The spring season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this year looks pretty interesting, at least on paper, so Diana, my frequent theater partner, and I decided to increase our theater activities by four and subscribe. The first offering was John Ford’s Jacobean tragedy, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, staged at the Harvey Theatre by Cheek by Jowl, the innovative British company directed by Declan Donnellan. We caught the evening performance on Wednesday, 28 March.
Now, going into this production, I had some reservations, including the important fact that I just don’t like Jacobean drama, especially the tragedies. ’Tis Pity, which was published in 1633 and may have been first performed as early as 1629, is among the grimmest and most dismal plays I’ve ever seen or read (not to mention one of the bloodiest), and I’ve seen at least two productions of it before this one. I also saw Cheek by Jowl stage The Duchess of Malfi, another bloody Jacobean stomach-churner, at BAM back in 1995. And that raises another problem I had with this production before I walked in the theater doors: I’ve seen a couple of Cheek by Jowl’s performances and haven’t liked them very much. Malfi turned into a play about moving a chair! I recorded that I found the production “self-indulgent and pretentious.” (I also saw their 1998 staging of Much Ado About Nothing, but I don’t remember much about the show. I did, however, stop going to Cheek by Jowl after that, it seems.) On the other hand, however, Diana had never seen the play, and from a financial point of view, we needed to book four shows at BAM to qualify for the subscription discount, and there were only four plays on offer—so it was either see ’Tis Pity again, or pay full freight for the other performances. So, there I was.
I know that’s not an auspicious motivation for being in the audience of a piece of theater. You never know, though: surprises do happen.
’Tis Pity She's a Whore tells the tale of an incestuous love between Giovanni and his sister Annabella, the children of the wealthy Florio, that ends in disaster and death. (Some critics have seen Ford’s play as a commentary on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. There are also allusions to both Hamlet and Othello in the story and characters, but without the subtleties of Shakespeare’s humanity or his poetry. There are no great lines in ’Tis Pity.) Set in Parma, Italy, the story takes place against a background of lust, vengeance, and greed that ends in a gruesome bloodbath. There are many subplots in the original text, the most important of which concerns Hippolita, the betrayed and vengeful lover of one of Annabella's suitors, Soranzo. When Annabella becomes pregnant by Giovanni, the Friar convinces her to marry Soranzo to hide her scandal. Hippolita, who dispensed with a husband for Soranzo, become irreconcilably jealous and plots to have her former lover killed. Soranzo’s servant Vasques turns the tables on her, however, and she drinks her own poison, meant for Soranzo. (There are more of those little plots, but Donnellan cut the others out.) When Soranzo discovers Annabella’s pregnancy, however, the over-loyal Vasques tries to uncover the identity of Annabella’s lover. She won’t reveal her secret to her husband so Soranzo plots revenge, to take place at his birthday celebration among all the celebrities of Parma. Giovanni, however, beats Soranzo to the punch and dispatches Annabella in the most gruesome manner. The play’s treatment of the incest made it one of the most controversial works in English literature. The play was omitted from a 19th-century collection of Ford's plays; its title has often been changed to something euphemistic such as Giovanni and Annabella, The Brother and Sister, or the truncated ’Tis Pity. Until well into the 20th century, critics were severe in their condemnations. The subject matter offended them, as did Ford's failure to condemn Giovanni.
The Cheek by Jowl production, designed in modern dress, has been on tour since last November, so far having played in Paris, Sidney, and a number of cities in the U.K., including London, Cambridge, and Oxford. After Brooklyn, ’Tis Pity, which ran at BAM from 20 to 31 March, goes on to Madrid. The company was started in 1981 by Donnellan, who directs most of the productions (all the ones I’ve seen), and Nick Ormerod, the company’s designer. (The company’s name comes from a line in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Donnellan says that it “enshrines the company's devotion to the classics.”) The troupe, though London-based, is international, working in English, French, Spanish, and Russian, and they tour prodigiously—over 301 cities in 40 countries around the globe. Their manifesto is “to re-examine classical texts, avoiding directorial and design concepts, and to focus on the actor's art.” Donnellan says of this ’Tis Pity that “we never enter a play with ‘ideas.’ This is just how ’Tis Pity seems to have come out this time . . . .” The current production isn’t the first time Donnellan’s staged Ford’s tragedy: In 1980, the year before he and Ormerod formed their company, he directed another modern-dress performance of the play in London which became the launching pad for Cheek by Jowl.
Donnellan, who’s started a Russian company in Moscow and has worked for such illustrious troupes as the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and the Moscow Art Theater, is best known for stripping his productions down to their basic impact. He doesn’t rip the heart out the way Richard Maxwell did in his recent adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Early Plays (see my ROT report on 14 March), but he goes straight for the emotional jugular. Ormerod, too, is a minimalist: his sets present only what the spectators need to see what’s happening and the actors to do their business, but little more. (The pair say that the settings aren’t conceived until rehearsals are underway, but Ormerod interprets what the actors and Donnellan devise and his style is mostly spare.) My own sense of the productions I’d seen before is that this impels Cheek by Jowl to speed through the plays as if propelled by adrenaline. They take little time, it seems to me, either to let the emotions and actions communicate to the audience, or to motivate the characters. The result for me has been a flat, shallow performance, even if it’s technically proficient. ’Tis Pity, for example, runs an intermissionless hour and fifty-five minutes, which is short for a Jacobean play. I don’t know how long the play regularly runs, probably well over two hours, or exactly how much Cheek by Jowl has cut from the text, but it suggests to me that they’ve probably shaved ten minutes or more off the presentation by pacing alone. (I can’t prove this, but it’s my sense of things. I’d have to reread the text to be sure, but Donnellan’s cut at least one subplot and the characters involved in it—Jacobean plays are usually chockablock with elaborate intrigues and conspiracies—as the company’s done in the past.)
This particular play may have benefitted from both the trimming and the rapid performance. Diana remarked, when I pointed this out, that otherwise the play would have been tedious. (I’d have used a stronger adjective myself, more like deadly or bleak, but I’ll accept tedious for now.) As it was presented, though, Diana found the production enjoyable and interesting. She, of course, had no expectations since she’d never seen the play before and hadn’t read any reviews to prejudice her opinion. (In contrast to Ben Brantley’s prediction that Donnellan’s interpretation “would bewilder those who don’t know” the play, Diana’s experience seems to have benefitted from the pruning.) The audience’s response at the end was enthusiastic, though there were large sections of the auditorium empty, suggesting possibly that other BAM supporters rejected the play based on its rep, and one or two left during the performance (though I can’t be sure why, of course—the subject matter of the play can be disquieting).
Ormerod’s setting for the production is the bedroom of Annabella, all in reds and washed with red light. (The lighting was designed by Judith Powell.) The costumes (also by Ormerod) are essentially di-chromatic—black and white—with splashes of bright red such as in the dress of one partygoer at the wedding and again at a birthday gala, and the sash of the cardinal at the birthday. This color scheme doesn’t take into account the pink flesh if the nudity—full dorsal when it occurs—and near nudity—many of the men bare their chests at the drop of a . . . well, shirt—that Donnellan’s included in the production. The room’s basically a rectangle, with a door to the corridor up right and an en suite bathroom up left. The perimeter of the room is lined with bits and pieces—furniture, discarded clothing, pillows, a bean-bag chair, and so on, all shades of red—with a wide path cleared around the middle. It looks like a teenaged girl’s room, with various posters on the up-stage wall (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the cable vampire-and-werewolf series True Blood, Dial M for Murder), and a messy bed—red sheets, to be sure—in the center of the stage. It’s the center of the action, too: many of the scenes take place on or near the bed. Neither Donnellan nor Ormerod can be accused here of being too subtle with their symbolism: the reds evoke both blood and illicit sex; the bare skin reminds us, as if we need the reminder, that this is a play about sex; and the bed . . . well, it speaks for itself, doesn’t it. (That scarlet dress, by the way, is worn by the actress who also plays Annabella’s enabling maid Putana, whose name means ‘whore’ in Italian. Coincidence?) The stage is relatively dimly lit as if the curtains are always closed and the lights are all low wattage—except the bright white-tiled bathroom (where much of the ghastly business is done—a death by poison, a throat-slitting, and the gouging out of Annabella’s beating heart): when the door opens, the light in there is very bright. No matter where Ford set his scenes, Cheek by Jowl’s whole production takes place in Annabella’s bedroom and everyone’s welcome: father, brother-lover, suitors, husband, friar, party guests, servants—whoever. Is this because Annabella’s the whore of the title?
Aside from the sped-up, unsubtle performance style which is the hallmark of the Cheek by Jowl shows I’ve seen, Donnellan has incorporated some other stylistic elements in ’Tis Pity. Starting with the opening moment, the cast breaks into group dance of various types, beginning with that looks like techno but later also includes some disco-inspired moves and a tarantella. (The music and sound are created by Nick Powell and the “movement” is staged by associate director Jane Gibson.) Sometimes the dancing is related to the scene, like the wedding or birthday celebrations, but other times it’s gratuitous. Another of Donnellan’s stylized insertions is to have the whole cast on stage for many scenes, sitting or standing silently around the periphery of the room. The meaning of this wasn’t entirely clear to me; it may be a manifestation of Donnellan’s idea that everyone’s collectively guilty of the transgressions that are playing out or an enforced contrast of the pure (though forbidden) love of Annabella and Giovanni with the corruption of the society than condemns them. Occasionally, only one intruding character is present, such as the servant Vasques or, frequently, Giovanni, who witness moments in which they aren’t actually involved. Then, of course, is the nudity I mentioned earlier—certainly something that wouldn’t have occurred to Ford and his company in Renaissance England. (There’s even a leather-clad male stripper, not a character in Ford’s text, who first bites out the tongue of the blabbermouth maid Putana, then takes her moaning body into the well-used bathroom to kill her. It’s hard to conceive of topping the Grand Guignol of Ford’s original, but this emendation manages to.) As for the persistent criticism that Ford doesn’t condemn Annabella or Giovanni for breaking the taboos, Donnellan’s cut the final line in which Annabella’s reviled with the title sentence, “’Tis pity she’s a whore,” but he does add the ominous whine of police sirens approaching Florio’s house, promising some kind of consequences, however ambiguous. I won’t say I truly enjoyed all this, theatrically speaking, of course, but it can be said that Donnellan’s additions and adjustments energized this grinding play. On its own, that’s a benefit, but I also can’t say that it added anything to the play’s point or meaning for me. What’s that expression? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. Cheek by Jowl’s ’Tis Pity is a pig with lipstick.
I’ve already characterized the performances in general: unsubtle, superficial, and fast-paced. Those are all clearly directorial choices since they were universal and echoes of past productions I’ve seen. Though none of the actors stumbled or tripped over the imposed style, none really stood out, either. Despite the implications of the play’s title, Lydia Wilson’s Annabella is believably naïve and credulous, a very young woman, older than Juliet, but an adolescent nonetheless. Ford wrote her as innocent or at least disingenuous, but Wilson is more reckless and willful, which works in the modern setting. I didn’t have any problem believing that Giovanni could convince her to succumb to their mutual attraction and that she could believe their passion was pure and innocent even if no one else ever would. Jack Gordon’s Giovanni is totally narcissistic and prone to sophistry, including the self-deluding kind. He’s too old—a university student home from his studies (more Hamlet’s age than Romeo’s)—to be entirely innocent, but he knows how to manipulate his own mind as well as others’ to make it seem that what he wants is natural and right, even though he certainly knows how destructive it will end up being. (Brantley calls the character “Byronic,” which may be apt, what with Gordon’s dark, curly mop—what we used to call a “white afro.”) He even lets the Friar (played at this performance by Ryan Ellsworth) think that the priest has convinced him to give up his pursuit of Annabella when he has no intention of doing that. Gordon’s a very clever college boy who knows he’s smart, but isn’t wise: he has all the answers. Until he doesn’t. But while both siblings say all the right words—Annabella, after she marries Soranzo (a stalwart but ego-driven Jack Hawkins) and he learns of her pregnancy, tries to argue him into accepting both her and her child—but they obviously never learn anything along the way. Wilson and Gordon both rush headlong toward their fates so inexorably that they never take a moment to see what’s happening to them. As much as this is Donnellan’s responsibility, the actors never find a way even to suggest their characters know what they’re getting into. When the director says he doesn’t go into a play “with ‘ideas,’” maybe this is what results. That’s the heart of the problem I have with Cheek by Jowl’s performance style. I have no doubt that these actors can all do the Stanislavsky bit with credibility—Wilson and, especially, Gordon have a slew of impressive credits and a few films (where grounded Realism is usually the standard), for instance—but this company’s technique doesn’t allow it. And yet, this isn’t Brechtian distancing or some other obviously un-realistic or anti-realistic performance style—it’s some compromise of the two poles: neither fish nor fowl. It wasn’t unbearable, but it wasn’t illuminating, either. I fall back on my criteria for good theater: it has to do more than tell a story and it has to be theatrical. Cheek by Jowl is theatrical, though I often think it’s cheaply so, but they seem to be doing little more here than staging (part of) Ford’s tale. If Donnellan developed an “idea,” even if he didn’t start with one, I never found it.
Curiously, the most vibrant performances in Donnellan’s cast come from the actors playing two of the servants. Laurence Spellman’s Vasques, who serves Annabella’s husband Soranzo and isn’t above a little skullduggery and even murder-for-hire (that stripper-assassin is Vasques’s henchman), and Lizzie Hopley’s Putana, who just can’t keep her mouth shut and spills the beans about Annabella’s baby-daddy, both deliver the most complete characterizations on the Harvey stage. They have full personalities—at least as far as this production will allow and their roles provide room for—and they don’t disappear into the background of the lurking circle of family and friends. Spellman has a sepulchral demeanor, kind of a Uriah Heep with brass balls, and I knew whenever he was on stage that something dastardly (yeah, this show calls up archaic words like that) was going on. Hopley’s a bit of a flibbertigibbet with a dark edge: as she tries to help Annabella rationalize her lust for Giovanni: she sounds like a sorority sister just convincing her roommate to go out with the football star.
Calling the interpretation “overheated,” Brantley characterizes it in the New York Times as “seriously overdressed, like a fashion victim begging to be photographed.” He sums up his assessment of the production, as I do mine, by observing that the “trimmings are piled on so heavily that they smother individual characterization.” Elisabeth Vincentelli writes in the New York Post: “Throughout, the show moves with a breathless momentum, while keeping everything in horrifyingly clear focus—like the best nightmares.” Joe Dziemianowicz describes the production as “bold but spare” in the Daily News. In Time Out New York, Helen Shaw dubs the show “disappointingly thin, superficially youthful” and characterizes Donnellan and Ormerod’s “reimagination” as “the fevered product of a goth-adolescent mind” which is “[s]trenuously trying to seem punk rock.” She writes that the staging is “ersatz rebelliousness that defangs the show.” Variety hasn’t reviewed the New York incarnation of the production, but in London, David Benedict said: “the self-conscious execution smothers content, narrative and drama.” He also noted, as I do here, that “the intensity of the emotions comes across but not the moment-to-moment progression of ideas or character.” Benedict’s conclusion sounds like my own assessment of Cheek by Jowl’s work as I’ve experienced it: “Donnellan's extreme directorial gestures are undeniably grand, but shorn of convincing detail, there's too much display, not enough play.”
Showing posts with label Jacobean theater. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jacobean theater. Show all posts
04 April 2012
18 November 2009
Blackfriars Playhouse in Virginia
The original Blackfriars Theatres (there were two) were named for the disused Dominican monastery on whose grounds the playhouses were built. The property had become a crown possession after Henry VIII seized church holdings at the beginning of the English reformation. The first Blackfriars Theatre, called a “private” theater, was constructed in 1576 and housed mostly children’s troupes until 1585 when it was shut down. In 1596, James Burbage, impresario of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (and father of Richard Burbage who would become Shakespeare’s favorite actor), purchased another building on the property and converted it into a theater. The second Blackfriars remained host to boys’ companies, then much in vogue among the Elizabethan glitterati, until 1608, when the fashion had shifted, and James Burbage, who still owned the theater, took control of the Blackfriars for his troupe, now known as the King’s Men. There were seven shareholders in the King’s Men at the time, including Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare. After renovations, the King's Men started performing in Blackfriars in 1609, occupying it for the seven cold months of the year and moving to the open-air Globe, a “public” theater, during the summer. Records indicate that Blackfriars, though much smaller than the Globe, earned a little more than twice the income the more-famous outdoor theater did. Blackfriars closed in 1642 when Cromwell and the Roundhead parliament closed all the theaters and, having fallen into disrepair, was demolished on 6 August 1655. (The rest of the former monastery was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. The property now forms part of the Blackfriars district of central London.)
Little is certain about the appearance, either outside or inside, of the private theaters of the 16th and 17th centuries. There are scattered references but no actual records, drawings, or detailed descriptions. Modern renderings of the indoor or hall theaters are based largely on speculation and interpolation. (In contrast, though the original Globe was largely unknown until part of the foundations was uncovered in October 1989, the public, or outdoor, theaters were documented more thoroughly. The many “reproductions” of the Globe before 1989, however, were principally based on combinations of the Theatre and the Swan.) Some things were known, however, or at least commonly accepted, about the design of the hall theaters, enough to devise an approximation of their appearance, some of which beliefs were used in the design of the Staunton Blackfriars Playhouse. For instance, English Renaissance theaters were modeled on period banquet halls where theatrical performances were given. There are also plans for hall theaters, such as one by the great Tudor architect and stage designer Inigo Jones, that were never built. Finally, some assumptions can be made about the configuration of the private theaters from an analysis of Shakespeare’s stage directions.
Let me back up a bit now and summarize the history of the company that built the new Blackfriars Playhouse. In 1988, Dr. Ralph A. Cohen, an English professor and Shakespearean scholar at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and his former student and principal “classroom actor” James Warren (who had just graduated) formed Shenandoah Shakespeare Express (known as SSE), a touring troupe whose mission was to stage the plays of Shakespeare and his Elizabethan contemporaries without all the modern accouterments that had been added over the centuries. As Cohen asserts, “It seemed that the more elaborate the setting, the more the [audience’s] interest dropped.” His research revealed, for instance, that the custom of turning down the house lights was only as old as the middle of the 19th century (with the advent of gaslight) and that other modern theatrical conventions, such as “period” costumes and detailed sets, were not part of the Renaissance theater experience. (We have limited knowledge about what English Renaissance theater performances were actually like.) That first season, SSE toured the Old Dominion with Richard III; the next year, the troupe took Taming of the Shrew to Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. In 1992, SSE performed in the Elizabethan theater at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., and traveled to London and Edinburgh’s Finge Fesitval. So it went until 1999 when the company moved permanently to Staunton, Virginia, and renamed itself Shenandoah Shakespeare (known as S2). That same year, S2 began plans for building its own home theater, a replica of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars, and following that, a Globe reproduction. The concept was modeled on Ashland’s famous and successful Oregon Shakespeare Festival whose draw Staunton hopes to emulate to make the city "a Shakespeare destination." (The company has many programs in addition to its productions, some in collaboration with Mary Baldwin College.) In 2001, as reported, S2 completed the first part of its plan and opened the Blackfriars Playhouse with Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream and a season including Hamlet, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist. In 2005, S2 became the American Shakespeare Center. The resident company of about a dozen members produces four full “seasons” a year, in the summer, fall, winter, and spring, comprised of three to five plays in rep; the company simultaneously sends two touring troupes around the state, the country, and the world.
The little city of Staunton (population about 24,000), the seat of Augusta County, is itself a historic spot. In the heart of the Shenandoah Valley, it’s the home of Mary Baldwin College and the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson, our 28th president. (His home is now the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library.) Founded in 1747, the historic downtown district is architecturally restricted so that it maintains a largely mid-19th- to early 20th-century look and has been used as a location for several period films. (I will add here that Staunton’s also the original home of Augusta Academy, the institution established in 1749 that eventually became Washington and Lee University, my alma mater.) Staunton (which is pronounced ‘STAN-tun,’ despite its spelling) lies just off I-81 and is a drive of about three hours southwest of Washington or two hours northwest of Richmond. It’s about 375 miles southwest of New York City.
The Blackfriars Playhouse is located at 10 South Market Street, in the historic district (which is only about four blocks long and two or three wide), a half block off East Beverly Street, the town’s main drag. It sits on a small lot next to the renovated Stonewall Jackson Hotel, which first opened in 1924. The 14,500 square-foot playhouse took 13 months to complete at a cost of $3.7 million. (Estimates are that ASC’s Globe recreation will cost $20-30 million when it’s built on a nearby site.) The city of Staunton put up $2 million of the price tag. We know that Tom McLaughlin’s blueprint for the Staunton Blackfriars, which he based principally on the 1616 Inigo Jones plans for an unrealized theater, isn’t actually the historical London Blackfriars. Since there’s no actual record of that theater still extant, McLaughlin took his inspiration from Tudor rooms such as Middle Temple Hall, the Hall at Gray’s Inn, and Westminster Hall. The architect did research at the Folger Shakespeare Library, which contains the largest collection of print Shakespeareana in the world, where he consulted legal and archeological records; he also conferred with experts on Elizabethan theatrical design and construction. (For the outer building, McLaughlin saw MIT’s Baker Dormitory and Sever Hall at Harvard as models.) Even if the details are fudged, however, the overall appearance is convincing.
The playhouse is exactly what it's reported to be as far as I could tell. It looks like a very faithful approximation of a 17th-century hall theater though the exterior is only vaguely Tudor. Architect Tom McLaughlin says the building has an “astylistic and vernacular exterior that fits into the historical and architectural context of Staunton.” ArchitectureWeek asserts that it “pretends to be neither as old as the other buildings in Staunton nor jarringly modern,” which is an accurate characterization. The timbered front alludes to Tudor structures (with a touch of the Alpine chalets of both Switzerland and Colorado--the Washington Post compares it to “a fire station in Telluride”). The building “echoes older buildings” in town without replicating them. The peaked-roof exterior gives off “dark earthy tones” of red-brown brick with dark gray mortar. There is a rounded, windowed corner at the south end of the façade that houses the lobby staircase inside.
Through the double doors of the entrance, under a sort of marquee--reminiscent of the gables of the old inns that predated the public theaters--with tall windows on either side and a long window above, is the modern lobby, mostly undecorated (at least when I was there six years ago). The Washington Post describes the space as “austere and forgettable” so that “walking into the theater itself is the moment of drama.” The lobby, indeed, acts as a sort of portal between the 21st century and the 17th century of the playhouse auditorium and stage. "If Shakespeare walked into the lobby of this theater, he'd freak out," says a member of the company. "Inside, Shakespeare would recognize it immediately."
Patrons enter the auditorium either from the ground-floor lobby or by climbing the stairs in the left corner to the upper lobby and the gallery. Inside, the walls are timbered white plaster and the construction is mostly unpainted and undecorated blond wood with a high-gloss finish. The seating accommodates 300 spectators plus standing room for 20 more. (This is in contrast to the 500-1000 spectators of the original Blackfriars, which wasn’t restricted by fire laws and occupancy regulations. ASC artistic director Jim Warren also observes that Shakespeare’s 17th-century patrons “had skinnier butts.”) The auditorium is 66 feet by 54 feet, lit by electric chandeliers and sconces in the galleries, all crafted from hand-forged iron and designed to resemble the candle-lit counterparts of the 17th century. (There are no windows in the auditorium, though in Renaissance halls there usually were. Since performances were traditionally in daylight, the windows would have provided additional natural illumination, but the Staunton Blackfriars occupies the entire building site and city codes don’t permit windows on shared property lines.)
The auditorium is all post-and-beam construction, almost entirely hand-turned from Virginia white oak by local artisans. The Shenandoah Valley has been producing master woodworkers for centuries and the carpenters “considered the interior to be of the quality of fine furniture,” according to architect McLaughlin, a Richmond resident. “This started out as a job,” explained one of the craftsmen, “but it got to be more than just what we do for living.” Almost echoing McLaughlin’s thought, he added, “This was special.” The private Renaissance theaters were generally painted, gilded, and faux-marbled and were probably further decorated with hangings, but the Staunton Shakespeareans were loath to cover up the natural look of the carving. It's all obviously carefully created and lovingly done.
The three-foot-high thrust stage is 22 feet deep and 30 feet across. At the rear of the platform is the traditional Elizabethan tiring house. (The tiring house façade has been painted faux-marbre since my visit.) The upstage discovery space is flanked by two doors for entrances and exits. Above the curtained opening is a gallery of 8 feet by 30 feet with staircases descending to the stage on both sides. The floor of the platform is equipped with a trapdoor, as befits the Elizabethan reproduction; however, the trap has a motorized lift to hoist the spooky characters and ghosts into view. (The backstage area is also less period-accurate. There are dressing rooms, a green room, a kitchen and eating area, a wardrobe room, sewing tables, and other modern theater accommodations, not to mention elevators for handicap access and heating, cooling, and electrical equipment.) Except for occasional stage properties, no more than a throne, a tomb, or a table, the stage is unadorned for performances; the architectural backdrop of the theater is the only set. Hand props and costumes, which at ASC may be vaguely modern, vagely Renaissance, or sometimes a mix of both with carefully selected “period” elements added, are the only other assistance the actors use to supplement the playwright’s words.
From the start in 1988, the company used "original staging practices,” techniques that align with what we know to be Elizabethan, or what we've guessed they did then. "We've invented a lot of tricks in the theater in the last 400 years," says ASC executive director Cohen. "We want to uncover some of the magic that tends to get masked by all those tricks." This includes “natural” lighting (that is, no spotlights or other modern stage instruments); the lights never go out in the Blackfriars Playhouse. ("Shenandoah Shakespeare--We do it with the lights on!" is their slogan.) The audience and the actors can see one another all the time, and the spectators can see and hear each other. The audience is seated on three sides of the thrust stage, and there are even "Gallants' Stools" on stage for those who wish to approximate that Jacobean experience. The actors often interact with the spectators, eschewing any pretense of a “fourth” wall. Spectators who decide to occupy the Gallants’ Stools on stage are even required to agree to serve as extras. The seating, on benches (though there are cushions and seat backs for rent), is at floor level and in a balcony a storey above. (There are actually two levels of galleries, but the lower one is only a step or two above the auditorium floor.) There are a few “Lord’s Chairs” available for those of us too uncomfortable to sit on the benches.
Casting practices include doubling (and even tripling) so that most actors perform several roles. (Plays are performed in rep so actors play roles in most of the productions of a season.) Unlike the Elizabethan and Jacobean practice, the company casts women, but is committed to gender-switching. Just as the King’s Men cast men and boys as women in Shakespeare’s plays, ASC casts women in men’s roles as well. Music, often composed by company members, is an integral part of ASC productions: all performances are prefaced by music and most include musical interludes or intervals, all of it done live and unamplified. They do have an intermission (filled with skits and entertainments--of a decidedly un-Elizabethan timbre--if spectators wish to stay in their seats), but there are no other gaps in the performance; a scene starts as the previous one is ending--or at least as the actors are exiting. Plays are generally performed within Shakespeare’s mandated "Two hours' traffic of our stage." These fundamental practices impelled the construction of the Blackfriars Playhouse.
[I’ve decided it would be interesting to post my report on the visit I made to Staunton in 2003 to see the Shenandoah Shakespeare, as it was then known, in their new Blackfriars home. Look for that column from my archives in a few days on ROT.]
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