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- CSF Abroad: Our Time To Shine In Armenia
So we get to Saturday in Armenia. The Big Day. The day during which Charlotte and I are due to present our panel discussion about the Canterbury Shakespeare Festival. You’d think we’d practise right? But no, in an act of supreme hubris, we wrote a PowerPoint about two weeks before, looked at it once and decided we could just riff it. And we did, and it went superbly. Lesson not learned! The panel began with a fascinating discussion of a non-standard performance of Claudius in a production of Hamlet from Dr. Imke Lichterfeld, and then we were up. Charlotte and I bounced off one another as we gave a potted history of the Festival, from our hurried Romeo and Juliet back in 2015 all the way up to our recent marathon production of Shakespeare’s The Wars of the Roses (which, as I frequently say, we are the only community theatre group to ever perform as far as I can tell). This was followed by a discussion of said production, how it came about, what it consisted of, etc., and a brief screening of the Winter of Discontent speech from Richard III. Many of the attendees had also shown an interest in seeing some of our recent Hamlet as we featured a female Hamlet - something we were to see that evening ourselves - so we gave them five minutes of the show from YouTube. Personally, I thought it went very well and we received a lot of positive feedback from the audience - I think it was a nice change from the usual academic nature of talks at these sorts of conferences. Next up was the keynote speaker, Dr. Szolt Almasy, who gave an interesting and passionate talk about love and tyranny as it features in Andras Visky’s play Júlia. This play recontextualises Romeo and Juliet to an unspecified Eastern Bloc prison, where the heroine (the only actor on stage) recounts her experiences within said prison. It sounds fabulous, and I am desperate to catch it at some point if I can. The next panel was about political rewritings of Shakespeare and was led by Professor Madalina Nicolaescu and Dr. Oana-Alis Zaharia. These brilliant academics opened my eyes to something which we really don’t have to grapple with in this country - how to stage Shakespeare in a language other than English. Madalina told us all about this production of The Merchant of Venice done in Paris in the 1700s where the play was almost entirely rewritten - Shylock is lynched at the end by an angry mob, and Portia is no longer a wealthy heiress but a struggling poetess. It sounds fantastically interesting, and I would love to read it. The final pair of talks were on Zoom and the first, by Dr. Natalia Khomenko, gave us an insight into the USSR’s opinion of British theatre (the summation was that you can’t understand Shakespeare until you see it staged in the original Russian). The second, by Professor Sheila Cavanagh talked about the tyranny of food in Shakespeare’s work. Whilst arguably a silly premise, this speech came up with two sterling examples that can be looked at from recent CSF history. The first, the infamous leek scene in Henry V (and recently brought to life by Barnaby Lockyer and Tarquin Taylor) can be seen as a rebuke by Shakespeare against certain kings who denied / ignored their Welsh heritage. The other, Richard III’s comment to the Bishop of Ely that he knows the bishop is growing nice strawberries, can be seen as a warning to the Bishop that Richard has his house under surveillance. Creepy.
- CSF Abroad: Armenia, Day Two
written by Elliot D Huxtable After an excellent night’s sleep at the Diamond Hotel (free slippers every day!) and an excessively detailed breakfast (five small plates of food each), we headed to the Yerevan State University. It was a bit of a trek, with our taxi dropping us off on the other side of the university, but thanks to my rather underutilised orienteering skills, (and a shortcut directly through the library) we made it just in time to catch Professor Anush Sedrakyan’s welcoming remarks. The first speech, by Professor Sedrakyan, focused on the changes between tyranny in Antique times to that of Modernity. It was a fascinating insight into how Shakespeare views the tyrants of the past (e.g. Caesar or Titus Andronicus) as opposed to his more modern tyrants (such as Claudius). This was followed by Dr. Vahe Arsenyan’s piece on the depiction of Shakespeare’s tyrants on screen, with a focus on Kurosawa’s film Ran, which is a retelling of King Lear set in Feudal Japan. Well worth a watch! We had a short coffee break (Armenian coffee is incredibly strong, and second only, in my view, to the Italian) coupled with some excellent local pastries, before our second round of talks for the day. This was a panel discussion on the “Invention of the Human” with each lecturer talking about a different facet of human development. Dr. Amalya Soghomonyan began by talking about the corruption of power, followed by Dr. Natalie Gonchar-Khanjyan rather fascinating exploration of the effects of the plague on Shakespeare’s writings (and how recent events give us an insight into this…) before Lucille Janinyan’s finale on Artificial Intelligence - which compared some Shakspeare quotes to AI versions of the same quotes (naturally we got them all correct!). In the afternoon, we went on a countryside sightseeing tour, taking in two beautiful monasteries deep in the Armenian hills. The first, Khor Virap, is a hilltop monastery that was the home (see: prison) of the intriguing Armenian figure, Gregory the Illuminator (he who first converted the Armenians to Christianity). The second, Noravank, is hidden away deep in a gorge, and what struck me here was the complete silence. If one stopped to listen, there was nothing to hear - a very peculiar sensation. There was no traffic, no wind, no birdsong, nothing. It is also the home of some fantastically preserved Armenian cross-stones (khachkar). Thoroughly exhausted by this point, we were in no fit state to take a tour of the Areni winery, but not so tired to turn down a wine tasting! The white wine was the best, but the rose was more interesting - it is the only barrel aged rose in the world (or so they say) and the problem of ageing rose in a barrel had been solved by a ten year old who wrote in, and now was their main advisor (he’s in his twenties now). Finally, we finished off the day with a beautiful traditional Armenian dinner at the Dalan art gallery (which is also a restaurant, a bizarre experience). The food is not dissimilar to barbeque and salads but the fish and meat were not burned beyond belief, and the salads were lively and creative, and came with plenty of lavash bread - delicious!
- CSF Abroad: Armenia, Here We Come
written by Elliot D Huxtable As you might have read from our (many) social media posts and stories (thank you Charlotte), we were recently invited to take part in the biennial Armenian Shakespeare Conference in Yerevan. Although we pondered how far down the list of invitees they got before they hit us (maybe the RSC, Globe and NT all said no), we were very pleased to be invited, if a little apprehensive. We aren’t academics, and neither Charlotte nor myself have ever taken part in a conference before, let alone been to Armenia. However, we needn’t have worried. The Armenian Shakespeare Conference took brilliant care of us, and the country of Armenia is beautiful, friendly and importantly, cheap. After two excessively long flights, changing at 2am in Cyprus (and getting intimately acquainted with their tiny airport), we arrived over the rolling hills of Armenia early on Thursday morning. Getting off the plane, a queue of people were milling about to take their photo in front of Mt. Ararat, the Biblical landing place of Noah’s Ark, only 29 km away. Although a frequent, and proud, symbol of Armenian culture, Mt. Ararat technically belongs to Turkey, and our host told us that, sadly, Turkey is demanding the Armenians remove depictions of the mountain from any logo, symbol or picture that contains it. After checking into our hotel (and a short nap), we arrived at the opening day of the Conference at the American University of Armenia. Unfortunately we had missed the first few talks, but arrived just in time to hear the keynote speaker, Professor Harry Keishian from the US, who had a very professionally presented discussion on the divine right of kings and how tyrants don't recognise the responsibility of their power. This was followed by Dr. Anush Aslibekyan, a theatre critic with a piece about productions of Hamlet in Yerevan that reflected the politics of the times. Finally, Dr. Ara Yernjakyan, the Founder and Director of Yerevan Chamber Theatre spoke about Horatio, and his theatrical origins as a character. As many of us were tired and jet-lagged, the sightseeing of the afternoon was curtailed and instead we took (another) nap at the hotel. However, in the evening we headed to the Yerevan Chamber Theatre to see their long-running production of Romeo & Juliet. I was nervous, as R&J is not one of my favourites (heresy, I know) but this was one of the most imaginative and brilliant stagings I’ve seen in a long, long time. This production reframed the drama from Friar Lawrence’s point of view - he spoke the Prologue, and was a near-constant presence on stage. They also re-ordered the play, with the deaths of Tybalt and Mercutio happening almost as if in flashback, which was the same with the final scenes. The finale began with the arrival of the Prince after their deaths “The people in the street cry Romeo, Some Juliet, and some Paris; and all run, With open outcry toward our monument.”, and then, when normally one would hear Friar Lawrence describe the play that we’ve all just sat through, they then showed us the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, which was an emotive method of concluding their story. Lawrence ended the play by hanging himself, which was also effective. A post-show Q&A with Lusine Yernjakyan (the director) as well as the cast of the production (including the excellent Senik Barseghyan whose Lawrence grounded the entire production) gave us an insight into the creative process as well as the trials of staging the same play (albeit periodically) since 2017! Finally, a piece of theatrical brilliance that I will one day steal - four actors stretched a piece of green cloth across the stage, ensuring it was taut. With two small sponge balls, and two pool cues, they created a very effective game of snooker during an early scene (Romeo’s dalliances with the fair Rosalind). . #theatre #performance
- Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays? The answer shouldn’t surprise you
written by Charlotte Groombridge If you read the title of this piece and your first thought was “Wasn’t it Shakespeare?”, then congratulations. You are capable of a level of critical thinking which often escapes the anti-Stratfordians. You may be forgiven for believing the ‘Anti-Stratfordian Movement’ (the name adopted by those who believe William Shakespeare was not the man who wrote Shakespeare’s great literary canon) has been around for centuries. Considering how loud and downright arrogant these claims can be, the idea of questioning Shakespeare’s authorship is actually relatively new, coming about in the 19th century and hanging around like a bad smell. I’ll admit, this is a volatile start to my humble blog post, but sifting through anti-Stratfordian arguments has a tendency to raise my blood pressure. And it’s not because the arguments are based on cognitive fallacies which fly far too close to conspiracy theories for my liking. No, it’s because the acceptance of these beliefs allow another, far more dangerous and insidious belief system to come to the fore. Intellectual snobbery. The main bastion of the anti-Stratfordian movement is this: Shakespeare was a lowly commoner without the education, the aristocratic breeding, or the familiarity of court life which would make him capable of writing such masterpieces. It sounds like an airtight argument if you ignore two compelling pieces of evidence. Firstly, it is widely accepted that Shakespeare attended his local grammar school. You know, that place where they teach you to read and write, where you learn about history and literature, where one could easily absorb all of the information necessary to knock out a half decent piece of writing. Secondly, are anti-Stratfordians stating that good writing belongs solely to the upper echelons of society? I am here to propose another, far more believable argument. Good art, truly good art, is more likely to spring from those who suffer and struggle. From those who know what it’s like to go without, to live in fear, to experience pain and oppression. And does that sound like the ruling class to you? Take a moment to think about your favourite piece of art, be it a play, book, film, or painting. You’ll have your reasons as to why you think it’s the best, the wonderful thing about art is its subjective nature. But I can guarantee one thing about your choice is true. This work speaks to an element of human nature. Shakespeare understood people. In my mind, no other writer comes close to his in-depth investigations of human psychology, and that’s what makes his work timeless. It’s why we are willing to sit through 3 hour productions of Hamlet or King Lear. He elicits emotions within us because he understands us. And one does not garner that type of understanding through observing humanity from afar. Only through being an active member of society who is working, and struggling, and suffering can one truly see what it is to be human. Anti-Stratfordians put forward alternative writers such as Sir Francis Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford. You might as well suggest only Jacob Rees-Mogg, or Boris Johnson could write stories that modern audiences would connect with. The upper classes are disconnected from normal life. The messy, complicated normal life which is reflected in Shakespeare’s plays. And suggestions that Marlowe is the real author… Well, a comparison of their work side by side should put that argument to bed. So, why do anti-Stratfordian theories rile me up so much? Because it is spearheaded by elitist propagandists who are trying to rob the lower classes of agency, of intellect, implying that they are both incapable of creating great work or shaping the culture of a country. Any anti-Strafordian can’t deny that ultimately they are snobs, or they’d be lying to themselves. They have no basis for an argument, they simply want to rob Shakespeare of credit so that they can attribute his masterpieces to their own out of touch elite social class without doing any work to actually enrich this country's cultural landscape. Which is very on brand for the upper classes. So, yes, the anti-Stratfordian theories do make my blood boil. And honestly, I hope you feel as angry as I do.
- Fulfill your dream: check out our audition calendar
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- What are you doing tonight? Don't miss out on our upcoming productions
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