SHAKSPER 2001: Re: Jonson

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@ws.bowiestate.edu)
Date: 12/13/01 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2835  Thursday, 13 December 2001

[1]     From:   Kelley Costigan <kelley@malfi.u-net.com>
        Date:   Wednesday, 12 Dec 2001 14:30:00 +0000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.2808 Re: Jonson

[2]     From:   Edward Pixley <pixleyee@snyoneva.cc.oneonta.edu>
        Date:   Wed, 12 Dec 2001 14:37:37 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.2808 Re: Jonson


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Kelley Costigan <kelley@malfi.u-net.com>
Date:           Wednesday, 12 Dec 2001 14:30:00 +0000
Subject: 12.2808 Re: Jonson
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2808 Re: Jonson

Martin Steward writes:  'I am certain that I saw the it at the Olivier
Theatre, London'.

Yes, yes, yes.  I’ve had a few of these in my inbox.  The production was
done by Birmingham Rep and transferred to the Olivier Theatre, London.
Simon Callow, when he addressed the audience as Face at the end of the
play (at the Birmingham Rep), spoke with a wonderful Birmingham accent
which gave the play so firmly set in London and its environs, a
wonderful Midlands feel and helped reintroduce the playgoers to their
20th century journey back home.  I don’t know if he used the Brummie
accent in London, but it was a nice touch.

So, no more about it, please.

Kelley Costigan

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Edward Pixley <pixleyee@snyoneva.cc.oneonta.edu>
Date:           Wed, 12 Dec 2001 14:37:37 -0500
Subject: 12.2808 Re: Jonson
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2808 Re: Jonson

Maybe I'm wrong though - is it possible to stage Jonson without severe
pruning?

David Nicol:

As one of those who started this thread, recalling with pleasure the
success I had with Volpone, I will confess that I cut mercilessly,
sometimes pages at a time, and even conflating the dwarf, the
hermaphrodite, and the eunuch into one character.  I remember at the
time attrituting Jonson’s inflated wordiness to his expectation of
publishing the play as dramatic poetry, arguing that his staged version
was probably less florid.  I had no scholarly basis for this judgment,
only the recollection that he was the first playwright of the modern
English period to have the temerity to publish his canon in folio form.
My scholarly judgment was doubtless presumptuous, but the theatrical
result of the cutting was well worth the presumption.  Even one of our
English Department’s most curmudgeonly members wrote me a note of
congratulations, asking for a copy of the cutting.  The thing that most
confirmed me in my presumption was how easy the play was to cut.  I like
to tell my directing students that a well-constructed play will “direct
itself,” if you are paying attention; well, it almost felt as if Volpone
“cut itself.”  With the exception of Hamlet, I find Shakespeare much
harder to cut.  To direct Hamlet, one must take a point of view; once
that point of view is established, the cuts are fairly easy.

Ed Pixley

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