tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/bell-shakespeare-10976/articlesBell Shakespeare – The Conversation2024-03-10T22:48:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236552024-03-10T22:48:00Z2024-03-10T22:48:00ZBell Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is side-splittingly funny – yet some of the magic is lost<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580594/original/file-20240308-18-hd5iby.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C14%2C1885%2C1264&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Matu Ngaropo and Ahunim Abebe in Bell Shakespeare s A Midsummer Nights Dream. Photo by Brett Boardman</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Shakespeare’s delightful A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a perennial favourite – and the production run by the Bell Shakespeare company (first prepared in 2021 but hindered by COVID lockdowns) is a swift and pared-back reimaginingreimagining of the play.</p>
<p>It follows the comedy of four lovers – Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius – who are lost in a forest and get tricked by the fairies, King Oberon, Queen Titania and the impish Puck. </p>
<p>The play also features the bumbling mechanicals – a carpenter, a weaver, a bellows-mender, a tinker, a joiner and a tailor – who meet in the forest to rehearse a play to perform at the upcoming wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/25/10-of-the-best-plays-within-plays">play within a play</a>, performed at the end, has always brought the house down with sidesplitting laughter, and this show is no exception. It must have been just as hilarious during the play’s first performance, if it’s true that Shakespeare <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/a-midsummer-nights-dream/about-the-play/dates-and-sources">wrote it</a> to be performed at an aristocrat’s wedding.</p>
<h2>Finally, Shakespeare for the whole family</h2>
<p>Bell Shakespeare promotes the show as “fast, funny and family-friendly”. This is welcome news for theatregoing parents. Few of Shakespeare’s plays are suitable for children, despite there being a significant market for Shakespeare-related books and activities designed <a href="https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeare-for-kids/">for young people</a>. </p>
<p>My two boys received a storybook version of Shakespeare’s plays from family members some years ago, but it’s a delicate operation to tell bedtime stories about the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fratricide">fratricide</a> in Hamlet, the domestic violence of Othello, or the romantic suicides of Romeo and Juliet. </p>
<p>Certainly, Shakespeare’s delightful comedies lend themselves more readily to the young. So taking Bell Shakespeare’s promo at its word, I took my son Heathcliff, aged 9 (who contributes to this review) to the show.</p>
<h2>Powerful presence onstage</h2>
<p>Seasoned playgoers will be thoroughly impressed by the vibrant and engaging performances of the cast, who make Shakespeare’s language (and their connections to it) ring as clear as a bell. This is harder to achieve than it sounds. </p>
<p>The delightful charisma of Matu Ngaropo as Nick Bottom (the weaver) positions him as a type of leading man. A galvanising force, Ngaropo combines refined flamboyancy and outrageous sensitivity to keep the audience firmly in his pocket. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Matu Ngaropo was a galvanising force onstage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
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<p>Ella Prince is subtle in their rendering of Puck, the sprightly spirit – so watchable in their intriguing silences and confusion when manipulating mortals.</p>
<p>Richard Pyros gives a commanding performance as Oberon: fastidious and curious, with a propensity for bellowing through the forest. Imogen Sage also shows tremendous range by delivering a sultry Titania, a restrained Hippolyta, and a librarian-esque Quince. </p>
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<span class="caption">Ella Prince as Puck, Imogen Sage as Titania and Richard Pyros as Oberon in Bell Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
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<p>Finally, the four comic lovers: Hermia (Ahunim Abebe), Helena (Isabel Burton), Demetrius (Mike Howlett) and Lysander (Laurence Young), give feisty performances wholly committed to the verse.</p>
<h2>A subtle set and costumes</h2>
<p>This is Bell’s national touring play for 2024, and the <a href="https://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/2024-midsummer-dream-design-inspiration">set design</a> by Teresa Negroponte centres around a dilapidated wooden construct that looks like the roof of an old barn tipped on its side.</p>
<p>But despite this dynamic set (which might double as the shipwreck from The Tempest), there are no leaves or any sort of greenery to help indicate most of the play is set in a forest – no sylvan milieu. </p>
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<span class="caption">The set, which resembled a rundown wooden barn, didn’t effectively depict the play’s setting in a forest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
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<p>Indeed, this production seems, in several instances, to presuppose the audience’s familiarity with the play. This can prove confusing for newcomers to Shakespeare.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/2024-midsummer-dream-design-inspiration">costumes are</a> intriguing and subtle if you know the play, but may also be too realistic – too bland and “everyday”. This made it difficult for young people to recognise the kings, queens and fairies.</p>
<p>For example, there was nothing fairylike about the fairies, whose costumes were almost always plain black, with no hint of glitter or sparkles in sight. </p>
<p>As Heathcliff commented: “They all changed into black clothes and called themselves fairies […] I didn’t know they were meant to be fairies until the second half […] they looked more like ghosts.”</p>
<p>“Thou shall wear <em>not</em> black costumes for fairies,” he added.</p>
<p>With actors needing to double (and sometimes triple) character roles, they quickly don a new coat, scarf or hat. But again, these distinctions may be too subtle for newcomers to recognise. </p>
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<span class="caption">Laurence Young and Ahunim Abebe played Lysander and Hermia, two of the four comic lovers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
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<h2>Heathcliff’s highlights</h2>
<p>While the acting proved second-to-none, many typical features of this famous play were absent. Heathcliff found the play “entertaining, but not laugh-out-loud funny”.</p>
<p>His favourite parts were the “horse’s head”, the slow-motion sequences, the fake swords used in the ridiculous staging of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pyramus">Pyramus and Thisbe</a> at the play’s end, and “the man playing the princess” (with hairy chest exposed) – which he thought was funny but a bit odd.</p>
<p>Yet, the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe at the end delivered on its promise. Many of the audience members doubled over in stitches, throwing their heads back with laughter. </p>
<p>I’ll remember this show for the many exemplary renditions of the famous characters, but while Shakespeare’s script is itself family-friendly, the play can be confusing when many of its typical features are <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136330433/view">pared back</a> to the bone. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-50-shades-of-shakespeare-how-the-bard-sexed-things-up-106783">Friday essay: 50 shades of Shakespeare - how the Bard sexed things up</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirk Dodd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>I took my young son Heathcliff to the show, and his perspective helped me see it through a kid’s eyes.Kirk Dodd, Lecturer in English and Writing, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155972023-10-17T19:06:57Z2023-10-17T19:06:57ZAustralian theatre companies are shunning Shakespeare. A much-needed break, or a mistake?<p>A decade ago, William Shakespeare was the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/australian-theatre-exhausted-and-waning-claims-director-and-academic-julian-meyrick-20140508-zr6ph.html">most performed playwright in Australia</a>. In 2024 not one mainstage theatre company in Australia will perform Shakespeare. The only exception will be Bell Shakespeare. </p>
<p>This shift has been a long time coming. Theatre makers such as <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/we-should-ban-shakespeare-from-the-stage-for-five-years-20160502-gojv86.html">Lachlan Philpott</a>, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/2021-28-10/13596856">Nakkiah Lui</a> and <a href="https://dailyreview.com.au/andrew-bovell-i-as-an-australian-playwright-am-up-for-the-fight/">Andrew Bovell</a> have been calling for less Shakespeare and more new work since the mid-2010s. </p>
<p>Today, their advocacy is bearing fruit. </p>
<p>Of the 79 plays being performed in 2024, 68 (87%) were written after 2000, 60 (76%) were written after 2014, and 23 (29%) will have their world premiere in 2024. Only three were written prior to the 20th century – and that’s if you count <a href="https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/productions/2024/dracula">Kip Williams’ new adaptation of Dracula</a>, alongside Bell Shakespeare’s two plays.</p>
<p>New work is important. A truly rich cultural conversation must include a variety of voices and fresh perspectives. But alongside new work and new voices, nuanced engagement with the past is needed.</p>
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<h2>A forum for conversations</h2>
<p>Shakespeare is important, not just because he wrote great plays, and definitely not because he is perfect. He is important because we have, for 400 years, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Big-Time-Shakespeare/Bristol/p/book/9780415060172"><em>made</em> him important</a>, using his work to have rich conversations about identity, truth, meaning and morality. </p>
<p>These conversations are worth participating in. </p>
<p>Australia’s mainstage <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781003176138-1/introduction-chris-hay-stephen-carleton">comprises 11 companies</a>: State Theatre Company of South Australia in Adelaide; Queensland Theatre and La Boite Theatre in Brisbane; Melbourne Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne; Black Swan State Theatre Company in Perth; and Belvoir, Bell Shakespeare, Griffin Theatre Company, Ensemble Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company in Sydney. All except La Boite have announced their 2024 seasons.</p>
<p>The fact that none of these companies will perform Shakespeare next year suggests a decline in engagement with the canon outside of adaptations. </p>
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<span class="caption">Edwin Landseer, Scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Titania and Bottom (1848-1851). Oil on canvas 82.0×133.0cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1932. Photo: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>This decline is, in some ways, justified. We don’t need to perform Shakespeare all the time. We certainly don’t need to trot out tired, uninspired performances just for the sake of doing Shakespeare. </p>
<p>But if new work is not in conversation with the canon, we risk taking an uncritical and oversimplified view of the past – and present and future. We risk understanding ourselves merely through the lens of now, rather than enriching our present through discussion with our history. </p>
<p>Playwrights <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/we-should-ban-shakespeare-from-the-stage-for-five-years-20160502-gojv86.html">Philpott</a> and <a href="https://dailyreview.com.au/andrew-bovell-i-as-an-australian-playwright-am-up-for-the-fight/">Bovell</a> have expressed understandable frustration at productions tying themselves in knots trying to make Shakespeare “relevant”. If your aim is to make the text reflect modern values, why not simply perform a new play? </p>
<p>Perhaps we do need a break from Shakespeare if all we can do is insist he is always, and in all things, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Shakespeare_Our_Contemporary.html?id=QIrdQfCMnfQC&redir_esc=y">our contemporary</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/shakespeares-environmentalism-how-his-plays-explore-the-same-ecological-issues-we-face-today-202891">Shakespeare's environmentalism: how his plays explore the same ecological issues we face today</a>
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<h2>Critical engagement</h2>
<p>There is an alternative to this false dilemma. We are not restricted to either using Shakespeare as a sock puppet to voice our own ideas, or ignoring him altogether. Rather, we can perform Shakespeare in a critically engaged, nuanced way. </p>
<p>This means avoiding easy categories like “problematic” or “universal”. Like any fruitful conversation, it means listening, sitting with discomfort, learning, recognising what still speaks to us, and responding to what doesn’t. </p>
<p>Conversing with Shakespeare does not mean smoothing over problems or forcing him to agree with us. Sydney Theatre Company’s 2022 production of The Tempest, directed by Kip Williams, attempted to correct the play’s racism by radically editing the text. </p>
<p>By trying to solve The Tempest, the production glossed over its problems rather than engaging critically with them. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/weve-been-editing-shakespeares-plays-for-400-years-but-does-a-new-australian-production-of-the-tempest-idealise-the-bard-194635">We've been editing Shakespeare's plays for 400 years – but does a new Australian production of The Tempest idealise the Bard?</a>
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<p>There are excellent examples of Australian theatre makers grappling with problems in Shakespeare. </p>
<p>Anne-Louise Sarks’ 2017 production of The Merchant of Venice for Bell Shakespeare explored the uncomfortable religious and social dynamics of the play. </p>
<p>The scenes in which Shylock is forced to surrender both his property and his faith were jarringly and uncomfortably melancholy. There was no attempt to shrug off the pain of the play’s conclusion for Shylock and his daughter Jessica. </p>
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<p>Jason Klarwein and Jimi Bani’s 2022 Othello at Queensland Theatre used translation, casting and design choices to confront and interrogate the themes of the play. </p>
<p>This production explored and highlighted racism and sexism, both in 20th century Australia, and within the play itself. </p>
<p>Othello has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_es_tmOYY5I">a vexed performance history</a>, and this production was an important contribution to a 400-year-old conversation. </p>
<p>In Benedict Andrews’ 2009 production of The War of the Roses for Sydney Theatre Company, Shakespeare’s Henry V was stripped back to a series of soliloquies spoken by Ewen Leslie. </p>
<p>Covered in glitter, then oil, and eventually blood, Leslie as Henry V invited audiences to confront not only the humanity of “the warlike Harry”, but also the horror associated with his military triumph.</p>
<h2>Talking back to history</h2>
<p>By confronting – rather than avoiding, removing or “fixing” problems in Shakespeare – productions can invite audiences to ask important questions. Why have certain ideas been acceptable in the past? Why are they not so now? What are we doing differently today, and what should we be doing differently?</p>
<p>Nuanced, two-way conversations with our cultural history are vital to progress. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/decolonising-shakespeare-setting-othello-in-ghana-and-pericles-in-glasgow-174166">Decolonising the canon</a> does not mean ignoring it, but dialoguing with it. It means learning from, questioning, and talking back to our history. Doing this will allow us to better understand our present and know who we would like to be in our future. </p>
<p>Of the 79 works being performed on the 2024 Australian mainstage, 68 were written in the new millennium. Shifting the balance of old and new ever-so-slightly would enrich our cultural conversation. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-you-extract-a-pound-of-flesh-without-blood-how-the-power-struggles-in-shakespearean-drama-speak-to-an-age-of-decolonisation-196567">Can you extract a pound of flesh without blood? How the power struggles in Shakespearean drama speak to an age of decolonisation</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caitlin West previously completed an industry placement at Bell Shakespeare.</span></em></p>Shakespeare will be all but absent at Australian theatres in 2024 – but we need to embrace the complexities of the canon, not shy away from it.Caitlin West, PhD Candidate in Drama and Theatre Studies, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2027172023-03-30T03:33:57Z2023-03-30T03:33:57Z‘There is no blueprint’: how Australian theatre companies are facing the climate crisis<p>At the launch of the new national cultural policy earlier this year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/streaming/anthony-albanese-to-unleash-millions-for-cash-strapped-arts-sector/news-story/cfea432dffb0f99bb46006dbd5f6a701">said</a> we must lift the arts beyond the economic debate, and see it as a vital part of Australia’s identity and soul. </p>
<p>If we are to truly revive our cultural and creative institutions in the decades to come, we must take on the full meaning of the term “sustainability”, going beyond its economic associations. </p>
<p>The sustainability of our culture is quite literally dependent on the sustainability of our planet. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0034/1732939/Culture-for-Climate_Report_Final.pdf">Our new report</a> asks if achieving environmental sustainability should be a key goal for all Australian performing arts companies and, if so, how can it be achieved?</p>
<p>Our report focuses on 13 Australian arts organisations demonstrating a commitment to sustainability in their programming, practices and policies.</p>
<p>Everyone interviewed agreed there is a clear need to support a sector-wide transition to sustainability, yet also acknowledged challenges in doing so. </p>
<p>As Ang Collins, marketing manager and sustainability coordinator at Sydney’s Griffin Theatre, told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>there is no blueprint for how a theatre company should run sustainably or a checklist for things to do, and there are no traditions, there are no networks for borrowing sets or reuse […] no proper knowledge sharing and systems in place.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-transforming-australias-cultural-life-so-why-isnt-it-mentioned-in-the-new-national-cultural-policy-198881">Climate change is transforming Australia’s cultural life – so why isn’t it mentioned in the new national cultural policy?</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Building a show</h2>
<p>For many small-to-medium organisations, resourcefulness is already a valued part of their operation. </p>
<p>Limited budgets mean reusing and recycling materials is a necessity. </p>
<p>Briony Anderson of Terrapin Puppet Theatre in Hobart points out spending money on labour rather than materials contributes to both ecological and economic goals. </p>
<p>She told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We believe our purpose is to make Tasmanian - and Australian - lives better through our work. We understand that rapid transition to a low-carbon economy is imperative in a changing climate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sue Giles, co-CEO of Melbourne’s Polyglot Theatre, says the aesthetic challenge of sustainability should be embraced:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>sustainability is a relationship between aesthetics and good practice […] it doesn’t have to reflect poorly on the outcome, it can actually enhance the outcome.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Small companies cite their limited budgets as a spur to reduce and recycle. For larger companies it is the other way around. They argue limited budgets are contributing to less environmentally sustainable choices.</p>
<p>These companies face pressure to produce “high quality” work. Giles Perkins, the executive director of Sydney’s Bell Shakespeare, told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>being more sustainable has a considerable cost imperative. The cheapest materials are often the least sustainable.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Valuing time and input</h2>
<p>Smaller companies are quicker in responding to ecological challenges. They are more agile and face fewer structural barriers to implementing changes. </p>
<p>Larger companies need dedicated policies to guide them through an appropriate transition. </p>
<p>For Griffin Theatre’s Collins, valuing people’s time is crucial:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A priority of ours is to remunerate a passionate individual or individuals for the [sustainability] hours that they do, for someone to take ownership of the program and keep it in check, keep updating it, take on responsibility for the projects.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Everyone we interviewed was upfront about the difficulty of always choosing the eco-friendly option. These options could be hard to identify, and were often more expensive. They indicated a need for cost-effective sustainable materials and products. </p>
<p>Many talked about the importance of shifting the culture of sustainability leadership in the workplace. </p>
<p>Belinda Kelly, executive producer of Hobart’s Terrapin Puppet Theatre, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You clearly need the executive or management team to be supporting [the shift to more sustainable practices]. And you need to have a champion on the board to convince them that this is good business as well as [good] ethical reason[ing].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sustainability practices don’t just happen on stage.</p>
<p>Theatre venues are installing LED lighting and solar panels, and tracking carbon emissions. While on tour, companies are using tools such as Arts on Tour’s <a href="http://www.artsontour.com.au/green-touring/">Greening Touring Toolkit</a>, which provides advice on how to redesign touring to remove unnecessary emissions. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-organize-to-offer-new-visions-for-tackling-climate-change-182484">Artists organize to offer new visions for tackling climate change</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Moving forward</h2>
<p>Our report shows many theatre organisations across Australia are contending with implementing ethically-based, eco-friendly initiatives in their production and touring practices. </p>
<p>Through these interviews, we have identified four ways sustainable practices can be better achieved:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>celebrating resourceful approaches to theatre making</p></li>
<li><p>using sustainability tools to inform practices</p></li>
<li><p>sharing resources across artists and organisations</p></li>
<li><p>encouraging more mindful and slow touring practices.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Going forwards, there is a strong need to examine policy settings, funding models and support structures to steer the sector towards a sustainable future. By doing so we can encourage new ecological practices, strengthen community bonds, germinate new ways of thinking and reinforce sustainability as a value we can share and celebrate. </p>
<p>If we agree the climate crisis calls for a shift in the way we view the world and in our relationship to it, then the performing arts have a pivotal role to play in this transition. </p>
<p>As Dead Puppet Society’s Helen Stephens told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to know, what else is possible […] to know what in our lifetime is actually achievable in this space of art making and supporting our planet […] I want more knowledge […] I want there to be a constant conversation […] I want more understanding. I want to know how me doing this tiny thing […] will help all the things that impact climate change.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-for-a-new-age-of-enlightenment-why-climate-change-needs-60-000-artists-to-tell-its-story-58774">It's time for a new age of Enlightenment: why climate change needs 60,000 artists to tell its story</a>
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</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Hassall is affiliated with P+ERL (Performance and Ecology Research Lab situated in the Creative Arts Research institute (CARI) at GriffithUuniversity.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick is affiliated with the Creative Arts Research Centre at Griffith University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Lazaroo is affiliated with P+ERL (Performance and Ecology Research Lab) situated in the Creative Arts Research institute (CARI) at Griffith University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Tanja Beer is affiliated with P+ERL (Performance and Ecology Research Lab situated in the Creative Arts Research institute (CARI) at Griffith Uuniversity.</span></em></p>Our new report asks if achieving environmental sustainability should be a key goal for all Australian performing arts companies.Linda Hassall, Senior Lecturer Humanities, Griffith UniversityJulian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith UniversityNatalie Lazaroo, Lecturer, School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith UniversityTanja Beer, Senior Lecturer, Queensland College of Art, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1767942022-03-15T01:16:36Z2022-03-15T01:16:36ZBell Shakespeare’s Hamlet highlights the ‘claustrophobic personal dynamics’ of Shakespeare’s play<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452041/original/file-20220314-19-1yr5rsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C7%2C4702%2C3139&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman/Bell Shakespeare</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Hamlet, directed by Peter Evans.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/08/zelensky-uk-parliament-address-war-ukraine/">In a speech</a> to the United Kingdom’s House of Commons on March 9, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky quoted Shakespeare’s Hamlet:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The question for us now is to be or not to be. Oh no, this Shakespeare question. For 13 days this question could have been asked, but now I can give you a definitive answer. It’s definitely yes, to be.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That Bell Shakespeare’s production of Hamlet – a domestic revenge tragedy set against the larger political backdrop of Denmark’s invasion by its neighbour, Norway – re-opened after two years of COVID delay on the day Zelensky made this speech is an extraordinary coincidence.</p>
<p>When originally mounting this production two years ago, director Peter Evans could not have foreseen the peculiar timeliness of this Hamlet. But, as Hamlet tells Polonius, actors “are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time”.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/obama-hamlet-and-syria-17982">Obama, Hamlet and Syria</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>More sorrow than anger</h2>
<p>Alongside reflecting global politics, this stylish and understated production plays upon the melancholy prince’s youthfulness and his emotional sensitivity.</p>
<p>As Hamlet, Harriet Gordon-Anderson continues a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2014/sep/26/female-hamlets-sarah-bernhardt-maxine-peake-in-pictures">300-year tradition</a> of women playing Hamlet. The first recorded female Hamlet was Charlotte Clarke’s London performance in the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Women_as_Hamlet.html?id=MKp9Vm-XygUC&redir_esc=y">early 18th century</a>.</p>
<p>The French actress Sarah Bernhardt, the first female Hamlet on film in 1900, said the prince <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Transgressive_Theatricality_Romanticism/C9mqCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0"><em>had</em> to be played by a woman</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I cannot see Hamlet as a man. The things Hamlet says, his impulses, his actions, all indicate to me that he was a woman.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This perception of Hamlet’s femininity is not so much produced by his initial distaste for violence and inability to avenge his father’s murder, but by his unrestrained mourning for his losses. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452042/original/file-20220314-26-1jxyaz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman holding a skull." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452042/original/file-20220314-26-1jxyaz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452042/original/file-20220314-26-1jxyaz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452042/original/file-20220314-26-1jxyaz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452042/original/file-20220314-26-1jxyaz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452042/original/file-20220314-26-1jxyaz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452042/original/file-20220314-26-1jxyaz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452042/original/file-20220314-26-1jxyaz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In casting Harriet Gordon-Anderson as Hamlet, the prince’s emotions are able to come to the fore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman/Bell Shakespeare</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hamlet’s “fruitful river of the eye” – his crying – is mentioned at several points in the text. Disturbed by his nephew’s tears, the murderer King Claudius tells Hamlet “‘tis unmanly grief” to weep for those lost. </p>
<p>Hamlet’s copious weeping goes beyond the bounds of acceptable masculinity. Perhaps it is only with a female Hamlet that the intensity of the prince’s tears can be depicted. </p>
<p>In her bravura portrayal of the melancholy prince, Gordon-Anderson is unafraid to show Hamlet’s sensitivity. Delivering soliloquies directly to the audience, Gordon-Anderson plays Hamlet as an extraordinarily emotional young man. This Hamlet is acting more in sorrow than in anger, crying freely and wiping his eyes.</p>
<p>The performance is disturbingly realistic. How else should one respond to their father’s murder and their mother’s marriage to their uncle? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hamlet-is-shakespeares-greatest-villain-147290">Hamlet is Shakespeare's greatest villain</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A youthful production</h2>
<p>This Hamlet highlights the love and loss shared by two families. Besides playing Hamlet as the text directs – at various points tearful and manic – what is also remarkable about Gordon-Anderson’s prince is his youthfulness. </p>
<p>Unlike most staging and films of Hamlet, the young characters in Bell Shakespeare’s production are performed by people in their 20s, rather than actors in their 30s or 40s. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452043/original/file-20220314-139925-1bcsl0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three young actors on stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452043/original/file-20220314-139925-1bcsl0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452043/original/file-20220314-139925-1bcsl0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452043/original/file-20220314-139925-1bcsl0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452043/original/file-20220314-139925-1bcsl0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452043/original/file-20220314-139925-1bcsl0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452043/original/file-20220314-139925-1bcsl0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452043/original/file-20220314-139925-1bcsl0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young cast helps anchor this production in realism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman/Bell Shakespeare</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This youthful casting gives the production a sense of domestic realism many others lack. </p>
<p>Throughout the text the characters are keen to point out how “young” the prince, Laertes, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern all are. When we first meet Hamlet, he is in the midst of his university degree. </p>
<p>As the foil to Hamlet, “the very noble youth” Laertes is equally young, and is played by Jack Crumlin with a brash, boyish energy. Rose Riley plays Ophelia as a sassy and self-aware young woman who rolls her eyes at Polonius’ moralising. </p>
<p>The older Polonius is touchingly played by Robert Menzies: he does not appear as a conniving political operator, but instead as a naïve and tender old father. </p>
<p>The performances make the characters feel like people we know, rather than legendary, tragic characters from a faraway world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451500/original/file-20220311-15-sw900v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young woman and an older man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451500/original/file-20220311-15-sw900v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451500/original/file-20220311-15-sw900v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451500/original/file-20220311-15-sw900v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451500/original/file-20220311-15-sw900v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451500/original/file-20220311-15-sw900v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451500/original/file-20220311-15-sw900v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451500/original/file-20220311-15-sw900v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The generational difference is played to tender effect.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman/Bell Shakespeare</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But while this realism is refreshing – and what draws the audience to connect with the characters – paradoxically, these performances make the revenge at the play’s core seem somewhat unrealistic. It is difficult to believe these gentle and sensitive-seeming characters could commit a series of murders. </p>
<p>Evans’s Hamlet is more interested in claustrophobic personal dynamics than the terror of invading forces that concludes the play. But it is a testament to this production’s power that it can make the audience reflect on the world beyond while witnessing personal, familial breakdowns. </p>
<p>“The time is out of joint”, Hamlet tells the audience. Not so for this most timely production.</p>
<p><em>Bell Shakespeare’s Hamlet plays at the Sydney Opera House until April 2, before touring to Canberra and Melbourne.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriella Edelstein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After two years of COVID-delay, Bell Shakespeare’s Hamlet reflects both personal and global tragedies.Gabriella Edelstein, Lecturer in English, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1602702021-05-25T04:36:30Z2021-05-25T04:36:30ZShakespeare’s rulers and generals are all flawed, but the books on his leadership lessons keep coming<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402475/original/file-20210525-13-escqdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=125%2C41%2C1871%2C1272&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Bell, pictured here in 2006, is the latest to write a book on Shakespeare and leadership.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Millar/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: John Bell, Some Achieve Greatness: Lessons on leadership from Shakespeare and one of his greatest admirers. With illustrations by Cathy Wilcox. Pantera Press, 2021.</em></p>
<p>John Bell’s new book <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/some-achieve-greatness-9780648748885/">Some Achieve Greatness</a> is but the latest to use Shakespeare’s works to inspire and teach would-be leaders in the modern world.</p>
<p>In 2000 alone, two books appeared aimed at business management students: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1503838.Power_Plays">Power Plays</a> and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2124928.Shakespeare_on_Management?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=X7vmQJTCZU&rank=1">Shakespeare on Management</a>. In perhaps the best of the genre, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32957067-shakespeare-the-coach?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=H08rsEgcb7&rank=2">Shakespeare the Coach</a> (2004), Australian Olympian, medical graduate, politician and hockey coach Ric Charlesworth applies the dramatist’s words to the sporting arena and people management. Naturally he devotes a chapter to motivational leadership, headed “Purpose and Persuasion”.</p>
<p>The new book from Bell, the actor and renowned theatre director, is both more, and less, than these. More, because it is as much a pithy “business autobiography” as instructional manual, from a man who has devoted his career to bringing Shakespeare to Australian audiences. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-shakespeares-sonnets-an-honest-account-of-love-and-a-surprising-portal-to-the-man-himself-156964">Guide to the classics: Shakespeare’s sonnets — an honest account of love and a surprising portal to the man himself</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bell in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bell has not only performed most of the major characters, learning their words by heart and internalising the subtleties and plural meanings, he has also directed the plays. He has shown business acumen in administering two successful theatre companies, co-founding Nimrod in 1970 (dedicated to producing Australian plays as well as Shakespeare’s), and of course, the Bell Shakespeare Company. </p>
<p>His name has become almost synonymous with the bard’s in our cultural life through this company and a series of <a href="https://www.woodslane.com.au/Book/9781875684724/King-Lear">scholarly editions of plays</a> named after him. He also authored a substantial book titled <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13392603-on-shakespeare?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=HV82zAbROb&rank=1">On Shakespeare</a> (2011), full of insights: the fruit of a practised actor-director’s rich and detailed experience.</p>
<p>And, as one of Australia’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Living_Treasure_(Australia)">Living Treasures</a>, Bell has cemented his reputation by “dying” hundreds of times onstage in Shakespearean roles — like Cleopatra, he “hath such a celerity in dying”.</p>
<p>Reflecting on his multifaceted career, Bell applies his accumulated knowledge to recount his own leadership style as it evolved through experience. Sage advice is offered, enlivened and illustrated with pertinent quotations from speeches, which no doubt Bell can enviably recite from memory. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bell, centre, as Falstaff during a dress rehearsal of Henry 4 in Canberra in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Porritt/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The book offers lessons gleaned from a Shakespeare who is seen as a natural “collaborator never a one-man band”. We find chapters on “Courage, or how to be a leader in times of crisis”, “Decisiveness, timing and tough decisions”, “Charisma, confidence and humility”, and other virtues such as integrity and humanity. These are set against dangerous managerial vices like ambition, arrogance and entitlement. </p>
<p>Along the way are sprinkled inspirational quotations about leadership from the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, John F. Kennedy and Michelle Obama, alongside cautionary reminders of a less savoury, more recent American president .</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-shakespeare-helped-shape-germaine-greers-feminist-masterpiece-59880">Friday essay: How Shakespeare helped shape Germaine Greer's feminist masterpiece</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>No ideal leaders</h2>
<p>However, Bell offers less than Charlesworth (my benchmark), in that the latter dwells more on applicable quotations than characters and dramatic context. This allows him to skirt the problem Bell faces: there are, in fact, no unflawed or ideal leaders in Shakespeare.</p>
<p>Although Bell ranges across the complete works, his major examples of good or bad leadership are surprisingly few in number. All are, to some extent flawed. Bell readily concedes this, since their failures are instructive. The figure who recurs in most detail is Henry V. For all his faults as a ruthless, likely war criminal, he seems to come closest to Bell’s ideal leader, at least in his rousing speeches. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kenneth Branagh as Henry V in the 1989 film: ruthless but with rousing speeches?</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Julius Caesar and Brutus emerge as ambiguous and lacking in strategical competence. Antony for all his brilliant oratory is too much the playboy who believes in his own “celebrity”, while King Lear is easy prey for sycophants and flatterers. </p>
<p>Naturally enough, Richard III and Macbeth as leaders are definitely not to be emulated, though there is somehow a touch of unintended humour in the homily-like way Bell warns us against using murder as a career move:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Watching the downfall of the Macbeths we have to ask ourselves: What am I prepared to pay to make it to the top of the pile? Is the reward worth my sanity, my self-respect, my relationship, my reputation, my friendships?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Who would answer yes to such a piously phrased question?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Fassbinder as Macbeth in the 2015 film: not a great role model.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films, DMC Film, Anton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What about the women?</h2>
<p>We have to wait for the final chapter before some women make an appearance, exemplifying such admirable qualities as adaptability and negotiating skills (Portia), integrity and plain-speaking honesty (Cordelia), and playfulness (Rosalind), although Bell sees their agency as qualified in a man’s world:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the Comedies, women find a voice and authority by adopting a false male persona and using their wit, charm and female tenderness to lead the menfolk to an awareness of their follies and a better understanding of successful male/female coexistence and interdependence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This book is very readable and can probably be devoured in a single sitting, though Bell might prefer us to take our time and savour at leisure the lessons taught. It also features witty and pertinent cartoons by Cathy Wilcox.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The founder of the Bell Shakespeare Company has written a book gleaning leadership wisdom from the bard. But figures such as Richard III and Julius Caesar are hardly ones to emulate.Robert White, Winthrop Professor of English, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/765712017-04-24T01:49:21Z2017-04-24T01:49:21ZLies, monsters and Kate Mulvany’s intensely human portrayal of Richard 3<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166383/original/file-20170423-22929-500eeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kate Mulvany as Richard 3: her acting of deformity seems to tell its own story.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prudence Upton</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As we all know, the first line of Shakespeare’s Richard 3 reads, “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York.” Strip away the Elizabethan rhetoric, and the line simply signifies that the civil war that has plagued England through the mid-15th century is over.</p>
<p>But the war is not over: to better secure the peace, the Yorkist king Edward has taken as his queen a partisan of the rival Lancaster house. The queen’s family, the Woodvilles, are social-climbers, and no sooner do they acquire noble positions than they plot to supplant the ruling Plantagenet line. They imprison the king’s brother Clarence on falsified charges of treason and then have him assassinated. When the king dies of natural causes, they collude to hastily install his 12-year-old son as his successor. </p>
<p>Other noble houses of England, fearing the consequences of another child king, petition Richard of Gloucester, the king’s surviving brother, to take the throne. As king, Richard dutifully smashes the Woodville faction and governs over England until 1485, when he is assassinated by a cadre of exiled Bretons. The leader of this coup d’état, Henry Tudor, seizes the English throne for himself and thus severs the Plantagenet line.</p>
<p>The Tudors go on to rule England from the 15th century until the early 17th century. But still, the war is not over: in the late 16th century, the young English playwright William Shakespeare writes a tragedy on the popular subject of Richard III. In obedience to the political orthodoxy of his time, Shakespeare portrays Richard as a madman, a grotesque and deformed beast who slaughters friend, foe and family alike in his lust for power. </p>
<p>The play is a hagiography: Henry Tudor, the slayer of such a dragon, is surely an agent of God, and his bloodline is therefore fit to rule England in perpetuity. Yet Shakespeare’s Richard is also intelligent: he sees through the devices of politics and learns to wield them to his own ends. </p>
<p>He meditates on the power of “lies, well-steeled with weighty arguments”: as we watch him strut across the stage, deceiving and cajoling, he teaches us that his victims are also deceivers. In Shakespeare, there is no truth in history. There is only the lie, and the counter-lie.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166386/original/file-20170424-12629-1c76tfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166386/original/file-20170424-12629-1c76tfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166386/original/file-20170424-12629-1c76tfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166386/original/file-20170424-12629-1c76tfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166386/original/file-20170424-12629-1c76tfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166386/original/file-20170424-12629-1c76tfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166386/original/file-20170424-12629-1c76tfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166386/original/file-20170424-12629-1c76tfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard (Kate Mulvany) and Queen Elizabeth (Meredith Penman.)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prudence Upton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Peter Evans, the director of the Bell Shakespeare Company’s new production of Richard 3, boldly proclaims that for our times, the play is “completely about Trump”. He argues in the program notes that Richard’s path to the throne exposes </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the way power is grabbed … language is degraded … fear is used to incite loyalty. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, a depiction of Richard as a master of spin may reflect the anxieties of our current political culture, but how can this analogy be reconciled with the knowledge that the play itself is Tudor propaganda? Would Evans have us accept the simplistic proposition that Richard’s villainy is also the villainy of Trump, or does he mean that the play’s fanciful vilification of Richard exposes the myth of villainy that our culture is all too ready to swallow?</p>
<p>The answer may not be immediately clear, for despite the director’s claim of political significance, his vision of the play doesn’t seem to be much about anything. The performance incorporates many bizarre touches that are typical of the Bell’s recent work: outlandish dance numbers, choral singing by the actors, and (my favourite) a longueur in which members of the cast stand for an improbable interval, mutely chewing on strawberries.</p>
<p>None of these elements seem to connect with what is clearly the production’s anchor and focus: Kate Mulvany’s intensely human portrayal of Richard. Mulvany’s acting of deformity seems to tell its own story, sometimes at odds with the rest of the production, but there are elements in her performance that aptly analogise the current mood of our political culture.</p>
<p>Richard is a fearsome political adversary, both admired and despised by his peers. Among them, only a minority ever dare connect his villainy to his deformity. There is a scene early in the performance where the aggrieved queen Margaret (Sandy Gore) casts a series of curses on the Woodvilles and Yorks. </p>
<p>Richard remains calm while Margaret brutally condemns his character. He smirks knowingly out at the audience. Suddenly, her tone shifts. </p>
<p>She describes Richard’s deformity as a violation of nature, and his birth as a “slander” on his mother’s womb. Richard’s face goes white. </p>
<p>He drops his gaze and moves away from her. Her curse builds until he cuts her off with an emphatic “Margaret!” </p>
<p>It is clear to all present, even the audience, that a line has been crossed.</p>
<p>Despite its indecency, Margaret’s curse seems to legitimise such ad hominem attacks for other characters in the play. In a later scene, Richard’s mother (Sarah Woods) repeats the accusations, cursing the day she delivered him into the world. Likewise, the Prince of Wales (Rose Riley), played as an energetic and factious youth, shows his contempt for Richard by physically intimidating him with a lit cigarette.</p>
<p>As these attacks escalate through the performance, Richard’s shame and injured humanity become difficult to watch. He loses his coherence, both as an individual human, and as a political construct. He moves from scene to scene, trying to find a centre in the play: sometimes he is the hero, sometimes the villain, sometimes its victim.</p>
<p>Hate is a powerful feeling, and it is no less so for those who view themselves as powerless. In Richard 3, it is the victims who play out these fantasias of hate. They resemble our own culture’s chorus of “voiceless” subjects, for whom social media has granted the opportunity to play out hatred to its fullest and most unrestrained expression. </p>
<p>Under the banner of “resistance”, these subjects do not hesitate to degrade their own humanity by robbing their enemies of theirs: casual slurs, sex and body shaming, execrations of mental illness and schadenfreude are all justified by the assumption that they are on the right side of history.</p>
<p>In an interview, director Peter Evans laments that, after 400 years, the world still has not learned the hard lessons of Richard 3. It is some consolation, then, that Mulvany’s performance reminds us that Shakespeare still has the power to reveal the true monsters of our culture.</p>
<p><em>Bell Shakespeare’s Richard 3 is at the Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne until May 7.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Griffiths does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mulvany’s performance reminds us that Shakespeare still has the power to reveal the true monsters of our culture.Christian Griffiths, Doctorate in Literary and Cultural Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/636462016-09-06T20:06:53Z2016-09-06T20:06:53ZTo a modern audience, Othello is simply another story of domestic abuse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136692/original/image-20160906-21893-uzdqnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Othello calls himself 'an honourable murderer', but can a modern audience still accept this claim?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/whats-on/othello-1/?parent=whats-on">Bell Shakespeare’s production of Othello</a> is touring Australia until December 2016. What does the recent <a href="http://www.rcfv.com.au/">Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence</a> tell us about the Venetian general’s murder of his wife Desdemona, and his subsequent suicide? How might the <a href="http://files.rcfv.com.au/Reports/Final/RCFV-All-Volumes.pdf">commission’s recommendations</a> have prevented the violence in Shakespeare’s play? And how does a 21st-century perspective on family violence deepen our insights and pathos on viewing the play?</p>
<p>Othello’s abuse of Desdemona matches the Commission’s description of family violence as a multifaceted pattern of escalating behaviour rather than a single event.</p>
<p>Having been mistakenly told that Desdemona is having an affair with his lieutenant Cassio, Othello repeatedly verbally abuses Desdemona in sexual terms – he calls her a public whore, a commoner, a strumpet and a devil.</p>
<p>He makes increasingly violent threats to harm and kill Desdemona. “She’s gone, I am abused, and my relief / Must be to loather her” quickly escalates to “I’ll tear her all to pieces!” and “chop her into messes.”</p>
<p>The abuse escalates again when Othello publicly strikes Desdemona. In the final murder scene Othello terrorises Desdemona by directing her to pray, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Othello: I would not kill thy soul</p>
<p>Desdemona: Talk you of killing?</p>
<p>Othello: Ay, I do…Thou art to die.</p>
<p>Desdemona: Kill me not, kill me tomorrow, let me live tonight, but half an hour, while I say one prayer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Othello kills Desdemona by smothering her with pillows in their matrimonial bed.
On subsequently learning there had been no affair, he kills himself.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136693/original/image-20160906-6101-tcxr6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136693/original/image-20160906-6101-tcxr6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136693/original/image-20160906-6101-tcxr6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136693/original/image-20160906-6101-tcxr6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136693/original/image-20160906-6101-tcxr6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136693/original/image-20160906-6101-tcxr6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136693/original/image-20160906-6101-tcxr6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136693/original/image-20160906-6101-tcxr6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Othello and Desdemona by Alexandre Marie Colin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The commission reports strangulation as a common method used by male perpetrators to kill female victims. It also reports:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a demonstrable link between family violence, homicide and suicide … a large number of men who died from suicide in Victoria between 2009 and 2012 had a history of family violence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Othello suicides not because he killed Desdemona, but rather because he killed her on the mistaken understanding that she had desired and loved another man. The implication is that if she actually had an affair with Cassio, Othello would have considered the killing justified, and not taken his own life.</p>
<p>The Commission shows the causes of family violence to be complex. Factors shaping it include gender inequality and community attitudes towards women:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Stereotypes about men and women are reinforced through practices such as social tolerance of discrimination and the idea that violence against women is sometimes justified by women’s behaviour – for example, if a woman has sex with another man.</p>
<p>Deeply embedded societal beliefs – for example, the belief … that men’s intimate partners and children are their possessions to do with as they please; that women are inferior to men – influence men’s choices to commit sexual and other acts of violence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the Shakespeare play, Iago, when describing Desdemona’s secret marriage to Othello to her father Brabantio, characterises it as an act of theft. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags. <br>
Thieves, thieves!<br>
…you’re robbed.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Desdemona herself adopts the narrative of being the property of others, saying she has preserved her body for Othello “from any other unlawful touch”.</p>
<p>The commission noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Societal beliefs also affect victims’ perceptions of the criminality of such actions. Women and children, like men, are socialised in a world where such beliefs are embedded in language, the family and other common social institutions and practices … often women believe that the violence is their own fault. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Desdemona attempts to manage Othello’s violence trying to woo him back. She accepts his abuse as “my wretched fortune” asking, “What shall I do to win my lord again?”</p>
<p>Venetian society is barely aware of male violence towards women. Iago’s abuse of his wife Emilia, for instance, is not commented on or apparently even noticed by the other characters. The only rebuke of Othello is made by Lodovico (representative of the Venetian duke and senate) who, observing Othello strike Desdemona, tells him to “make amends” – but makes no other intervention.</p>
<p>Desdemona herself struggles to identify or understand her abuse. Before she dies Emilia asks her “O, who hath done this deed?”; Desdemona replies, “Nobody; I myself.” And indeed, one victim told the Commission:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I didn’t have a language to describe what was wrong in my relationship.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136695/original/image-20160906-6114-1iwk7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136695/original/image-20160906-6114-1iwk7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136695/original/image-20160906-6114-1iwk7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136695/original/image-20160906-6114-1iwk7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136695/original/image-20160906-6114-1iwk7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136695/original/image-20160906-6114-1iwk7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136695/original/image-20160906-6114-1iwk7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136695/original/image-20160906-6114-1iwk7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Othello’s Lamentation (1857), by William Salter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Folger Shakespeare Library, via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the end of Othello – after the deaths of Desdemona, Othello and Emilia – Lodovico describes the tragedy as the result of Iago’s villainy and Othello’s failings, rather than due to societal attitudes towards women, or systemic violence. </p>
<p>The commission noted that too little effort is devoted to preventing the occurrence of family violence in the first place. Instead society reacts to family violence as a one-off crisis, after the event. </p>
<p>Gender equality, it noted, will also reduce family violence: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Intimate partner violence is likely to be higher when women lack autonomy and men dominate decision-making in public life, as well as in families and relationships.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Can a modern audience, viewing Othello through a 21st century framework of family violence, still see the play as a tragedy? A view of family violence as an act of male entitlement, reflective of social beliefs of women as property, removes the tragic glory from Othello’s suicide. </p>
<p>We cannot accept his claim that he was “one that loved not wisely, but too well”.</p>
<p>Nor his claim to be “an honourable murderer… For naught did I in haste, but all in honour.”</p>
<p>Indeed, the tragedy of the play could have been prevented by recognising Othello’s controlling behaviour towards Desdemona as violence arising out of societal attitudes as much as Othello’s personality. </p>
<p>There is no tragedy in his mistaken murder of Desdemona. There is no honour in killing her even if she was unfaithful. A modern view of family violence leaves Othello as nothing but a killer acting out the narrative of gendered violence of the 16th century Venetian society presented by Shakespeare. We are left without a tragedy and just a murder. </p>
<p>For a 21st century audience informed by the findings of the Royal Commission, the pathos of the play comes from how unnecessary and preventable – yet inevitable within the story – are the deaths. And how such deaths continue today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Shepherd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Othello is one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies. But in the light of 21st-century understandings of abuse, the play is recast as a textbook case of domestic terrorism.Matthew Shepherd, Lecturer Dispute Resolution Advocacy, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/503822015-11-09T03:51:23Z2015-11-09T03:51:23ZBell Shakespeare’s Hamlet reviewed: the same great themes in some strange new haunts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101189/original/image-20151109-16253-1mvim42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We cannot help but remember Hamlet: it is iconic. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robin Goldsworthy, Ivan Donato, Philip Dodd, Josh McConville. Photo: Daniel Boud</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a play that haunts itself. Its saturation into cultural consciousness means that watching a performance is inevitably a process of past ghosts and past echoes framing the current performance. Like the Ghost of old Hamlet’s invocation to “Remember me”, we cannot help but remember Hamlet: it is iconic.</p>
<p>In one of many infamous scenes, Hamlet says to the players who come to the Danish court:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold as ‘twere a mirror up to Nature, to show Virtue her own feature, Scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
(Hamlet 3.2.19-24)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, theatre doesn’t work quite so straightforwardly. The mirror is never a perfect reflection. As the late British cultural anthropologist Victor Turner wrote in his essay, published in 1990, <a href="http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511607806&cid=CBO9780511607806A010">Are there universals of performance in myth, ritual, and drama?</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Neither mutual mirroring, life by art, art by life, is exact, for each is not a planar mirror but matricial mirror; at each exchange something new is added and something old is lost or discarded.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Bell Shakespeare’s production of Hamlet, currently showing in Sydney, the “mirror” held up to nature feels not like one clear reflection but more like a mosaic: a composition of many mirrored fragments which reflect back different eras, different ideas, different tropes.</p>
<p>The setting is a curious amalgamation of time periods and styles: upon first glance it has the look of a period piece (early 20th century, perhaps), but then modern technology intervenes: a video of Fortinbras, the conquering young Norwegian, projects up onto the stage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101191/original/image-20151109-16255-1x1w5g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101191/original/image-20151109-16255-1x1w5g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101191/original/image-20151109-16255-1x1w5g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101191/original/image-20151109-16255-1x1w5g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101191/original/image-20151109-16255-1x1w5g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101191/original/image-20151109-16255-1x1w5g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101191/original/image-20151109-16255-1x1w5g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101191/original/image-20151109-16255-1x1w5g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Josh McConville, Doris Younane.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Boud</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later, an airport departures board and voiceover announcements set the scene for Laertes’ departure back to France. A strong sense of militarism and nationalism pervades also: repetition of flags abound (held by the soldiers; visible on uniforms; even planted in a birthday cake) – reminiscent perhaps of the Abbott government’s flag-heavy approach. </p>
<p>Costuming is deliberately chaotic: Hamlet’s modern casual dress contrasts starkly to Laertes’ and the guards conservative military attire, which contrasts again with Horatio’s more hipster look, and to the formal modern dress of the female characters. The play is also occasionally peppered by Danish, Norwegian, and even Italian.</p>
<p>The central interests of this production are also unclear, as if refracted through many fragmented mirror shards. At first, director Damien Ryan seems to pursue an interest in surveillance – the trope of watching and being watched is a clear preoccupation in the play. </p>
<p>We quickly realise that the Danish court is bugged: when Horatio tells Hamlet that he has seen old Hamlet’s ghost, the actors quickly “de-bug” the room before elaborating. We also watch as Danish court spies listen back to taped recordings. But by the second half the production’s interest in surveillance has waned rather than developing as the play progresses. </p>
<p>The production design (by designer Alicia Clements) effectively splits the stage in two – again offering a fragmentation of the production. A wrought-iron style façade with clear windows provides an interior space upstage and at times acts again as a kind of distorted mirror. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101190/original/image-20151109-16249-12aaenf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101190/original/image-20151109-16249-12aaenf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101190/original/image-20151109-16249-12aaenf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101190/original/image-20151109-16249-12aaenf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101190/original/image-20151109-16249-12aaenf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101190/original/image-20151109-16249-12aaenf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101190/original/image-20151109-16249-12aaenf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101190/original/image-20151109-16249-12aaenf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Catherine Terracini, Matilda Ridgway, Ivan Donato, Julia Ohannessian, Doris Younane.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Boud</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is an interesting choice as it creates some distance between the audience and the action which occurs behind the façade. This additional framing device reminds us that we are viewers looking from the outside in. The play makes substantial use of this stage space, opening not with the first scene’s cry of “Who’s there?”, but instead with Gertrude and Claudius’ marriage taking place behind the façade. Ryan simultaneously shows the audience and distances us from this catalytic event.</p>
<p>The pacing and energy of this production was sometimes lacking, particularly in the first half of the first act. At times certain sections were cut that I think would have been usefully included.</p>
<p>This pacing was, it seemed, partly due to what felt like some kind of disconnection between the cast. The energy needed for the sparring between Hamlet and Polonius (Ophelia’s father) was lacking; and this left the play feeling imbalanced. </p>
<p>This was also due to editing: the fantastic dialogue between Hamlet and Polonius, where Hamlet puts on his “antic disposition” and feigns madness (although, of course, the line between authenticity and acting is an infamously blurry one when it comes to Hamlet’s madness) was omitted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>HAMLET: Do you see that cloud? That’s almost in shape like a camel.<br>
POLONIUS: By th’mass and it’s like a camel indeed.<br>
HAMLET: Methinks it is like a weasel.<br>
POLONIUS: It is backed like a weasel.<br>
HAMLET: Or like a whale?<br>
POLONIUS: Very like a whale.<br>
(3.2.365-371)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The depiction of the Ghost also felt somewhat lacking in energy and eeriness. Despite the flickering lighting and the anticipation of the waiting guard, there was something disappointingly mundane in the Ghost’s presence. His flesh was clearly flesh; it was simply “too, too solid”. The clearly non-spooky reality of the ghost jarred with the characters’ attempts to show their fear.</p>
<p>Great emphasis was placed on the players-within-the-play and their performance of The Mousetrap, Hamlet’s play-within-a-play in which Hamlet aims to “catch the conscience of the king”. </p>
<p>Yet the production’s decision to perform the play-within-a-play in Italian, with English stage directions projected above the actors, diluted the effectiveness of watching actors on stage watching a performance. We as spectators had to pay attention to three visual focal points: the onstage actors performing The Mousetrap (in Italian – rather than as dumbshow), the text projected above them, and – most critically – the reactions of the onstage audience: in particular, the king. </p>
<p>The power of the moment when “the King rises” – as he realises that his own story is being mirrored back to him – felt dissipated.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101192/original/image-20151109-16263-5rehm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101192/original/image-20151109-16263-5rehm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101192/original/image-20151109-16263-5rehm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101192/original/image-20151109-16263-5rehm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101192/original/image-20151109-16263-5rehm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101192/original/image-20151109-16263-5rehm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101192/original/image-20151109-16263-5rehm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101192/original/image-20151109-16263-5rehm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robin Goldsworthy, Philip Dodd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Boud</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, despite this, Ryan’s production featured an incredibly strong performance from Josh McConville in the title role. He offers a rich and satisfying Hamlet, balancing his key moods of humour, despair, and distrust. He very much owns this role, pushing away the ghosts of Hamlets past. </p>
<p>Interestingly, this production chose not to play with the line between Hamlet’s real or feigned madness: there is never really a question here – Hamlet never seems to go mad.</p>
<p>McConville offers several interesting moments during this production. </p>
<p>At one point, Hamlet descends into the audience to discuss the passion of the players we have just seen perform scenes for both the onstage and offstage audience. This heightens the play’s metatheatricality, and is a clever decision which I felt could have been taken even further. Sitting in the stalls, and talking to the audience almost as one of us, he asks: “Am I a coward?” </p>
<p>At another point, during Polonius’ addresses to the audience, Hamlet mouths, “Who is he talking to?” and paws at the invisible fourth wall.</p>
<p>Matilda Ridgway offered a strong Ophelia, and the pacing of the production truly picked up during her one-on-one exchange with Hamlet (the “get thee to a nunnery” scene). Her speedy descent into madness was traditionally performed but beautifully executed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101187/original/image-20151108-16258-ivaf0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101187/original/image-20151108-16258-ivaf0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101187/original/image-20151108-16258-ivaf0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101187/original/image-20151108-16258-ivaf0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101187/original/image-20151108-16258-ivaf0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101187/original/image-20151108-16258-ivaf0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101187/original/image-20151108-16258-ivaf0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101187/original/image-20151108-16258-ivaf0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Josh McConville and Matilda Ridgway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Boud</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other actors felt under-utilised: Robin Goldsworthy was a memorable Malvolio for Sport for Jove’s 2014 Twelfth Night, and could have explored more of his role as Rosencrantz.</p>
<p>I also was not convinced of the choice to double Claudius and the Ghost (Sean O’Shea). This is another instance where “mirroring” comes to the fore; but it felt like a choice that went unexplored. When Hamlet presents his mother with the pictures of her dead husband and her current one, the production doesn’t seem to do anything with the irony that they are one and the same actor.</p>
<p>It is also worth noting the high ratio of female roles provided in this production: the male players became “Yorick’s daughters”, the guards are female, as are the ambassadors Voltemand and Cornelia. Importantly, the triumphant Fortinbras is a female military leader. </p>
<p>In a play in which masculinity and misogyny interplay in fascinating ways in Hamlet’s relationship with his mother Gertrude and his lover Ophelia, these casting decisions are intriguing and certainly highlighted the play’s gender dynamics, but again, this felt underexplored. </p>
<p>It is important to note that Hamlet gives his dying voice to a female leader in this production; although the ramifications of this were not fully extrapolated.</p>
<p><br>
<em>Bell Shakespeare’s Hamlet is at the Playhouse, Sydney, until December 6. Details <a href="http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/h_amlet_2015.aspx">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50382/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Hansen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hamlet is a play that haunts itself. Its saturation into cultural consciousness means that watching a performance is inevitably a process of past ghosts and past echoes framing the current performance.Claire Hansen, Sessional Lecturer, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/279652014-06-16T04:23:28Z2014-06-16T04:23:28ZHenry V meets the London Blitz and brings the house down<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51118/original/wzrd8h42-1402881716.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The limitations of the theatre become the production's emotional heart.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michele Mossop</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://bellshakespeare.com.au/">Bell Shakespeare</a>’s new production of William Shakespeare’s Henry V – which opened in Canberra on June 14 – interrogates the complexities of war through a unique framing device: its scenes are played out by schoolchildren taking refuge during another conflict – the second world war.</p>
<p>In this creative production, the English invasion of France and the famous <a href="http://www.britishbattles.com/100-years-war/agincourt.htm">battle of Agincourt</a> are “crammed” into the confines of an unglamourous classroom. There are old wooden bookshelves, a blackboard, piles of books. </p>
<p>Here, director Damien Ryan (founder and artistic director of <a href="http://www.sportforjove.com.au/">Sport for Jove</a>) uses a schoolroom as an entry-point into the world of Henry V. It looks much like the context in which many of us first encountered Shakespeare, but this deceptively commonplace setting belies the dynamic and emotionally powerful production that will be contained within this “little room”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51119/original/yfynfx5g-1402881769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51119/original/yfynfx5g-1402881769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51119/original/yfynfx5g-1402881769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51119/original/yfynfx5g-1402881769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51119/original/yfynfx5g-1402881769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51119/original/yfynfx5g-1402881769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51119/original/yfynfx5g-1402881769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51119/original/yfynfx5g-1402881769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michele Mossop.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The humble setting toys deliberately with the concerns of the play’s Chorus, which wonders how the grandness of a battle can be represented onstage. How, asks the Chorus doubtingly, can “this wooden O” (a reference to early modern theatres such as <a href="http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/">the Globe</a>) contain “the vasty fields of France”? </p>
<p>Bell Shakespeare’s production uses the same foil: it asks how a classroom can contain the epic scale of Shakespeare’s play. We are lured into the lower register of the classroom, before we ascend to the imagined heights of Harfleur and Agincourt.</p>
<p>But this is not just a classroom: it’s also a bomb shelter for a group of students during the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/germany_bombs_london">Luftwaffe Blitz</a> of London in 1940-1941.</p>
<p>The production takes its time in setting up this play-within-a-play framework. Ryan creates the world of London in the 1940s before we even get to Shakespeare’s Henry V. First, the students – led by their charismatic teacher, played with dignity and poignancy by Keith Agius – briefly enact key scenes from the end of Shakespeare’s history plays of Richard II and then Henry IV. This is a fast-paced history lesson, a background on the younger days of Henry V, and also serves to clarify the play-within-a-play structure that guides this production.</p>
<p>By the time the students pick up their copies of Henry V and prepare to begin their performance of the play, we are firmly entrenched in their world. This is aided by the authentic camaraderie of the ensemble cast, with standouts including Danielle King (Mistress Quickly, Exeter, and Alice), Matthew Backer (Dauphin and Nym), and Drew Livingston (Fluellen and the production’s vocals composer, who also leads a haunting rendition of the patriotic British hymn I Vow to Thee, My Country).</p>
<p>There is always the danger of a conceit such as the play-within-a-play going awry: it may be inconsistent, problematic, or simply abandoned. But in Ryan’s immensely capable hands, the play-within-a-play is deeply meaningful, offering a renewed vitality to the play-text. </p>
<p>At every turn, there is a double life to this production; the performance always straddles two worlds, two historical fictions. Sometimes they are so closely overlapped that we cannot even see the join; at other times these worlds are suddenly sprung apart. </p>
<p>An air-raid siren or bomb blast will forcibly remind us that we’re in London of 1941, not the French fields of 1415. The captured French soldier of the original play becomes a German pilot. The fields of Agincourt are created by the billowing material of the German’s parachute. In this way, 20th-century London not only intrudes but shapes the world of Henry V.</p>
<p>This alignment of 1940s London and 15th-century France proves most effective in the deaths that occur throughout. The victims of Agincourt are realised shockingly and effectively in the parallel victims of the London Blitz. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51122/original/3887fmwm-1402881912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51122/original/3887fmwm-1402881912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51122/original/3887fmwm-1402881912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51122/original/3887fmwm-1402881912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51122/original/3887fmwm-1402881912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51122/original/3887fmwm-1402881912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51122/original/3887fmwm-1402881912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51122/original/3887fmwm-1402881912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Michael Sheasby as King Henry V and Darcy Brown as Le Fer/Boy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michele Mossop.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The offstage death of John Falstaff (a lovable rogue and old friend of Henry’s familiar to audiences from his presence in other Shakespeare plays) is parallelled by the death of the teacher/Chorus. This cleverly brings home the importance of Falstaff who, while probably well-known and loved by an early modern spectator, is not nearly as familiar in today’s popular imagination. </p>
<p>The victims of both Agincourt and London linger as ghosts in the black space around the wooden O of the classroom (the set design mirrors the “wooden O” of the Globe theatre with its curved walls and floors). The interweaving of those two threads proves mutually beneficial.</p>
<p>Every moment of this production is meticulously thought-out and precisely executed. There are fast-paced and frequent set changes as the bookshelves and other classroom props are moved ingeniously around to recreate London, Southampton, the voyage across the channel, the French court, the siege at Harfleur, troops on the march, the battle at Agincourt, and the Treaty of Troyes. </p>
<p>Sheets, torches, toy ships and soldiers are used to make silhouettes of the action; the angled bookshelves swaying with imagined waves become a ship; a pommel horse represents the Dauphin’s beloved warhorse. The seamless onstage transitions are also reminders, as the Chorus explains, that the theatre can only do so much, and spectators are called upon to use our imaginations and “piece out” the theatre’s imperfections “with your thoughts”. </p>
<p>But this production never lets its audience linger too long in the world of Henry’s France; we are always reminded that this is a performance by children in their own very real war zone. The set changes perfectly tread the fine line between simultaneously showing us the theatricality and helping us to forget it. </p>
<p>It’s a very precarious balance that is managed flawlessly, partly because, when we see the artifice of Henry V, we may forget that behind this is another layer of theatricality. We see that Henry’s crown is only paper, theatrical artifice made by the London students, but we must look harder to see that the students are just as unreal as Henry’s crown. That’s the beauty of the play-within-a-play and it is Shakespearean metatheatricality at its best.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51121/original/jy5yt6k3-1402881833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51121/original/jy5yt6k3-1402881833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51121/original/jy5yt6k3-1402881833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51121/original/jy5yt6k3-1402881833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51121/original/jy5yt6k3-1402881833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51121/original/jy5yt6k3-1402881833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51121/original/jy5yt6k3-1402881833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51121/original/jy5yt6k3-1402881833.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michele Mossop</span></span>
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<p>The play complicates any sense of harmony in its closing scenes. Michael Sheasby’s Henry is delightfully warm and funny in his wooing of Princess Katherine (the elegant and versatile Eloise Winestock), although some of the comic potential is lost when Katherine, in a change from the play-text, recites Henry’s threats at the siege of Harfleur back to him. The wooing Henry is confronted by the words of warring Henry, who warned that French infants would be “spitted upon pikes”. </p>
<p>The ending is further disrupted when the students read the Chorus’s epilogue and discover that after this hard-fought victory, England will lose France. There are gasps: “<em>they lost France</em>”. Henry’s face is hypnotic to watch: he is shocked, horrified, crestfallen. </p>
<p>Everything has been for nothing. The students’ copies of Henry V are thrown to the floor in disgust.</p>
<p>This production takes the concern expressed by Shakespeare’s Chorus regarding the inadequacy of the stage and reverses it: instead of simply apologising for the homely, domestic, inadequate setting of such an immense tale, Ryan uses the homeliness, the familiarity and domesticity to make his audience feel. </p>
<p>The vulnerabilities and limitations of the theatre become the play’s emotional heart. As the program notes underline, Ryan explicitly connects the children of 1415 with those of the 1940s, as well as the children of 2014 in Iraq, Syria, and South Sudan. </p>
<p>This kind of connection is exactly what we should be doing with Shakespeare.</p>
<p><br>
<em><a href="https://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/buytickets/henryv">Henry V by Bell Shakespeare</a> premiered on June 14 in Canberra and will tour Australia until November 15.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Hansen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bell Shakespeare’s new production of William Shakespeare’s Henry V – which opened in Canberra on June 14 – interrogates the complexities of war through a unique framing device: its scenes are played out…Claire Hansen, Lecturer, PhD Candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.