THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CREATIVITY AND GENIUS: REFLECTIONS ON SHAKESPEARE THE DIRECTOR PJAEE, 17(7) (2020)

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CREATIVITY AND GENIUS: REFLECTIONS ON SHAKESPEARE THE DIRECTOR

Anila Akbar1, Zafar Iqbal Bhatti2, Rida Sarfraz3, Nadia Anjum4, Kulsoom Najam5

1,2,3University of Management and Technology, Lahore. 4Hazara University Mansehra. 5Department of Sports Sciences & Physical Education, Punjab University Lahore.

Anila Akbar , Zafar Iqbal Bhatti , Rida Sarfraz , Nadia Anjum , Kulsoom Najam, The Psychology Of Creativity And Genius: Reflections On Shakespeare The Director, Palarch’s Journal Of Archaeology Of Egypt/Egyptology 17(7). ISSN 1567-214x. Keywords: Theatre, Director, William Shakespeare, Tragedy.

ABSTRACT: This paper aims to analyze Shakespeare as a director and the choices that he makes as a director. This is a qualitative research. The paper will use excerpts from A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies and Looking at Shakespeare. It will also incorporate a YouTube video by Dr. Andrew Bretz on Shakespeare as a good director. This research substantiates Shakespeare as a good director by executing artistic choices. It will also highlight the fact that Shakespeare as an Elizabethan playwright brings a newness of ideology in tragedy and theatre as he disregards the ideas set by ancient dramatists.So the paper explores Shakespeare’s brilliance as a director in the Elizabethan era.Moreover, Shakespeare propagates a new ideology regarding theatre by making eloquent choices as a director. This critical study is significant as it broadens the research horizons on Shakespeare. INTRODUCTION: William Shakespeare was one of the most recognized writers of the Elizabethan time. The Elizabethan performance center bloomed during his lifetime. This blog examines Shakespeare's directorial genius against the setting of the Elizabethan dramatic practices and standards.

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CREATIVITY AND GENIUS: REFLECTIONS ON SHAKESPEARE THE DIRECTOR PJAEE, 17(7) (2020)

Shakespeare knew about all functions of the dramatic cycle all together that he may better educate his thoughts and works, however he likewise needs to separate himself from the performance center as it would weaken his "creativity of vision" or his "singularity of technique" (Bowman 2017). Following questions will be addressed in this paper: 1. WhatShakespeare would have done as a director? 2. How Shakespeare might have acted as a director? 3. What are the responsibilities of a director? 4. How a certain scene is to be played? 5. How Shakespeare innovated certain techniques to distinguish his plays from the other dramatists of his time? 6. How Shakespeare’s actors acted in a certain way? William Shakespeare is considered as one of the most eminent playwrights of Elizabethan era. 16th century theatre flourished under Shakespeare’s creative genius. Theatre served as a pleasant source of entertainment in Elizabethan era because of its norms and theatrical practices. Theatre became popular, still the development of theatre was opposed for various reasons. Reasons were based on moral grounds as artists were considered inferior citizens. In addition to these social constraints, the direction and performance of the play were also challenging in those times. William Shakespeare was an actor as well so he was familiar with the layout of Elizabethan theatre and its stage which guided him to write his plays. The way Shakespeare constructs his plot is a major characteristic that gives his readers an understanding of his technique of direction. Shakespearean Tragedy explores the construction of Shakespeare’s dramatic plot. A.C. Bradley describes Shakespeare’s dramatic plot that begins with a short scene or can be a part of a scene, it is full of “life” and it has to be “arresting” (21). A director manages artistic and dramatic aspects and it is the responsibility of a director to envision the script by leading the actors in order to realize that visualization. A director helps in the realization of an artistic vision. In order to achieve that, a director uses a wide variety of techniques and philosophies. A director also focuses on the technical crew which consists of lightening, sound, music, and costumes. So a director has a key role in coordinating all the elements to give the finished product. He is in fact in charge of the entire performance. By keeping these views of a director in mind, one can argue that Shakespeare served as a good director. He elaborated the art of acting through his plays and introduced certain techniques which served as the hallmark of his innovations in the theatre. He envisions play’s atmosphere, mood and actor movements through his stage directions. He brings a unified vision within the finished product and leads his actors towards its actual realization. DISCUSSION: While addressing the question, was Shakespeare a (Good) Director? Dr. Andrew Bretz argues that Shakespeare’s plays are sometimes really complex with fireworks, and dancing sequences and battle scenes and sometimes there is a bear that comes out on stage and you think with all that Shakespeare would have been a really brilliant director (Bretz 01:15 - 00:02:00). In the early modern theatre, directors did not exist, they are surprisingly late inventions coming into being in late 19th and early 20th century when actor managers like Stanislawski at the Moscow

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Arts Theatre began to reconceive the role of the actor and the role of the manager. In Shakespeare’s days, an acting company was made up of about a dozen or so people who owned shares in the company. These were the people who were doing day to day business of the company. They were often the main actors of the trope so for instance Shakespeare was a sharer in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men which later became The Kingsmen, meaning that he got a share of the profits from any play that was put on by his company. There were about a dozen of sharers and they performed in the most of the plays, they performed so often that stage business -who stood where, how to run a sword fight, how to dance and an intricate dance, they did not need someone telling them what to do. Shakespeare was an actor as well as a writer. He apparently specialized in playing the older fatherly figures, for instance there is a tradition that he played the ghost in Hamlet and may have played Duncan in Macbeth. He may have been Henry IV. Dr. Andrew Bretz suggests “you are one of the other actors in the company and you have the guy who wrote the plays standing in front of you. If you have a question about a line or you do not know where to stand then he could literally tell you what to do. That is one possible reason why Shakespeare’s plays are particularly bare when it comes to stage directions. Other playwrights of the time who were not the sharers in the companies did not have the same luxuries as Shakespeare did. They had to write down what was happening in their heads and thus stage directions” (Bretz). Later editors have added the stage directions to make the play clearer to some readers and those editorial insertion are indicated with square brackets. For instance, [Prospero puts ona magic gown.] and [Petruchio enters, drunk.] Bretz further explains Shakespeare’s “internal stage directions.” Now, even though, he was standing right there and even though he was a sharer and helping the actors to hit their marks but Shakespeare added another layer of protection to make sure that things actually worked out the way they were supposed to through “internal stage directions.” Internal stage directions refer to the bits of the play where in the spoken text itself tells the actor where they should be and what they should be doing. So if a character says something that indicates an action taken off stage, one knows that action must have occurred. For example, in Richard II (Act IV Scene I) happening in Westminster Hall where he tells Henry IV to take the crown: King Richard II: Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown; Here cousin: On this side my hand, and on that side yours. Now is this golden crown like a deep well(Shakespeare IV.1). Here when Richard asks Henry to take the crown, then the next line indicates that Henry takes the crown and they both place their hands on the each side of the crown. This is an example of “internal stage directions” Such internal stage directions occur frequently in Shakespearean plays. Scenery, scene painting, setting, décor, design, costumes, dressing constitute the visual field of theatrical representation. Scenography refers to lighting, the arrangement of the acting ground, stage and costume design, and the movement of the actors with in it. Scenography is a visual counterpart to text. In Shakespearean texts, there is so little about scenic locale and physicality of character determined because of his technique of internal stage setting which acts as a powerful component to his theatre. As Gordon Craig writes (1923:20), Shakespeare “also

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CREATIVITY AND GENIUS: REFLECTIONS ON SHAKESPEARE THE DIRECTOR PJAEE, 17(7) (2020) uses words to conjure up before us the people-their costumes-all. Are we to refuse to visualize all?...Either all words, or let all be visualized” (Kennedy 13). According to Kennedy, audience can decode Shakespeare’s theatre. First method is the one which requires no intellectual effort and normally unconscious. It occurs which an actress sits and audience understands that Ophelia sits, or when an actor puts on a metal crown on his head and the spectators perceive that Claudius is the king. The second method results from a more overtly metaphoric application of the visual. Setting Hamlet before a towering abstract monolith, playing Richard III on a giant staircase, or staging The Winter’s Tale on a floor of green slime-these are scenographic encodings employed by Shakespeare and demanded his audience to visualize these settings. Scenography does not tell much about acting, but it contains enormous amount of information about staging, setting, costumes, playhouse, and spectators. Kennedy says Shakespeare wrote under the category of architectural scenography, in which the theatre building itself provided the design for the production of his plays. Walls, doors, columns, recesses, upper galleries, the large open platform floor with trap space-these fixed but extremely versatile features of the Elizabethan playhouse formed the basis of the staging as well as the visual habitat (25). J. R. de J. Jackson is of the view that Shakespeare in his plays, makes use of narration and description which serves as a “visual exhibition” as the audience are told to imagine they saw what they only heard…” (14). The representation of this remark can be found in King Lear when King Lear describes the raging storm. Another illustration is found in Macbeth, where soldiers narrate the scene of the battle in Act I, scene II. Audience are left to imagine and relish the scene. Moreover, Shakespeare, through the use of internal stage direction, reveals about his scenography and asks his audience to visualize these in their heads. For example,Hamlet begins in an interesting way which attracts the attention of the audience at once. The play begins with “who’s there” which instantly attracts the audience as what is happening. It generates suspense. So Shakespeare plans out each and every scene with great brilliance. Shakespeare pays great attention to the connections between scenography and general performance style, or to the relationship between scenography and audience reception. Macbeth begins with great suspense as well, “Fair is…fair” (I, i) poses the tone of the play as it suggests the chaos and disorder that shall come after. Shakespeare sets the mood of the play through the thunderstorm and entrance of three witches. Through witch’s prediction, audience become engrossed in the play as it generates great thrill whether the prediction will turn true or not. Similarly, King Lear’s opening is intriguing, the play begins inside the palace and something has already happened when the first scene opens. The play begins with a dialogue between Kent and Gloucester as they talk about division of the kingdom by the king. The opening dialogue introduces conflict of the play.Also, it shows King Lear’s character having a characteristic flaw. Shakespeare uses internal stage direction technique as he makes evident through the text that where Edmund would be standing in the beginning of the play when Kent and Gloucester are discussing important matter of the division of the kingdom. It is evident from the text that Edmund is standing behind his father, near enough to eavesdrop what they are talking about. So every scene follows the other and gives artistic visual representation. These details prepare the audience for the conflicts that shall follow. A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies states three parts of the stage which were important to Shakespearean plays while talking about the playhouses and the stage. The three parts described are: the ‘discovery-space’, the upper station, and the music room. The discovery space was generally an open-tiring house doorway within which curtains, or in front of which hangings had been fitted up. In Shakespeare, the examples of the discovery are- the discovery of the three caskets in The Merchant of Venice, of the sleeping Falstaff in Henry IV, of the statue of

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Hermione in The Winter’s Tale, and in The Tempest, Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess . In the Elizabethan theatre beds (Othello), tables (Henry VIII), chairs containing ‘sick’ characters (King Lear), and other such properties were simply carried or drawn on stage at need by attendant players. The Upper-station was used in Shakespeare for the usual situation that is the window of a house overlooking the street (Brabantio and Iago in Othello) and the walls of a town or castle overlooking the space below (the King and Bolingbroke in Richard II). The music room was normally curtained, so that the musicians could be concealed from the audience during the action of the play but readily made visible to them during the performance of inter-act music. F.W. Sternfeld in chapter 11, Shakespeare and Music in A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies, examines how music is employed in Shakespeare’s plays. In Shakespearean plays, music adds another dimension to the play, conveys ideas which cannot be as well set forth in verbal discourse. According to Sternfeld, the dumbshow became an integral device of the play, as witnessed by Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and Hamlet (158). Music was employed in Shakespearean plays through stage music. Stage music is exercised through an action on the stage which calls for music, e.g. a call to battle, or a banquet, and magic music: to make someone fall in love, or fall asleep. E.g. Aerial entices Ferdinand in The Tempest. It was concealed, perhaps behind the curtain or that concealment of the supernatural can be brought about by placing music under a trap door (159). In Antony and Cleopatra, music is accompanied by stage direction, “[Music of the hautboys is under the stage].” The third category of music is described as character music. This type of music portrays the character traits of one of the protagonists. In Troilus and Cressida the nature of Pandarus, the provider of soft luxuries, the pander, is characterized by the sophisticated lecherous song which he sings, “Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more!” (Shakespeare III.I). But Iago in Othello disguises behind what he sings, “And let me the canakin clink, clink” (Shakespeare II.III). The supreme example of revealing a protagonist’s true mind behind the surface, occurs in Ophelia’s famous mad scene. Ophelia sings several songs and some songs in bits and piecesin front of the King, the Queen and Horatio; she bursts into songs in a spontaneous way which gives audience several crucial facts. First that her mind is deranged, secondly, Ophelia’s songs indicate her mental state when her father dies: White his shroud as the mountain snow, Larded with sweet flowers; Which bewept to the grave did not go With true-love showers (Shakespeare IV.V). Ophelia’s songs also highlight her love for Hamlet. She sings four entire stanzas of St. Valentine’s Day song which indicates her concern with extramarital love. So the songs present the state of her mind and her preoccupations. The fourth category of the music is the type of music which predicts how tone gets changed within the drama, from suspicion to trust, from vengeance to forgiveness but this category is distinctively present (161). It can be highlighted through a general change of tone. So these examples of music in Shakespeare highlight the employment of music in Shakespeare which deals with the manner in which songs and instrumental passages are woven into the spoken text, without reference to the notes themselves

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CREATIVITY AND GENIUS: REFLECTIONS ON SHAKESPEARE THE DIRECTOR PJAEE, 17(7) (2020) or to their instrumentation. In addition to these music categories, Shakespeare’s plays use sound effects which set the mood of the scenes. For instance, Macbeth starts with “thunder and lightning” and when Duncan’s murder is being committed, there is thunderstorm which highlights the atmosphere of the play and witches chant “Fair is foul and foul is fair” (Shakespeare I.I.1) and there is a song by the witches which occurs in Act IV scene I: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble (Shakespeare IV.I). In terms of facial expressions and emotions, Shakespeare gives detail instructions in his plays which makes the actors to perform effectively. For example, biting the lip comes a profound way to highlight the psyche, For example, in Richard III, “The King is angry; see, he gnaws his lip” (ShakespeareIV. II);In Othello, “Desdemona: Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?” (Shakespeare V.II). Desdemona observes her husband’s “fatal” rolling of his eyes (V, ii, 37-8); he weeps, his looks reflect ‘a bloody passion’, he strikes her, flatters her sarcastically. In King Lear, when messenger delivers letters to Regan from Gonerill, “she reads the letter, frowns and stamps.” So all these acts and larger gestures, lip-biting, rapid walks, and breast-thumping of Regan and Othello has been used as an internal stage directions device by Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet goes on from picture to picture. Every line indicates a picture. For Example, the balcony scene in Act 2 scene 2, where Juliet appears above at a window.It is Capulet's Garden and Romeo enters. So Shakespeare uses divergent visual approaches. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses gestures to set the atmosphere of the play. In act 1 scene I,Sampson says: Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it. (bites his thumb) (Shakespeare I.I.43-44). Then Sampson says: No, sir. I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir (Shakespeare I.I). Shakespeare’s theory of theatre is evident when Hamlet gives instructions to the actors performing the play. In act 3 scene 2, Hamlet encounters the actors and instructs the actors to the true nature of acting. Hamlet asks them to “Speak the speech… as I pronounced it to you,” to speak the lines “trippingly” with swiftness, he urges them not to exaggerate “But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, …” (Shakespeare III.II). Hamlet instructs the actors that their performance must come off naturally. They should be gentle and passionate about their performance and deliver it with smoothness. He warns them about the hand gestures as “Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently” (Shakespeare III.II). Then he also instructs them they must not get too involved in the scene and in the emotions of the role that they are playing. He warns them to do it in a smooth way. Hamlet expresses his hatred “Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise” (Shakespeare III.II). He reminds them not to make a tyrant too tyrannical “But not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor” (Shakespeare III.II). Moreover, Hamlet gives a beautiful description of the purpose of acting: “to hold the mirror up to nature.” Note here he doesn’t say to become nature, to ape nature, to copy nature, to become the role, to tell a story BUT… ‘to hold the mirror up to nature” (Shakespeare III.II).

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Another interesting technique Shakespeare uses through the graveyard scene. In act 5 scene 1, Hamlet is unaware of the fact that the gravedigger is digging the grave for Ophelia. He takes Yorick’s skull and by looking at Yorick’s skull, he remembers Ophelia. He does not know its Ophelia’s coffin. After Laertes jumps into the grave, Hamlet jumps into the grave at once. The visual representation of this scene provides Shakespeare’s artistic skills. Shakespeare’s audiences belonged to two classes: one was intellectual noblemen and other was groundlings. So Elizabethan theatre had two ranges of audience. For this reason, Shakespeare merged philosophical portions of his plays with street jokes so groundlings could also enjoy the performance. Hence, Shakespeare wanted to capture the attention of both the groundlings and erudite. Dennis Kennedy looks at twentieth century performance of Shakespeare in his book, Looking at Shakespeare. Kennedy’s book is about how the theatre has appropriated Shakespeare in the realm of the seen. Its intent is to investigate how scenography may be used as a guide in our understanding of the Shakespeare. In Chapter 1, Shakespeare and the visual, he talks about the stage for The Taming of the Shrew. It was just before Shakespeare’s birthday in 1978 the audience in his famous hometown looked at an unusual sight: a setting for The Taming of the Shrew that would have seemed proper in sixteenth century Italy. He argues that the spectators of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre had grown used to a nearly bare stage but here was an illusionist picture (1). Below is the picture of the stage which Dennis Kennedy mentions in his book:

Kennedy mentions the stage of The Taming of the Shrew 1978 Stratford set after the demolition as well. He says, “this production used scenography not only to establish environment and atmosphere but also to create a complicated theatrical signifier of its thematic approach. It is a play about the more subtle sexism of the modern world; the hard and brisk unsentimentality of the performance were established by the harsh materials and bare,imprisonedlook of the stage” (3).Below is the picture of that stage:

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CREATIVITY AND GENIUS: REFLECTIONS ON SHAKESPEARE THE DIRECTOR PJAEE, 17(7) (2020)

The appropriate stage setting for Shakespearean plays has continually preoccupied artists, audience and critics in 20th century. According to Kennedy, the visual history of performance, which has been mostly excluded from Shakespeare studies, rewards extended investigation because of its intriguing relationship to the status and uses of Shakespeare, both in the theater and culture at large (4). Kennedy uses the term “playgoing” to highlight the idea that audience rarely arrive with the single-minded purpose of hearing a play; they come in addition to see an actress, a marvel of scenery, stage setting (9). Shakespeare makes a great use of letters in his plays. Letters are involved in Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth. So he gives little cues to his audience. Shakespeare uses stage and costume design to comment on the play, as a guide to the interpretive treatment. Shakespeare uses costumes to set the mood of the scenes. The first time Hamlet appears in the court, he is wearing black. Black suggests that Hamlet is still in mourning and he stands out among everyone in the court. So through robes, Shakespeare gives substantial facts to the audience. Moreover, Macbeth when on his way to kill Duncan then night becomes stormy at once. And he sees the hallucination of adagger. It makes one think whether Shakespeare would have added the dagger dangling in air as astage prop for his audience to mentally visualize what Macbeth is seeing or not. It would be a great idea to add dagger as a stage prop so that the audience is in sync with the mental picture of Macbeth and lives through the fear and hesitation of the moment with him. CONCLUSION: In conclusion,as discussed above with arguments and examples, Shakespeare is a good director as he tells the actors what to do. He, as a director, wanted to engage the attention of his audience. He achieved it by paying attention to every detail-from props and make up to language and plot construction. Thus, Shakespeare made artistic choices which are still there even after so many

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CREATIVITY AND GENIUS: REFLECTIONS ON SHAKESPEARE THE DIRECTOR PJAEE, 17(7) (2020) years. The reason why Shakespeare gives such few stage directions is due to the fact that he wants his readers to imagine those scenarios in their own heads. Works Cited Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean tragedy: lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Renaissance Classics, 2014. Print. AndrewBretz. “Was Shakespeare a (Good) Director? - The Scholemaster.” YouTube, YouTube, 8 July 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtnHCtlxbd4. Holderness, Graham. William Shakespeare, Richard II. Penguin Books, 1989 Jackson, J. R. de J. “Coleridge on Dramatic Illusion and Spectacle in the Performance of Shakespeares Plays.” Modern Philology, vol. 62, no. 1, 1964. Web. 8 July. 2019. Muir, Kenneth, and Samuel Schoenbaum. A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies. University Press, 1971. Kennedy, Dennis. Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Perfomance. Cambridge University, 2002. Shakespeare, William, and George Richard Hibbard. Hamlet. Oxford University Press, 2008. Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Dover Publications, 1993 Shakespeare, William, and T. J. B. Spencer. Romeo and Juliet. Penguin Books, 2015.

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