SHAKSPER 2006: A Roof on the Globe?

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@shaksper.net)
Date: 05/17/06 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0456  Wednesday, 17 May 2006

[1] 	From: 	Bill Lloyd <Bnklloyd@aol.com>
	Date: 	Wednesday, 10 May 2006 08:49:59 EDT
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 17.0418 A Roof on the Globe?

[2] 	From: 	Todd Lidh <tmlidh@hotmail.com>
	Date: 	Thursday, 11 May 2006 12:40:01 -0400
	Subj: 	RE: SHK 17.0440 A Roof on the Globe?

[3] 	From: 	Peter Holland <pholland@nd.edu>
	Date: 	Thursday, 11 May 2006 13:04:39 -0400
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 17.0440 A Roof on the Globe?

[4] 	From: 	Tony Burton <aburton1@comcast.net>
	Date: 	Thursday, 11 May 2006 13:23:07 -0400
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 17.0440 A Roof on the Globe?


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Bill Lloyd <Bnklloyd@aol.com>
Date: 		Wednesday, 10 May 2006 08:49:59 EDT
Subject: 17.0418 A Roof on the Globe?
Comment: 	Re: SHK 17.0418 A Roof on the Globe?

 >The text of Titus
 >as we have it was not made for indoor playing

Although the early performances of Titus Andronicus were probably most 
often staged at the open-air Theatre or Rose, it doesn't seem quite 
accurate to say that it [or any other professional play] was intended 
only for outdoor amphitheatre playing. At the very least, Titus would 
have been played indoors if staged at Court, as well as in halls on 
tour. James Burbage apparently intended to replace the lease-expiring 
Theatre with an indoor playhouse in the Blackfriars, and the Globe was 
built only because this ambition was frustrated. No doubt Burbage did 
not intend to jettison his accumulated repertory because "it was not 
made for indoor playing".

Bill Lloyd

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Todd Lidh <tmlidh@hotmail.com>
Date: 		Thursday, 11 May 2006 12:40:01 -0400
Subject: 17.0440 A Roof on the Globe?
Comment: 	RE: SHK 17.0440 A Roof on the Globe?

Greetings.

As I read online just yesterday, the notion of "original practices" as 
envisioned and practiced on the Globe stage for the past ten years will 
not be the same under the new leadership. I quote below part of the 
"Meet the Globe's new Artistic Director" (Dominic Dromgoole) from the 
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre website:

"Original Practices, one of the methods of production set up under Mark 
Rylance, will be morphed slightly. I think the principle is an excellent 
one and this place was in part set up to explore Elizabethan stage 
practice. I think Original Practices is something that belongs to Mark, 
Jenny [Tirimani] and Claire [van Kampen] and I very much hope that they 
come back en masse to do something in 2007 or 2008 in that way. But I 
think it's something they own and I feel very peculiar or very dishonest 
in just taking it off them and saying 'Oh your thing works so I'll copy 
it' - you can't really do that as an artist, you can't just go in and 
nab what someone else does.

"When we do shows that are going to be done in Elizabethan style we will 
follow a lot of the principles of Original Practices and we will have a 
complete discipline of resources. We'll use Elizabethan costumes, 
Elizabethan music and Elizabethan tunes, but with those resources we 
might jazz around a little further and work in a style that's rougher 
and looser than Original Practices. We might take the rule that we only 
have Elizabethan instruments and we source Elizabethan tunes but then 
play about with that a bit and go as far as we like. The same with the 
costumes which will be a grab-bag of the Elizabethan and the 
Elizabethan's idea of the Romans. We'll see how far we can play about 
with that in creative and wonderful ways.

"This season I have chosen Coriolanus and Titus Andronicus to be 
productions that employ Jacobean and Elizabethan staging, clothing and 
music. It's the first time these two plays will be performed at the 
Globe. It makes sense to 'birth' a play here through that sort of 
discipline and then if people want to look at them again in the future 
then they'll have the freedom to say 'Oh no, I'll reset it here' or 
'I'll do that with it' but because it's the first time it feels good to 
stick to those sort of principles."

http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/globelink/frameset.htm and click on Edges
of Rome in the menu bar for the full information.

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Peter Holland <pholland@nd.edu>
Date: 		Thursday, 11 May 2006 13:04:39 -0400
Subject: 17.0440 A Roof on the Globe?
Comment: 	Re: SHK 17.0440 A Roof on the Globe?

Elliott Stone writes "There are many plays within the play in the 
Shakespeare Canon and they all were performed indoors. The most famous, 
of course, is the Hamlet Mousetrap performed in a castle. The "rude 
mechanicals" might have rehearsed outdoors but even they performed their 
Thisbe before the Court in a palace!"

But what evidence is there in either case that the scenes are imagined 
as set indoors? At the castle is not the same as inside the castle: it 
could be a courtyard, still requiring cushions, seats, a call for 
lights, etc. And the play within the play in LLL, the Nine Worthies, 
seems fairly clearly outdoors (unless within a tent) since it is 
explicitly not at Navarre's court.

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Tony Burton <aburton1@comcast.net>
Date: 		Thursday, 11 May 2006 13:23:07 -0400
Subject: 17.0440 A Roof on the Globe?
Comment: 	Re: SHK 17.0440 A Roof on the Globe?

Wasn't the original purpose of the Globe project to recreate that 
particular theater with the utmost authenticity, and to see and 
experience Shakespeare's plays in very nearly their original setting? 
Isn't that what all the sponsors-many not now alive to express their 
views-were invited to support?  And didn't the best scholars in the 
world come up with a roofless Globe as the fulfillment of that purpose? 
  Jeremy Fiebig hits the nail on the head in saying that, in proposing a 
roof, the incumbent family of Globe managers are denying the Glove 
itself.  If they find it unacceptably confining, let them build a giant 
arena, and also a portable indoor theater for occasional use, and then 
"explore the dramatic potential of the space," as David Crystal 
enthusiastically suggests.

The discussion on this list, which considers why it might be a good, 
defensible, or interesting thing to import a Coliseum-style covering 
seems designed to advance different agendas entirely.  Any space may be 
converted to some use for which it was not intended.  The cathedral of 
St. John the Divine in NY might be gutted and converted into a 
bungee-jumpers' paradise, or Yankee Stadium into a farmers' market.  But 
not in the interests of their intended purposes, no matter how 
enthusiastic one feels about the brave new world the alteration makes 
possible.

Tony

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Hardy M. Cook, editor@shaksper.net
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