SAA 1995 Annual Conference Seminar ­ Living in the Gap

Audrey Stanley - Notes from the Front

Background

One of the primary reasons for setting up the Shakespeare Santa Cruz Festival was to link imaginative (cutting-edge) Shakespeare scholarship with the putting on of his plays. C. L. "Joe" Barber, a former President of the SAA and Dean of Humanities and Arts at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) and author (amongst other books) of Shakespeare's Festive Comedies, died in 1980 and the organization by town and gown to produce the Shakespeare festival was in his honor. Our first home brewed season in 1952 took advantage of the presence of Michael Warren at USC who was working with Gary Taylor on The Division of the Kingdoms: Shakespeare's Two Versions of King Lear in which, as you know, the thesis was argued that the Quarto and Folio represented two separate versions of King Lear and that most edited texts conflated the two separate versions. As the director of King Lear and on the advice of Michael Warren I chose to direct the shorter Folio version, complete, and including all the stage directions. Michael evolved the role of Textual Consultant for the Festival, a scholarly task which is constant and ongoing, while I organized a scholarly conference involving the leading actors ­ Tony Church and Julian Curry of the Royal Shakespeare Company and various scholars, including Homer "Murph" Swander.

As part of the scholarly interaction I had four scholarly "assistants" to the production. One was Beth Goldring, who was also contributing a chapter to The Division of the Kingdoms: and whose Ph.D. thesis was on King Lear (she knew both Q and F versions by heart). Officially she was the dramaturg and I took the necessary precaution of discussing the play with her before hand to discover that she and I had much the same vision of the play' ­ so she took on some of the functions of an assistant director since we only had three weeks of intermittent rehearsals (two weeks with Tony Church). Lilian Wilds, a most generous-hearted scholar, wanted to write an article on Tony Church's interpretation of Lear, and assisted in any way she could ­ partly serving as a sounding board for Church, who had acted Lear before but never using just the Folio text. Annette Drew-Bear came as a recent Ph.D. graduate in Literature who was going to her first appointment and had been told she would have to direct a Shakespeare play and sought to learn more about Shakespeare in performance. Both Wilds and Drew-Bear made a much needed contribution by checking the actors' accuracy in speaking the text. Lastly, a Ph.D. student in Literature, Briana Newton, who wanted to learn more about putting on a play, served as an assistant to the stage manager. The following year I persuaded Harry Berger (who argued against performance) to be the dramaturg for Macbeth. He provided the unraveling of all the possible connotations of meaning and direction of thought in Macbeth's soliloquies for Julian Curry, who returned to the festival to play that role in 1983.

I will summarize the major interactions of scholarship and productions which we have tried at Shakespeare Santa Cruz, with their spheres of influence and inherent problems.

1. Textual Consultant ­ Michael Warren since 1982.

Year round to the company. This stipulation is important as it enables scholarship to link with directors before casting and designing of the production ­ in the formative time of a director's creative ideas.

Possible areas of influence:

a) Text/script.

Advising on which edition for the director and/or the company to use. Theatre companies generally use the cheapest or most easily available. The director, however, is likely to consult several editions, such as the Arden for the notes. Copies of Quarto and/or Folio text(s) made available to director. To actors? to dramaturgs? to voice coaches?

b) Sending extracts from recent scholarly articles about the play to the incoming directors.

c) Having a discussion with the director, if possible before casting and before designing. This can fruitfully be a one-on-one situation. At UCSC this has also taken place through the auspices of the faculty, staff and students Focused Research Activity (FRA) in Shakespeare and Early Drama by means of a reading of the F or Q text and a following larger discussion with director and the readers.

d) Sitting in at the very first meetings of a production in which the meaning of the play is worked through by director, actors, and dramaturg, with reading and discussion and/or modern paraphrasing, and clarifying meanings and directions as appropriate.

e) Initially all textual cuts were submitted by directors to the textual consultant with the major premise that the text should be performed as complete as possible. This activity has been dropped and its function taken up by some of the scholarly dramaturgs or consultants working with the individual play.

f) Attending rehearsals and speaking to the director or better still sending her/him notes. Being available for actors to elucidate textual matters only if this is in complete agreement with the director.

g) Supplying program notes on the Shakespeare plays for the season to elucidate the background, controversies, modern connections of the plays, and interactions of performing those particular plays together.

h) Speaker about the plays to various organizations, including the venerable Friday Shakespeare Club, and to local teachers.

2. Dramaturg and Text Coach

c.f. Ellen O'Brien for Hamlet, Henry V, Richard III ; Mary Kay Gamel for the Roman Season and Titus Andronicus, and also for Othello, Measure for Measure; George Amis for Much Ado About Nothing; Judy Dunbar for The Winter's Tale (she was also production assistant for Richard II); Margo Hendriks and Bruce Avery for A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew; and Bruce Avery with Sharon Bundy for All's Well That Ends Well. Since 1991 the Festival has a professionally trained dramaturg, Catherine Sheehy, who teaches dramaturgy at Yale and covers all three or four plays of the season. Published work has resulted from many of these associations ­ and perhaps more than I have researched.

The title dramaturg needs clarification as to function. Some large professional theatre companies employ (in Europe) up to four serving the functions of literary editor, educational outreach, word meaning, clarifier of the script, assistant to the director and, by delegation, to the actors in helping to unravel difficulties of interpretation in rehearsals. This was where the festival (probably Ellen O'Brien) evolved the term Text Coach. This latter is the most delicate area of cooperation ­ and where purely Shakespeare scholarly dramaturgs can most easily step on the creative prerogative of the individual director, actors and even assistant directors. However, since professionally trained dramaturgs may lack the depth of research knowledge of the Shakespeare scholar for a particular play, there should be room for a scholar. Often the work of the Festival dramaturg starts with the arrival of the company but it should, if possible, begin prior to this.

The work of the dramaturg or text coach covers similar areas (b - g) to that of the textual consultant except the responsibility is to the one play and not to all the plays in the festival.

One additional area is a very sensitive issue ­ that of changing (modernizing) words (such as "shive" to "slice" in Titus Andronicus) and also that of cutting the text.

3. Scholarly Resource, Scholarly Guide, or Scholarly Advisor.

This title enables scholars to be part of the input into the interpretation of a play without as much time obligation in the rehearsal period. (Literary Editor should be avoided since it immediately suggests cutting, rewriting and transposing of scenes or restructuring of the play). Norman 0. Brown was the scholarly guide for Waiting for Godot in 1990. He attended many of the discussions but none of the rehearsals.

The titles above may help bring the presence of the scholar into the discussion and rehearsal space and allow for variance of interpretation to be discussed. But the shortness of rehearsal time and the possible interruption of the rehearsal flow often makes the written form of comment by advisor to the director advisable in the form of notes and questions, with brief extracts from pertinent articles and comments.

4. Voice Coaches/Consultants/Directors

Professional voice training and experience with actors is a prerequisite. Here is an area where working closely with actors on the speaking of the verse form or the prose text can reveal new interpretative approaches to the acting of the role and ultimately to the meaning of the production. The danger lies in the perception by the director and/or actors that they are being given line-readings ­ particularly in relation to scansion of the lines. Here Touchstone's great phrase "what if..." comes in very usefully, or "how about trying out an emphasis on..." rather than the dramaturg/scholarly advisor/voice director speaking her or his perceived scansion of the line. Again the close liaison with the director is very important. But I defer to Ellen O'Brien's expertise in this area.

Where does this leave the scholar with a distinctive interpretative approach? Marxist, feminist, political, psychological, anthropological, historical, etc.'

Nowhere?

Suggestion:

If you are interested to see a production follow certain interpretative lines (and many directors will feel such an approach is too restrictive, but others might welcome a strong through-line approach) write to the prospective director of the play and offer your services freely with this approach enclosing a brief look at parts of the particular Shakespeare play in the light of this interpretation and a statement (which should be true) that you are writing further on this topic and should like to write up a production exploring such an interpretation.

Other areas of influence:

1. Conferences to discuss the plays in performance.

At UCSC we have found it useful to bring in outside scholars (specializing in that particular play) to give a perspective paper (if possible after seeing the production), and afterwards combine with the director and some actors to discuss aspects of the production. Timing is very important as ideas presented can influence the actors, and revivify a long-running production or deepen the interpretation before it has become too set.

2. Institutes or Research Groups.

Perhaps one of the most long lasting in this country has been the Shakespeare Institute at Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Founded by the notable Stanford scholar Margery Bailey it has flourished under the direction of Homer Swander and others. In the past it has operated mainly as a host for serious Shakespearean study groups to visit the festival and listen to the directors and/or actors talk about the productions while interaction with the festival during planning and rehearsal has been minimal. But with the change to a year round season and the appointment of actor Barry Kraft as the dramaturg and with the institute a much more permanent structure with the College in Ashland this may have changed.

Here at UCSC we have created the Focused Research Activity Group on Shakespeare and Early Drama which acts as a liaison between the festival and UCSC Shakespeare scholars. It can function as a scholarly lab for the festival directors ­ and has done so with readings, discussions, invited speakers, research topics by faculty, staff and graduate students under Michael Warren as its initial director 1986-93, Audrey Stanley 1993-94, and Mary Kay Gamel 1994-95. Shakespeare scholars who are interested to have some connection with their area professional theatre or Shakespeare festival might consider setting up a similar organization.

3. Teachers Groups.

Many theatres or festivals have educational outreach programs which focus on college or high school students and teachers ­ again as a Shakespeare scholar you might be able to make contact with the theatre company via this association ­ and I am thinking of the very lively organization that has existed with the Mark Tapor Forum theatre in Los Angeles. Many such groups have school visits by actors from the company, or using younger actors or like Shakespeare Santa Cruz using the University theatre students create a traveling (shortened) version of one of the Shakespeare plays that will be performed later by the Festival.

A. Shakespearean Lectures.

Bringing in an expert on the play to speak to your college/university and invite the director to attend/participate.

What could the SAA organization do?'

1. Make greater connections with theatre directors, designers, and actors particularly when they are about to produce a play. Their expenses would have to be paid. This has been done but has been dropped. The links could be both in a major conference session as well as in a relevant seminar which should precede the major session. There should be a careful liaison with the scholar leading the seminar who is working on the play and who could then have prior access (influence) to the director's ideas.

2. SAA Conference should attend a Shakespeare production and go into voluntary small group discussion sessions afterwards, putting the comments made into a computer. After omitting duplicate points, this compilation to be given to the director who should later have an answering session. There should be a prior meeting to discuss the list by the director and a scholar who will chair the session.

3. What other suggestions do the Seminar members have? Could the SAA set up an endowment fund to encourage greater interactions at the annual conference? What form might these take?