Othello in the Park

I was hoping to get in some Renaissance dance in Central Park last night, but that didn't work out, so instead I decided to try the standby line to see Othello at the Delacorte.

In case you didn't know, The Public Theater is currently performing free Shakespeare in the Park. Othello is playing until June 24th, and then Twelfth Night will run from July 17 to August 19th.

How easy is it to get tickets? Well you can wait in line or sign up for the mobile lottery. There's also free distribution throughout the five boroughs. However, I just showed up at 7:30 and got a ticket. The further into the run, though, the harder it is to get tickets, so go soon.

Coming into the theater, I happened to run into Rob Stauffer, who I met last year at the Shaw conference in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Small world! Unfortunately, I didn't bring a sweater, as I'd figured I would keep warm dancing that evening. Big mistake! If you go, make sure you bring something in case it gets cool.

How was the show? Well, I'm afraid I got in trouble last year for posting on my blog about Julius Caesar before it opened, so I am unable to provide you with a review of how good the show is and how you absolutely need to see it. I can't tell you that Ruben Santiago-Hudson does a masterful job directing, nor that Chukwudi Iwuji, who was wonderful as Edgar in The Public's King Lear a few years ago, is an Othello you won't want to miss.

It's really too bad, because I'd love to tell you how Corey Stoll, who played Brutus in last year's Julius Caesar, was unlike any other Iago I've ever seen. Motell Foster was also in Julius Caesar, but due to the press embargo, I won't be able to tell you what a revelation it was to see him play Roderigo. Heather Lind's Desdemona will have to go without note, as will Alison Wright's memorable performance as Emilia. I loved Flor De Liz Perez in the Public Mobile's production of Pericles, but I just won't be able to tell you how good she was as Bianca!

I guess that means you'll have to see it for yourself. Hurry, though! Once word gets out, you won't be able to just walk up at 7:30 and get standby tickets like I did.

"the two hours' traffic of our stage"

One issue that frequently comes up regarding Elizabethan plays is the length of an average performance. The prologue to Shakespeare's Henry V speaks of "Turning th' accomplishment of many years / Into an hour-glass." In Romeo and Juliet the prologue mentions "the two hours' traffic of our stage."

Modern productions of Shakespeare frequently run more than three hours. (I just saw one such Richard III.) However, marathon performances like this would have been impossible in Elizabethan times. Outdoor performances did not begin until two o'clock in the afternoon. Both in late winter when the theatrical season opened, and in the autumn when it closed, the sun typically sets in London around five o'clock. The final scenes of a production lasting more than three hours would had to have been performed in darkness.

What is more, Elizabethan performances did not end when the play was finished. After the play was over, the actors would return to the stage to perform a jig, a special dance that told a story, generally of a comic and bawdy nature. While we do not know the steps to these dances, some texts survive with music and lyrics.

Unlike the plays of the period, Elizabethan jigs have fallen out of fashion, but they once were as popular as the main plays. In fact, there are numerous accounts of audience members skipping the plays entirely and choosing to just come for the jigs at the end. Not only did plays have to leave enough daylight hours for their final scenes, they had to leave time for the elaborate jigs, which were a big draw for a theatre's audience.

So why do plays from the period seem so long? For one thing, not all of them are long at all. For instance the anonymous 1608 play A Yorkshire Tragedy, which deals with a sensational crime that had recently taken place in the north of England, is really just a long one-act play. Others, such as most of the texts by Shakespeare we have, are likely not performance texts at all, but extended versions of the play that could be cut in different manners depending on the occasion. Shakespeare's company might perform, trim back, or eliminate various parts depending on whether it was performing at the Globe, at court, or touring in the provinces.

Some plays exist in multiple printed versions, which is strong evidence of different performance texts. The version of King Lear printed in 1608 has about 400 lines that do not appear in the First Folio of Shakespeare's works published after his death. The posthumously published play, however, has about 100 lines not in the original, including a famous prophesy of Merlin. As is the case with King Lear, whole scenes can sometimes be missing from variant texts. This suggests Elizabethan companies would pick and choose which parts of a play to perform, which also could explain why the average performance time could not have run much more than two hours.

So what should modern directors do? Perform every single line we have, in spite of the fact Shakespeare's company certainly never did such a thing, or judiciously trim a text to keep it to around two hours or so? Well, what would you as an audience member prefer: to see a great two-hour play that leaves you wanting more, or see a three-and-a-half hour play in which you spend the last 45 minutes looking at your watch. The question answers itself.

Presentation Day

Today was my presentation of Renaissance dance at the performance studies conference at Northwestern University. My paper went okay (I think) though the screen they provided was much smaller than what I was expecting for my slides. There were a couple of interesting questions from the audience. One person asked about the portrayal of non-Europeans in European dance, which I was able to link to portrayals of Turkishness in some dances by Arbeau.

In my session, there was also a very interesting paper by Ameera Nimjee on her experience with Kathak, a form of Indian classical dance. We also had an interesting conversation about Bharatanatyam, which seems to have taken on new levels of nationalist meaning for Indians in the diaspora, even though in India Bharatanatyam is largely linked just to the southern region of the country.

Mika Lior also delivered a paper entitled "Brokering Corporealities: Orixa Traffic from Salvador to Toronto." It was about Afro-Brazilian performances that are now also done all over the globe. Tomorrow, I head back to New York. (But not to do Orixa performances.)

Poster Unveiled!

I'm gearing up for presenting my paper on the performance of class in Renaissance dance next month at the Northwestern University performance studies conference. They just released the poster. Here it is:

I'm slated to present at 11:00 on Sunday morning, October the 13th. Attendance is free but you do have to register. Here's how:

REGISTER

http://psconference.soc.northwestern.edu/conference-information/register/

It should be a good time. I'm particularly interested in hearing Sean Lovitt's paper on Shakespeare's The Tempest. Chicago, here I come!

Upcoming Conference at Northwestern

I recently received word that my paper "Performing Class With the Renaissance Dancing Body" has been accepted for the graduate student conference held by the Northwestern University Department of Performance Studies.

That means this October, I'll be heading out to Chicago to deliver my paper, which is the product of years studying the social dance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. My paper explores how upper-class individuals turned social dancing into a performance as a way to elevate their bodies above the ordinary day-to-day movements associated with lower classes. It draws upon the dance manuals of Antonio Cornazano, Guglielmo Ebreo, Thoinot Arbeau, and Fabritio Caroso, as well as evidence from conduct manuals, prints, paintings, and tapestries.

Noted dance historian Susan Manning is going to be there, so I better do a good job!