In this chapter Dessen treats on stage directions. As a director, I have tended to treat stage directions as almost wholly disposable. They are sometimes good and useful, but sometimes will inhibit the action or character choices available; very rarely have I worked with a play that was written specifically for the circumstances for which I was directing, and if our recent adventure touring to Philly was any indication, Shakespeare & Co would have to remain flexible in their staging. Performance at the royal court or on tour would mean having to adapt their performances, if not their texts, to the spaces they found. That said, Professor Cohen believes that something can be learned from the stage directions that we have received, and as such, I have tried to use them as much as possible in my work here.
Dessen begins by noting the history of editors considering the stage directions as non-authorial, and therefore more dispensable than the dialog portions of the text. Malone and Honingmann were both particularly eloquent in their dismissal of stage directions (136).
Modern productions will tend to treat stage directions as flexible, especially in the case of weaponry, which may be inconsistent with the weaponry of a new period or setting of the production (136). Often times, a desired effect or production concept will take precedence over received stage directions, as will more modern sensibilities of the spiritual or of psychological realism (137). Also, let's not forget that a frightening and impressive effect in one generation is ridiculous in the next. I seem to recall Garrick having a pneumatic wig fashioned for his portrayal of Hamlet, to show appropriate fright at the appearance of the ghost. Today, that would likely garner a laugh.
Changing the period will make certain elements, such as Richard's entrance in "rotten armor" in 3.5 of Richard III irrelevant or anomalous (137).
A powerful rescripting of stag directions occurs in the Shakespeare Santa Cruz 1984 modern dress of 1 Henry IV, where, instead of throwing the bottle back to Falstaff during the battle, Hal takes it with him, depriving Falstaff of refreshment. He then stops to drink it, and is discovered by Hotspur, who trains a pistol on him. Hal coolly takes another drink and offers the rest to Hotspur, who accepts it and puts aside the pistol to engage the prince in single combat. A clearly scripted original stage direction, and originally intended symbol, was excised in favor of one that would create a chivalric bond between Hal and Hotspur for a modern audience (138 - 140). On the last page of this description, Dessen notes that he wouldn't want to lose the new image for the old one, and I agree: consider that stolen.
Rescripting stage directions linked to imagery that is signaled in the received texts but either contradictory to concepts envisions by modern directors or contrary to modern sensibilities is some of the most common (140).
For Katie Mitchell's 1994 production of 3 Henry VI at The Other Place, the intimate size of the stage did not allow for the son to bring in the body of his death father and the father to bring in the dead body of his son for 2.5, so the direction was rescripted so that each brought in, in place of a body, a rose wrapped in a handkerchief, which was then deposited upstage in keeping with a motif of accumulating roses on crosses (142 - 143). Dealing with rescriptings due to reduced size in performance space is, of course, particularly interesting to me. At the Globe, it would be perfectly plausible for characters to not be able to see each other at night because of the distance, but then be able to see each other when they were close. We didn't have that luxury at Studio 1831, so had to provide physical obstacles in addition to the darkness.
Certain images, such as Titus dressed like a cook, can provided valuable sign posts to audiences in the 1590s, and when directors cut those images in favor of modern senses of realism, they also remove key images and literary signposts to help their audiences understand larger themes (146). Dessen spends several pages here discussing directors who are too quick to dismiss the image of Titus dressed as a cook because they fear that it's too ridiculous or nonsensical for modern audiences, but in the American Shakespeare Center's production of Titus Andronicus last season, James Keegan in the title role entered as a cook, which was regularly received a laugh, but this also made the violence of the scene all the more horrifying. Like I'm sure I've said before, laughter helps the audience let their guard down, and if Titus looks a little ridiculous to the audience, let us recall that he also looks a little ridiculous to Saturninus ("Why art thou thus Attir'd, Andronicus?").
Directors who remove visions and instances of supernatural effects, or attempt to incorporate the characters into the world of the supernatural, run the risk of detracting from the power of these scenes: in Katherine's vision in Henry VIII and in the appearance of Poshthumous' ancestors and Jupiter in Cymbeline, the supernatural elements exist outside of the realm of the characters, and either removing them or linking them to the "real" world reduces them to a more natural function and removes the romance of these scenes (147 - 149).
While it has become common practice to cut all or part of the "quaint device" through which Ariel is able to remove the food from the banquet table in The Tempest, doing so robs both the characters and the audience of the surprise of seeing something substantial vanish into thin air. This deprives the audience of access to a key symbol of impermanence on Prospero's island (152).
As described in the original stage directions, the appearance of the apparitions when Macbeth returns to the Witches ca prefigure moments of the play, and failing to include them in favor of effects that have a more cinematic flavor will often lack the intended payoff and deny the audience the opportunity of witnessing Macbeth unable to confront (or comprehend) the reality that is standing right before him (158).
Analysis
There are precious few stage directions left to us from the early modern period, and Dessen's desire "to get as much mileage out of them as possible" is something that actors and directors alike should consider (165). Ultimately, this attempt to follow the spirit, if not the letter, of stage directions enabled some of the funnier moments in our production of Merry Devil. For example, Kim played both the Host of the George and the Chamberlain at the Inn across the way. The stage direction for the final scene indicates the Host enters "trussing his points as if new up." This is something that we would not have been able to achieve, even using period costumes, without resorting to costly original practices costumes. Points are what the early moderns used in place of a belt, literally to tie their pants to their jacket. Instead, when the Host enters in the final scene, Kim entered in the process of changing her costume from the Chamberlain to the Host so the audience could see the effect of the character entering in a the process of dressing themselves.
As I said previously, I used to feel free to ignore the stage directions, and for many of the reasons that Malone and Honingmann cite. Professor Cohen has made a believer out of me though, and I agree with Dessen's final sentiment. If we can't honor the letter of the stage direction, we should try, as best as possible, to honor its spirit.
Showing posts with label Stage Directions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stage Directions. Show all posts
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Notes on Re-Editing Shakespeare for the Modern Reader: Chapter 3
"The Editor and the Theatre: Editorial Treatment of Stage Directions"
Shakespeare clearly wrote plays for the stage, and wrote them aware that he would play a part in the production process. The sparseness of his stage directions show his willingness to work out the specifics later, and reflect his focus on what was to be said. There is evidence from his use of actors names in speech prefixes that he sometimes wrote with certain actors in mind for characters. That is, Shakespeare was always conscious that his final product would not be finished until it was performed (57-58).
cf Klein, David. "Did Shakespeare Produce his Own Plays?" Modern Language Review 57 (1962). 556-560.
cf Wells, Stanley. "Editorial Treatment of Foul-Paper Texts: Much Ado About Nothing as Test Case." Review of English Studies NS 31 (1980), 1- 16.
A peculiar job of the editor comes when choosing between two different kinds of authority. The quarto text of Midsummer, for example, is believed to have been printed from a manuscript copy, and the Folio from an annotated prompt book copy. Where in Q the review of the wedding entertainments offered belongs to Thesues alone, in F Theseus and Lysander share these lines (of course, Paul Menzer has argued otherwise in "The Weaver's Dream - Mnemonic Scripts and Memorial
Texts" (109)). Here the editor must choose between the authority of the earlier or later texts, or be guided by Menzer's argument (60-61).
It is entirely possible that stage directions did not come from Shakespeare's hand. Since the plays were written to be inherently incomplete copy to be presented on the stage, we must accept that Shakespeare left some of the finer details of entrances and exits to be writ in later. Indeed, sometimes when he does provide entrances, such as Q Much Ado 2.1, where several characters are given an entrance even though two speak and one is already on stage, he is clearly wrong. In 1.2 of Antony and Cleopatra several characters are provided entrances who do not speak, are not spoken to, and who play
no part of the action in the scene are likewise introduced. Whether Shakespeare forgot to strike their names from the stage direction after finishing the scene, they were added later by a prompter who
needed bodies to dress the stage, or whether Shakespeare always meant for them to be a presence in the scene must remain a mystery (62).
"I regard the use of abbreviated names as speech prefixes as an indefensible barbarism in anything other than a diplomatic edition" (65).
Dover Wilson's attempt to give stage directions a literary flair may not be what Shakespeare had written, and if he had not been so overly lavish in his descriptions, the custom may have survived. Wilson's use of words to create a sense of place (sight, sound, and smell) in the mind of the reader is perhaps preferable to a *reader* of Shakespeare than the comparatively bare "enter" and "exuent" that a text prepared for performance might benefit from. The consequence of Wilson's approach is that the text becomes overly long, and his willingness to go too far in his descriptions is likely one of the reasons why his approach fell quickly out of favor with editors (67-68).
"I take it as axiomatic that the plays take place, not on heaths, in forests, in castles, in palaces, in ante-rooms, or bedrooms, or throne-rooms, but on a stage" (69).
McKerrow's recognition of stage directions being necessary "to visualize the action as it would be if staged by a reasonably conservative producer" should be thought of in terms of the early modern stage, but an editor who wishes to prepare an edition for a different style is embarking on a perfectly legitimate endeavor. While these directions are likely to not have much of an interest to the
greater field of textual studies, an editor may be inspired (or hired) to prepare an edition for one specific theatre, or as in the instance of Peter Brook's production of Midsummer, the edition may be
prepared after the fact as a way of commemorating the production (70). This seems to follow the general theme of keeping your apparatus transparent.
An editor ought not be too conservative in the presentation of entrances and exits where elaboration for the effect of stage presentation could be useful. It is doubtful that all the characters in Julius Caesar 3.1 would, on a stage, mutely enter from the same place in so neat a line (73).
"Shakespeare sometimes omits necessary entrances and exits," and editors would do well to mark where he has plausibly forgotten that a character must enter the scene, or that they should have exited
earlier (74).
Editors must remember that playgoers benefit from visual and aural cues that readers do not. Part of their task in elaborating on actions or necessary costume pieces implied in the text is to provide that
information in a straightforward matter so that the reader does not have to read that information back into text they have already read. To this end, an editors task is to help an intelligent reader
read a play intelligently (76).
It may help the reader to indicate whom a speech is addressed to when the addressee clearly changes, or even when the addressee is the audience (76).
cf Honigmann, E.A.J. "Re-enter the Stage Direction: Shakespeare and Some Contemporaries." Shakespeare Survey 29 (Cambridge, 1976), 117-125.
"Plays may properly be edited in different ways to suit different readers" (78).
ANALYSIS
As a director, I very generally treat stage directions as basically ignorable statements about how a particular production was performed in a particular time and space. While a stage direction may suggest an action, it is not necessarily the action best suited to the production (most specifically actors and venue) that you are in charge of at the moment. ASC Co-founder and Director of Mission Ralph Alan Cohen has a drastically different take on the importance of stage directions, and quite honestly, I agree with him that they can be useful. I have tended to leave the stage directions open to my actors interpretation; when they ask me "should I do what the script says?" I tell them to do it if it makes sense, although under Cohen's tutealedge I have adopted a more conservative approach to stage directions.
Merry Devil certainly presents some problems. There are some very clear stage directions in the variou quartos that we simply cannot do because our Philly Venue is not so equipped, and we will likely not
have enough time to reblock all of those scenes for our Blackfriars performance. Still, I think in light of Wells' and Cohen's approaches to stage directions, it is best to include them and leave the director
the option of choosing the best action to fit his or her cast and venue.
Ultimately, while the edition of Merry Devil that I produce will be informed by the choices we have made in the production process, I do not expect that it will be limited by them. There are several edits to the text that circumstances have forced us to make that I would not make if circmstances were different, and I see no need to include those in the text.
Shakespeare clearly wrote plays for the stage, and wrote them aware that he would play a part in the production process. The sparseness of his stage directions show his willingness to work out the specifics later, and reflect his focus on what was to be said. There is evidence from his use of actors names in speech prefixes that he sometimes wrote with certain actors in mind for characters. That is, Shakespeare was always conscious that his final product would not be finished until it was performed (57-58).
cf Klein, David. "Did Shakespeare Produce his Own Plays?" Modern Language Review 57 (1962). 556-560.
cf Wells, Stanley. "Editorial Treatment of Foul-Paper Texts: Much Ado About Nothing as Test Case." Review of English Studies NS 31 (1980), 1- 16.
A peculiar job of the editor comes when choosing between two different kinds of authority. The quarto text of Midsummer, for example, is believed to have been printed from a manuscript copy, and the Folio from an annotated prompt book copy. Where in Q the review of the wedding entertainments offered belongs to Thesues alone, in F Theseus and Lysander share these lines (of course, Paul Menzer has argued otherwise in "The Weaver's Dream - Mnemonic Scripts and Memorial
Texts" (109)). Here the editor must choose between the authority of the earlier or later texts, or be guided by Menzer's argument (60-61).
It is entirely possible that stage directions did not come from Shakespeare's hand. Since the plays were written to be inherently incomplete copy to be presented on the stage, we must accept that Shakespeare left some of the finer details of entrances and exits to be writ in later. Indeed, sometimes when he does provide entrances, such as Q Much Ado 2.1, where several characters are given an entrance even though two speak and one is already on stage, he is clearly wrong. In 1.2 of Antony and Cleopatra several characters are provided entrances who do not speak, are not spoken to, and who play
no part of the action in the scene are likewise introduced. Whether Shakespeare forgot to strike their names from the stage direction after finishing the scene, they were added later by a prompter who
needed bodies to dress the stage, or whether Shakespeare always meant for them to be a presence in the scene must remain a mystery (62).
"I regard the use of abbreviated names as speech prefixes as an indefensible barbarism in anything other than a diplomatic edition" (65).
Dover Wilson's attempt to give stage directions a literary flair may not be what Shakespeare had written, and if he had not been so overly lavish in his descriptions, the custom may have survived. Wilson's use of words to create a sense of place (sight, sound, and smell) in the mind of the reader is perhaps preferable to a *reader* of Shakespeare than the comparatively bare "enter" and "exuent" that a text prepared for performance might benefit from. The consequence of Wilson's approach is that the text becomes overly long, and his willingness to go too far in his descriptions is likely one of the reasons why his approach fell quickly out of favor with editors (67-68).
"I take it as axiomatic that the plays take place, not on heaths, in forests, in castles, in palaces, in ante-rooms, or bedrooms, or throne-rooms, but on a stage" (69).
McKerrow's recognition of stage directions being necessary "to visualize the action as it would be if staged by a reasonably conservative producer" should be thought of in terms of the early modern stage, but an editor who wishes to prepare an edition for a different style is embarking on a perfectly legitimate endeavor. While these directions are likely to not have much of an interest to the
greater field of textual studies, an editor may be inspired (or hired) to prepare an edition for one specific theatre, or as in the instance of Peter Brook's production of Midsummer, the edition may be
prepared after the fact as a way of commemorating the production (70). This seems to follow the general theme of keeping your apparatus transparent.
An editor ought not be too conservative in the presentation of entrances and exits where elaboration for the effect of stage presentation could be useful. It is doubtful that all the characters in Julius Caesar 3.1 would, on a stage, mutely enter from the same place in so neat a line (73).
"Shakespeare sometimes omits necessary entrances and exits," and editors would do well to mark where he has plausibly forgotten that a character must enter the scene, or that they should have exited
earlier (74).
Editors must remember that playgoers benefit from visual and aural cues that readers do not. Part of their task in elaborating on actions or necessary costume pieces implied in the text is to provide that
information in a straightforward matter so that the reader does not have to read that information back into text they have already read. To this end, an editors task is to help an intelligent reader
read a play intelligently (76).
It may help the reader to indicate whom a speech is addressed to when the addressee clearly changes, or even when the addressee is the audience (76).
cf Honigmann, E.A.J. "Re-enter the Stage Direction: Shakespeare and Some Contemporaries." Shakespeare Survey 29 (Cambridge, 1976), 117-125.
"Plays may properly be edited in different ways to suit different readers" (78).
ANALYSIS
As a director, I very generally treat stage directions as basically ignorable statements about how a particular production was performed in a particular time and space. While a stage direction may suggest an action, it is not necessarily the action best suited to the production (most specifically actors and venue) that you are in charge of at the moment. ASC Co-founder and Director of Mission Ralph Alan Cohen has a drastically different take on the importance of stage directions, and quite honestly, I agree with him that they can be useful. I have tended to leave the stage directions open to my actors interpretation; when they ask me "should I do what the script says?" I tell them to do it if it makes sense, although under Cohen's tutealedge I have adopted a more conservative approach to stage directions.
Merry Devil certainly presents some problems. There are some very clear stage directions in the variou quartos that we simply cannot do because our Philly Venue is not so equipped, and we will likely not
have enough time to reblock all of those scenes for our Blackfriars performance. Still, I think in light of Wells' and Cohen's approaches to stage directions, it is best to include them and leave the director
the option of choosing the best action to fit his or her cast and venue.
Ultimately, while the edition of Merry Devil that I produce will be informed by the choices we have made in the production process, I do not expect that it will be limited by them. There are several edits to the text that circumstances have forced us to make that I would not make if circmstances were different, and I see no need to include those in the text.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Making Shakespeare Notes: Prologue
Important Citations:
Plays were written for performance in specific playhouses, which informs the construction of the play text (1).
Playhouses of Shakespeare's time demanded a "flexible and fluid text" (3).
The study of history is no longer separable from the study of literature (6).
Summary:
In the prologue, Stern introduces her argument and describes how she will make it in subsequent chapters. She notes that archaeological advances made in the 90s, such as the discover of the wall of the Rose, the completion of the Globe in London, and the construction of the Blackfriars in VA (which was actually completed in 2001) have inspired new historical interest in the ways the spaces the plays were written for might have influenced their creation.
For consideration:
Merry Devil is advertised as a Globe play, but it was also performed at court.
Scenes described in Life and Death that are missing from play call for an above, which suggests that the version of the play we have represents edits for a space without an above, such as one might find at court or on tour.
The technology of available theatre spaces influences playwrites of the time: this is demonstrable with the increasing richness and complexity of stage directions through time.
Likewise, the technology of the printing industry influences how materials are prepare for print, and how printed materials are used.
Plays were written for performance in specific playhouses, which informs the construction of the play text (1).
Playhouses of Shakespeare's time demanded a "flexible and fluid text" (3).
The study of history is no longer separable from the study of literature (6).
Summary:
In the prologue, Stern introduces her argument and describes how she will make it in subsequent chapters. She notes that archaeological advances made in the 90s, such as the discover of the wall of the Rose, the completion of the Globe in London, and the construction of the Blackfriars in VA (which was actually completed in 2001) have inspired new historical interest in the ways the spaces the plays were written for might have influenced their creation.
For consideration:
Merry Devil is advertised as a Globe play, but it was also performed at court.
Scenes described in Life and Death that are missing from play call for an above, which suggests that the version of the play we have represents edits for a space without an above, such as one might find at court or on tour.
The technology of available theatre spaces influences playwrites of the time: this is demonstrable with the increasing richness and complexity of stage directions through time.
Likewise, the technology of the printing industry influences how materials are prepare for print, and how printed materials are used.
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