Performing 'Madness' in Major London and Rsc
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PERFORMING ‘MADNESS’ IN MAJOR LONDON AND RSC PRODUCTIONS OF HAMLET, 1959‒2019 by RACHEL EMILY STEWART A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY The Shakespeare Institute Department of English College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham June 2019 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis argues that trends in performances of ‘madness’ in RSC and major London productions of Hamlet between 1959 and 2019 were largely shaped by changes in the field of psychiatry and consequent developments in understandings of mental illness. The first chapter considers long-standing theatrical traditions of Hamlet’s and Ophelia’s ‘madness’ alongside the twentieth-century publications of major psychological and psychiatric theory and the beginnings of the process of deinstitutionalisation, discovering whether actors and directors were beginning to engage with the increased exposure to mental illness in society. Chapter Two explores dramatic changes in performances of ‘madness’ in Hamlet between 1983 and 2005. Over these years, most psychiatric hospitals in the United Kingdom closed and the system of Community Care developed. This chapter investigates whether the greater presence of people with mental illnesses in communities informed changes, directly and indirectly, in performances of ‘madness’ in Hamlet. Chapter Three takes patterns explored in the previous chapters up to 2019 and follows the development of a dialogue between the worlds of psychiatry and theatre. The thesis concludes with the question of how performance trends of Hamlet’s and Ophelia’s ‘madnesses’ may illuminate aspects of the ongoing social conversation around mental illness. Acknowledgements Thank you first and foremost to my supervisor Professor Michael Dobson who provided knowledgeable, encouraging, and generous support throughout this project. Thanks also to Dr Erin Sullivan, Dr Martin Wiggins, Dr Paul Prescott, Professor John Jowett, and Professor Ewan Fernie for their additional support and advice. Rhiannon Baglole, Dr Jean Helling, Dr Alison Stewart, Michael Pennington, Natalie Simpson, Kelly Hunter, and Tom Chapman agreed to be interviewed by me and provided invaluable insights into the professional worlds of psychiatry and theatre. Special thanks to my mother, Dr Alison Stewart, for her additional input on the history of psychiatry throughout the process of my research, including sending me any relevant books or articles that she found and her willingness to answer all of my questions on mental health care. Thanks also to my father and sister for their continued interest in my research and to my parents for their financial support. I have benefitted greatly from the advice and friendship of many past and present PhD students at The Shakespeare Institute. Particular thanks to Dr Thea Buckley who has supported me constantly from my PhD proposal to submission with excellent suggestions and encouragement. My thanks also go to Sara Marie Westh, Dr José A. Pérez Díez, Mary Odbert, Hannah Perrin, and Dr Elizabeth Sharrett. Professor Grace Ioppolo also merits thanks for encouraging me to undertake postgraduate study at The Shakespeare Institute. Julie Wilson gave wonderful mentoring support during the third and fourth years of my PhD course; Juliet Creese, Rebecca White, and Sandy Cross provided excellent administrative assistance; and Karin Brown and Kate Welch were extremely helpful with tracking down materials. I am also very grateful to the University of Birmingham who provided financial assistance for me to speak at several international conferences. Lastly, thank you to everybody who has expressed an interest my research. Particular thanks to the actors, directors, psychologists, and psychiatrists who have asked to read my thesis and have shown me that there is interest among professionals in these fields in further crossing the boundaries between theatre, psychiatry, and academia. Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Context ................................................................................................................. 1 Chapters ............................................................................................................. 13 Early Modern Definitions of ‘Madness’ ........................................................... 16 Sources ............................................................................................................... 34 Mimesis ................................................................................................. 34 Degeneracy ............................................................................................ 35 Panopticism ........................................................................................... 36 Visualising Ophelia’s ‘Madness’ .......................................................... 40 Nineteenth-Century and Early-Twentieth-Century Trends in the Performance History of ‘Madness’ in Hamlet ................................ 49 Psychology and Psychoanalysis ............................................................ 62 Poststructuralism ................................................................................... 69 1960s Psychiatry and the Beginnings of Deinstitutionalisation ............ 72 Anti-Psychiatry ...................................................................................... 76 Performance Theory .............................................................................. 78 Showalter and Feminism ....................................................................... 81 1. ‘Cosmic Jitters and Colliding Antitheses’: Staging ‘Madness’ in RSC and Major London Productions of Hamlet, 1959-1983 ..................................... 85 ‘A Mask of Madness’: Performing Hamlet’s ‘Madness’, 1959-1983 ................ 85 Mental Health Act 1959 and the Beginnings of Deinstitutionalisation ......................................................................... 85 Early Stigma Studies .............................................................................. 88 From Freud to Psychiatry ....................................................................... 90 Resisting the Romantic Tradition ........................................................... 93 Politicising ‘Madness’ ........................................................................... 97 Discussing Hamlet’s ‘Madness’ as Mental Illness ............................... 108 ‘That Piece of Bait Named Ophelia’: Performing Ophelia’s ‘Madness’, 1959-1983 ………………………...………………...... 121 Decorous ‘Madness’ and Silencing Ophelia ...………………………. 121 Ophelia’s Silent Revolt …………………………………………….… 131 Engagement with Mental Illness ………………………..……………. 133 Jonathan Miller’s Hamlet (1982) ……………………….……………. 137 2. ‘O That Subtle Trick to Pretend the Acting Only When we are Very Near to Being What we Act’: Staging ‘Madness’ in RSC and Major London Productions of Hamlet, 1983-2005 ............................... 148 ‘Nor Th’exterior Nor the Inward Man Resembles That It Was’: Performing Hamlet’s ‘Madness’, 1983-2005 ..................................... 148 Deinstitutionalisation and Mental Health Act 1983 .............................. 148 Stigma of Mental Illness ....................................................................... 151 Hamlet’s ‘Madness’ and the Vocabulary of Critics ............................. 157 The Progression of Pre-1959 Performance Traditions .......................... 162 Mark Rylance as Hamlet (1989 and 2000) ............................................ 171 Performances of ‘Madness’ in Other Early Modern Plays ................... 179 Politicising Hamlet’s ‘Madness’ for the Twenty-First Century ........... 183 Suicidal Hamlets ................................................................................... 187 ‘There the Men are as Mad as [S]he’: Performing Ophelia’s ‘Madness’, 1983-2005 ..................................................................... 193 Finding Ophelia’s Voice ....................................................................... 193 Sexualised, Abused, and Self-Harming Ophelias ................................. 204 Shifting the Balance Between Hamlet and Ophelia .............................. 216 3. ‘Like Reflections Caught by a Shattered Mirror’: Staging ‘Madness’ in Major London and RSC Productions of Hamlet, 2005-2019 ............................... 222 ‘Madness in Great Ones Must Not Unwatched Go’: Performing Hamlet’s ‘Madness’, 2005-2019 ..................................................................... 222 Mental Health Care and the Stigma of Mental Illness ........................... 223 Institutionalising ‘Madness’ in the Theatre .......................................... 235 Exploring the Borderlines Between ‘Madness’ and Mental Illness ................................................................................