Choices by the Dozen: Shakespeare Onstage in 2006

During Summer 2006, I saw a dozen Shakespeare productions: nine of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works season and three shows at the Globe. Several of these shows were outstanding—in particular, the RSC Antony and Cleopatra and King John; others provided provocative moments. All in all they yielded a host of distinctive choices that warrant attention.

Various items were new to me. In 2 Henry VI, York's detailed account of his claim to the throne (2.2)¹ can be mystifying to playgoers, but the RSC York pulled stones from a bag and lined them up on the floor to clarify his formulation (and got a laugh when placing a tiny pebble for William of Windsor). In the RSC Julius Caesar, Decius Brutus was momentarily flummoxed by Caesar's decision not to go to the Capitol owing to Calphurnia's interpretation of her dream (2.2), so that there was a significant pause as he scrambled to come up with a reinterpretation (and he was clearly making it up as he went along). In the Globe Coriolanus, the much discussed "O, me alone! make you a sword of me?" (1.6.76) did not involve Coriolanus's being lifted by soldiers; rather he raised his hands in an appeal to the heavens. In the RSC The Tempest Sebastian's critique of Alonso's marriage plan for Claribel (that he did "loose her to an African"—2.1.126) was a clear racial slur given the presence onstage of a black actor playing Adrian and was shrugged off by the speaker without apology.

The Globe Antony and Cleopatra, directed by new artistic director Dominic Dromgoole, offered several unusual choices. In textual terms, this show was the first in my memory to use the Folio speech prefixes for 2.1 wherein Pompey initially keeps addressing Menas (here pronounced menace) but until late in the scene is answered by Menecrates (editors usually treat the early Menec. speech prefixes as a compositor's error). Antony's botched suicide may be designed to elicit laughter, but Nicholas Jones took the effect several steps further by his reading of "How, not dead? not dead?" (4.14.103): he paused for some time after "How" to experiment with several ways of killing himself and finally decided to hold his sword against his chest and run against a stage post, only then concluding with "not dead?". To have the dying Antony hoisted up to Cleopatra by means of ropes and a sling may be standard procedure, but here the captured Cleopatra in 5.2 was brought down to the main stage by means of the same apparatus.

Figure 1.

Frances Thorburn as Charmian, Frances Barber as Cleopatra, and Rhiannon Oliver as Iras in the Shakespeare's Globe production of AntonyandCleopatra. Photographer John Haynes.

My Shakespeare dozen included two comedies. Marianne Elliott's RSC Much Ado About Nothing at the Swan transposed the action to pre-revolutionary Cuba, so that playgoers were treated to lively dancing and singing (Balthasar became a black female nightclub singer), colorful costumes (especially for the 2.1 masque), and strong performances from Tamsin Greig as Beatrice, Joseph Millson as Benedick, and Jonny Weir as a formidable Don John. The modern-dress Cuban setting added considerable flavor but also generated some anomalies, as with the references to swords in 5.1 when only pistols were visible. Elsewhere, the emphasis in the script on fashion was pared back—and the running joke about Fashion as a deformed thief that starts with Borachio's speech (3.3.124) was omitted. The rebato that forms part of Hero's wedding outfit (3.4.6) was not a ruff or collar but metamorphosed into a chain that an angry Claudio ripped from her neck (4.1) and, as part of his repentance, put on her tomb (5.3) to be retrieved by her and worn in the climactic unveiling.

Several other items are worth noting. Editors and directors often adjust the Quarto's speech prefixes for the 2.1 masque so that...