Monday, April 13
8pm
Elizabethan Theatre
Free and open to the public
“I never travel without my diary,” says Gwendolen Fairfax in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest . “One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”
The impact of Shakespeare has often been sensational, sometimes through such extravagant spectacles as the ‘equestrian’ performances of Richard III and Macbeth in Astley’s circus arena in London in the 1850s, the stirring operatic versions of Verdi, or the cinema adaptations that realise scenes Shakespeare’s theatre could not encompass.
Sometimes, radical interpretations of the plays or challenging innovations in acting have produced extreme reactions in audiences. On other occasions (such as the Astor Place riots of 1849) a Shakespearean performance has been the focus of violent social and political conflict.
Even in the privacy of the study, the emotional impact of the plays and poems has sometimes been overwhelming: Samuel Johnson admitted ‘I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play until I undertook to revise them as an editor.’ Composer Hector Berlioz’s exposure to Shakespeare resulted in some great music but a wretched marriage.
The lecture will consider the cultural significance of some notable Shakespearean experiences, recapturing from the archives a history of the ways in which Shakespeare has been truly sensationalized—and of the pleasure and excitement that they have given.
About the Lecturer
Russell Jackson is Allardyce Nicoll Professor of Drama and theatre Arts in the University of Birmingham. His most recent publications are Shakespeare Films in the Making: Vision, Production and Reception (2007) and The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film (second edition, 2007). He co-edited (with Jonathan Bate) The Oxford Illustrated History of Shakespeare on Stage (2001) and (with Robert Smallwood) two volumes in the Cambridge ‘Players of Shakespeare’ series. Other publications include Romeo and Juliet in the “Shakespeare at Stratford” series (2003) and a translation of Theodor Fontane’s Shakespeare in London, 1851-58 (1999).
Questions?
Contact 202.675.0333.
