sign in sign up
<<
Home , Enter a Free Man, Joseph Fiennes, Jumpers (play), Lee Hall (playwright), Shakespeare in Love, Spoonface Steinberg

Insights A Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare Festival

Shakespeare In Love The articles in this study guide are not meant to mirror or interpret any productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. They are meant, instead, to be an educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the plays (in any production at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and the interpretative articles (and even characters, at times) may differ dramatically from what is ultimately produced on the Festival’s stages. Insights is published by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, 351 West Center Street; Cedar City, UT 84720. Bruce C. Lee, communications director and editor; Phil Hermansen, director. Copyright © 2011, Utah Shakespeare Festival. Please feel free to download and print Insights, as long as you do not remove any identifying mark of the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

For more information about Festival education programs: Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street Cedar City, Utah 84720 435-586-7880 www.bard.org.

Cover photo: Melinda Pfundstein (left), David Ivers, and John Taylor Phillips in Dial M for Murder, 2011. Contents

Information on the Play Synopsis 4 ShakespeareCharacters In Love5 About the Playwrights 6

Scholarly Articles on the Play A Woman in a Man’s Profession or What You Will 8

Utah Shakespeare Festival 3 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Synopsis: Young Will Shakespeare has writer’s block and needs some inspiration. His ideas for his new com- edy, and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter, are less than genius and the owner of the theatre is under scrutiny from the producer, to whom he owes money. Meanwhile, across town, a rival theatre performs Will’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and heaven forbid, they added a dog, all without his permission! The high-spirited young lady, De Lesseps, who knows Will’s work very well, wishes to be on the stage. This, of course, is against the law in Elizabethan , but it doesn’t stop her from trying. Disguised as a young man and going by the name Thomas Kent, Viola attends auditions for Will’s next play, the very one he is struggling to finish. Viola returns home to prepare for the ball being hosted by the De Lesseps household and discovers her father has arranged a marriage for her to a Lord Wessex, a wealthy Virginia plantation owner. Will and his playwright friend Christopher come to her house looking for “Master Kent” to offer him the lead of Romeo in his play, and are invited to come in to the ball. Here Will sees Viola for the first time, and soon a scene similar to the initial meeting of Romeo and takes place. Will’s sudden attention to Viola offends Lord Wessex, and when asked for his name, Will introduces himself as Marlowe. Later, Viola’s delivers Will’s message to Viola about her getting the role in the play but warns that acting will not end well for her. Marlowe accompanies Will to Viola’s balcony, and a Romeo-and- Juliet-like balcony scene unfolds as Will discovers new-found inspiration. The nurse discovers Will before he escapes, but now the household is onto him—but by the name Marlowe. Rehearsals begin the next day and Viola (as Kent) plays Romeo. As they continue, the story gradually changes from one about Romeo and a pirate’s daughter to one with a love interest named Juliet. Wessex visits Viola and informs her of their impending marriage and journey to Virginia. Though it breaks her heart, Viola sends word to Will that he must not visit her again because it is too dangerous. Will follows Kent from rehearsal and divulges his desperate love for Viola. He soon discovers Viola’s disguise, and they come together in for each other. Will tries to convince Viola to run away with him instead of marrying Wessex. She knows she can never do this, and that she must go with Wessex to receive the Queen’s approval for their marriage. at court, the Queen examines Viola and privately tells Wessex she can tell Viola has another lover. In his anger, he assumes it is Marlowe and goes after him. As things continue to fall apart, one of Will’s rivals claims he has rights to the manuscript and attempts to get it away from the cast during a rehearsal. Will’s manages to hold on to it, but as they celebrate, Viola/Kent discovers Will has an estranged wife and two children. She runs out, leaving the group to mourn over the sudden news that Marlowe was just stabbed to death across town. Drunk and stirred up, Wessex finds Viola distraught in her bedroom and breaks the news of “her” playwright’s death. She faints, believing he means Will; but when Will enters looking for Viola, Wessex flees thinking him the ghost of Marlowe. Similarly to the ending of Romeo and Juliet, Will sees Viola and pleads if she be dead, that he die too. Fortunately she awakes at his kiss and they work through their misunderstandings. However, more troubles await at the theatre. The Queen’s chamberlain declares it closed for allowing a female to act on the stage. With so many disruptions, what happens now to Will’s new play and where will the players go? How can Will and Viola be together now with her wedding approaching? What does Will’s future hold?

4 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Characters: Shakespeare In Love Playwrights Will Shakespeare: Poet and playwright Kit Marlowe: Will’s colleague, friend, and inspiration Theatre Henslowe: Owner and manager of the Rose Theatre Fennyman: Producer Lambert and Frees: Fennyman’s accomplices and henchmen Ralph: An who plays Nurse and Petruchio Nol: An actor who plays and Samson Robin: An actor who plays Lady Capulet Adam: An actor who plays Gregory, Benvolio, and Servingman : A street urchin who aspires to be an actor Wabash: A stammering actor and Henslowe’s tailor The Admiral’s Men Ned Alleyn: The lead actor of the Admiral’s Men, plays Sam: An actor who plays Juliet Peter: An actor who plays Other The Chamberlain’s Men Burbage: The lead actor and owner of the Other Actors Dog: A trained animal that delights the Queen Burbages Two Heavies The Palace Mistress Quickly: Wardrobe mistress at Whitehall Palace Edmund Tilney: The Lord Chamberlain Queen The De Lesseps House Viola De Lesseps: A daughter who disguises herself as Thomas Kent to audition to be an actor Nurse: Servant to Viola Sir Robert De Lesseps: Viola’s father Lord Wessex: A nobleman betrothed to Viola Catling: A guard at De Lesseps Hall Two Guards Boatman The Tavern Waiter Barman Molly and Kate – whores at the tavern Musicians – appear in various locales throughout

Utah Shakespeare Festival 5 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 About the Playwright: Shakespeare In Love By Vanessa Hunt , , and took very different paths to becoming part of the writing team for the theatrical play Shakespeare in Love. From Czechoslovakia, , and England, the three of them all had successful careers in the theatre before each left his mark on this play about the world’s most famous playwright. Tom Stoppard Academy Award winner Tomas Straussler, later known as Tom Stoppard, was born on July 3, 1937 in Czechoslovakia. In 1939, as the Nazis invaded his hometown, Stoppard and his family fled to where his father, a doctor, was reposted thanks to a town patron whose company worked to repost Jewish employees. Following the move to Singapore, Stoppard’s father sent him, along with Stoppard’s mother and brother, to . Staying in Singapore to help the British defense, his father became a prisoner of war and reportedly drowned on a ship after it was bombed by Japanese forces. Forced once again to flee, young Tomas and his family arrived in India where he attended an American multiracial school, and it was there that his name was changed from Tomas to Tom. Four years later, his mother married a British army major named Kenneth Stoppard, and Tom took on his stepfather’s last name. After the war ended, the family moved to England where he attended Dolphin School and finalized his education at Pocklington School. Stoppard never received a formal univer- sity education, which later became one of his greatest regrets. At age seventeen, Stoppard began a job as a journalist at Western Daily Press. He worked there for four years until he was offered a job at the Bristol Evening World where he was a featured writer, humor columnist, and secondary drama critic. It was during this time that he was fully introduced to the world of theatre. Starting his writing career with writing short plays for radio, Stoppard then delved into the world of playwrighting for the theatre in 1960 when he finished his first play, A Walk on the Water. It was televised in , later retitled , and was produced onstage in 1968. His first widely recognized play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, was written in 1964. However, it began as a one-act play titled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear. In 1967, this play was met with rave reviews as it played in Britain’s National Theatre circuit and became internation- ally known. As he continued to write, his work explored themes in surrealism and existentialism. Eventually, he expanded his work to include screenplays. Stoppard’s credits span decades with works for the theatre such as Albert’s Bridge, , , 15-Minute Hamlet, , , , , Rock ‘n’ Roll, , and many others. His screenwriting credits include Brazil, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Anna Karenina, and . Perhaps his most famous screenplay, though, is the Academy Award-winning movie Shakespeare in Love, which he worked on with screenwriter Marc Norman. Marc Norman Marc Norman was born on February 10, 1941 in Los Angeles, California. He received a master’s degree in English from the University of California Berkeley, and after graduation he decided to pursue a career in the entertainment field. He applied for jobs with different production companies before finally landing a job with Universal in their executive training program. This was a thankless job as he spent eight hours a day delivering mail around the studio. Upon hearing that television pro- ducer Roy Huggins was starting a new series, Norman approached him about working as a produc- tion assistant. While Huggins turned him down for the job, he told Norman that he needed story ideas. Norman took the opportunity, and Huggins eventually bought one of the ideas that Norman presented. Universal then promoted Norman to the position of casting director, although he was 6 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 unhappy in this position as well. He worked with the studio for years until his desire to write became too great. For five years, he wrote rewrites for television scripts and then moved on to writing features (Frederic T. Dray, www.writersstore.com/from-mailroom-to-oscar-winner-marc-norman/). Finally, Norman had a breakthrough with his writing as he developed the idea of Shakespeare start- ing a theatre company. This is where Shakespeare in Love found its beginnings. It took nine months of research and three months of actual writing before the script was finished. In 1991, Universal purchased the script. was set to direct the film, but he didn’t like what Norman had written and brought on famed writer Tom Stoppard to do a rewrite and improve upon Norman’s script. Just weeks before production was to begin in 1992, , who was set to star in the film, left the project because a suitable Shakespearean-level actor could not be found for the lead. After Roberts left, the project was put on hold. In 1997, Universal sold the rights to the script, and agreed to make the film (Dray, www.writersstore.com). With and set to star, the project was completed and Norman, along with co-writer Tom Stoppard, found themselves at the accepting the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Lee Hall Years after the success of the film version of Shakespeare in Love, playwright Lee Hall adapted the screenplay for the theatre. Hall was born on September 20, 1966 in Newcastle-upon-Tyre, . The son of a house painter/decorator and a home maker, Hall received his educa- tion at Benfield Comprehensive School. Later, he studied English literature at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and was taught by poet . Before beginning his career as a playwright, Hall worked as a youth theatre fundraiser in London. His career as a writer began in 1997 when he wrote a radio play called , which pre- miered on BBC Radio. Controversy surrounded Hall’s career in 1999 when a children’s opera that he had written called Beached premiered. It was commissioned by and was to be performed by children at the Bay Primary School. Due to the story centering around a gay character, the school threatened to cancel the production unless changes were made to the script. To keep the show in production, Hall agreed to change certain words in the script that referenced the character being gay (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Lee_Hall_(playwright)). The most notably successful work to Hall’s name is the 1999 movie , which he wrote the screenplay for and went on to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Following the success of the film, Hall adapted the screenplay for the stage, turning the show into a musical. The music for the production was written by , with Hall writing the lyrics. In 2009, the show won Best Book of a Musical at the . Hall’s additional credits include the screenplays for Pride and Prejudice, The Wind in the Willows, Toast, , and Victoria and Abdul, along with the plays I Luv You Jimmy Spud, , Two’s Company, The Pitmen Painters, and Shakespeare in Love. The adaptation for Shakespeare in Love came about when Hall met with West End producer . In a meeting with Friedman, Hall learned that she was working on bringing the award- winning film to the stage. He told her he would love to be a part of the process, and two weeks later he received a phone call from Friedman who said that she had spoken with Tom Stoppard and they had agreed they wanted Hall to do the adaptation (Jim Hill, www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-hill/lee-hall- compares-transla_b_5649657.html). The play opened in July 2014 in London at the Noel Coward Theatre. In 2016, it played to sold out audiences at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada. As the play continues to reach a broader audience, it will make its United States debut in 2017 in three theatres, including the Engelstad Theatre during the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 2017 summer season.

Utah Shakespeare Festival 7 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Shakespeare In Love: A Woman in a Man’s Profession, or What You Will By Lawrence Henley

In creating the 1998 Oscar-winning film Shakespeare in Love, British playwright Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Arcadia) and his screenwriting partner Marc Norman (The Aviator) sought to personify an icon: a young actor and fledgling dramatist named Will Shakespeare. Like many brilliant artists, prior to his greatest success Shakespeare was a twenty-something writer, performer, and entrepreneur, steadily rising to the top yet still struggling to fully harness his genius. Through the creativity and imagination of Stoppard and Norman, motion picture audiences were privileged to witness a living, breathing young Shakespeare that had previously been lost to time. Shakespeare in Love embodies the Bard in those formative years that spawned a creative explosion unprecedented in the history of theatre. Indeed, through the highly lauded film, and now via the 2014 stage adaptation by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot), we become time travelers. Shakespeare in Love provides the vehicle whereby we are uncannily transported to witness the birth of modern theatre. Of course, the work relies on a great deal of specu- lation referencing the lives of Shakespeare and his colleagues, often based on unsubstantiated theories. Owing to the paucity of historical data and accounts from the Elizabethan period, the authors had little recourse to do otherwise. Still, their method provides the historical connections, whimsy, and heightened sense of the period that make this play indispensable for fans of classical theatre. The new Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre at the Utah Shakespeare Festival is the ideal venue for a period piece such as this. Shakespeare in Love is set in the bustling light district on the southern banks of the River Thames, the home of Shakespeare’s first theatres. While at times more fiction than fact, the play astonishingly beams us back to the year 1595. A three-year pandemic of deadly plague has recently lifted, and the wooden, tiered outdoor theatres of London have reopened. Not unlike the present day, competition for audiences and playhouse financing is cutthroat. In recreating the period, Shakespeare in Love cleverly employs an array of factual characters from Shakespeare’s everyday world. Legendary characters ranging from young Jacobean playwright John Webster to an aging Queen Elizabeth I are, to our delight, brought back to life. At the play’s outset, one such figure, Phillip Henslowe (producer and proprietor of The Rose play- house), is heavily in debt and under threat of violence from Fennyman, a vicious, yet witty loan shark. Henslowe is desperate to stay apace with The Curtain, the successful venue of rival actor/producer (the queen’s favorite). Henslowe sorely needs a box-office hit. Enter Shakespeare’s new comedy, a work in progress. It has an peculiar working title: Romeo and Ethel, The Pirate’s Daughter. From the outset, Romeo and Ethel is a vexed endeavor. Much to the horror of Mr. Henslowe, Shakespeare has suddenly and inexplicably lost his muse. To make matters worse, Henslowe’s house players, the great Ned Alleyn’s Admiral’s Men, are out touring the provinces and unavailable. Awkward timing necessitates a rough and uneven cast featuring a gnarly bunch of regulars from the tavern next door, Henslowe’s tailor, and a novelty act—Spot, the Dog. Most pressing is the urgent need to dislodge Will’s seemingly impenetrable writer’s block. The plot and script for Romeo and Ethel is, thus far, dead on arrival, and his best ideas have been obtained over pints of beer from mentor Christopher “Kit” Marlowe, London’s reigning dramatist (Faustus, Edward II). Shakespeare in Love intimates that young Will “nicked” a fair number of ideas from Marlowe

8 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 (whose untimely stabbing death vaulted Shakespeare into elite status). Marlowe advises Will to abandon his initial theme and characterization. A reimagined Ethel becomes Juliet, the comedy morphs into tragicomedy, and the dog becomes unemployed. Definite progress, yes, but still no flow of words out of Shakespeare’s quill. The search for inspiration has reached critical mass. It is at this point that history and supposition collide in totality, melding into the richest blend of truth and theatrical fantasy. Crashing Burbage’s unauthorized court performance of Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Will encounters a stunningly beautiful devotee of his poetry and prose, Viola De Lesseps. Lady Viola secretly desires to be a part of the theatre, but is tragically stunted by the social constraints of her era stemming from her own nobility and the ban on women as performers. In Shakespeare’s time, attendance in the playhouses by women from the upper classes was severely frowned upon. Female roles were performed exclusively by males, typi- cally teenagers whose voices had yet to change. The edict was regulated strictly by the caustic Mr. Tylney, London’s corrupt Master of the Revels. Undaunted, Viola is determined to audition for a part in Shakespeare’s next play. Donning male dress she becomes “Thomas Kent.” Her natural ability and poetic depth stuns the writer. Intoxicated by her oration, Will is baffled as she flees the stage in panicked response to his unnerving request to remove her hat, concealing the hair and face of a woman. Shakespeare’s hot pursuit of Thomas instead results in a breathtaking encounter with Lady Viola, in natural dress. Afterward, their clandestine meeting becomes the inspiration for what is to become Romeo and Juliet’s famed balcony scene. A passionate love affair ensues, sparking a creative epiphany for the playwright. Will and Viola’s torrid romance becomes the metaphor for the resulting play within a play. It is, however, a doomed relationship. Viola, in the businesslike fashion typical of the period, has been promised by her wealthy parents to the steely , an ambitious seeker of fortune and no lover of poetics. In blind disregard of hopelessness for a future together, Viola (as Thomas) is cast as Romeo. Mercifully, the Admiral’s Men and their marquee player Ned Alleyn return to London. Despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, the company births a play for the ages. Romeo and Juliet becomes a new high watermark in dramatic literature, perhaps the greatest romantic tale of all-time. And, for the fictional purposes of Shakespeare in Love, the gender barrier in Elizabethan Theatre is broken. No one knows, but it is conceivable that, lost to history, one of Shakespeare’s women might have taken the stage under the guise of a male. In her powerful final speech, Queen Elizabeth strongly attests that she “knows something of a woman in a man’s profes- sion.” And what of the real (1564–1616)? What is the truth concerning his early life? Ironically, the life of Will Shakespeare remains in large part a tantalizing and specula- tive mystery. Scholars have long been frustrated in their attempts to create a complete timeline of Shakespeare’s life. Unfortunately, there are lengthy, undocumented gaps during his early years which defy explanation. Today, he is known as the most iconic of dramatists, author of (at least) thirty-seven classic plays that have withstood the turbulence of the centuries and critics alike. Many experts rate him as the finest writer of world literature who ever lived. Doubtless, Shakespeare is the most read, per- formed, discussed, and written about playwright to walk the earth. Based on the scarce evidence that still exists, several theories attempt to explain the missing years of 1585-1591 Shakespeare in Love so ambitiously seeks to fill in. Without new discoveries and information, the truth is anyone’s guess. The theories are, for the most part, pure conjecture. Existing records show he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, April, 1564, to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. His father was a wool merchant, a maker of fine gloves, an important town offi- cial (Stratford’s ale-taster and mayor). Mary had inherited wealth and birthed seven children (three

Utah Shakespeare Festival 9 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 perished prior to adolescence). William, the first to survive, was initially well-educated, but forced to quit school in the wake of John Shakespeare’s severe financial troubles. Consequently, one of the world’s greatest writers never attended college, as did many of his peers. Records also tell us that a nineteen-year-old Will Shakespeare was married in 1582, hastily, to a pregnant Anne Hathaway. Subsequently, there are no traces of Shakespeare from the mid-1580s until he reappears on the London scene in 1592. It is theorized that Shakespeare vanished from Stratford under the threat of imminent arrest for offenses ranging from animal poaching, tax delinquency, or conspiracy to practice Catholicism amid the strict Protestant reign of Queen Elizabeth. Some surmise that he fled Stratford, finding work as a primary schoolteacher in the North of England. Others believe he was lured to London by a touring theatre troupe, the Queen’s Men. Whatever the truth, Shakespeare in Love deliciously and repeatedly references gems from Shakespeare’s text. Abundant quotes and references from Romeo and Juliet, , and All’s Well That Ends Well are inserted liberally. Best of all, the poignant ending engenders the creation of Will’s finest comedy, . While it’s doubtful that we shall ever learn what actually transpired dur- ing Shakespeare’s lost years, we can revel in Shakespeare in Love’s marvelous reconstruction.

10 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Utah Shakespeare Festival 11 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880