This piece is a response to Sohrab Ahmari’s recent article: “Emma Rice reduced Shakespeare’s plays to lectures—she had to go”
The first time I saw Mark Rylance, the Globe’s founding artistic director, he was garlanded with flowers and leading a cheerful procession out of the theatre grounds and along the South Bank. It was clear then that the Globe was a place for celebration rather than reverence. I have since seen about a dozen productions there, including Rylance’s all-male productions of Twelfth Night and Richard III, and the sonnets recited in more than 25 languages, including Noongar and Cree. I’ve shivered and sweltered through the elements and had to get help, once, when the woman next to me slumped over, apparently dead. The staff extricated her with remarkable agility and speed (they do this often, especially during Coriolanus). She made a full recovery.
Some people talk disdainfully about the Globe as “for tourists,” but it’s never struck me as a purveyor of heritage Shakespeare. The experience of being there is in itself too novel. Twenty-first century audiences aren’t used to the idea that the tenor of a scene can change because of rain, a noisy jet plane, or a bird landing on Macbeth’s head. Given the context, Emma Rice’s approach was not so drastically out of place.
Ahmari is right that innovation for its own sake is a nonsense, and rewriting bits of the text does feel like taking a gross liberty, but then we live in a purist age. In the less pure 1700s theatre-goers used to pay extra to sit on the stage and interact with the actors. Alexander Pope tidied up Shakespeare’s verse endings and David Garrick—who did so much to popularise the Bard—rewrote the end of Romeo and Juliet. Colley Cibber junked half of Richard III and rewrote the rest. Nahum Tate’s revised version of King Lear, which gave the tragedy a happy ending, was the more commonly performed version for at least a hundred years.
In our secular society there is a quasi-religious devotion to Shakespeare, but we should guard against too much reverence. Ahmari’s description of the Globe as a “temple,” where one “commune[s] with the bard” sounds appalling. The theatre in Shakespeare’s time would have been more like a music hall than a temple: noisy, ribald and unexpected.
If we are going to use religious language, let’s call Shakespeare a broad church. His work is great enough to withstand many interpretations. Only the best will live on in the collective memory—Jonathan Pryce as Shylock, say, or Roger Hallam as Falstaff. The others can still offer insight and perhaps reach audiences who wouldn’t normally buy a ticket. I don’t defend Emma Rice on all counts: there’s no point breaking rules if it means imposing new ones, like gender parity. Indeed Rylance has hinted that it was her intransigence, as much as the Globe’s, that brought the relationship to an end. The company wasn’t averse to some productions using lighting and amplification—a new departure for the Globe—but Rice wanted them all shown this way, partly because of the physical impossibility of moving the rig in between performances.
I saw only one production during Rice’s tenure—Imogen, based on Cymbeline and directed by Matthew Dunster. The cast wore track suits and the fight scenes took inspiration from the Matrix. I’ve never witnessed such a rapturous reception—even at the Globe, which inspires rapture. Afterwards I thought, “I must read Cymbeline”—not a thought I have ever had before.
We have a horror of Shakespeare being “gimmicky”—of people coming to him for the wrong reasons, as if that’s cheating. Why? If anyone leaves a production wanting to see or read more Shakespeare, rather than thinking “thank God that’s over”—isn’t that a good thing? Shakespeare has been messed around with for centuries and, with any luck, will be messed around for centuries to come. It’s best way to keep the essence of his work alive.
The first time I saw Mark Rylance, the Globe’s founding artistic director, he was garlanded with flowers and leading a cheerful procession out of the theatre grounds and along the South Bank. It was clear then that the Globe was a place for celebration rather than reverence. I have since seen about a dozen productions there, including Rylance’s all-male productions of Twelfth Night and Richard III, and the sonnets recited in more than 25 languages, including Noongar and Cree. I’ve shivered and sweltered through the elements and had to get help, once, when the woman next to me slumped over, apparently dead. The staff extricated her with remarkable agility and speed (they do this often, especially during Coriolanus). She made a full recovery.
Some people talk disdainfully about the Globe as “for tourists,” but it’s never struck me as a purveyor of heritage Shakespeare. The experience of being there is in itself too novel. Twenty-first century audiences aren’t used to the idea that the tenor of a scene can change because of rain, a noisy jet plane, or a bird landing on Macbeth’s head. Given the context, Emma Rice’s approach was not so drastically out of place.
Ahmari is right that innovation for its own sake is a nonsense, and rewriting bits of the text does feel like taking a gross liberty, but then we live in a purist age. In the less pure 1700s theatre-goers used to pay extra to sit on the stage and interact with the actors. Alexander Pope tidied up Shakespeare’s verse endings and David Garrick—who did so much to popularise the Bard—rewrote the end of Romeo and Juliet. Colley Cibber junked half of Richard III and rewrote the rest. Nahum Tate’s revised version of King Lear, which gave the tragedy a happy ending, was the more commonly performed version for at least a hundred years.
In our secular society there is a quasi-religious devotion to Shakespeare, but we should guard against too much reverence. Ahmari’s description of the Globe as a “temple,” where one “commune[s] with the bard” sounds appalling. The theatre in Shakespeare’s time would have been more like a music hall than a temple: noisy, ribald and unexpected.
If we are going to use religious language, let’s call Shakespeare a broad church. His work is great enough to withstand many interpretations. Only the best will live on in the collective memory—Jonathan Pryce as Shylock, say, or Roger Hallam as Falstaff. The others can still offer insight and perhaps reach audiences who wouldn’t normally buy a ticket. I don’t defend Emma Rice on all counts: there’s no point breaking rules if it means imposing new ones, like gender parity. Indeed Rylance has hinted that it was her intransigence, as much as the Globe’s, that brought the relationship to an end. The company wasn’t averse to some productions using lighting and amplification—a new departure for the Globe—but Rice wanted them all shown this way, partly because of the physical impossibility of moving the rig in between performances.
I saw only one production during Rice’s tenure—Imogen, based on Cymbeline and directed by Matthew Dunster. The cast wore track suits and the fight scenes took inspiration from the Matrix. I’ve never witnessed such a rapturous reception—even at the Globe, which inspires rapture. Afterwards I thought, “I must read Cymbeline”—not a thought I have ever had before.
We have a horror of Shakespeare being “gimmicky”—of people coming to him for the wrong reasons, as if that’s cheating. Why? If anyone leaves a production wanting to see or read more Shakespeare, rather than thinking “thank God that’s over”—isn’t that a good thing? Shakespeare has been messed around with for centuries and, with any luck, will be messed around for centuries to come. It’s best way to keep the essence of his work alive.
