To all our generous sponsors and donors; to the scholars who came from near and far to share their ideas and discoveries so openly with us; to the actors, directors, stage designers and costumers, both professional and volunteers; to our audiences, whose presence inspired us; to all who did so much to make Shakspeare and the Queen's Men such a successful and memorable experience . . . we extend our heartfelt thanks.
The rehearsals, trial and actual performances of Queen's Men's plays sparked much discussion amongst SQM team members, their colleagues, students, and the public.
Audiences experienced the different venues to which the Queen's Men toured: court, manor-house, university hall, tavern; and also viewed the play sitting on the stage, standing, moving around the stage, or sitting in one offstage location. Each location was mutually informing for actors and audiences.
In these productions, the audience was lit in the same way as the stage. The resulting opportunity to be close to the actors, to be seen and respond to the actors (who relished the shared energy) erased the modern anonymity of a dark theatre with a lit stage.
King Leir surprised the audiences with its comedy and its happy ending. The scene in which the hired murderer attempts to kill Leir and Perillus was especially moving and startling in its stage-effects: the would-be murderer is converted by the sound of God's protest in the form of thunder from our backstage metal thunder-sheet.
Leir's three daughters were also hits; the sarcasm of Gonerill, the sheer nastiness of Ragan, and the plucky virtue of Cordella charmed everyone. Particularly charming was the built-in games-playing emphasized in the production: Gonerill and Ragan see the price of everything and the value of nothing, and their hypocrisy offers one level of game they consciously share with the audience. But Cordella's enthusiastic plunge into whatever role life offers — whether she must earn a living as a seamstress, be the queen of France, pretend to be a middle-class wife preparing for a picnic with festive peasants, or stick to her concept of a loving daughter — was a delight for audiences.
The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, our second show, had immediate rapport with its audience. Although actually the shortest of the three plays, by the time the actors milked their stage business, to the hooting pleasure of their audiences, the play became 20 to 30 minutes longer — a very concrete lesson in how a company of clown-actors can take advantage of the moment and improvise, experimenting with the venue and keeping the audience on its toes. The Derrick/John Cobbler scenes were particularly engaging as the actors developed their clown-figures with unexpected depth: Derrick the extroverted rascal, always ready to set up a lie about himself, and Cobbler the sweet-hearted innocent, always ready to forgive Derrick's tricks or make peace with his wife — another revelation in the performance of a boyactor as tough woman.
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay featured a very strong Friar Bacon and an equally strong Margaret of Fressingfield, the heroine of low degree whose love for Lord Lacey is tested more than once. The theatrical revelation here was twofold: one was that this play could not have been a travelling piece since it requires too much in the way of props, pyrotechnics, and doubling; and the other was the dependence of the play on Margaret.
Margaret starts the play as the centre of rustic friends; she becomes the love-object of the prince, the lord, and two country squires, but remains her own person, whose integrity is tested in many ways: she saves her lordly lover's life, converts a prince to good political and moral behaviour, and forgives her lord's thoughtless abuse of her admirable qualities to become once more the centre of an admiring throng, this time among kings and courtiers.
The parallels between her story (virtue succeeding to high estate) and that of Friar Bacon (academic arrogance learning the virtue of humility) pulled the rather disparate plot together. The magic scenes are not just crowd-pleasers; they are pertinent to the conversion of the prince and of Bacon, and their submission to the higher calling in service to the nation. Margaret's natural "magic" — her beauty, intelligence, kindness — ultimately celebrate her as representing the inner strengths of England, moving from the grass roots of her pastoral origins to the glitter of court.
Perhaps the most stunning revelation of the three
Queen's Men's plays in performance is the consistent
overlap of actorly and writerly strengths in following
a formula that works: clown routines that parody
each play's serious action, conversion scenes that
show the protestant piety and nationalist feeling in
the company's mission for their patron, princely
lovers, strong women, and a vision of life as a
romance, a quest whose end is the joy of living in the
England of Elizabeth.
The intention was to be as true as possible to Elizabethan period costuming within the constraints of time and budget. This meant avoiding those useful modern fasteners velcro and zippers. Luckily, I could draw on the stock of PLS, the Graduate Drama Centre, and Theatre Erindale, refurbishing many of the garments and, where possible, changing to closures like buttons or hooks and eyes which would still allow for multiple quick changes.
In addition, we built new costumes using period patterns and fabrics that look authentic. For example, in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Margaret's dress, described as "stammel red," is a kirtle made of red wool, laced at the bodice front. Period details like ruffs, capes, rapiers, gloves and hats were very important in establishing the Elizabethan look.
While a certain amount could be done in advance, the rehearsal process presented new challenges as casting and doubling of roles shifted, and as actors made discoveries requiring costuming changes — from adding pockets to existing breeches to finding ways to streamline a difficult quick change.
Many costumes were shared by two or more actors in different plays, so keeping organized backstage (when there was a backstage) was not easy, especially once we went on tour!
Sometimes the hats and capes were flying, but the Queen's Men always pulled it off — usually with a song.
With the help of students from McMaster and Ryerson universities, and under the technical supervision of Ryerson film professor Garrick Filewod, we filmed multiple performances of all three plays in different settings, and will use the footage for a number of exciting multimedia products that will both document the project and make the plays accessible in numerous innovative ways.
First on the list is a DVD-ROM with scenes from the plays and audio and video commentary on the rehearsal and staging process; in a second step, we are hoping to add film clips to the newly edited and annotated texts of the plays to be published online on the highly regarded Internet Shakespeare Editions website.
Students and researchers will be able to view multiple versions of each scene, performed in differing stage configurations, with different interpretive approaches, and for differing audiences.
The DVD-ROM, which we are hoping to finish sometime in 2007, will be distributed to scholars and academic libraries free of charge; it will provide a hitherto unavailable tool for the teaching of early modern theatre.
We remind readers not only that Early Theatre is now available online with your subscription, but also that the REED Newsletter will be fully available online as well, access included in your subscription. We are grateful to ITER for agreeing to make REEDN electronically available.
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