.

There is a question as to whether the incense could even have been smelled by the audience. Pickett poses the question of whether the sace might have been to big for the scent to reach to the balcony, but likewise poses the possibility that improperly sensing the space might have left audiences coughing too hard to enjoy the show.

Pickett here employs actors in a cut script, and a liturgical senser to explore the effect on the audience present here today. In my travels I've found that smell-o-vision theatre tends to be distracting and rarely perceived in the context of the stage action, but Im always game for an experiment. Pickett offers us a chance to sneak out, and then the scene begins. Incense is lit on the stage, and the dramatic effect is achieved. I'm sitting almost as far away from the stage on the main floor as you can get, and I couldn't smell it.

Yet Pickett raises an interesting point: since we see the deadly effect of the incense within the world of the play, should the audience feel any reservation about smelling the incense?

It's been a couple minutes now, and we can finally smell the incense in the back. It seems to me that the result is thus disconnected from the context. I think the real problem with establishing the context of scent in the theatre is that it travels a lot more slowly than light or sound. Then again, I've never been a huge fan of the idea anyway.

So that'll bring the first paper session of the day to a close, and I'm jonesing for a cup of coffee before Andy Gurr's keynote. I'll be back after 11 with a report on that. Cheers!