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Filming and Performing Renaissance History: Players and Personalities
Report
26-27 April 2008
Present: Ruth Abraham, Ros Barber, Victoria Brownlee, Mark Thornton
Burnett, Christie Carson, Jerome de Groot, Majella Devlin, Susan Doran,
Bridget Foreman, Paul Frazer, Susanne Greenhalgh, Ton Hoenselaars,
Aoibheann Kelly, Edel Lamb, Sinead Larkin, Adele Lee, Brenda Liddy, Emma
Livingstone, Mary-Ellen Lynn, Stephen O’Neill, Mark Payton, Jesús Tronch
Pérez, Emma Rhatigan, Shaun Regan, Greg Colón Semenza, Robert
Shaughnessy, Adrian Streete, Tatiana C. String, Ramona Wray, and
undergraduates.
Saturday 26 April
Paper Session One
Robert Shaughnessy, University of Kent at Canterbury
The Falstaff Syndrome: Pathos, Prosthetics and Performance
Robert Shaughnessy’s paper investigated the contemporary performative articulation
of the body of Shakespeare’s Falstaff as a cipher of cultural understandings of the
Renaissance.
Ros Barber, University of Sussex
Interpretation and Belief: Constructing the Renaissance
This paper deployed evidence theory to explore the construction of Marlowe as
Shakespeare: this critical invention in biographical studies is the prelude to a creative
writing project on the joint identities of the two playwrights.
Christie Carson, Royal Holloway, University of London
Mark Rylance, Henry V and ‘Original Practices’ at Shakespeare’s Globe
The paper discussed the Globe project to use ‘original practices’ – theatrical,
performative, musical – as a necessary context for the realization of Shakespeare in
particular and English Renaissance culture in general.
Discussion concentrated ranged across all the issues the papers had introduced. Mark
Payton asked about the use of lighting for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
performance. Christie Carson commented on the difficulty of recovering early modern
playing conditions, although noted differences between indoor and outdoor
performance conventions. Jerome de Groot asked at what point it became standard for
the actor playing the part of Falstaff to wear padding or physical additions. Robert
Shaughnessy replied that this has been common practice for centuries, instancing
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illustrations in the theatrical compendium and manual, The Wits. Current practice can
be read back into the past, he noted, although the Falstaffian body was more legibile
at an earlier historical moment as fake or artificial. What has changed is the realism of
the modern theatrical prosthesis. Ramona Wray asked about Falstaff as a metaphor for
the absent mother and speculated about a mutually constitutive relationship between
the performed Falstaffian body and twentieth-century filmic realizations of Henry
VIII. Robert Shaughnessy agreed, pointing to pantomime and cross-dressing
traditions and also noting the absence of female Falstaffian performers from the
theatrical repertoire. Susanne Greenhalgh highlighted The Merry Wives of Windsor
and pointed to a nineteenth-century tradition within which women took the Falstaff
role in domestic settings, utilizing the laundry basket as part of the prosthetic
attachment. In ensuing conversation as discussion took in all the issues the papers has
raised, Ross Barber commented on the relationship between her critical appraisal of
Marlovian biography and the creative novel forming a part of the larger PhD project.
Paper Session Two
Susan Doran, Christ Church, Oxford
The Filmic Elizabeth: A Renaissance Queen?
Susan Doran’s paper investigated the humanist credentials of Elizabeth I on film,
arguing that questions of learning and education generally take second place in
cinematic representation to more urgent narrative (and politically contextual)
considerations.
Stephen O’Neill, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
CGI Elizabeth, or a Spanish Tragedy: Historical Thrills and Heroes and Villains in
Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Stephen O’Neill argued for a nuanced ideological underpinning to Shekhar Kapur’s
Elizabeth: The Golden Age, pinpointing the importance of light and dark,
contemporary xenophobic anxiety and a reliance upon foundational myths.
Ton Hoenselaars, Utrecht University
Renaissance Mania and the Film Industry: A Historical Perspective
Concentrating on E. W. and M. M. Robson’s works, this paper complicated
understandings of the Renaissance by positing the period as a tool with which the
fledging film industry was able to conceptualise itself.
In discussion, Greg Colón Semenza, instancing the work of Adorno and Benjamin,
speculated about the reactionary tendencies involved in the work of E. W. and M. M.
Robson’s appropriation of Sidney’s reflections on poetry. Ton Hoenselaars agreed to
the conversative thrust of the Robsons’ initiative. Adrian Streete asked about the
religious ideology underpinning filmic representations of Mary Queen of Scots: Susan
Doran agreed that the dominant paradigm here was proto-Protestant. Stephen O’ Neill
suggested that, in keeping with a Tillyardian perspective, Shekhar Kapur subscribes to
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static Protestant notions of history in consistently associating Elizabeth with the light.
Noting continuity between British and American film versions of the English
Renaissance, Susan Doran argued for the ways in which both traditions link
Protestantism with values of liberalism. Discussion broadened out to encompass the
question of differentiation between television and film versions of English monarchs
(Greg Colón Semenza) and the issue of why Sidney was selected by the Robsons for
reinvention. Ton Hoenselaars pointed to Sidney’s reputation as a soldier (which was
revisited at a time of twentieth-century world conflict) and the status of his dying
words.
Performance Session
Through a Lens Darkly: Galileo, Guy Fawkes and Grinding the Lens of Theatre
Introduced by playwright Bridget Foreman, this performance session included
comment on and extracts from two of the Renaissance-set productions of the theatre
company, Riding Lights. Two actors – Mark Payton and Aoibheann Kelly –
performed sections from the plays over the course of Saturday afternoon. Discusssion
among participants with the playwright and cast framed the proceedings. Reflecting
on the two plays – Science Friction (the life of Galileo) and Remember Remember
(the life of Guy Fawkes) – Bridget Foreman spoke of her independent (with some
funding from the Welcome Trust) organization’s tours around the country to theatres,
colleges/schools and community centres and noted her company’s concern with art as
a means through which to view contemporary preoccupations. Science Friction,
Bridget Foreman noted, centres upon conflicts between church and science, science
and faith. Set in the European courts of the seventeenth century, the play, it was
suggested, does not necessarily attempt to recreate Renaissance life; rather, it focuses
upon the ways in which history can educate and the narrative’s anticipation of modern
horizons of meaning and interpretation. Remember Remember, too, was presented as
a work that, while concerned with religious terrorism and division, also suggested
models for cultural co-existence.
In discussion, Jerome de Groot noted cognate productions such as Brecht’s Life of
Galileo, while Mark Thornton Burnett asked about why the company gravitated to the
Renaissance period in particular for dramatic treatment. Bridget Foreman pointed to
the preoccupation in the period with religious and spiritual matters. Robert
Shaughnessy asked about the modern autobiographical elements that featured in the
period-based extracts. Actors Mark Payton and Aoibheann Kelly talked in response
about the veracity of live performance and the ways in which performers often
perform themselves. From a Northern Irish context, Aoibheann Kelly remarked,
autobiographical representation and local perceptions of belonging and identification
are problematically interrelated. Greg Colón Semenza asked about the class, power
and historical distance issues involved in reanimating narratives from the
Renaissance, a period during which the stories of the elite were more likely to survive
than the traces of the dispossessed. Bridget Foreman replied that the modern
interpreter goes with the available evidence and, in the absence of that, is legitimated
in pursuing fictional enquiry. Mark Payton made a related point and commented on
the ways in which he conceives of the characters he plays as everyman figures. Ton
Hoenselaars noted the electric charge of the productions’ personal elements and
speculated about their potentially confessional tenor. Bridget Foreman observed that
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personal stories, although autobiographically mediated, are also forms of acting and
that these stories are potent because they emerge from formal structures. Personal
voices, she suggested, were in some senses protected by being located within a play
frame. Adele Lee asked if the function of the company was to entertain or educate.
Bridget Foreman suggested that the historical subject inevitably possessed an
educative dimension, but that the company also wanted to ‘engage people’.
Sunday 27 April
Paper Session Three
‘We are trying to entertain people, not impress them with our scholarship’:
Enacting and Re-enacting the ‘Renaissance’ in Popular Culture
Jerome de Groot, University of Manchester
Jerome de Groot’s paper investigated the ways in which re-enactments of the
Renaissance might be theorized and contextualized as instances of the popular
historical imaginary.
Greg Colón Semenza, University of Connecticut
God Save the Quean: Sex Pistols, Shakespeare, and Critical Negation
This paper discussed the documentary, The Fifth and the Fury, as an index of the
ways in which punk rock has utilized Shakespearean identities in an engagement with
the desacralized replaying of English history.
Susanne Greenhalgh, University of Roehampton
Renaissance Soundings: British Radio and the Aural Performance of History
This paper explored the ways in which the Renaissance is aurally (as well as visually)
mediated. Citing salient instances of the appropriation of the Renaissance on radio,
the paper alerted audiences both to the unique dialect space of this medium and to the
critical methodologies available for its understanding and interpretation.
In discussion, Robert Shaughnessy asked about the recycling of punk in modern
theatrical performance. Greg Colón Semenza agreed that punk music, because it was
context-specific, could be deployed in more general narratives and performance
traditions. As an example, Paul Frazer instanced the visibility of London Calling as a
radio feature and album. Christie Carson asked about the distinction between virtual
and real in online games and museum constructions, while Mark Thornton Burnett
asked if it was possible to see computer games, despite their immersion in a global
dialectic, as displaying national particularities that possessed colonial and/or imperial
reverberations. Jerome de Groot noted the difficulty in tracing discrete demographics
in research into media that were by definition sometimes interchangeable. Susan
Doran asked about gameplay and education. Jerome de Groot pointed to research on
gaming that highlighted the educative component. Majella Devlin asked if the
visibility of gaming could be linked to contemporary crises of identity; Jerome de
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Groot reflected in reply upon gaming as an instrument through which possibilities of
the self might be explored. Subsequent discussion pursued the identity theme: the
relation between isolated and communal play was aired (Majella Devlin and Jerome
de Groot); hybrid and cognitive identities were addressed (Christie Carson and
Jerome de Groot); and links between multiple identifications and embodied
experiences were considered (Christie Carson and Jerome de Groot).
Workshop
The ‘Great Man’ Conceptualization of History
Ruth Abraham, Majella Devlin, Adele Lee, Queen’s University, Belfast
This postgraduate-led workshop took Thomas Carlyle’s conception of great men of
history as its starting-point. It reflected upon how filmic and performative
representation tended to privilege male figures and social elites. Less glamorous
versions of the Renaissance tended not to be considered. This said, the relatively
isolated example of Elizabeth was commented upon: the workshop leaders reflected
upon why Elizabeth, rather than James I and VI, was a seemingly more popular figure
for appropriation. Elizabeth, it was suggested, lent herself to a ‘sexing up’ of history
in which, in particular instances, the woman’s cosmeticised body was a form of
gendered weaponry. Popular culture mediates the mainstream representation. By
contrast, James I and VI (and his reputation as a peacemaker) appeared less amenable
to reinvention. Role play and group exercises highlighted the significance of sixtythree entries for Elizabeth on film and television compared with only twenty for
James I and VI. A sample of images complicated the statistical findings above,
pointing up the existence of one hundred and forty-five portraits/engravings of James
I and VI compared with one hundred and fourteen for Elizabeth.
In the ensuing group discussion, Tatiana C. String observed the continuity of the
‘great man’ tradition in art history criticism, citing several authorities and examples.
She noted the much earlier genesis of the idea in the sixteenth century. Ton
Hoenselaars traced the concept back still further to classical times. The tradition of
artists’ lives in films was noted. Jerome de Groot remarked that certain historical
moments lend themselves to reinvention because of their iconic status, while Susan
Doran noted the proximity of icons of the screen and icons in history. Ruth Abraham
suggested that such was the parodic approach of the ‘Blackadder’ comedy series.
Adrian Streete asked to what extent the canon of which Renaissance figure is
appropriated is akin to a Shakespeare canon: were there unspoken agendas and no-go
areas, as with Shakespeare’s plays? Christie Carson, commenting on the suggestion,
pointed to similarities between the image of James I and VI on a horse and the St
Crispin’s day speech in Henry V. Remaining with popular imagery, Susan Doran
asked about representations of Elizabeth I which concentrated on her hair: Majella
Devlin pointed to the context-specific nature of these representations; Christie Carson
noted the Renaissance stage equation between loose hair and madness; and Tatiana
String suggested that hair was multiply deployed in Renaissance portraiture. Robert
Shaughnessy asked about how other cultures/nations imagined the Renaissance
period. Greg Colón Semenza mentioned celebrations at Jamestown in the US.
Similarly, James’ presence and absence (and his reputation as a tyrant) are
fascinatingly evoked in commemorations of the Plymouth Plantation. (This is in
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contrast to representations of Elizabeth who is imagined as mediating and
democratizing).
In this discussion of what is appropriated, why and when, Mark Thornton Burnett
mentioned new filmic versions of the period, such as The Other Boleyn Girl and
Mary,Queen of Scots. Jerome de Groot suggested that such films embody a more
complex configuration of sex and power and a more judgemental view of female
independence. Christie Carson noted a parallel between the current female queen and
historical interest in earlier female royal personalities. Greg Colón Semenza suggested
that current representations replay and reinforce gender stereotypes: Elizabeth is
determined by her connection to men, Elizabeth is only absorbed by personal
relations. Susan Doran suggested that James VI and I was an unamenable type for
reinvention as he seemed neither an obvious hero nor an obvious villain. Adrian
Streete reminded participants of the issue over the monarch’s sexuality. Jesús Tronch
Pérez mentioned the tendency of historical representation to favour seriousness over
and above comedy. Susanne Greenhalgh alerted the session to related representations
of James VI and I in The Game at Chess, in coronation iconography, and in
Humphrey Jennings’ documentary film about the festival of Britain.
Ensuing discussion concentrated on questions of historiography and historical
revisionism (Greg Colón Semenza and Susan Doran). Brenda Liddy asked about the
contexts informing particular kinds of selection decisions. Robert Shaughnessy noted
that films are invariably intertextual and borrow from each other. It was also noted
that appropriations of the Renaissance have a wider generic purchase than often
acknowledged, either in novels (Mark Thornton Burnett) or children’s literature
(Susanne Greenhalgh). Paul Frazer asked if James VI and I was invariably depicted
upon a horse so as to make up for his more obvious derelictions elsewhere. Jesús
Tronch Pérez asked about the conjunction of Elizabeth and Margaret Thatcher. Susan
Doran noted the anachronistic nature of binary filmic approaches, while Majella
Devlin reflected upon the ‘personality’ driven nature of modern rewritings and
reimaginings. As these types of parallel were explored, Stephen O'Neill noted the
context-specific nature of the Thatcher/Elizabeth connection, Paul Frazer asked if
Thatcher would become newly popular, and Jerome de Groot pointed out that the
partnership shared between Elizabeth and Shakespeare was mutually reinforcing.
In its final stages, the workshop turned to questions of definition. Greg Colón
Semenza asked if popular culture was interested in the early modern rather than the
Renaissance. Mark Thornton Burnett suggested that popular culture was drawn to the
Renaissance, but academics were attracted to debates about the early modern.
Exploring related boundaries between the medieval and the Renaissance, Jesús
Tronch Pérez asked about the proverbial associations attached to the Renaissance: as
an example, Jerome de Groot suggested the association of the Renaissance with
science, and the association of the medieval period with leisure. Jesús Tronch Pérez
asked if more medieval games existed than Renaissance games. Jerome de Groot and
Ton Hoenselaars agreed, pointing to the medieval period’s association with national
and international warfare. Expanding the point, Ramona Wray asked how figures
were perceived from particular regions. Her example was the Flight of the Earls, an
event recently commemorated in Northern Ireland in exhibitions, documentaries and
musicals: here, there is a larger narrative of loss and dispossession. To this example
Adrian Streete added another: the different views of Cromwell in an Irish context.
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Susan Doran read the Flight of the Earls commemorations in terms of a pivotal
moment in the formation of national identity and asked why other players and
personalities – such as Spenser – were not so often appropriated. Greg Colón
Semenza and Christie Carson pointed to ballets and plays; Jerome de Groot identified
Spenser as a point of interest for discussions about courtliness.
Discussion of points of contact between the Renaissance and other types and
examples of appropriation permitted fresh examples to proliferate. Greg Colón
Semenza noted a forthcoming film version of Paradise Lost. Mark Thornton Burnett
wondered if such an undertaking would include an authorial imprint – John Milton’s
‘Paradise Lost’ as the title in contrast to, say, William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer
Night’s Dream’. The entrance of Milton into discussion pushed participants to think
about borders and perimeters. Jesús Tronch Perez noted nation- and culture-specific
differences in terminology. ‘Why not Baroque or seventeenth-century?’, it was
suggested. ‘Were we not talking about the English Renaissance?’ ‘Can we mix terms
and refer to Macbeth as a Baroque play?’, Jesús Tronch Pérez wondered. Susan Doran
noted that many historians do not use the term ‘Renaissance’; Tatiana String pointed
out that art historians refer to Baroque art as part of the seventeenth century; and
Adrian Streete commented, from a different disciplinary perspective, that ‘Baroque’
could signal the counter-Reformation. Joking about popular culture perceptions of
periodicity, Greg Colon Semenza concluded a highly profitable interdisciplinary and
collaborative discussion with a Woody Allen quip: ‘You have to hurry. The
Renaissance is coming. Soon everyone will be painted’.
Paper Session Four
The Politics of Apocalypse: Interrogating Conversion in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of
the Christ and Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice
Adrian Streete, Queen’s University Belfast
This paper explored the unspoken legacy of anti-Semitic violence that underpins
Western apocalyptic thought and which is problematically translated into capital by
the filmic industry of late modernity.
Breaking Shakespeare’s Image in Late Spanish Drama and Film
Jesús Tronch Pérez, University of Valencia
This paper addressed the desacralizing treatment of the figure of Shakespeare in late
twentieth-century and early twenty-first century Spanish drama and film as in index of
Spain’s confrontation with post-capitalist, imperial and global considerations.
Holbein’s Henry VIII and the Construction of Modern Masculinity
Tatiana C. String, University of Bristol
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This paper considered Hans Holbein’s Whitehall portrait of Henry VIII (1537) as a
composition that can most fruitfully be interpreted as a study in masculinity whose
legibility resides in its prioritization of body parts.
Ton Hoenselaars commented upon the extraordinary volume of dramatic and filmic
representations of Shakespeare in Spain inside such a short period. Jesús Tronch
Pérez agreed but stressed that these productions had not fared well commercially.
Greg Colón Semenza asked if there was a common denominator to the productions:
Jesús Tronch Pérez replied by emphasizing the shared demythologizing endeavour
and relative independence and autonomy of the work. Ruth Abraham asked if it was
possible to find meaning in what parts of the film version of The Merchant of Venice
were cut: Adrian Streete replied that there were indeed cuts, but that the theme of
conversion remained forceful and constant. Mark Thornton Burnett asked about
dynastic issues in the representation of Henry VII – was he female or dying or dead?
Tatiana String answered that the inscription in the formal portrait (as opposed to the
sketch) testified to his virility. Mark Thornton Burnett also asked about the relation
between the codpiece and the dagger as masculine accoutrements: Tatiana C. String
acknowledged that both were important features. Christie Carson asked about the
equation between modern and postmodern codpieces, and Tatiana C. String suggested
that this was part of continuum in the iconographic rendering of masculinity. It only
remained for Mark Thornton Burnett to thank the postgraduates for their sterling
participation, support and contribution and the participants for their papers.
In general during the symposium, discussion continued and prospered, and new
networks were established, over dinner, over coffee, during the reception and in
unscheduled periods between formal events.