The Changeling Submitted by Nora
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Between Performances, Texts, and Editions: The Changeling Submitted by Nora Jean Williams to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Drama In January 2016 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. 2 Abstract This thesis is about the ways in which Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s play The Changeling has been edited, performed, and archived in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It proposes a more integrated way of looking at the histories of performances and texts than is usually employed by the institutions of Shakespeare and early modern studies. Crucially, it suggests that documented archival remains of performance should be admitted as textual witnesses of a play’s history, and given equal status with academic, scholarly editions. I argue that—despite at least a century of arguments to the contrary—performance is still considered secondary to text, and that this relationship needs to become more balanced, particularly since the canon has begun to expand and early modern plays beyond Shakespeare have begun to see more stage time in recent years. In addition, I begin to theorise social media as archives of performance, and begin to suggest ways forward for archiving the performance of early modern drama in the digital turn. In order to support these arguments, I offer a series of twentieth- and twenty-first-century productions of The Changeling as case studies. Through these case studies, I seek to make connections between The Changeling as text, The Changeling as performance, and the various other texts and performances that it has interacted with throughout its life since 1961. In presenting analyses of these texts and performances side-by-side, within the same history, I aim to show the interdependency of these two usually separated strands of early modern studies and make a case for greater integration of the two in both editorial, historiographical, and performance practices. For Nora Sowma, Emily Williams, and May Jowdy. 4 Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................. 5 Illustrations .......................................................................................................... 6 Textual Notes ...................................................................................................... 8 A Prologue ........................................................................................................... 9 Introduction: performance, text, and The Changeling ....................................... 10 Literature Review ............................................................................................... 61 Chapter One, Readings and re-readings: the Royal Court, 1961 ......................... 109 Chapter Two, Political Changelings: 1978-79 and 1988 ...................................... 132 Interlude: Bridging 1988 and 2012 ..................................................................... 180 Chapter Three, Re-making Middleton for the 21st Century: the Young Vic, 2012 ................................................................................................................... 186 Chapter Four, Documenting Past and Present at the New Globe: SWP, 2015 .... 222 Moving Forward: Conclusions .......................................................................... 298 Appendix A: Editing Samples ........................................................................... 298 Appendix B: List of UK Professional Productions and Scholarly Editions ........ 309 Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 314 Acknowledgements Like all things worth doing, this thesis was completed with a lot of help from a lot of people. All errors are my own, but I’m sure they are significantly fewer thanks to those named here. First and foremost, I wish to thank Kate Newey and Jane Milling for their supervision of this thesis. Without their expert feedback and unflagging faith, this project could not have been completed. From Exeter’s Drama department, I also wish to thank Kara Reilly, Jerri Daboo, David Wiles, Peter Thomson, Fiona Macbeth, Adrian Curtin, Cathy Turner, Michael Pearce, Gayatri Simons, Trish Barber, Jon Primrose, and Chris Mearing. From Exeter’s English department, I am particularly grateful to Pascale Aebischer, Vicky Sparey, Henry Power, Nick McDowell, Philip Schwyzer, and Sally Templemann. Thanks are due, too, to Mick Mangan and Christopher McCullough for their help in preparing my proposal, and Anna Harpin for her insightful feedback on my upgrade chapters. A number of practitioners and academics were generous enough to share their thoughts and personal archives with me both in person and by email. Thanks are due to Martin White, Joe Hill-Gibbins, Will Tosh, Terry Hands, David Ian Rabey, Susan Hamlyn and Jami Rogers. I also wish to thank the staff at the following libraries and archives for their invaluable contributions to my research: the Harry Ransom Center & Perry-Castañeda Library, University of Texas, Austin; the Folger Shakespeare Library; the British Library; the National Theatre Archives; the Manchester Central Library archives; the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Library & Archive; the Victoria and Albert Theatre Collection; the Bristol Theatre Collection; the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge; the Library of Birmingham; Staffordshire University and the Victoria Theatre Collection; and Shakespeare’s Globe Library & Archive. No one in my life has been able to escape this thesis for the past few years, and I am grateful to everyone who has listened to me give way too much detail about it. Some, however, deserve special mention for long conversations, draft reading, career advice, and general friendship and support: thank you, Callan Davies, Anna-Marie Linnell, Philip Bird, Kate Lechler, Laura Baggs, José A. Peréz Díez, Cassie Ash, Emma Smith, Emer McHugh, Kristen Zaza, Dave Nicol, Doug Bruster, and Megan Alrutz. The work would not have been possible without the generous financial support of a College of Humanities International Studentship, and I am grateful to the University of Exeter for making this funding available. I hope that funding continues to be made available to international students for many years to come. To my family (all of you!), eternal gratitude for your support of this weird thing I do. Special thanks to everyone who requested a copy of the thesis. Even more thanks to Mom, Dad, Nick, Tess, Ian and Doc for reading drafts, responding to late-night emails/texts/etc., making me laugh, and providing financial support. And, finally, thanks to my steadfast partners in crime: J.B.P, S.M., and E.O. 6 Illustrations 1. Frances, Countess of Somerset…………………………………………………105 2. 1961 Royal Court promptbook, p. 61…………………………………………..126 3. The Globe’s response to José A. Pérez Díez’s criticism of its 2015-16 winter season announcement on Facebook ……………………………………………………..236 4. The Globe’s response to my criticism of its 2015-16 winter season announcement on Twitter……………………………………………………………………………237 5. Comments from TripAdvisor users Jeffroyals and leisure_traveller44 about their visits to the SWP in 2015……………………………………………………………….239 6. Examples of Twitter users employing the #SWPChangeling hashtag…………..240 7. @The_Globe interacts with its audience through Twitter……………………...240 8. @PascaleExeter, @harrymccarthy, and I discuss the SWP Changeling without using the hashtag……………………………………………………………………………242 9. TripAdvisor user Jiinx expresses dislike of the SWP as a venue…………………252 10. Twitter users @DrJanaFunke and @shaksper express their approval of the madhouse scene in the SWP Changeling…………………………………………….256 11. Pascale Aebischer tweets about sight lines in the SWP…………………………262 12. Twitter user @RichardJColeman comments on the SWP Changeling……………265 7 Textual Notes 1) Throughout the thesis, references to text from The Changeling cite the 1653 quarto, unless otherwise specified. This means that spelling and punctuation are often early modern rather than modern; I have not flagged this within the body text except where the meaning may otherwise be obscured. 2) Deflores’ name has attracted a multitude of spellings since the seventeenth century. I use “Deflores” because it is what is printed in the quarto text. Most writers that I cite use a different configuration—most commonly “de Flores” or “De Flores”. When quoting from a secondary source, I retain the author’s spelling. 3) A large number of my sources are newspaper reviews of various productions of The Changeling. As the titles often repeat themselves (e.g. ‘The Changeling’) or become rather wordy (e.g., ‘A creepy, sexy Jacobean extravaganza every bit as nasty as today’s plays’), these have been cited using only the reviewer’s name and the date of publication after the first reference to any given review. Similarly, for press cuttings found in institutional archives, I have omitted the full bibliographic details in the main body of the thesis; full details are included in the Bibliography. Reviews found online include URLs in both the main body and