Emotional Excess on the Shakespearean Stage: Passion’S Slaves
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EMOTIONAL EXCESS ON THE SHAKESPEAREAN STAGE: PASSION’S SLAVES EMOTIONAL EXCESS ON THE SHAKESPEAREAN STAGE: PASSION’S SLAVES BRIDGET ESCOLME Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 © Bridget Escolme, 2014 Bridget Escolme has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-1-4081-7968-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Escolme, Bridget, 1964- Emotional excess on the Shakespearean stage : passion’s slaves / Bridget Escolme. pages cm. -- (Critical companions) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4081-7967-3 -- ISBN 978-1-4081-7966-6 -- ISBN 978-1-4081-7968-0 -- ISBN 978-1-4081-7969-7 1. Emotions in literature. 2. English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600--History and criticism. 3. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Stage history. 4. Theater--England--History--16th century. 5. Theater-- England--History--17th century. I. Title. PR658.E57E83 2013 822.3--dc23 2013020882 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN To Gary Willis. And moreover what can be sweeter to our thoughts than the image of a true and constant love, which we are assured our friend doth bear us? What happiness to have a friend to whom we may safely open our heart, and trust him with our most important secrets, without apprehension of his conscience, or any doubt of his fidelity? What content to have a friend whose discourse sweetens our cares? Whose counsels disperse our fears? Whose conver- sation charms our griefs? Whose circumspection assures our fortunes, and whose only presence fills us with joy and content? Nicholas Coeffeteau, 1621 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi INTRODUCTION xiii Chapter One ‘A brain that leads my use of anger’: Choler and the Politics of Spatial Production 1 Chapter Two ‘Do you mock old age, you rogues?’ Excessive Laughter, Cruelty and Compassion 54 Chapter Three ‘Give me excess of it’: Love, Virtue and Excessive Pleasure in All’s Well that Ends Well and Antony and Cleopatra 111 Chapter Four ‘Stop your sobbing’: Grief, Melancholy and Moderation 168 Chapter Five Conclusion: Emotional Agendas 220 NOTES 229 BIBLIOGRAPHY 275 INDEX 295 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would not have been possible without the help, encouragement and ideas of many people and organizations. I am extremely grateful to colleagues in the Department of Drama at Queen Mary University of London, particularly to Jen Harvie, Maria Delgado and Nicholas Ridout, who have given invaluable advice and stimulating conversation in their capacities as Directors of Research, and as friends. Nick Ridout played a particularly important role in helping me to know and under- stand what this book needed to be. I would also like to thank Michèle Barrett, Head of English and Drama at Queen Mary, who supported me in my application for a period of research leave to complete the project, all of the School administrative team, particularly Jenny Gault and Beverly Stewart, without whose help with other aspects of my job this book would never have been completed, and Sally Mitchell and the Thinking Writing team for the wonderful Queen Mary Writing Retreats. Many thanks too to Paul Heritage and People’s Palace Projects. Many thanks also to all at Arden Shakespeare, particularly Margaret Bartley, Emily Hockley and Claire Cooper. The work of a great many theatre practitioners – actors, directors and designers – is at the heart of this book; I would like to thank and acknowledge the work of all referenced in what follows and to mention here those who have given up their valuable time to talk or write to me in recent years – Jane Collins, Dominic Dromgoole, Peter Farley, Sunil Shanbag, Roxana Silbert. The help and stimulation of conversations with countless friends and colleagues must also be acknowledged; some of those I mention here will already understand the help and stimulation they have given; others may not realize the influence they have had. They include Frances Babbage, Bobby Baker, Roberta Barker, Christian x Acknowledgments Billing, Warren Boutcher, Christie Carson, Ralph Cohen, Rob Conkie, Pavel Drábek, Sarah Dustagheer, Indira Ghose, Bret Jones, Farah Karim-Cooper, Eric Langley, Clare McManus, Lucy Munro, Marcus Nevitt, Stuart Hampton-Reeves, Peter Holland, Paul Prescott, Carol Rutter, Richard Schoch, Catherine Silverstone, Kim Solga, Tiffany Stern, Christine Twite, Tiffany Watt-Smith, Penelope Woods, Jan Wozniak, Zoe Svendsen, and Queen Mary undergraduate students who have taken the class ‘Madness and Theatricality’ during the past five years. Material in the book has been stimulated and developed through presentation at a range of conferences, including the International Shakespeare Congress; the Shakespeare Association of America (particularly the panel session ‘Academic Pressure and Theatrical Forms’ organized by Jeremy Lopez and Paul Menzer at the 2012 meeting); the AHRC Network Isolated Acts and its 2012 conference ‘Confined Spaces: Considering Madness, Psychiatry, and Performance’, organized by Anna Harpin. I would also like to thank the librarians and archivists at the National Theatre Archive, the Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust and Shakespeare’s Globe for their help and patience. Thanks should also go to my mother Hilary Escolme, and my brother John Escolme and his partner Jussi Kalkkinen, for listening and questioning. And lastly my love and thanks to my partner Gary Willis, to whom this book is dedicated and who has not only proof-read it in its entirety but has provided unstinting support and encouragement at the most difficult points in its creation. He had always wondered why writers’ partners got such profuse thanks in the Acknowledgements, and now he knows. Bridget Escolme, London 2013. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1 Caius Martius Coriolanus (Gijs Scholten van Aschat) in Coriolanus (The Roman Tragedies) by Toneelgroep Amsterdam, dir. Ivo van Hove (Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2012 © Jan Versweyveld/BAM). Page 4 Figure 2 Caius Martius Coriolanus (Jonathan Cake) in Coriolanus, dir. Dominic Dromgoole, Shakespeare’s Globe, 2006 (© Alastair Muir, 4854). Page 22 Figure 3 Caius Martius Coriolanus (Richard Lynch), First Citizen (John Rowley), Second Citizen (Gerald Tyler) in Coriolan/Us dir. Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes for National Theatre Wales, performed at RAF St Athan, 2012 (© Mark Douet/National Theatre Wales). Page 48 Figure 4 The Duchess of Malfi (Miranda Henderson) inTen Thousand Several Doors dir. Jane Collins, Prodigal Theatre at the Nightingale Theatre, Brighton, 2006 (© Matthew Andrews). Page 78 Figure 5 Malvolio (Ted van Griethuysen) in Twelfth Night (Shakespeare Theatre Company, 2008), used to accompany a review of Malvolio’s Revenge (Shakespeare Theatre Company Mock Trial, Sidney Harman Hall, Washington, DC, 2009) (by kind permission of Shakespeare Theatre Company © Carol Rosegg). Page 98 Figure 6 Malvolio (Tim Crouch) in I Malvolio, Unicorn Theatre, 2011 (© Bruce Atherton and Jana Chiellino). Page 103 Figure 7 Richard III (Jonjo O’Neill) in Richard III dir. Roxana Silbert, Royal Shakespeare Company, 2012 (© Geraint Lewis). Page 191 Figure 8 Hamlet (Rory Kinnear) in Hamlet dir. Nicholas Hytner, National Theatre, 2010 (© Geraint Lewis). Page 207 INTRODUCTION […] For thou hast been As one in suff ’ring all, that suffers nothing, A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards Hast ta’en with equal thanks. And blest are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commeddled That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger To sound what stop she please. Give me that man That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee. Shakespeare, Hamlet (3.2.66–75)* Prior to this eulogy on Horatio’s blessed balance of ‘blood and judgement’, Hamlet gives his advice to the players, in which he conjures the embarrassing image of a bad actor in a wig, to warn the actors against ‘tear[ing] a passion to tatters’ (3.2.10) with over- emphatic gestures and too much shouting. In both art and life, then, Hamlet seems to privilege cool judgement over hot passion. The description of Horatio as ‘one in suffering all that suffers nothing’ suggests a complete detachment from the emotions produced by ‘fortune’s buffets and rewards’, a stoical paradigm of self-control in the face of the slings and arrows Hamlet has already contemplated in the play (3.1.58). A similar privileging of reason over passion emerges in a range of early modern treatises on the passions. While the apatheia with which Hamlet credits Horatio is regularly dismissed as unnaturally blockish and un-Christian1 much of the advice available to the early modern reader on the subject of emotion concerns its restraint and control. The reader is either advised against indulging the passions at all, or told that their expression should be moderated.2 It is brutish to feel nothing – but to feel too much is to reduce oneself to the the level xiv Emotional Excess on the Shakespearean Stage of the unreasoning animal. Whereas today, emotion in Western culture is regarded as an individuating force – when exhorted to ‘express yourself ’ it is often emotion one is being asked to ‘express’ – the early modern passions are frequently described as that which makes one less of an individual.