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papers:
Monica Matei-Chesnoiu (University "Ovidius" Constanta,
Romania): "Shakespeare's Comedies in Performance: Romanian
Metamorphoses" abstract
/ paper
Necla Cikigil (Middle East Technical University, Turkey: (no
title yet) abstract
/ paper
Manfred Draudt (University of Vienna, Austria):" Productions
of Shakespeare's Histories at the Viennese Burgtheater"
abstract
/ paper
Nancy Isenberg (Università degli Studi Roma Tre,
Rome, Italy): "Romeo and Juliet, from Elizabethan
stage to Western ballet. Considerations on John Cranko's
choreography performed in Venice in 1958"
abstract
/ paper
Russell Jackson (The Shakespeare Institute, University of
Birmingham, England): "Organic Shakespeare for the Folk' -
the work of Joscza Savits" abstract
/ paper
Patricia Kennan (Università Milano-Bicocca, Italy):
(no title yet) abstract
/ paper
Zoltan Markus (Budapest/Southern Illinois University,
Hungary/USA): "Hamlets in warring Europe:
Hamlet-interpretations in London, Berlin, and Budapest
during World War II" abstract
/ paper
Isabelle Schwartz (University of Caen, Basse-Normandie,
France) (no title yet) abstract
/ paper
Mariangela Tempera (University of Ferrara, Italy): "Much
Music: Italian Librettists and Hamlet
(1705-1870)" abstract
/ paper
Jo De Vos (Universiteit Gent, Belgium): "'Words, words,
words': attitudes towards the text in contemporay (Flemish)
Shakespeare productions." abstract
/ paper
Sylvia Zysset (University of Basel, Switzerland):
"Unstopping our mouths - Shakespeare in Swiss-German
Mundart" abstract
/ paper
(in German)
abstracts:
Monica Matei-Chesnoiu (University
"Ovidius" Constanta, Romania)
Shakespeare's
Comedies in Performance: Romanian
Metamorphoses
The paper examines the current state of Romanian theatre
and the contemporary stagings of Shakespeare's comedies over
the past three decades in the light of the impact of
economic and political transformations on cultural politics.
Drawing on the assumption that each individual performance
of Shakespeare's plays, like reading or criticism is a mode
of producing meanings, the paper approaches the productions
of Shakespeare's comedies as places where ideology is being
produced constantly, not merely communicated. In the course
of the Romanian theatres' stagings of 'our Shakespeare,' the
comedies afford opportunities for different, even radical
readings. The romantic enacting of celebratory fantasies was
characteristic of earlier Romanian productions of the
comedies. The direction in the seventies and eighties
considered capitalising on the serious elements in the
comedies, while more recent productions during the nineties
drew attention to the conflicting elements within the plays:
festivity, carnival, the grotesque, licence.
I will argue that the focus on subversive or oppositional
theatrical re-writings of the comedies leads to a
reconsideration of the ways the theatre is left to
articulate the myths of our society. The directors' emphasis
on the transgressive and perverse elements actively
undermining the harmony in the comedies has a direct impact
on the audiences. It forces them to acknowledge
contradiction and draws their attention to the modern
theatre as a cultural institution, whose popularity has been
threatened by an increasingly peripheral position in
relation to other versions of Shakespeare's comedies on film
and television. (paper not yet available)
Necla Cikigil (Middle East Technical University, Turkey)
"Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew as Ballet"
The Ankara State Ballet Company has recently performed John
Cranko's The Taming of the Shrew. John Cranko staged
this ballet back in 1969 for the Stuttgart Ballet before he
died in 1973. His Katherina was Marcia Haydee who came to
Turkey for the staging of the ballet for the 2001 Season.
There are earlier varsions of this ballet dating back to
1954 by Bejart and 1961 by another choreographer but I want
to concentrate on the Cranko version exploring Shakespeare's
play in the medium on ballet.
Shakespeare's plays on various occasions have been
translated into ballet language by numerous choreographers,
one famous one being Heinz Spoerli who is at present the
artistic director of the Zurich Ballet. The Taming of the
Shrew is a difficult play to stage as a theatrical play
but as a ballet it is even more challenging to create a
Shakespearean performance. Yet, as a play it inspired even
opera composers like Hermann Goetz (1840-1926), Vittorio
Giannini (1903-1966) and V.Y.Shebalin (1902-1963) which
shows how Shakespeare can appear in different performance
media. John Cranko who was the wizard of "Stuttgart Ballet
Miracle" created a diversified repertory and worked on
challenging projects like translating Shakespeare into
ballet with his 1958 Romeo and Juliet for La Scala di
Milano and his famous 1962 version of the same play for the
Stuttgart Ballet and his 1969 The Taming of the
Shrew. I would like to concentrate on : the themes (love
and opportunism) characterization humour of Shakespeare's
The Taming of the Shrew translated into the ballet
version. Cranko has made various alterations in the play to
fit it to a ballet version but he kept the parallelism. He
also had to make omissions for choreographic reasons but the
play is still there and had Shakespeare beena choreographer
in his times he would have produced this play making full
use of the powerful language of music and dance. (paper not
yet available)
Manfred Draudt (University of Vienna,
Austria)
Productions
of Shakespeare's Histories at the Viennese
Burgtheater
Shakespeare's histories have a long tradition at the
Burgtheater. Richard II and Richard III were
first performed there in 1852, and the most celebrated event
of the period was a presentation of the complete cycle in
1875. Shakespeare's history plays, in fact, first came to
Vienna not through theatrical performances but through the
readings of Karl von Holtei, who presented all ten history
plays in the old hall of the Musikverein.
By far the most ambitious project were Leopold Lindtberg's
productions of the complete cycle on the occasion of
Shakespeare's 400th anniversary in 1964. With set and
costumes inspired by the Elizabethan stage, Lindtberg aimed
at a balance between comedy and serious elements. Whereas
the plays' language was rendered faithfully in A. W.
Schlegel's classic translation, the director boldly
interfered with the plays' structure, cut rigorously and
also reshuffled scenes.
Lindtberg's adaptation invites comparison with Giorgio
Strehler's version of 1975 entitled 'The Game/Performance
of the Mighty' ('Das Spiel der Mächtigen').
His free paraphrase of 3 Henry VI incorporated many
elements of pastiche from other history plays so that the
adaptation appeared as a kind of medley filtered through
Pirandello.
The most radical change in the artistic policy of the
Burgtheater came in 1986 when Claus Peymann was appointed
artistic director. Peymann introduced the German director's
theatre and systematically politicized the theatre. The most
keenly awaited production of his first season was Richard
III. Its political message was made obvious right from
the beginning: Richard's close-cut hairstyle immediately
recalled Hitler and his period. The central point of focus
of the bleak set was a huge gully, where Richard deposited
all the corpses. The gully was indicative of a reductionist
tendency and of a propensity to debase both action and
characters, which was even more obvious in the textual
changes. The production thus shared serveral features with
burlesques or travesties of Shakespeare, particularly those
of the nineteenth century.
Yet the great theatrical success of all these different
versions provides evidence of the timeless appeal in an
'alien' environment even of those plays in the canon whose
Englishness is most overt.
(paper not yet available)
Nancy Isenberg
(Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Rome, Italy)
Romeo and Juliet, from Elizabethan stage to
Western ballet. Considerations on John Cranko's choreography
performed in Venice in 1958
This paper focuses on choreographies of the ballet
Romeo and Juliet that are mapped onto Prokofiev's
musical score, especially John Cranko's version which
debuted in Venice in 1958 not long after he had seen the
Russian original. Considerations are offered regarding
socio-cultural implications of the Soviet and Western
choreographies.
The artistic success of the ballet is discussed in relation
to: Prokofiev's fidelity to Shakespeare's narrative; aspects
of Shakespeare's script which befit the ballet tradition;
and certain features of Shakespearian performance as they
move away from a word-based art form and into an exclusively
corporeal one.
Particular attention is paid to issues of class and gender.
A primary focus is the play's challenging of social codes
and defying of sexual taboos. This is explored as it is
handled in ballet versions of Romeo and Juliet and
also as it relates to the traditions and conventions of
ballet in general.
The ultimate aim of this paper is to show not only how
ballet performance of Romeo and Juliet illuminates
certain aspects of Shakespeare's work, and relates to the
specific socio-cultural context in which it is performed,
but also how it dances out its own self-referential
story.
(paper not yet available)
Russell Jackson (The Shakespeare
Institute, University of Birmingham, England)
Organic
Shakespeare for the Folk' - the work of Joscza
Savits
The paper deals with the theoretical and practical work
of Joscza Savits. Savits' responsibility for the Munich
'Shakespeare Stage' has often been cited as part of the
movement towards a rediscoery of Elizabethan staging
methods, but its ideological dimension has not been
explored. In this paper the work is discussed in the context
of his various published writings, with particular reference
to his ideals of 'organic' theatre and his mabition to
return Shakespeare to the people. His use of the concept of
'Volkstheater' and other forms and compounds with the word
''volk' in his writings are related to his practice and his
extensive theatrical career as actor and director, and to
the circumstances in which his Shakespearian work was done.
In particular, Savits' account of his experiences with the
'Shakespeare stage' in the context of more conventional
Shakespearean production style he was usually obliged to
work in. The paper draws on research in published sources,
and in documents held in the Theatermuseum in Munich.
(paper not yet available)
Patricia Kennan (Università
Milano-Bicocca, Italy)
The aim of this paper is to indepth the cultural awareness
behind the theatre performances of the three Italians,
Adelaide Ristori, Ernesto Rossi and Tommaso Salvini who
exported Shakespeare from Italy worldwide, including even
Anglophone countries , from the 1850s onwards. Factors to be
assessed will include: Italian acting traditions, common
performance techniques, economic, entrepreneurial, and
socio-political considerations., attitudes to high and low
culture.
(paper not yet available)
Zoltan Markus (Budapest/Southern Illinois
University, Hungary/USA)
Hamlets
in warring Europe: Hamlet-interpretations in London, Berlin,
and Budapest during World War II
My paper is based on a longer comparative study of
Shakespeare's cultural reception (today variously labeled as
"Bardolatry" or Shakespeare "cult," "effect," "fetish," or
"myth") in London, Berlin, and Budapest during World War II.
This longer work challenges the idea of an all-encompassing
universal Shakespeare by demonstrating that "Shakespeare"
and his plays transmitted across different histories,
languages, and traditions meant something significantly
different in the three geographical contexts. Rejecting the
existence of a universally absolute and singular
Shakespearean meaning, my work demonstrates that Shakespeare
is always what he is imagined to be in a cultural and
historical context: the various local and national
appropriations and the universality of the cultural icon
"Shakespeare" clash in the daily practice of interpreting,
performing, and teaching his plays. This specific paper
discusses Hamlet-appropriations in London, Berlin,
and Budapest during the Second World War. It focuses on
three theatrical productions and their cultural contexts in
the three cities:
1) In 1944 alone, there existed three different
Hamlet-productions in London: this paper examines the
cultural significance of John Gielgud's version at the
Haymarket theatre.
2) In Berlin, the presence of Shakespeare's plays was
particularly dominant during the first years of the Nazi
period, but he was a relatively popular author during the
war as well. One of the most well-known Shakespeare
productions was Lothar Müthel's Hamlet (with
Gustaf Gründgens in the title role) in the
Schauspielhaus. This production opened in 1935 and remained
on the program until 1942.
3) Hamlet was frequently played in wartime Budapest
as well. Here I discuss a radically anti-war and anti-German
production put on stage at the Madách theatre in
September 1943. (Director: Andor Pünkösti, Hamlet:
Zoltán Várkonyi).
My paper addresses the aesthetic, cultural, and political
analogies and differences manifested in these three
productions.
(paper not yet available)
Isabelle Schwartz (University of
Caen, Basse-Normandie, France)
A new generation of theatre-directors is exploring the
theatricality of the Shakespearean corpus, Paul Golub is one
of them. An American actor he came to Paris where he further
trained with Ariane Mnouchkine (Theatre du Soleil, Paris)
before founding his own company. After a creation on
Molière based on The Commedia dell'Arte, he staged
three Shakespeare plays (all in French), first in an
open-air summer Festival, and then in various locations in
France. The company '"La Compagnie du Volcan Bleu") is set
as a small cast in which all the actors have a decisive say
in the elaboration of the performance, costumes and sets
included. The actors played jointly in Midsummer Night's
Dream and Macbeth, thus having to stretch their
playing versatility. This trend is taken even further in
Hamlet sur la route ('Hamlet on the Road'), a play
for four actors which also includes puppets and a film. Paul
Golub shows a great mastery in conveying the irony of the
re-presentation on stage and explores the pleasure of the
theatrical act.
The paper will analyze the main features of these
Shakespearean renderings stressing on their
theatricality.
(paper not yet available)
Mariangela Tempera (University of Ferrara, Italy)
Much
Music: Italian Librettists and Hamlet
(1705-1870)
The paper will explore the work of Italian librettists
on Hamlet. It will focus on Amleti by Apostolo Zeno
(which ignores Shakespeare's plays and goes back to Saxo
Gramaticus), by Giuseppe Maria Foppa (heavily influenced by
Ducis) and by Arrigo Boito (who did try to be faithful to
Shakespeare's drama).
I will investigate the response of Italian opera audiences
to a 'Nordic' tragedy, much harder to appreciate than such
Italianate plays as Romeo and Juliet and
Othello.
Jo De Vos (Universiteit Gent, Belgium)
"Words,
words, words": attitudes towards the text in contemporay
(Flemish) Shakespeare productions
In this paper I would like to explore some of the
shifting attitudes to the Shakespearean text in recent
times. Whereas up until the sixties Shakespeare's texts -
usually in a Schlegel-like translation - were still
sacrosanct, the directors' theatre which developed
afterwards felt free to adapt the text to the director's
interpretation. In the last few decades a new approach seems
to have emerged, which is characterized by a return to
Shakespeare's words. In many cases the full text - even of a
play as long as Hamlet - is presented. Yet, the
treatment of the text is probably an exponent of a
"postmodern" use of the "words", rather than the
Shakespearean drama. This practice is not entirely different
from some other drastic adoptations. I intend to explore
these attitudes by means a number of interesting and
controversial productions of Hamlet.
Sylvia
Zysset (University of Basel, Switzerland)
Unstopping
our mouths - Shakespeare in Swiss-German
Mundart
Switzerland, Europe's leading theatre-land? Surely
few people would agree, yet in the Middle Ages Switzerland
was indeed in the forefront of European - particularly
German-speaking - theatre production. The popularity and
political importance of Swiss theatre was made possible by
the existence of a pre-Lutheran, Swiss-German written
language, which helped its speakers to develop a cultural
identity distinct from that of their German neighbours.
Today Swiss-Germans still communicate with friends and
family in Mundart, but as the name suggests the
language now exists solely in its spoken form. Writing is
conducted in Standard High-German, generally regarded as the
"language of culture". This has far reaching consequences,
not least for Swiss theatre production. A deep divide
separates the Swiss professional theatre (a 19th century
German import) from the country's rich amateur- and
popular-theatre scene, deeply rooted in Swiss theatre
tradition and often performed in regional dialects. While
the former (often indistinguishable from German or Austrian
theatre) is a highly intellectual affair, with dwindling
audiences but high critical acclaim, the latter enjoys a
wide following, yet is rarely deemed worthy of academic
attention.
This paper would like to question the divide, using
Shakespeare as a means to bridge the gap. Since the 1970ies
an increasing number of Swiss amateur and semi-professional
groups have started to perform Shakespeare in Swiss-German
dialects. These productions illustrate that Shakespeare's
plays need not belong solely to the intellectual domain of
professional theatre and that the Swiss-German language
&endash; often thought to be unfit for the expression of
complicated ideas &endash; can prove a powerful medium for
bringing Shakespeare into close contact with the
Swiss-German population and adapting his works to Swiss
environments. By looking at a number of productions, their
texts and contexts, talking to actors, directors and
translators and considering reactions of local audiences and
the press this paper aims to make a first step towards
telling the story of Shakespeare in Swiss-German
Mundart.
paper
(in German)
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