SHAKESPEARE’S SPATIAL PRACTICE: SUBJECTIVITY, ORIENTATION, AND EMBODIMENT By Katherine I. Knowles A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of English – Doctor of Philosophy 2024 ABSTRACT This dissertation analyzes the production of space in Shakespeare’s plays, in performances of Shakespearean drama, and at cultural heritage sites related to the playwright. I argue that in Shakespeare’s works, space is subjectively experienced. It is only through the bodies of the characters and actors that move through and interact with these imagined worlds that we can orient ourselves. The plays are known for their rich settings that combine reality with fiction. Thus, how do they evoke vivid “local habitations”? While references to actual locations allow the audience to gain a foothold in the text, Shakespeare also incorporates ways for the characters to orient themselves through how they interact with and define space. The meanings created by these orienting factors can be compounded on or reinvented in performance, when actors embodying the roles of the characters layer their subjective relationship with the performance space onto the text while the audience participates in the embodied experience of playgoing. This relationship between body and space also shapes the way visitors interact with the narratives constructed at heritage sites such as Stratford-upon-Avon. The constant, reciprocal flow between bodies and space in creating “reality” on stage haunts all elements of Shakespeare’s works and legacy. How do we experience space in Shakespeare’s plays, both on the page and the stage, and how are our understandings of these fictionalized worlds shaped? In turn, how might real world places associated with the playwright be influenced by Shakespeare’s politics of spatial practice? While place-naming is an important and well-known factor in understanding Shakespeare’s conceptualization of space, Henri Lefebvre’s theories on the production of space as well as Sara Ahmed’s expansions on Lefebvre’s understanding of orientation and the subjective nature of a body’s experience in space can illuminate additional, often alternative meanings of a work. Valerie Briginshaw’s reading of the role of perspective in theories of the production of space intersecting with Valerie Traub’s depiction of embodiment in performance can highlight additional modes of meaning-making that are facilitated through the body of the actor. Chapter 1 examines As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale as examples of how Shakespeare uses literary modes such as the pastoral to both invoke and circumvent tropes to disorient characters (and thus also the audience/reader) in space. Chapter 2 explores Shakespeare’s use of metadrama in bridging the gap between literature and the stage by having characters operate within this framework to demonstrate how public, private, and political spaces are produced in his plays, specifically Hamlet and Henry V. Chapter 3 describes how the corporeal presence of actors in performances of Othello and Richard III influence interpretations of the plays when audiences apply their understandings of contemporary identity politics to the production of social space. Chapter 4 pairs with my digital project, The Stratford-upon-Avon Heritage Guide, and demonstrates the subjective nature of visitor experiences even when faced with carefully curated Shakespearean cultural heritage sites. Throughout time, Stratford-upon-Avon has been socially constructed through a desire to link the plays to Shakespeare himself by imagining the characters and spaces from the texts in conjunction with his home. This project highlights the ways past and present are brought together in these spaces and traces how their shifting narratives influence visitors’ perspectives of Shakespeare and his works. This dissertation argues that Shakespeare imagines space as something that is subjectively experienced. How characters, actors, audiences, and tourists experience space is largely dependent on how their bodies are situated within it. Bodies produce the space around them, and this is the foundation for Shakespeare’s spatial practice. Copyright by KATHERINE I. KNOWLES 2024 For Janet Slaven v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writing of this dissertation would not have been possible without the support of so many people. I am incredibly grateful to my committee, Dr. Stephen Deng, Dr. Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Dr. Juliet Guzzetta, and particularly my chair, Dr. Jyotsna Singh, for their guidance and mentorship throughout this process. Thank you to my family for your unending encouragement, and special thanks to my friends Lauren Crawford and Sarah Potts for being my support system over my years in this program. To my wonderful ILF Dr. Ella Hawkins and my friend and mentor Dr. Emily Yates, thank you for all your advice and inspiration. I am extremely appreciative to Kasey Kopp for her editorial (and emotional) support. I would also like to recognize Dr. Ethan Watrall, Kate Topham, and Kristen Mapes for all their help as I developed my digital project over the last several years. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 1 Theories of Spatial Production: (Dis)Orientation and Subjective Understanding ............. 3 The Space of the Empty Stage in the Early Modern Playhouse ........................................ 10 From Page to Stage and Beyond ......................................................................................... 13 Chapter Overview ................................................................................................................ 15 CHAPTER 1: PLAYING WITH THE PASTORAL: (DIS)ORIENTATION AND DESERT PLACES IN AS YOU LIKE IT AND THE WINTER’S TALE ....................................................... 19 (Dis)orientating Geographies .............................................................................................. 27 Banished to Desert Places .................................................................................................... 29 The Orienting Influence of Time ........................................................................................ 31 “Under the greenwood tree:” The Production of Pastoral Space in As You Like It ......... 32 “The mirth o’ the feast:” The Production of Pastoral Space in The Winter’s Tale .......... 53 CHAPTER 2: PUBLIC, POLITICAL, AND PRIVATE SPACE: METATHEATRICAL MANEUVERINGS IN HAMLET AND HENRY V ........................................................................ 71 Metatheatrical Frameworks in Shakespeare’s Plays .......................................................... 73 The Production of Space within Metadrama ...................................................................... 77 The Shared Space of Character and Actor .......................................................................... 79 Public and Political Space ................................................................................................... 81 Private Space ........................................................................................................................ 83 “King of Infinite Space”: Performing Public and Private Space in Hamlet ..................... 85 “You Know Your Places”: Politicizing and Performing Space in Henry V ................... 100 CHAPTER 3: FROM PAGE TO STAGE: CORPOREAL REIMAGININGS OF THE WORLDS OF OTHELLO AND RICHARD III............................................................................................... 116 Embodied Performance: Race, Gender, and Disability ................................................... 119 The Identity Politics of Taking on a Role ......................................................................... 124 Performance in the Early Modern Playhouse ................................................................... 127 Performing Shakespeare in Shakespeare’s Theaters ........................................................ 128 “The time, the place, the torture:” Recasting Racialized Space in Othello .................... 131 “Unfit for any place but hell:” Embodied Evil, Corporeal Disability in Richard III ..... 146 CHAPTER 4: THE STRATFORD-UPON-AVON HERITAGE GUIDE: MONUMENTAL SPACE, AFFECTIVE HISTORIES, AND MEMORY .............................................................. 157 Monumental Space and Sites of Memory ......................................................................... 159 The Stratford-upon-Avon Heritage Guide ........................................................................ 162 “Affective Histories:” Stratford’s Spatial Significance ................................................... 164 Navigating the Heritage Guide .......................................................................................... 168 Methodologies .................................................................................................................... 172 CODA: BODIES IN SPACE: EMBODIED PASTS AND IMAGINED FUTURES ............... 174 vii WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................................. 179 viii INTRODUCTION When trying to express his current relationship to Denmark in the second act of Hamlet, the titular prince tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count / myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I / have bad dreams” (2.2.253-255). Hamlet is expressing that it is not Denmark itself that fuels his current behavior, but rather it is his own experience that shapes the way he interacts with the space around him. The kingdom may seem unmarred to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern–who are there as a favor to the new King Claudius– but to Hamlet, who has just experienced the death of his father and is grappling with the charge of revenge from the Ghost, Elsinore is tainted by “bad dreams” in a way only he can understand. It is, at different moments, an “unweeded garden,” a “prison,” or a kingdom he tries to repudiate by playing an “antic disposition” (1.5.171). But, how can the same place be so extraordinarily different for these characters, and how does the audience form its view of Denmark when there are such contrasting representations of space? Regarding Hamlet’s claim of being a “king of infinite space,” in her essay “Shakespeare and the ‘Spatial Turn’” Sarah Dustagheer writes, “Physical, political, emotional and imaginative: this one line demonstrates that space is a complex and ambiguous concept to contemplate” (570). Of course, this consideration of space is not unique to Hamlet, as ideas of place and space clearly preoccupied Shakespeare in all his plays. Even though staged on (and written for) a bare stage, they are imaginatively set in a variety of locations. Characters often make references to place names, such as Denmark and Elsinore, to anchor the world of the play in historical reality even if Shakespeare’s representation of that place is not completely factual. Shakespeare’s plays offer many avenues for exploring how space is imagined and experienced, and thus produced, by characters, actors, and audiences in and through Shakespeare’s plays as texts and as performances. 1 In this dissertation, I demonstrate how spaces represented and produced in the plays can be productively linked to the subjective orientations of the characters, and in turn how Shakespeare builds in textual clues/cues to help orient and then re-orient the audience to the spaces before them. I examine how this subjectivity impacts the production of both literary and dramatic space, as well as how the merging of character and actor can further influence subjective experiences of space.1 I next explore the ways in which the embodied performance of modern actors complicates the audience’s subjective means of producing space. By addressing issues raised by “blind” and “conscious” casting practices that introduce BIPOC, non-male, and disabled actors into roles that would be historically unthinkable, I illuminate how through that practice audiences create new meanings of the plays based on contemporary understandings of social identity and hierarchies of difference. Finally, I examine how these enactments of orientation and attendant disorientation of characters and actors within Shakespeare have translated to cultural heritage sites in places such as his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. Here I demonstrate how representations of space shape the subjective experiences of visitors as they try to parse the disjunct relationship between Shakespeare’s works and the literary monuments as they are presented to them. To begin, let us consider how Shakespeare practiced place-naming to make connections to real world locations that would carry meaning for his audiences. Place-naming–with references including Denmark, Agincourt, Sicilia, Bohemia, Cyprus, and Arden, just to name a few–provided an orienting framework for Shakespeare to build upon. As Ralph Berry articulates in Shakespeare’s Settings and a Sense of Place, “The effect of each reference is a minor shock of 1 I use the term “literary space” to refer to the spaces created by invoking literary genres and modes whereas I use the term “dramatic space” to refer to the spaces produced via theatrical frameworks. I discuss the first in relation to the pastoral mode chapter 1 and the latter in connection to metadrama chapter 2. 2 recognition. The place-names are tiny foci of dramatic energy, pellets of meaning released into the audience’s bloodstream” (74). While these references were often unmoored from historical accuracy, they nonetheless created representations of space that would connect audience members and their experiences with the plays’ spaces. Shakespeare selectively deploys place- names, and the way characters invoke these references orient the audience via intertextual contexts. However, place-naming alone is not enough to effectively produce space on stage, as well as in the imagination of the audience. My argument hinges on the idea that bodies produce space, as Sara Ahmed argues that “spaces are not exterior to bodies; instead, spaces are like a second skin that unfolds in the folds of the body” (9). Therefore, characters on stage are required to steer the subjective responses to the information being relayed to the audience. Plays layer the fictional version of a place, the commonly known elements of that real world location, and the individual audience members’ understanding of it, and characters navigate their shifting positions in it. Shakespeare is well known for creating some of the most human-like characters, expressing a clear interiority, in literary history; as such, these characters serve as an orienting vehicle through which space can “unfold.” It is then the subjective experience of that character that produces space in a way a reader or the audience can better understand: Arden shifts from a place of exile to a place of leisure, Denmark becomes a prison, and even entire French battlefields are mediated only through the use of the English language. Theories of Spatial Production: (Dis)Orientation and Subjective Understanding Scholars have consistently utilized theories of space as a lens through which to examine the world, and an increase in the use of digital technologies in approaching humanities subjects through this framework has further catalyzed a ‘spatial turn’ over the last few decades. One can 3 use numerous theories and methods to conceptualize space which do not always clearly intersect. Yet, at the beginning of the twentieth century, clear trends began to emerge in how scholars understood space. In his philosophical exploration of space and time in Critique of Pure Reason, Kant begins to work toward a theory that claims space cannot be viewed as objective. He argues that: It is therefore from the human point of view only that we can speak of space, extended objects, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition, under which alone we can obtain external intuition, or, in other words, by means of which we are affected by objects, the representation of space has no meaning whatsoever. (84) Subjective experience is critical to Kant’s formulation of space, and this idea that the production of space stems from the body and its experiences/perceptions continues to evolve in the work of other theorists. The work of French theorists Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau refined and expanded on this notion of the subjective condition of space, and they created a foundation on which modern interpretations of space are based. In these formulations, space is understood as an entity that does not merely exist but that is actively created or produced in ways that imbue it with meaning. Thus, space is not a benign or neutral category, but an important factor in the organization of human society demarcating power relationships and hierarchies. Lefebvre proposes an elaborate argument for the “production of space,” and his theories inform at length in this introduction as well as in the ensuing chapters. In a similar vein, de Certeau examines how space functions in everyday life. According to de Certeau, “space is a practiced place” (117). It is upon this distinction—that space is socially produced through the way it is used by those that occupy it—that I formulate my own definitions. I aim to analyze Shakespeare’s spaces not only on the page, but also on the stage, and further, in heritage institutions linked to the playwright. As such, my conception of place and space focuses on the idea that space is something a place becomes as bodies move through, experience, and make 4 meaning within it.2 In the plays, characters produce space through their subjective experience within the fictional dramatic worlds, which is mediated by the bodies of audiences as they are oriented in Shakespeare’s imagined worlds through these characters’ perspectives. Some reflections on this spatial turn in Shakespeare studies are articulated by Isabel Karremann in her introduction to Shakespeare/Space: Contemporary Readings in Spatiality, Culture and Drama: Spatial studies in Shakespeare scholarship, as well as in the humanities more generally, tend to be bifurcated in their conceptualization of ‘space’ and ‘place’ and the relationship between the two…the binary space/place was never that clear-cut, either terminologically (place and space being often used synonymously) or conceptually (exploring the relations between concrete locations and their representation, whereby the latter infuses the former with meaning). (1-2) I subscribe to the belief that space is not fixed–it is instead created by those who interact with and use it. While Karremann seems to elide space and place, my readings make distinctions between place, associated with place names, and space, as produced by actors and characters on stage. Thus, I show how the production of space is an integral, dynamic, meaning-making process that illuminates the works in new, holistic ways. This is a clear theme that unfolds not only in Hamlet, but throughout Shakespeare’s canon. Lefebvre’s book The Production of Space is foundational to many scholars’ explorations of space, as he touches on everything from architecture to socioeconomics to art. Lefebvre’s depiction of space as something that is socially constructed and not something that merely is was revolutionary, and it has inspired many scholars to further explore his theories. For instance, Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others relies on Lefebvre’s depiction of orientation—a means through which a body can come to produce space—to launch her own 2 For an overview of the various ways these theories of place and space have been used in Shakespeare studies by a variety of scholars, see Sarah Dustagheer’s essay “Shakespeare and the ‘Spatial Turn.’” 5 investigation into the subject. She quotes Lefebvre’s concluding thoughts: “I speak of an orientation advisedly. We are concerned with nothing more and nothing less than that. We are concerned with what may be called a ‘sense’: an organ that perceives, a direction that may be conceived, and a directly lived movement progressing towards the horizon” (423). Here, Lefebvre explores how a body comes to understand spatial production only through its own situatedness within that space. In the context of Shakespeare, this raises questions about how the layered experiences of character, actor, and audiences impact spatial production–particularly as each approaches the play through their own specific situation. Ahmed also relies to some extent on the significance Lefebvre places on a subjective point of view, a theme that is further highlighted in Valerie Briginshaw’s studies of space and subjectivity. In Dance, Space, and Subjectivity, Briginshaw expands on Lefebvre’s notion that “it is by means of the body that space is perceived, lived—and produced” (162). She focuses on Lefebvre’s “logic of visualization” and “spatial code” of perspective, arguing that not only is space produced through the bodies within it, but it can only be understood by the specific point of view from each body (12). This seems to align with Ahmed’s reading of orientation—space is being produced through and from the body’s orientation within it, and thus the body is central in how space is conceptualized. In his theories of the production of space, Lefebvre demonstrates the process as dependent on bodies being in that space. Ahmed and Briginshaw expand on this notion through their own work to further explore the role of the body in the production of space. Drawing upon these readings of Lefebvre’s work in Ahmed and Briginshaw, this dissertation analyzes the different ways bodies produce space in the text, through performance, and through the interactions of visitors with literary heritage sites—in the “afterlife” of Shakespeare’s influence. Both Ahmed and Briginshaw’s work highlight the subjective nature of 6 space due to its reliance on being produced, or brought to life, via the body. They interrogate the fraught relationship between the experience of bodies as producing space and also the subsequent limits of how much a body can actually observe, understand, and navigate the physical environment. While Queer Phenomenology builds on Lefebvre’s work to describe the process of orientation and how it individualizes the production of space, Ahmed takes Lefebvre’s concept a step further by highlighting just how much a body’s spatial experience reflects a practice that can influence their understanding of space. She writes: space itself is sensational: it is a matter of how things make their impressions as being here or there, on this side or that side of a dividing line, or as being left or right, near or far. If space is always oriented, as Lefebvre argues, then inhabiting spaces ‘decides’ what comes into view. The point of such decisions may be precisely that we have lost sight of them: that we take what is given as simply a matter of what happens to be ‘in front of us.’ (14) In Ahmed’s depiction, the individual experience of the body as it takes its bearings in different situations and events is key to understanding space. Thus, in this process of production, she recognizes a radical politics in that production. While Ahmed specifically imagines the political and social implications of this mode of spatial production through the lens of a “queer phenomenology,” she recognizes its wider applications in understanding how bodies— particularly marginalized ones—contribute to the creation of space. Space is ultimately subjectively experienced, and how characters, actors, audiences, and tourists experience space is largely dependent on how their bodies are situated within it; in sum, the situations and events the bodies participate in produce space. Spaces determine our ways of seeing the world. It makes us choose sides, set boundaries, and thus shape definitions of difference. Overall, this process broadly constitutes what I will consider as spatial practice throughout this dissertation. So, how does Shakespeare help orient us within these varied possibilities of spatial practice? Textually, he often provides different perspectives of the surroundings from a variety 7 of characters, demonstrating that the world of the play is more imaginative and evocative than apparent in place-names. Due to the blank conditions—or the empty space—of the early modern English thrust stage, it was up to characters—and subsequently actors—to name and define a space and how it functions in the play for the reader or audience.3 A story might move various locations within the same act or across the play; these can range from a forest, a castle, a brothel a prison, a closet, among others, and spectators would rely on the way actors (as the characters they are portraying) inhabit the stage to telegraph the fictional space of that moment.4 It is how the characters respond to and relate to each space that reveals its meaning. In performance, this is somewhat dependent on the audience’s position in the theater, but the actors are very deliberately attempting to capture and direct the audience’s attention to what is “‘in front’ of us.” Similarly, when exploring a literary heritage site, a visitor’s experience can be influenced by where curated information and exhibits steer them; however, it is up to those bodies to interact and forge relationships to shape their own understanding. The bodies can accept the narrative and center their focus on what is provided, but they can also decide how else they wish to inhabit, accept, or reject these spaces. Orientation is key to shaping our interactions with these texts, performances, and sites through our own embodied approach as audiences/readers. The “com[ing] into view” discussed by Ahmed is dependent on how an individual body inhabits space, which is shaped by their own positionality in the world. One tension this dissertation attempts to capture is the difference between textual embodiment and embodiment via performance. Valerie Traub contemplates this tension in her introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: 3 Peter Brook tackles the potentialities of the “empty space” of the theater in his aptly named book The Empty Space: A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate. 4 For more on what spectators expected from actors on the early modern stage, see Andrew Gurr’s The Shakespearean Stage 1574-1642. 8 the performing body is marked by its live, present embodiedness–as opposed to the absent bodies of performances past… or the discursive bodies in dramatic texts... The materialization of the performing body is often thought to re-present the marginalized physical bodies that are silenced by textual reading, although some critics mine the mimetic tensions…between the body of the character/role and the performer, or between the current actor’s body and those who previously embodied the role. Paradoxically, the performing body is invoked both as a body that makes things more ‘real’… and more ‘performative.’ (12-13) Traub’s definitions of embodiment are rooted in our current, contemporary understandings of the performing body and how our understanding of the plays is formulated based on “live, present embodiedness.” While there are occasionally textual clues that hint at the physical embodiment of a character–such as references to Richard III’s disability–we come to interpret the worlds of Shakespeare’s plays through our contemporary and socialized understandings invoked by the bodies of actors. The production of space through the bodies of characters undoubtedly serves as an orientating focus for readers and audiences through all of Shakespeare’s plays. Thus, on stage, the body of the actor can reveal new meanings when contextualized within the way space is already produced in the text. This process may also create tensions by highlighting the fictionality or “constructedness” of that created world. Performance on stage is clearly a form of spatial practice; a performance produces space in a way that is evoked by the text but is ultimately recreated with each individual performance. It is this conceptualization of the performing body as crucial in the production of space, broadly theorized by Lefebvre and addressed by Ahmed (as above), that is at the core of Briginshaw’s monograph. Her argument hinges on the idea that “the conjunction of bodies and spaces is important because it is through this interface, through our material bodies being in contact with space, that we perceive the world around us and relations to that world” (1). Briginshaw explores the ways in which the bodies of performers produce space, and how the bodies of the performers manage to translate that spatial design to their audience. As readers, we 9 experience the plays through the way the characters are described as interacting with space. As spectators, we come to understand the plays through how we relate to the actors and how we interpret their relationship with the fictional world of the text and with the real place of the theater; for instance, we are oriented in Elsinore by adopting Hamlet’s perspective while he also acknowledges “memory holds a seat / In this distracted globe” (1.5.96-97). As tourists (or arguably, pilgrims) in Stratford-upon-Avon, our relationship with the town is influenced by our ability to interact with carefully curated cultural heritage sites and to subsequently make sense of our affective response to that experience. In each of these circumstances, the reader, spectator, or tourist seeks out another body or object to act as a means of orientation. In this dissertation, I explore Shakespeare’s plays through this connection between bodies within literary and dramatic frameworks in order to produce different kinds of space: representational, theatrical, social, and monumental. The Space of the Empty Stage in the Early Modern Playhouse Although it is the combination of the bodies of actors, characters, and audiences that produces space as we understand it today, Shakespeare was writing for a very specific purpose and under very specific conditions. There have been many explorations into the way space was produced in the early modern English playhouse and how it might be represented in Shakespeare’s works. Plays that are not primarily concerned with location in name or plot still carefully develop the places that the characters inhabit, accruing a history that intertextually extends into English culture and that would spark recognition. In Shakespeare’s time, audiences were extremely aware of a given play’s stated location and, no matter how far away that location may have been, they also retained awareness of their very physical presence in a theater in London. Today, 10 audiences are used to changes in scenery and trying to replicate a specific real or fictional location, but as Andrew Gurr points out in his monograph The Shakespearean Stage 1574-1642: Continuous and high-speed staging went hand-in-hand with unlocalized settings. The ‘scene’ was changed when one person departed and another entered, only occasionally specifying where they now were. The word ‘scene’ provides some problems, because it could mean the tiring-house…. or it could mean the fictional localities where the action of a play was supposed to happen. Only much later did it come to mean the canvas flats or ‘scenery’ that provided backgrounds for such localities. (219-220) In Shakespeare’s day, the stage was primarily empty aside from the actors and whatever props they would bring with them into a scene. This meant that actors were responsible for cuing the audience to understand location while simultaneously being aware of their literal surroundings— in broad daylight, immersed in a crowd, in a London theater with the sounds and smells of the outside world ever present throughout the course of a show. But it was not just the empty stage and the actors upon it that created space in the early modern playhouse. For instance, actors would be costumed, and through this decoration of their body, signify certain meanings. In their monograph Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory, Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass articulate just how much of an impact costumes could have on the way the bodies of the actors were perceived: “clothes are detachable…they can move from body to body. That is precisely their danger and their value: they are bearers of identity, ritual, and social memory, even as they confuse social categories” (5). In combination with the bodies of the actor/character, clothing helped to produce space on the early modern stage by bringing intertextual significance to the performance. Props functioned similarly, and as Jonathan Gil Harris and Natasha Korda explain in Staged Properties in Early Modern English Drama, “[O]bjects do not simply acquire meaning by virtue of their present social contexts; rather, they impart significance to those contexts as a result of the paths they have traced through time and space. The significance a particular object assumes thus derives 11 from the differential relation of its present context to its known or assumed past, and potential future contexts” (18). Once again, it is the physical presence of the prop in combination with the body of the actor that helped to evoke meaning for the audiences. The bodies of the actors on the early modern stage may not have been as diverse as those of today, but costumes and props were used to extend the body by contextualizing it within specific milieus and by anchoring it in the world of the play (Sofer 22). Thus, overall, bodies of actors and the objects they interacted with produce Shakespeare’s imagined worlds.5 Both costumes and props were (and still are) used to modify and interact with the body of the actor to help produce space on the early modern stage. While modern performances may no longer subscribe to the same theatrical practices as Shakespeare’s company would have, they are similar in that performance relies heavily on the body of the actor in order to convey meaning to the audience. According to Darlene Farabee in Shakespeare’s Staged Spaces and Playgoers’ Perceptions, “The plays–their frameworks and constructions–produce their effects through the perceptions of playgoers. Because theatre must have playgoers to move plays beyond the stage of rehearsal, we can consider how Shakespeare counted on the perceptions of playgoers to help produce meaning” (2-3). Audiences come to understand performances through their own knowledge and lived experiences, and as such, their response to the bodies of actors, as well as to their costumes and the props they used, influenced their interpretation of a play. In this dissertation, I explore the many ways Shakespeare deliberately used specific frameworks, including props and costumes, through which the bodies of characters/actors orient the audience by relying on these perceptions. 5 Andrew Sofer discusses the significance of the actor’s interaction with props at length in his monograph The Stage Life of Props. 12 From Page to Stage and Beyond Although it was the responsibility of the actors to announce the locale, the scene was necessarily built into the text itself. While Shakespeare uses literary and dramatic concepts to orient characters, actors, and audiences within the world of the play, the canon is rife with place-names in order to add another means of orientation. In addition to The Merchant of Venice, other plays pointed to the location in their title, including The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Timon of Athens. Othello is also known as The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. Comedies such as The Taming of the Shrew along with tragedies like Romeo and Juliet span real Italian cities (from the beginning, the Prologue of Romeo and Juliet makes sure audience members are aware that it is “In fair Verona, where we lay our scene” (1.1.2)). The Tempest and most of As You Like It take place in fictional natural landscapes. The rise and downfall of the Roman empire is traced through Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Titus Andronicus, and audiences were also shown snippets of the Trojan War through Troilus and Cressida (which is specified by another location-sensitive prologue: “In Troy there lies the scene” (1.1.1)). These references were necessary to performance, as they acted as a catalyst for imagining different worlds even while looking at the same physical stage. Place and space are woven into the very fabric of the plays themselves, generating layers of meaning within these settings; real and fictional locations often merge with other places such as generic non-specific sites. The characters’ speeches and dialogues bring these places to life on stage. It is within this dynamic process of the production of space that the meaning-making between actors and audiences occurs. To better understand these textual clues about early modern performance spaces, scholars have had to reconstruct the space of the early modern playhouse by analyzing the way it is utilized within play texts and how it is depicted in the few existing illustrations or accounts from 13 playgoers in the early modern period. While some theories about the space of the early modern playhouse have been reinforced or disproven due to archaeological discoveries (such as those of the Rose or the original Globe), scholars and theater practitioners have experimented with “original practices” to try and uncover what the physical limits of the theater can tell us about the plays. Theaters such as Shakespeare’s Globe and the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia have tried to recreate their namesakes and resurrect the practices that would have been used in performing the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries during the early modern period. In the early days of the modern Globe, there was a particular focus on the “laboratory” element of testing out these original practices in a reconstructed theater. This invocation of a more scientific space through the use of the word “laboratory” reinforces misperceptions that scientific research is inherently objective and divorced from feeling, eliminating room for learning from subjective experiences (Carson and Karim-Cooper 4). However, scholars such as Steven Mullaney argue that this language is representative of this work if you provide the caveat that theater has always been a “laboratory for human affect” (81). Early seasons of the Globe featured a number of original-practice performances, and there was an emphasis on recreation as part of the organization’s scholarly mission was “the [reconstructed] building’s ability to silently question assumptions about performance and scholarship [which] was met by a commitment to re-examine those assumptions in order to challenge and change them, in some cases, and to move towards retrenchment in others” (Carson and Karim-Cooper 34). Even as recently as 2012 an all-male production of Twelfth Night, starring Mark Rylance as Olivia, was considered not just a theatrical triumph, but a window into experiencing theater as it had been in Shakespeare’s day. More recently, however, as the theater industry frequently experiments with gender-blind/conscious and color-blind/conscious casting, 14 there have been revelations about the importance of including bodies of diverse races, genders, and abilities in theater spaces to incorporate new perspectives and reflect new meanings back on the text (Carson and Karim-Cooper 34). Sometimes, these practices naturally fall in line with original practices. In stark contrast to the more “traditional” productions, the Globe’s 2018 production of As You Like It engaged in color-blind and gender-blind casting practices. This resulted in a male actor playing the part of Rosalind–which would have been true of the Rosalinds of Shakespeare’s day–and perhaps provided audiences with an opportunity to fully understand and appreciate the tongue-in-cheek nature of “the lady the epilogue.” However, the supporting cast included female actors playing Orlando and Jacques–very non-traditional gender-blind casting choices that do not align with original practices. The identities of the actor are layered onto the character and influence the way space is understood both within the world of the play for that particular production, as well as by the individual members of the audience. This highlights the exact “mimetic tensions” between the performing body of the actor and that of the character they are playing (Traub 13). This dissertation demonstrates how the layering of the bodies of character/actor generates the spatial production of Shakespeare’s plays through interactions with frameworks of literary, theatrical, and monumental space, and thus also generates the audience/reader affective responses to and understanding of those spaces. Chapter Overview In his drama, Shakespeare develops a spatial practice linked to the body of characters/actors and their subjective orientations. This dissertation explores how place and space operate in Shakespeare’s works and legacy through the incorporation of various literary and dramatic modes and frameworks, the deployment of specific performance practices, and in cultural 15 heritage sites linked to the playwright. Every chapter begins with an example of how space operates within the particular topic of that chapter. Then, I set up the theoretical framework for my discussion of literary, dramatic, performance, or memorial space before describing how it applies to a particular text, performance, or place. Chapter 1 explores the production of literary space as it takes shape in the pastoral mode. There has been much scholarly debate about whether Shakespeare was working within the tropes and expectations of the pastoral mode or whether he was disrupting them. I argue that Shakespeare used literary genres such as the pastoral as a framework that would be familiar to audiences and to which characters could selectively relate in order to produce space. I examine how common and familiar elements, including spatial markers of the mode, such as inconsistent geographies, banishment, exile, and shifts in the passage of time, allow for the subjective experience of the characters to shape the production of space in the play. Through the examples of As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale, I explore how Shakespeare’s characters orient and disorient themselves to different locations and events, thus guiding the audience in order to produce a world imbued with meaning. Chapter 2 discusses the way Shakespeare uses metadrama to invoke theatrical space. The playwright deploys metadramatic structures to self-reflexively bridge the gap between literature and stage. Through a kind of metadramatic role-playing, characters subjectively produce public, private, and political spaces. I use close readings of Hamlet and Henry V to demonstrate the way historical space and the political roles of the titular characters nod to a self-awareness in the text that will help orient audiences in the world of the play. The characters in these plays engage with multiple layers of metadrama, from performing specific societal and political roles to making intertextual references and even to acknowledging the real space of the theater. 16 Chapter 3 moves beyond the written text to examine the way space is produced in contemporary Shakespeare performance in our times. Shakespeare’s works are built for the stage and represent the early modern spatial practices of theater. While these contemporary productions replicate some of these practices, the corporeal presence of modern actors–and of their diverse bodies–can disrupt and layer new meanings onto the production of space in the plays. Modern casts are made up of a more diverse group of actors than those that would be available to the early modern stage. The identities these modern actors bring with them to the stage impact the way audiences interpret the play due to evolving cultural understandings of identity politics. In this chapter, I examine Royal Shakespeare Company productions of Othello and Richard III to demonstrate the way audience understandings of modern social space merge with and influence the production of theatrical space. Finally, Chapter 4 analyzes the way Stratford-upon-Avon is produced as a town and how it ties back into Shakespeare’s legacy. Although the plays were not written in Stratford, it has been common practice to use them as a reference point to orient our bodies in that space and to bring together subjective experiences that solidify the town as a space of historical memory dedicated to Shakespeare’s legacy. Through my digital project, the Stratford-upon-Avon Heritage Guide, I use guidebooks to show how subjective narratives around Shakespeare’s birthplace and other cultural heritage sites have evolved and how they attempt to influence the ways bodies interact with these memorial and historical spaces. This mapping and text analysis project explores how Shakespeare’s legacy is constructed spatially through the town and how, despite the locations described remain fundamentally the same across different guidebooks, the stories around heritage sites are continually being reshaped. *** 17 Shakespeare’s use of space has been a popular subject with the return to the spatial turn, but I move from discussions of geography and early modern staging practices to explore the subjective nature of space. While Shakespeare is not the only dramatist to rely on the bodies of characters, actors, and audience to produce space, his spatial practice blurs the lines between literary sources, dramatic performance, and even heritage space. The way we interact with Shakespeare’s works and legacy has shifted the way we view the spaces in his plays, thus influencing the way we interpret contemporary performances as well as how we interact with locations from his biography. We attempt to find Shakespeare in the spaces of his plays, and we attempt to find the plays in the spaces from his life. Regardless, we have created a cyclical loop of reimagining and reinterpreting the spaces of Shakespeare’s plays through our own contemporary lens. Arden is defined by our desire to tie the plays to Shakespeare’s childhood in Warwickshire, or by attempts to determine how he deals with famous pastoral tropes differently than other writers. We view Elsinore and Denmark through Hamlet’s eyes, debating whether or not he’s “acting” mad and how that would change our interpretation of those places. Contemporary performance spaces such as Shakespeare’s Globe have become defined by inclusive practices of color-conscious and gender-conscious casting. Thousands visit Stratford each year in an attempt to find the playwright and his works, and their affective reaction to Shakespeare-related sites have molded and continue to mold the town into a memorial to his life and work. This dissertation explores the way we view the worlds of Shakespeare plays, live performances, and heritage sites subjectively, and how it is only through the bodies of actors and characters that move through and interact with these spaces that we can orient ourselves. 18 CHAPTER 1: PLAYING WITH THE PASTORAL: (DIS)ORIENTATION AND DESERT PLACES IN AS YOU LIKE IT AND THE WINTER’S TALE “Well, this is the Forest of Arden,” proclaims Rosalind, as she and her exhausted companions finally rest after being forced to leave the oppressive and dangerous confines of the French court (2.4.13). Touchstone quickly, and snidely, replies with, “Ay, now am I in Arden, the more fool I! When I was at home I was in a better place, but travellers must be content” (2.4.14-16). Of course, this reaction is understandable. The trio had no choice but to flee to this place, which is a long way from home. Yet, immediately following this comment, the travelers have their first interaction with the local inhabitants of Arden. Following a discussion with the shepherd Corin, Celia–who previously felt discouraged and exhausted from the journey–proclaims “I like this place, / And willingly could waste my time in it” (2.4.91-92). I draw on this scene to demonstrate how the characters’ responses to the designated place in the play enable us to imagine space. In short, given that Shakespeare’s plays take place on a bare stage, it is the characters who construct space in the play by helping the audience to imagine different settings and locations. Characters are constantly moving between places and attempting to situate themselves within different locations. For most characters, the Forest of Arden at first seems like a frightening place, as it is the location of their exile. However, their perception of it is consistently shifting as they navigate their own experiences through a landscape that they describe as pastoral, and which they also imaginatively conjure through their dialogue. Shakespeare represents the pastoral as a means to recreate the places of his plays into spaces where characters can explore their relationship with themselves and their societies through shifting processes of meaning making. The place name “Arden” immediately evokes associations with Warwickshire, the rural setting of Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon. As characters respond and orient themselves to this pastoral world, they enable us (as readers and viewers) to chart the production of space in the play. 19 Before exploring Shakespeare’s use of the pastoral, it is worth examining the complicated history of the pastoral genre in literature more broadly in order to contextualize Shakespeare’s deployment of the mode. Writers made use of the pastoral as early as the third century, and while elements of the mode have evolved, it is still very much recognizable in these early explorations. The Oxford English Dictionary provides several definitions that refer to the literary use of “pastoral,” including “a literary work portraying rural life or the life of shepherds, esp. in an idealized or romantic form,” “a rural and idyllic scene or picture,” or “pastoral poetry as a form or style of literary composition.” The OED provides examples of these definitions from 1584 through 1798, and while these uses of the term “pastoral” seem to originate during the early modern period, the word is often used in reference to those earlier examples of pastoral literature. As an adjective, pastoral is defined as being “of poetry, music, pictures, etc.: portraying rural life or characters, esp. in an idealized or romantic manner; bucolic.” These overlapping definitions have been adapted and reformulated by scholars over the last few centuries, particularly in regard to developing a label that encompasses Shakespeare’s vastly different works featuring rural landscapes, shepherds, and other inhabitants of the countryside, even if these are not the main focus of a particular play. Common tropes of pastoral literature appear throughout Shakespeare’s canon, and he engages with the mode as a framework that allows him to build fictional worlds free from the constraints of a fixed genre or specific, recognizable geographical location. The playwright uses elements of the pastoral in multiple comedies, including Love’s Labours Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, romances like The Tempest or The Winter’s Tale, and even in tragedies like King Lear.6 As You Like It is perhaps the most famous of Shakespeare’s pastoral works, even with its 6 For more on how these plays make use of the pastoral mode, see David Young’s The Heart’s Forest and Thomas McFarland’s Shakespeare’s Pastoral Comedies. 20 controversial history of debate around whether or not the play should be considered a pastoral, anti-pastoral, or something else entirely.7 As You Like It may be the most famous example, but Shakespeare’s use of pastoral motifs and settings rarely fits into any clearly defined category a critic may want to place it. Critics, from Northrop Frye with his formulation of the “green world” to C.L Barber with his exploration of the idea of a “festive comedy,” have tried to grapple with what exactly makes Shakespeare’s brand of pastoral unique. While critics have yet to reach a consensus on where exactly Shakespeare’s work sits within this larger literary tradition, a common theme across these critical explorations is that Shakespeare often seems to invoke the pastoral mode as a framework for his characters to help audiences orient themselves within the worlds of his plays. This chapter explores how characters respond to and interact with the pastoral in both anticipated and unexpected ways to help generate this imagined landscape for the audience. Of course, the pastoral tradition was defined long before Shakespeare ever decided to use it. In fact, the history of the pastoral mode can be traced back to the poetry of Ancient Greece. The poet Theocritus is thought to have invented the mode in his Idylls, the very first of which is a dialogue between a goatherd and shepherd.8 Several of Theocritus’s poems take place in a pastoral setting and feature interactions between rural and rustic characters. This mode is later taken up by other poets, including Virgil and Ovid, who became major influences on early modern writers.9 Since these early writers, the pastoral has been prominent in a variety of literary 7 For more on the conflicting debates about whether or not Shakespeare’s play is truly pastoral and why its classification is contested, see Linda Woodbridge’s essay “Country Matters: As You Like It and the Pastoral-Bashing Impulse.” Woodbridge describes both the critical perceptions of Shakespeare’s work being somehow above the use of pastoral and the view that it meets the requirements for being included within the pastoral mode. 8 For more on the history of Theocritus’s development of the pastoral in literature, see Juliet Dusinberre’s introduction to the Arden As You Like It and Thomas McFarland’s Shakespeare’s Pastoral Comedies. 9 To learn more about how classic pastoral poetry impacted how early modern writers used the pastoral mode, see Juliet Dusinberre’s introduction to the Arden edition of As You Like It. 21 works with my emphasis on English history, particularly as a genre that imagined a space and time outside of the constraints of everyday life highlighting the possibility of leisure; the idea of leisure itself implied freedom from social customs, which enables characters to explore feelings and identities that they repress within the confines of society.10 Although the pastoral as a genre and motif was at first primarily found in classical poetry, the mode began to appear in drama and other literary works in the early modern period. In literary studies today the pastoral is often heavily and specifically associated with Renaissance literature. Following the works of Italian Renaissance writers, Alexander Barclay published his book of Ecologues in the sixteenth century, but Edmund Spenser’s book of poetry, The Shepherdes Calendar, became one of the first hugely popular pastoral works in English.11 Spenser’s contemporaries, including Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and Robert Herrick, used this framework of pastoralism in their poetry. Edmund Spenser later returns to the pastoral mode in The Fairie Queene, perhaps one of the most famous works to emerge from England during the early modern period, reintroducing a shepherd character from his earlier pastoral poetry. There is no question that Shakespeare was consistently exposed to the pastoral mode–and its motifs, locations, themes, and character types–as he was writing his plays, both as used by his contemporaries and probably through a knowledge of classical pastoral works. Yet, Shakespeare’s use of the pastoral in his plays is not always consistent with other, more traditional invocations of the mode in other early modern works, as I examine below. I investigate an unexplored deployment of this genre by Shakespeare, whereby we can witness how pastoral space is produced by characters on a non-realistic bare stage. 10 Michael O’Loughlin discusses the significant relationship between the idea of leisure and the pastoral mode in his book Garlands of Repose. 11 For more on the first English translations of pastoral poetry and the first works of pastoral literature by English authors, see Katherine Little’s Transforming Work: Early Modern Pastoral and Late Medieval Poetry. 22 Studies of the pastoral have been fruitful in scholarship of both early modern literature and Shakespeare, yielding a rich history of criticism that analyzes the way Shakespeare engages with the pastoral tradition. It seems that, as often is the case with Shakespeare, there has been an attempt to analyze what exactly Shakespeare was doing differently than his contemporaries while working within this mode and/or landscape. In Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy, C.L. Barber argues that rather than using the pastoral in a traditionally satiric fashion that mocks reality for failing to be ideal, “Shakespeare goes the other way about: he represents or evokes ideal life, and then makes fun of it because it does not square with life as it ordinarily is” (228-229). Barber highlights how the pastoral represents celebration, and how that facilitates freedom from the constraints of everyday life. David Young also explores what makes Shakespeare’s use of the pastoral stand out when compared against other early modern uses of the mode, claiming that the playwright (along with John Fletcher, his supposed collaborator for his later works) “find[s] much of the comic potential of pastoral in the clash of reality and pleasure principles in a setting where they are supposed to be resolved” (29). Both critics believe that it is Shakespeare’s ability to use the pastoral mode to highlight the disparity between imagined ideals and reality that particularly lends itself to his “green” comedies. There seems to be consensus that at the very least Shakespeare’s use of pastoral is not necessarily “traditional” and, for example, is non- satirical. But what purpose does it serve in its seemingly deliberate imperfect execution? To unpack how Shakespeare uses it, it is critical to establish what the pastoral may have meant for early modern writers and their audiences. Paul Alpers’s What is Pastoral? grapples with this question, suggesting that it is a mode made up of conventions that can intertwine with many genres due to a long history of pastoral intertextuality. Alpers breaks down the main elements that make up the pastoral via his in-depth literary history, discussing everything from 23 the role of shepherds in the mode to how it operates in different literary forms. Of course, this attempt at definition does not fully encompass the pastoral. Alpers explains in the preface that simplistic definitions of the mode were part of the reasoning for writing his book, as there are two major misconceptions he wants to combat: “the first is the view that pastoral is motivated by naive idyllicism; the second is the way modern studies tend to use ‘pastoral’ with ungoverned inclusiveness” (ix). Rather, Alpers believes that “it argues that the central fiction of pastoral-in Burke's terminology, its representative anecdote-is not the Golden Age or idyllic landscapes, but herdsmen and their lives” (x). He does acknowledge, however, that “pastoral is a broad and flexible category that includes, but is not confined to a number of identifiable genres” (44). This flexibility Alpers mentions is explored further in other critical explorations of the pastoral which mark additional attempts to understand what most critics seem to accept of the mutability of pastoral literature, with its attendant possibilities for meaning making about space and place. With an increased turn to ecocriticism in our current moment of climate crisis, monographs such as Ken Hiltner’s What Else Is Pastoral? argue that the “Renaissance pastoral, in addition to sometimes being a figurative mode masking political controversies, is also frequently concerned with literal landscapes, even though it does little to describe them” (2). In this formulation, the presence of the green world is enough to classify a work as pastoral–no shepherds required. In the case of Shakespeare, both Hiltner’s and Alpers’ formulations of the pastoral often seem to be relevant and offer useful insights into how the pastoral genre is used to create both the places and spaces of his fictional worlds. The Forest of Arden is nearly a character in its own right, as is the fraught landscape of Bohemia’s fictionalized shores. On the empty stage, characters’ descriptions of the pastoral landscape often do most of the work of creating scenery in the plays; it is this imagined space in which Shakespeare’s iteration of the 24 mode becomes legible.12 Characters are tasked with both producing space and helping the audience orient within it. In the case of As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale, it is the pastoral mode that offers a familiar framework within which they can create meaning–whether by engaging in its known tropes or by circumventing them. Related to the idea of the pastoral is the formulation of Shakespeare’s “green world,” first described by Northrop Frye in his influential Anatomy of Criticism. The green world, positioned in opposition to the court, encapsulates the motifs of the pastoral. Frye highlights the significance of the movement from the “normal” world to this “green” world and back again, and how this back and forth leads to a mirroring of the changes of seasons within the personal evolutions of characters. In fact, “the green world has analogies, not only to the fertile world of ritual, but to the dream world that we create out of our own desires” (183). The green world is what the characters make of it; the pastoral is their playground.13 It is this idea–that these plays are operating within a “world that we create”—a place of desire that is the focus of this chapter. Shakespeare uses the pastoral mode to facilitate his spatial practice, in which characters produce the spaces of the plays in a way that will be legible to the audience. When writing for the blank (or empty) stage, Shakespeare relied on his characters (and, subsequently, actors) to help build the worlds in his plays and within the minds of his audience to shape how they imagine this world. Characters are constantly orienting and reorienting themselves–and their identities–as they create space, and since the pastoral mode would be familiar to early modern audiences, 12 Andrew Gurr wrote prolifically about the conditions of the Elizabethan stage in Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London, and Peter Brook’s The Empty Space has expanded on this idea and what can qualify as a bare stage for theatre-making. 13 For more on the significance of play and recreation in the pastoral, see McFarland’s Shakespeare's Pastoral Comedies and Michael O’Loughlin’s Garlands of Repose. 25 Shakespeare uses it as a means to define the spaces of the play and telegraph how space should be interpreted in the text. As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale are plays that rely on the traditional elements of the pastoral mode while also circumventing some familiar expectations. In both works, the green spaces are treated as protected and kept separate from the troubles of court. In keeping with the pastoral expectations, these green worlds are spaces of possibility that allow characters to explore their identities, emotions, and desires freely. Within these spaces, characters are presented with the opportunity to live out their version of an idyllic life and explore personal freedoms in a way that would otherwise be impossible. The blank canvas of the pastoral landscape may be the location where the play’s plot unfolds, but it is through the characters that a setting is evoked and transformed into a space of possibility. One key aspect of Henri Lefebvre’s formulation of the production of space is representational space, which “need obey no rules of consistency or cohesiveness” as representational spaces are “redolent with imaginary and symbolic elements” that “have their source in history” (41). Shakespeare incorporates the “imaginary and symbolic elements” of the pastoral mode to produce representational spaces through and for his characters so they can evolve through the course of the play, even while they are constantly orienting and re-orienting themselves—both physically and emotionally—within these spaces. Shakespeare does not only use the pastoral as a static backdrop, a setting, or a mode. Rather, he also uses it as a means for characters to illuminate their own circumstances based on how they produce space through their interactions with the places they occupy. The reason so much debate stems from Shakespeare’s use of the pastoral is because it necessarily shifts to meet the needs of the bodies within the spaces independent of each play: “representational space is 26 alive…it embraces the loci of passion, of action and of lived situations, and thus immediately implies time. Consequently, it may be qualified in various ways: it may be directional, situational or relational, because it is essentially qualitative, fluid and dynamic” (Lefebvre 42). Since the space in these plays relies purely on linguistic representational formations, it is up to the characters to imaginatively create these spaces in order to contribute to spatial production. Thus, Shakespeare’s pastoral landscapes are shaped and reshaped to fit the needs of the characters within them–they are “situational,” “relational,” and “fluid and dynamic.” As the characters live in these places labeled the Forest of Arden or Bohemia, they produce space around them that is constantly being oriented and reoriented through these characters’ lived experiences. We can be disoriented in our understandings of locations and place names will be oriented through the same fluidity that permits this disorientation. (Dis)orientating Geographies Shakespeare’s canon is known for the large swath of geographic space that it spans. The plays take audiences everywhere from England to mainland Europe, to Mediterranean islands, to Egypt, and beyond. Regardless of how space is constructed in the plays, the geographic places– often identified with place names–that are invoked would probably have been recognizable to audiences in his time as well as today. Shakespeare’s use–and misuse–of geography is a subject that has been frequently taken up in Shakespeare studies. A recent renewal of interest in the spatial turn in the field of early modern studies has inspired a revival in intense analysis of geographical space in Shakespeare’s plays. In an early work, Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference, John Gillies explores the ways in which “Shakespeare’s geographic imagination is informed by a rich geographic tradition which is already moralized, already inherently ‘poetic’ in the sense of being alive with human and dramaturgical meaning: specifically, with the meaning 27 of human difference” (4). Julie Sanders looks more broadly at early modern English drama in her exploration of cultural geographies, arguing that drama was one of the key means by which early modern English society strove to make sense of space and that attending not only to the spaces and places represented in plays written both for household and commercial performances but also to the agency those representations held in contemporary society in terms of what Henri Lefebvre termed the ‘production of space’ can be a fruitful exercise. (9) No matter how geography is being defined, it always comes back to the way that characters are inhabiting, understanding, and imagining these geographies. Shakespeare was not the only playwright trying to use places both real and recognizable to his audiences in order to make meaning—it was a foundational trait of early modern drama. By engaging in a practice of place- naming, by which playwrights would name far-off locations despite the world of the play typically mapping onto locations of Elizabethan England, often London (although the history plays name a variety of English locations), Shakespeare was able to tell stories immediately relevant to his audiences even though he rarely set his plays in England. Although Shakespeare’s inventive use of geographies has been theorized as everything from a lack of knowledge to a lack of care about accuracy, there seems to be a distinct pattern in his reimagining–and reconfiguring–of real, geographically definable places. One common example can be found in many of Shakespeare’s plays that are set in places such as Italy or Vienna but can be mapped quite easily onto early modern London. Or, in the case of many of the comedies, characters venture into a countryside of fields and forest that is geographically reminiscent of early modern Warwickshire. Even in the history plays, named English locations are sometimes described as other places in England.14 Geographic disorientation is integral to 14 Ralph Berry discusses some of the ways Shakespeare would interchange famous English heritage sites, such as using descriptions of Haddon Hall for Flint Castle in Richard II, in his introduction to Shakespeare’s Settings and a Sense of Place, pp. xi-xvi. 28 many of Shakespeare’s plays, in part because it ultimately helps to orient audiences by making an unfamiliar place a space reminiscent of ones they are familiar with. The complex relationship between orientation and disorientation, as Sara Ahmed argues in Queer Phenomenology, is critical in formulating an understanding of how one becomes oriented in space: In order to become orientated, you might suppose that we must first experience disorientation. When we are orientated, we might not even notice that we are orientated: we might not even think ‘to think’ about this point. When we experience disorientation, we might notice orientation as something we do not have. After all, concepts often reveal themselves as things to think ‘with’ when they fail to be translated into being or action. (5-6) These places become significant through the fact that their anachronistic geographies are disorientating. Characters are often at the mercy of anachronisms in time or space to spark or complicate moments of recognition in the audience. Shakespeare scrambles his geographic narratives in his plays to intentionally instigate feelings of disorientation, keeping with his general self-reflexive approach to drama. Thus, audiences (following the characters) are forced to reconsider how they orient themselves within the play because they are deliberately disoriented by a suspiciously English-seeming France, or perhaps by a coastal Bohemia. Banished to Desert Places It is not just Shakespeare’s use of geography–with its disjunct associations with ‘real’ places– that can produce spaces via the disorientations of characters. Often, characters find themselves in situations where they are disoriented due to exclusion from a place which they previously occupied. Banishment is a punishment that occurs in several of Shakespeare’s plays, and it seems to transcend genre. Banishment heightens our awareness of the production of spaces as the characters try to find their emotional and spatial bearings in a new location. Romeo is banished from Verona in the tragedy Romeo and Juliet, while Henry Bolingbroke is banished in the history play Richard II. In both As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale (a comedy and romance, 29 respectively), characters find themselves banished from places they previously considered the safe confines of the court. Due to a mix of elements, including political and familial conflict, characters are sent away to “uncivilized” places. Barber, Frye, and Young identify this departure from court life through banishment as a crucial element of the pastoral mode. Without the comparison to the court they have left behind, the way characters imagine and create space in the location of their exile loses meaning. Young writes that several of Shakespeare’s plays, “have precisely in common a story concerned with the exile of some of its central characters into a natural setting, their sojourn in that setting, and their eventual return. All…exhibit, moreover, the themes which had become attached to this structural pattern in earlier pastoral writings” (27). Space is defined by who is allowed into certain places, typically identified by place-naming, who is excluded, and where those who are not allowed congregate. In both plays, characters specifically find themselves in what at first seem to be anxiety-inducing “desert places.” Although a desert is “now conceived as a desolate, barren region, waterless and treeless,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary this term was “formerly applied more widely to any wild, uninhabited region, including forest-land.” As Shakespeare’s characters find themselves in these “wild, uninhabited region[s],” such as in As You Like It, they quickly discover that these places are not quite as desert-like as they first appear. As they spend more time there, these places quickly transform into spaces of freedom that allow them to explore elements of themselves that were not possible while contained within the structure of the court. Let us now turn to banishment both as a theme and as a plot device. While it may seem like an unfathomable punishment to the audiences of today, Shakespeare’s contemporaries would have been very familiar with the concept. In Shakespeare’s Drama of Exile, Jane Kingsley-Smith explains: 30 While there remains no evidence to suggest that Shakespeare was forced to leave Stratford, recent historicist studies of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage have resulted in a kind of displacement of the dramatist and his canon which might be likened to banishment…if Shakespeare did not feel himself to be an exile, he occupied a space which is positively liminal in contrast with the centrality he now enjoys. (5) Banishment is a key feature in both As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale, and this stems from the important role banishment plays in the pastoral mode. “Exile recurs across the generic landscape,” but in particular regard to “pastoral comedy, it provides a motive for wandering which leads to the reconciliation of lovers, siblings, parents and children” (Kingsley-Smith 2). The characters of the court must be forced to leave their home in order for them all to be united upon return. The Orienting Influence of Time Throughout both plays, the displacement of characters from the world of the court to pastoral places is initially disorienting for both them and the audience. Yet, as time passes, a process of re-orientation occurs. Furthermore, these plays prove that within Shakespeare’s spatial practice, the production of space is inseparable from representations of time. Within the worlds of both As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale, “bodies become orientated by how they take up time and space” (Ahmed 5; emphasis added). As much as Shakespeare disorients his characters and audiences within space, he is very aware of how time can help reel them back in or accentuate their movement between different locations. Particularly in regard to pastoral time, time influences how characters navigate green space more leisurely. When discussing the production of space in the medieval period, Lefebvre argues that “Time was not separated from space; rather it oriented space…Time was punctuated by festivals – which were celebrated in space. These occasions had both imaginary (or mythical) and real (or practical) ‘objects’, all of which would appear, rise, fall, disappear, and reappear” (267-269). Thus, Shakespeare’s “festive comedies,” 31 for instance, were shaped by the cyclical time of festivals. It is time that is an important feature of Shakespeare’s pastoral landscapes, oriented around and orienting (and disorienting) the bodies in the space of these imaginary locations. To elaborate, David Young argues that time, rather than merely being an orienting factor, is in fact a key element of the pastoral that cannot be divorced from the experience of space. For the characters from the court experiencing this new way of life, albeit temporarily, the pastoral seems outside of time and space and offers a kind of freedom from the constraints of normal society. Young argues, Pastoral was about rustic life, but it was not for rustics. The man who wrote it might pose as a shepherd, but everyone knew he was not. Arcadia, or its equivalent, was always elsewhere–often in time as well as space. Pastoral offered an alternative to the complex, hectic, urban present, but it was an imaginary alternative. (27) The pastoral landscape of Shakespeare’s plays marks a shift in both time and space. The alternative mentioned by Young is one that stems from both the rules and restrictions that shape the space of court as well as the strictly scheduled and organized structure of the time spent there. Pastoral spaces thus allow characters to experience time in new, less structured and repressive ways through their subjective experiences, and this influences the ways in which they produce the green world around them. “Under the greenwood tree:” The Production of Pastoral Space in As You Like It As You Like It focuses heavily on the dichotomy between court spaces and forest spaces, but it begins in a private garden with a discussion between Orlando and Adam. Their conversation provides an important context and exposition about what occurred before the start of the action; however, they quickly leave when Oliver arrives and behaves threateningly toward them. What follows is a conversation between Oliver and Charles that gives the audience a preview of the 32 most significant space in the play. Charles reveals that the Duke has been exiled, and has taken residence in the forest of Arden: They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world. (1.1.113- 118) In a few short lines, the setting for Act 2 through Act 5 is defined in a way that would be immediately accessible to early modern audiences, despite the characters not even visiting this place on stage. First and foremost, the place name “Arden” is loaded with meaning–while the play takes place in France and there was a forest of Arden there, another forest of Arden was also located in Warwickshire near Shakespeare’s hometown.15 As You Like It’s primary source, Thomas Lodges’ Rosalynde, is unquestionably a pastoral romance.16 There is also little doubt that Shakespeare drew from this source as his inspiration for the play—in addition to the titular character, this text features Rosalynde and her cousin departing to the forest and taking up the mantle of Ganymede and Aliena, respectively. Additionally, the setting is undoubtedly a French pastoral setting, as Lodge writes: “to TORISMOND the King of France, who hauing by force banished GERSIMOND their lawfull King that liued as an outlaw in the Forrest of Arden, sought now by all meanes to keepe the French busied with all sportes that might breed their content.” In a single sentence, France, Arden, and the French King are all unquestionably linked. Yet, in Shakespeare’s play, there is merely one quick reference that would explicitly define the setting as French. In the first act, 15 See Juliet Dusinberre’s introduction to As You Like It for more on the connection between the Forest of Arden in the play, the Forest of Arden in Warwickshire, and Robin Hood’s cultural legacy. 16 Lodge’s prose work Rosalynde was published in 1590 and tells the tale of Rosader and his brothers as well as of Rosalynde and her cousin Alinda. These find themselves banished to the French Forest of Ardenne where they become preoccupied with the lives of shepherds and Rosader and Rosalynde (as Ganymede) fall in love. Although As You Like It was not published until the creation of the 1623 First Folio, it is believed that the play was written around 1599–approximately nine years after Lodge’s publication. 33 Oliver says “I’ll tell thee / Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France…” (1.1.139- 140). Thus, by associating the story of Robin Hood–an iconic English legend even in Shakespeare’s day–with the forest and aligning this space with the mythology of the merry men and “the golden world,” the forest is being telegraphed as not only a positive space despite multiple characters' initial impression following their exile, but also as English.17 Thus, space is anachronistically produced in terms of two different place names—England and France. From the very beginning, the forest is defined not merely as a pastoral landscape, namely as a backdrop, but by the bodies that are occupying and interacting with it. This sparks recognition and meaning in the audience through important cultural references and makes this place more concretely identifiable as English rather than French. The source material also shares many of the same plot beats, from the wrestling match at court to the carving of poetry into the trees: “for here in these trees be ingrauen certaine verses of shepheards, or some other swaines that inhabite here about…. they found carued in the barke of a Pine tree this passion” (Lodge). In fact, this exact scene is used to demonstrate how Orlando’s feelings toward the forest are not fixed, and how whatever emotion he feels strongest at any given time seems to guide how he interacts with the forest, and in turn how the forest defines his love relationship within the pastoral conventions. This dynamic clearly emerges in the scene below: Rosalind, these trees shall be my books, And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character, That every eye which in this forest looks Shall see thy virtue witnessed everywhere. (3.2.5-8) 17 See Thomas McFarland’s Shakespeare’s Pastoral Comedies for more on the anthropological idea of the “Golden World.” 34 The forest is now a space in and through which he can freely express his love, and it does not need to be hidden from “every eye” as it did when they were still within the environment of the court. Yet, the fact that Orlando even needs these “books” demonstrates that he carries on some preconceptions from his life at court, and that the physical place of Arden is re-configured by Orlando shaping it into an idyllic space for his love to occupy. Orlando’s actions highlight a tension between art and nature–and space and time–that commonly appears in the pastoral, as his upbringing at court compels him to intervene as “education, altering, improving, grafting” as conventionally taken as ‘good’” (Colie 267). The audience can recognize how the fluidity of these emotions shapes space for multiple characters in the play. Rosalind and Celia alter their appearance rather than nature, although Rosalind’s self-expression through taking on the mantle of Ganymede would most likely be considered unnatural. Celia shapes herself into the shepherdess Aliena, and she also eventually finds that she does not feel out of place in the woods. While the play takes after its source material so closely, which is undoubtedly firmly rooted in the pastoral tradition, the classification of Shakespeare’s play as a pastoral is constantly being reconfigured and even debated through its productions of space, often with an emphasis on temporality. Throughout the play, most of the main characters are slowly banished to the Forest of Arden from the confines of the court. Variations on the word “banish” appear twelve times throughout the text, largely occurring in the first act of the play. Exclusion from the court seems to be the primary marker of place and space. Early on, Charles shares the “old news” from the court with Orlando, explaining for the audience’s benefit that “the old Duke is banished by his younger brother the new Duke; and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new Duke; therefore he gives them good 35 leave to wander” (1.1.95-99). A group from court has left, and it seems they have started a new society elsewhere. The Duke is the only person banished, yet loyal followers join him in his exclusion from court. Immediately, this changes the framework for how this banishment operates–enough members of the court have accompanied the Duke to help shape the new place into a space that suits their wants and needs. This initial portrayal of the forest as a place of exile as punishment, then one of refuge, for these characters evokes nature as a framework for creating a space that lacks rules. It thus transforms the negative associations with “banishment” into a representational space that allows for fluid identities and emotions that are facilitated via the natural world. The word banishment is used twelve times in the play, and exile thirteen, all in relation to Arden. The play is occupied with “place”–mentioned sixteen times–and with who belongs in a place and who does not, and whether these categories are fixed for both the characters and the audience’s perception. Characters are given instructions to “leave this place” or “show me the place,” while also making observations such as “this is no place” or “I was in a better place.” These references primarily occur in the first two acts, and they slowly disappear as each character begins to transform place–signified by the name of the Forest of Arden–into the space that suits their needs and desires. As each character expresses their own subjective view of the forest, their representations begin to give concrete form to Arden as a physical place once they begin to shape it into their needs–whether they mark the trees with love poetry or hunt its inhabitants for food. Despite these moments that reinforce the sense of Arden as a physical and tangible place, the perspective of the characters transforms throughout the course of the play and dictates how they orient themselves to their environment and thus perceive it as a distinct space. For instance, when the audience is first introduced to Duke Senior, he perpetuates the golden description of 36 Arden from the opening scene. Although the Duke recognizes the hardships that confront his group as they begin a new life in the wilderness, he ultimately attempts to convince them that this new life is much better than living within the strict confines of the court: Now, my comates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? (2.1.1-4) Here, Shakespeare is specifically highlighting the division between the “painted pomp” of the court and a “life more sweet” that Duke has found in “these woods.” From the exiled Duke’s perspective, the forest is a place that allows his men to live freely. Within the text, it is not revealed if the Duke always felt this way about his banishment from court. This plays into the most common trope of the pastoral mode; it seems that only by entering into the unfettered freedom of the unstructured green world can everything that has been disoriented in court structures return to how it was meant to be in nature (though the final reconciliations and corrections can only occur after the constraints of the court are removed). Through the paths of the various characters’ interactions with the pastoral landscape, the reader/audience is permitted to see how a character’s perspective of a space might shift along with their experiences. By act 2, it is not just the exiled Duke and his companions that occupy Arden. By the time the audience is introduced to the Duke and his company, all of the main characters have found themselves to have fallen on hard times and are wandering in the forest. As he continues his speech that serves as his introduction, Duke Senior establishes the differences between court and forest life, the latter of which allows a “life, exempt from public haunt” (2.1.15). Despite the Duke painting their situation in a positive light, he emphasizes the solitude of their banishment. He asks his men: Come, shall we go and kill us venison? 37 And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should, in their own confines, with forked heads Have their round haunches gor'd. (2.1.21-25) While the Duke and his men are now “free from peril,” the same cannot be said for “the native burghers of this desert city” as they are violently intruding into this natural green world. This comment not only highlights just how isolated the Duke feels from the bustle of court life, but also emphasizes the ways they are imposing their own ways onto this new place. The Duke defines the Forest in terms of the life he was previously tied to. Perhaps, this statement also suggests how the Duke feels about his treatment at the hands of his brother. His awareness of how he treats the inhabitants of the forest also reflects on his own rule at court and suggests that he is not quite as consumed by the pastoral lifestyle as he insists. Although the narrative continues on to describe the melancholy Jaques’s similar feelings of regret in the killing of the deer, at the very least this passage does the interesting work of centering the Duke and his men as the sole inhabitants of the Forest, with the only other citizens being the native wildlife. Yet, it is quickly revealed that this assessment is untrue. Later in the same act, when Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone have wandered as far as they can into the Forest, they almost immediately encounter Corin and Silvius. Similar to her father, Rosalind is preoccupied with the “desert” nature of Arden. As Ganymede, she instructs Corin “I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold / Can in this desert place buy entertainment, / Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed” (2.4.71-73) Once more, the landscape is being defined by its difference from the court, but despite their perception of the forest as a “desert” place they are almost immediately able to purchase a cottage, as Corin explains of his master that “Besides, his cote, his flocks, and bounds of feed / Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now” (2.4.83-84). They may have left the court behind, but they certainly did not leave behind their 38 money, and so are able to reinstate themselves in a position of power above Corin and his companions almost immediately. The desert implies a barren or abandoned place, which is obviously not the case in the forest, and this becomes apparent as soon as the characters from court begin to reshape this location into something more palatable for them. Regardless, it is this request for assistance in locating shelter that provides Corin with the opportunity to set up the pastoral themes (even if they do not perfectly align with those described in the first section of this chapter), and challenge the perception that the Forest is a place that is unsuitable or unable to fulfill the needs of these characters. It is not long before Orlando and Adam also arrive in the Forest of Arden, and they too are preoccupied with the wild nature of where they find themselves. As Adam’s health wanes, Orlando tells him “Come, I will bear thee to some shelter; / and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner, if there live / anything in this desert” (2.6.15-17). Once again, the scene highlights the seeming solitude of the forest, which is ironically now occupied by a good number of members of the former court. In just the next act, Orlando comes upon Duke Senior and his allies, and although he approaches violently due to his preconceptions that everything and everyone in Arden must be “savage,” he is met with kindness. He finds it unfathomable that in a “dessert inaccessible” he might meet such “civilized” people, and he asks: Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you; I thought that all things had been savage here, And therefore put I on the countenance Of stern commandment. (2.7.107-110) This moment of savagery, different from other such vicious moments instigated by the forest wildlife as relayed in Oliver’s reporting of the attack of the serpent and the lion in act 4 scene 3, seems to mark a shift in Orlando’s attitude toward the location of his banishment. He seems to view the more positively if a group like the Duke and his followers inhabits it, seemingly only 39 willing to accept a version of the pastoral that is defined by the civilities of the court he left behind. The space is being defined by those who operate within it, and in Orlando’s case, he can only embrace the green world when it is mediated by culture. The audience sees these characters on the bare stage, perhaps with props, but it is largely through their conversation and verbal cues that these characters convey a sense of place being shaped into space through their shifting responses to it. Although a significant amount of scholarship argues that Shakespeare’s approach to the pastoral genre is more than just writing about shepherds, he nonetheless invokes a shepherd figure–a signature motif–in act 2 scene 4 to help introduce the landscape of Arden. Prior to Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone’s arrival in the forest, accounts of this key setting for the play were limited to second-hand retellings or by banished members of the court. The first moment that seems to invoke the conventional images of pastoral life is the introduction of Corin and Silvius in the second act. Corin, a shepherd, is an insert of one of the key traits of pastoral literature, and he invites the audience into this traditional formulation of Arden by describing his life in the Forest when responding to Rosalind’s request for shelter: But I am a shepherd to another man And do not shear the fleeces that I graze. My master is of churlish disposition And little recks to find the way to heaven By doing deeds of hospitality. Besides, his cote, his flocks and bounds of feed Are now on sale, and at our sheep one now, By reason of his absence, there is nothing That you will feed on. But what is, come see, And in my voice most welcome shall you be. (2.4.78-87) This passage summarizes the stark materiality of pastoral life; Corin is “shepherd to another man” and subject to his master and not in charge of the cottage or the sheep he tends. However, Corin is not just describing the current state of his life; rather, he is inviting the newcomers into 40 that life as well. This list in part offers a catalog of pastoral symbols in order to include the audience in this representational space dependent on known historical references and symbols. On a bare stage, there is no visual cue to this transition from court to countryside. Shakespeare invokes references to the pastoral knowing it is a mode that his audience would be familiar with, and while the stage may be empty other than the actors and some props, the audience is thus able to conjure a mental landscape based on these verbal cues provided by Corin. By introducing elements of money and hierarchy into the framework, he simultaneously creates a moment of disorientation for the forest denizens that demonstrates how Arden will be different. It is not an idyllic green world, but one tainted by the imperatives of monetary accumulations. This moment of invitation is also significant because it allows Rosalind and her companions to engage with the setting outside the court where they have found their new, albeit temporary, home. This allows the rest of the play to focus on emphasizing the distinctions between court and country, a theme that started with Duke Senior in act 2 scene 1 and soon extended to all of the play’s main characters. It is in this landscape that they are allowed to create a space of their own to explore the aspects of their identities that were stifled in the court. Even with the introduction of the shepherd characters, the focus remains on the outsiders from the court. The newcomers do not indicate any sort of enthrallment with the lives of shepherds, and they do not seem interested in learning anything from them. They primarily interact with each other throughout the play; with Rosalind and even Touchstone, the fool and lowest member of court present in Arden, insulting characters from the country that they perceive as unintelligent.18 Despite the potential prejudice of those from the court, Corin invites Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone into Young’s “imaginary alternative.” There they are able to explore a life free of 18 See Rosalind’s treatment of Phoebe in act 3 scene 5 or Touchstone’s treatment of William in act 5 scene 1. 41 society’s structure and engage in ways of navigating the world that would otherwise be inaccessible to them, such as by disguising their courtly identities and participating in the production of a representational space. The wood is repeatedly placed in juxtaposition to the rigid structures and mores of the court as Arden is represented as a place that is at the mercy of the subjective experiences of those occupying it. The dichotomy of court versus forest spaces is a common theme in early modern drama and is also highlighted in other Shakespeare plays such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In this play, however, once the characters leave the court they never return (although a return is hinted at in the end). The two spaces are portrayed as very distinct. In the beginning of act 3, Touchstone instigates a conversation that focuses on how it is the behaviors of those within these spaces that orients them not only within the place but in relationship to others: TOUCHSTONE: Why, if thou never wast at court thou never sawst good manners; if thou never sawst good manners then thy manners must be wicked, and wickedness is sin and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd. CORIN: Not a wit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not at the court but you kiss your hands. That courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds. (3.1.38-48)19 While this conversation is primarily humorous repartee, it raises a good point: behaviors are subjective, and depending on the place/space one is located in, the suitability of these behaviors may shift. Court rituals are not necessarily meaningful in the countryside, and as such a person from the court would not be able to use these same behaviors to orient themselves in the forest. While the pastoral setting may provide characters more space to let their imaginations run wild and loosen constraints on their identities, it also implies that the original identities were part of the artifice of court life, molded to fit within its existing structures. There is an artificiality of the 19 There is an extensive critical history that analyzes the debate of country versus city, as represented in this conversation. For more on this history, see Juliet Dusinberre’s introduction to the Arden edition of the play. 42 court that is apparent to Corin even if it is not to the other characters.20 This artificiality is further emphasized by the fact that in the empty space of the theater, both court and country are variously evoked and produced on the same stage. At this moment, there is just as much mockery of the court as there is of the country. Neither is perfectly ideal for every person, and in either situation the audience is reminded that it is the character’s subjective experience that defines these places for them. Young points to the pastoral as an “imaginary alternative” to highlight an artificiality in the pastoral. As presented by Shakespeare, the pastoral is just a temporary stop over for the characters before the inevitable return to the court. Since the pastoral is located in this imaginary space, its use is subjective–each character uses whichever elements of the mode best suit their ideal story. For Rosalind, the forest becomes the place where she can play her love games and transform Orlando into her ideal lover through wooing lessons: “I would cure you if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my cote and woo me” (3.2.411-412). For Touchstone, it is somewhere he can poke fun at the rustic lifestyle. The Forest of Arden is a space representing subjective experiences that offer reprieve from the supposedly real life of the court, which is itself a world of artifice (similar to the very space of the theatre where audiences would be watching this story unfold). Particularly in regard to As You Like It, Young proposes that “[t]he forest is constant in its imaginary character and changeable in each contact with a separate imagination. The essential subjectivity of pastoral thus emerges with considerable force” (50). Every individual character’s subjective use of and response to the pastoral cues within the play produces its own version of space within Arden. But just because their experiences are subjective, does that make the place any less real? 20 For more on artificiality in the pastoral, see Rose’s Shakespearean Design and Young’s The Heart’s Forest. 43 To further understand the characters’ creation of space and place in the Forest of Arden, it is useful to recognize how As You Like It dramatizes the passage of time to help anchor the green world in a temporal frame, even as they imaginatively manipulate the space of the forest. Shortly after the audience learns of Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone’s arrival in Arden, Orlando and Adam flee into the forest in order to save the former from his brother’s wrath. Similar to the other travelers, at first the pair has a negative view of the forest. Orlando describes Arden as an “uncouth forest,” and when he meets the Duke and his company he explains that “under the shade of melancholy boughs, / lose and neglect the creeping hours of time…” (2.6 7, 2.7.111- 113). Due to the circumstances of his entry into the forest, Orlando cannot help but view it in a negative light. He has been forced into this place, and he cannot separate the negative feelings of his brother’s betrayal and Adam’s ill health from his new home. Although he is disoriented by the space of the forest, he recognizes that this place has the potential to make one lose themself in time as well. Since time is the establishing factor, the consciousness of time imbues the characters’ reactions to the pastoral landscape; losing one’s sense of time can be catastrophic. It is not until he embraces the possibilities of re-imagining his identity and sensibility, enabled by the elements of the green world, that Orlando can begin to accept losing himself in the reprieve of the pastoral landscape. If Orlando’s attitude toward the forest was shifting in the second act, by the third his view of the forest is firmly changed from one of Arden as merely the landscape of his banishment to a space that facilitates his romantic feelings toward Rosalind. Celia reads from the poetry he writes for Rosalind, and his poem inquires, “Why should this a desert be? / For it is unpeopled? No; / Tongues I’ll hang on every tree / That shall civil sayings show…” (3.2.123-126). Although this poem seems to perpetuate the misconception that the forest is devoid of inhabitants, Orlando’s 44 love for Rosalind has completely shifted his view of the site of his exile; he has cultivated nature through his art to have the forest speak for him. While Arden allows for a freedom of self- expression that he did not have in court, he still relies on its modes of meaning-making; his artistic renderings of the “tongues [he]’ll hang on every tree” use nature to depict his feelings. However, it seems that he is arguing that these “civil sayings,” fueled by his love for Rosalind, are the forces instigating change in how the forest should be perceived. Their love is civilizing Arden, but in a way that differs from the society of the court–it is the people in the forest recreating it as a space for love and desire rather than one merely of exile and despair.21 Rosalind would never be able to launch her charade as Ganymede to help Orlando learn how to woo while still at court. But, in Arden, she is able to bring the elements she has learned in courtly society and embraces images such as that of Ganymede that can help her orient herself and her desire for Orlando within the forest: “if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my cote and woo me…Go with me to it and I’ll show it you; and by the way you shall tell me where in the forest you live” (3.2.412-416). . The rules and restrictions of the court may no longer apply, and these characters begin to shape space to mold to their desires. Orlando seems to have forgotten this fear by the next act. As he becomes more comfortable in his relationship with the space of the forest, he no longer seems as concerned with the passage of time. In fact, perhaps what is the most in-depth exploration of time within the play comes in the form of banter between Rosalind and Orlando as she performs as Ganymede in their lessons on wooing. Orlando mentions on his entrance, “You should ask me what time o’ day; there’s no clock in the forest” (3.2.295-296). Within this disorienting pastoral landscape, where he is free to do whatever he pleases, Orlando’s view on time has shifted. He is making almost the 21 Of course, with Rosalind dressed as Ganymede the forest facilitates homoerotic love in particular. For more on homoeroticism in As You Like It, see Juliet Dusineberre’s introduction to the Arden edition of the play. 45 same statement about the passing of time as before, but his perspective has shifted from viewing the lack of awareness of time in the forest as a kind of “neglect” to a kind of freedom. However, this opinion is not necessarily shared by others. Rosalind is quick to explicate on the subjectivity of time as she responds, “Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a clock” (3.2.297-299). She argues that time is ever present in this green world, particularly with the presence of lovers there to reinforce its movement forward. Like space, in this green world, time is produced by the bodies trapped within its natural landscapes. Orlando is seemingly intrigued by this response, and the pair begin to banter back and forth. It seems that in Rosalind’s formulation, time may be marked as fixed, but what makes it significant is how it is perceived and reacted to: ORLANDO And why not the swift foot of time? Had not that been as proper? ROSALIND By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I’ll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal. ORLANDO I prithee, who doth he trot withal? ROSALIND Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized. If the interim be but a se’nnight, time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year. ORLANDO Who ambles time withal? ROSALIND With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain—the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury. These time ambles withal. ORLANDO Who doth he gallop withal? ROSALIND With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. ORLANDO Who stays it still withal? ROSALIND With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves. (3.2.300-326) Rosalind argues that “Time travels in divers paces with divers persons”—essentially, that time means something different depending on how an individual person experiences it. While time 46 may be an orientating factor due to its fixity, that does not mean everyone experiences it the same. Like Orlando, as Rosalind participates in her wooing games as Ganymede, she most likely agrees with the lover’s perception of time, which is probably the time experienced by most of the characters living out their fantasies in Arden. This helps to emphasize that even if the experience is subjective, that does not make it any less real. Unlike the court, the forest is a world without clocks where time does not carry demands. The lovers’ emotional experience gives structure to their sense of time in the green world. Here, spatial and temporal elements intertwined to give a unique perspective on the natural world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jaques is the outlier when it comes to his perception of time. As he was with his very pragmatic view of space, Jaques likewise has a more cohesive view of time.22 In perhaps the most famous speech from the play, he articulates just how inexorable time really is. And, like Time in The Winter’s Tale, there is a metatheatrical spin to this monologue: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages (2.7.140-144) Regardless of how individuals perceive time passing, it is still moving steadily forward through the different stages of life. Yet, in theatrical terms, Jaques is hinting here at the inevitability of time passing as something to worry about. He indicates that there is a subjective element to time–it is up to us how we play the roles assigned to us in the different stages of life. Namely, he asks, what do we do with time? This would be more aligned with Rosalind’s view and seemingly is more conducive to the way time passes within the pastoral world of Arden. However, the way 22 As Juliet Dusinberre explains in her introduction to the Arden edition of the play, “Jaques is a dissident in Shakespeare’s play; a man susceptible neither to the pastoral world nor to the delights of love and marriage, an observer not a participator, the odd man out at a party” (107). 47 Jaques is positioned in the texts seems to indicate that he might align himself with a perspective different from that of the other characters–one that does not allow a flexibility of perspective and emotions. Out of both plays, the only character to permanently eschew court life in favor of the pastoral landscape is the melancholy Jaques.23 Although many of the characters seem to be happier and freer in the forest, it is still subjective–even in the end, Jaques cannot help but be melancholy even though he chooses to stay in the forest. Yet, this seems contradictory to his attitude earlier in the play. Before the audience ever sees Jaques, the Duke’s company discusses how he is “the melancholy Jaques,” and upon his first interest he is invested in a song that “will [make] him more melancholy,” which he embraces: “More, I prithee, more. I can suck / melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs” (2.5.9-11). Jaques poses a problem for the Duke and his supporters, who in his first scene cannot understand why Jaques is unsatisfied with their new life in the forest: DUKE SENIOR …this our life exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones and good in every thing. AMIENS I would not change it. (2.1.15-18) The Duke seems to believe that, despite the comforts they were used to in life at the court, he and his followers can be perfectly content in the forest. However, his references to tongues, books, and sermons demonstrate that he is still trying to find the positive elements of court life in this new and unfamiliar place.24 The opposite problem occurs at the end of the play, when the Duke 23 This excludes Duke Frederick, who “was converted / Both from his enterprise and from the world” off-stage (5.4.159-160). 24 This moment also seems to highlight the Renaissance juxtaposition of art versus nature and the debate of whether or not the two can exist together. In Shakespeare and the Natural World, Tom MacFaul explains how “there is in most of Shakespeare’s works a real anxiety about the relationship of art to nature; and Shakespeare offers us patterns (whether providential or nihilistic) for understanding the world and refuses to let human experience be reduced to such patterns, even as he accepts the tragic nature of human need for such patterns…neither art nor nature is sufficient on its own: there must be a dynamic relationship between them” (29) 48 feels he can recreate the positive life they have created in Arden and transplant it back into the world of the court while Jaques ultimately chooses to remain behind. This is not just a problem for the Duke, however. Jaques poses a fundamental problem to the pastoral formulation of the play; scholars and critics have tried to define what his presence in the forest at the end of the play means for Shakespeare’s use of the mode. In particular, Michael O’Loughlin describes in Garlands of Repose how Jaques’s “farewell to the company is a veritable catalogue of the larger contexts of leisure, religious, civic, and amorous” (286). In doing this, Jacques highlights how even though each of these characters attempted to produce their own subjective versions of the forest free from the constraints of the court, their created worlds still included known and accepted elements of “leisure.” While the others are caught up in their own green worlds, Jaques exists as an observer able to see exactly what is going on. Early on, the play demonstrates a consciousness about the impact the Forest’s new occupants have on the landscape. In the first scene in which the audience gets to see Duke Senior and his men rather than just hearing accounts of the group, they are engaged in a discussion regarding the differences between their life in the court and their new found life in Arden. The Duke and his men seem to be content with the way their life in the forest is shaping up. Jacques is introduced and presented as the outlier in this band: he is more concerned with their impact on the environment rather than how they can shape Arden to better suit their needs (and desires). While the others have attempted to force art and culture into the forest as they were unable to completely divorce their relationship to the court from their experience of the pastoral, Jacques makes a valiant effort to maintain a separation between nature and culture. One of Duke Senior’s lords discusses the melancholy Jaques, claiming that Thus most inventively he pierceth through The body of country, city, court, 49 Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what’s worse, To fight the animals and to kill them up In their assigned and native dwelling-place. (2.3.58-63) According to this Lord, Jaques is arguing that, in a way, they are no better than the new Duke since they are punishing those who have already lived in this space in order to replicate the life they were used to. Whereas all of the other characters view Arden as a place free from the rules of court, Jaques views their actions, to some extent, as reinforcing the status quo. Although the pastoral landscape allows for freedom from the court, it does not necessarily mean those who previously lived there leave it behind. Whether consciously or not, Duke Senior and his men are replicating behaviors displayed at court, doing to the forest’s inhabitants what Duke Frederick did to them. Only Jaques exposes the hypocrisy and seems to be aware that Arden is a place that exists outside of the space of their pastoral fantasies. This means that Jaques has always been a problematic character when trying to analyze As You Like It as a pastoral play, as “though necessary to the process of comic catharsis in the play, [he] has always exerted counter-pressure against the pastoral ideal” (McFarland 119). Perhaps, though, it is more complex than this. For his comrades, the space of the forest as a pastoral landscape is merely representational space. They will act out their desires and eventually return to the “real world” of the court. For Jaques, the forest seems to be more than this. Rather, Jaques embodies the way Shakespeare’s spatial practice works for the audience. In contrast to the representational space, which is marked by the pastoral mode in this play, “spatial practice…embraces production and reproduction, and the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each social formation. Spatial practice ensures continuity and some degree of cohesion” (Lefebvre 33). For the most part, the visitors to Arden seem to have very individualistic understandings of space. Jaques is necessary so Arden is understandable as a 50 space independent of its idyllic purposes for the other members of the court; it is Jacques who maintains this continuity and cohesion. His presence also emphasizes that the pastoral allows for different perspectives on individual experiences of this place, and also perhaps suggests that the idyllic is not universal. While the others are actively and subjectively producing space in Arden, Jacques exists outside of this imagined world as a witness to the result of their intrusion into Arden. For instance, when he encounters Orlando, who has been using the trees as a blank page on which he can confess his love for Rosalind, Jaques asks him to “mar no more trees with writing / love- songs in their barks” (3.2.255-256). A short time later, Jaques meets Rosalind (as Ganymede), who quickly recognizes his melancholy and questions it, as it does not seem to fit within the rules of their new-found pastoral world. He tells her: melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry's contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. (4.1.15-19) it is a Jaques recognizes that he does not fit within the pastoral landscape, and also recognizes that his interpretation is subjective. He is unable to completely let go of court life, and thus is unable to experience the reorienting disorientation that the others are experiencing during their time in the forest; though, he does experience the ways in which the other characters try to orient themselves in the forest. While he is unsure of the exact cause of his melancholy, he points to his travels. The other characters are able to compartmentalize court and country while they exist in these disparate places, but Jaques in some way is able to step outside of it and instead recognizes the differences and feel unsatisfied with the chasm between the two. He cannot imagine or experience the green world because he is unable to forget (or choose to ignore) his memories of 51 life at court. He does not produce the space of Arden. Rosalind may poke fun at his travels doing nothing but making him unhappy, but he ultimately “gained my experience” (4.1.24). The main characters are happy to exist within the dichotomy of court and country. While they choose to create for themselves a space outside of their “normal” formulation of space and time, Jaques either is incapable of or chooses not to do so. As such, in the end, Jaques is the only one of the members of the court who decides not to leave Arden following the period of their exile. He decides that he will join the hermit who Duke Frederick located in the forest rather than return with them, perhaps able to recognize that while even the pastoral was not as freeing for him as others, it still offers something more fulfilling than the court. After bidding all of the other characters farewell and wishing them luck, indicating that he is at the very least aware of the pastoral nature of his fellow exiles’ interaction with Arden, he tells them that: To him I will; out of these convertibles There is much matter to be heard and learned. ….So to your pleasures, I am for other than for dancing measures. (5.4.190-202) Like the other characters, Jaques was a part of the idyllic pastoral world, but it does not seem to have the same effect on him that it did on the others. Jaques is not susceptible to this green world because for him it is not just representational space; he seems to understand Arden as a place outside of the meaning it has taken on for the other members of the court during their period of exile. While the other characters treat their time in Arden as outside of time, Jacques cannot fully step out of his past to embrace the pastoral present. When he sees that Duke Frederick “hath put on a religious life / And thrown into neglect the pompous court,” he too seeks out the religious man to see if he can finally leave memories of the court behind him (5.4.179-180). Shakespeare invokes pastoral motifs, challenging them to create a disorientating environment for the main 52 characters from the court. Audiences align themselves with characters who produce space through their subjective experiences in this new (to them) landscape. Thus, the characters who are at home in the pastoral world–Corin, Silvius, and Phoebe–necessarily fade into the background to be left behind. Through tropes like banishment and an escape to the green world, the characters of the court are able to leave behind their society’s rules and, within Arden, produce space that allows them to fulfill their desires and generate a meaningful setting for the audience. “The mirth o’ the feast”: The Production of Pastoral Space in The Winter’s Tale The Winter’s Tale similarly features a dichotomy between court and country, but it executes it in a starkly different way from As You Like It. The Winter’s Tale is a tragi-comic romance rather than a comedy, and place-naming indicates deliberately incorrect geographies rather than a palimpsest of similar places, and the court is an ever-present juxtaposition shown on stage rather than just a reference that haunts the setting of the natural world. At the outset, the court at Sicilia is introduced as the primary setting, and it is at first depicted as a welcoming place of friendship. However, as Leontes grows jealous of Polixenes’s relationship with Hermione and begins to deal out unjust punishments, the kingdom transforms into a place of suspicion and punitive overreactions. Conversely, Bohemia is at first portrayed as a dangerous place of exile, where one might have the misfortune of being “pursued by a bear.” But, as the plot progresses, it is revealed that Bohemia is not the unfriendly wilderness it first seems to be. Particularly in act four, Bohemia becomes an idyllic green space of spring, festivity, regeneration, and young love (albeit once again via exile). There is also some trickery and mischief involved, though all is forgiven in the end. 53 While the plot of The Winter’s Tale seems more equally divided between green space and the court (differing from As You Like It) and the majority of the characters are only very briefly away from the court, distinct pastoral themes define the setting of the play. Despite a more compressed focus on the pastoral setting in The Winter’s Tale, from the very beginning of the play Shakespeare is setting up a sharp dichotomy between two lands–and locations–and representing the court as a threatening, corrupt place from which the characters will eventually need to escape. In fact, Mark Rose argues in Shakesperean Design that the text is structurally divided into two completely different plays, mirroring the seasons and fitting in with the pastoral theme even with the initial lack of a clear pastoral setting at the outset. He writes, “The Winter’s Tale has more than once been compared to a diptych. The first or winter panel is a miniature tragedy,” and this miniature tragedy of Leontes’s destructive behavior does not seemingly fit within the realm of the pastoral, particularly when compared to the comedic lean of As You Like It. Yet, “the comic shepherds who enter midway through the scene to save the infant lying on the beach foreshadow that the second movement, the spring panel, concerned with rebirth even as the first is concerned with death” (21). Although each half of the story is seemingly only tied together by Time, with the obvious display of pastoral conventions in the second act, the influence of the pastoral permeates the play. The dramatic energy, playful role playing, and centrally, the romantic interactions between Perdita and Florizel woven with references to agricultural activities, all cohere into a conventionally recognizable pastoral world. This is retroactively reinforced at the end of the play in the union of the young lovers from the pastoral. From the beginning of The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare establishes the dichotomy between court and country. In the opening conversation of the play, Archidamus tells Camillo, “You shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia” (1.1.3-4). 54 Quickly, the breakdown of the relationship between the monarchs of these kingdoms further strengthens this juxtaposition. Leontes’s jealous behavior and his subsequent punishment of his family establishes that this is a cruel court that needs escaping. Nothing of the Sicilian court, ruled strictly by a formerly just leader turned tyrant, is reminiscent of the idyll of the pastoral world (although, some argument has been made that Leontes’s behavior is just that of a man trapped in a pastoral romance).25 While Shakespeare does eventually introduce elements of the pastoral, it functions in a much different way than it does in As You Like It. While both plays do feature an escape from the stifling life of the court, in The Winter’s Tale the pastoral is more concerned with the seasons, festivity, and passage of time. In terms of landscape, rather than entirely escaping to an existing green world, the characters from the court actively seek out and role play their idyll as part of a celebration. This works as a foil to the events of the previous acts while also setting up the possibility for a return to Sicilia. Camillo notes that “it is fifteen years since I saw my country” and “I desire to lay my bones there” shortly before he tells Polixenes of Perdita’s “begin[ing] from such a cottage” and agreeing to accompany the king “to the place” and “lay aside thoughts of Sicilia” (4.2.1-52). The pastoral landscape acts as an escape to a world where the young lovers thrive, contrasting the darkness and jealousy of Bohemia that is defined by the palace and its prison. In line with Barber’s argument, this pastoral moment acts as a reprieve from the bustle and conflict of the real world, or “the transforming and liberating powers of the spring festival”–if only momentarily (127). Leontes’s rage from the first act and the seeming impossibility of the relationship between Perdita and Florizel are forgotten, but moments of comedy are introduced to highlight this disparity. 25 See Young’s chapter on The Winter's Tale for more on how Leontes’s violent, yet passionate, behavior is modeled after more traditional pastoral romances. 55 While As You Like It encourages audiences to connect the French setting to nearby Stratford-upon-Avon, the geography of The Winter’s Tale at first glance seems disjunct (although, this play is not completely bereft of Warwickshire references during the Feast scenes).26 For centuries, scholars have been preoccupied with Shakespeare’s reconfiguration that places Bohemia on the coast. Theories for this geographical confusion have ranged from a basic misunderstanding of geography to a tongue-in-cheek joke. Others have indicated that this was a deliberate choice to help highlight the magic of the fairy tale elements of the story. John Pitcher’s introduction to the Arden edition of The Winter’s Tale discusses these and other theories as to why Sicilia and Bohemia are portrayed in this incongruous way in the play: “Perhaps Shakespeare’s motive for transposing the countries was, yet again, serious play. By redirecting the flow… Shakespeare turned his source upside down. He made another of the play’s ‘preposterous’ inversions” (102).27 Perhaps, however, this scrambling of locations is a deliberate attempt to disorient the audience to better facilitate their orientation within the world of the play. After all, as Ahmed explains, “experiences [of disorientation] can impact on the orientation of bodies and spaces” (158). It seems that it is this inverted place-naming that renders real-world geographies obsolete and reconfigures space within the play. Early modern audiences may already have been familiar with Robert Greene’s Pandosto, and in this iteration it is “in the country of Bohemia there reigned a king called Pandosto” who “had to wife a lady called Bellaria.” It is therefore “Egistus, King of Sycilia, who in his youth had been brought up with Pandosto” and “sailed into Bohemia to visit his old friend and companion.” The very premise of 26 Per John Pitcher’s introduction to the Arden edition of the play, the Bohemian Feast scenes are “pure Warwickshire” (100). 27 Many scholars have pondered the significance of this geographical switch, including David Bergeron in “Shakespeare and Sicily,” John Gillies in Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference, A.J. Hoenselaars in “Mapping Shakespeare’s Europe,” and Alfred Thomas in A Blessed Shore: England and Bohemia from Chaucer to Shakespeare. 56 the play is built on this unnecessary and disorienting swapping of character traits and relationships between the two kings from the source to the play. It is not merely geography that causes disorientation in The Winter’s Tale, however. Even though the back and forth between the seemingly geographically misplaced Bohemia and Sicilia is the primary locus for disorientation in the play, this disorientation extends out into other facets of place and space. In fact, at certain points “place” also takes up another meaning entirely in the play. According to the OED, as of approximately 1300, in addition to “place” specifically referring to physical locations, it could also refer to “[a] proper, appropriate, or natural position or spot (for a person or thing).” One’s positionality in society might dictate how they can take up space. Since Leontes’s “place” positions him as the most powerful person in the kingdom, he is therefore able to dictate how others occupy space within his court. As such, as Leontes begins to descend into his jealous fury, he has the power to include or exclude others from this space. McFarland explains, “The eruption of Leontes’s suspicion represents a kind of absolute standard of the anticomic; and it is therefore the means by which the magnetic attraction of people to one another, the comic cohesiveness, is reversed. Things fall apart. Society disintegrates under the blasting reality of Leontes’s rage” (129). His emotional disorientation thus has the power to disorient those around him, and subsequently disorient the audience by disrupting generic expectations. This necessitates the invocation of the pastoral mode later in the play as a kind of reset after Leontes was “transported by my jealousies / To bloody thoughts and to revenge” (3.2.156-157). Once Leontes has formulated his suspicions about Hermione’s supposed infidelities and Polixenes has fled, he becomes preoccupied with conceptions of “place” in terms of a power hierarchy and he immediately begins to change the space of court through his rage. After he 57 accuses Hermione of adultery, he tells her: “Oh thou thing, / Which I’ll not call a creature of thy place” (2.1. 82-83). He no longer views her as a queen, so in his eyes her “place” in the court is no longer protected by that title. He becomes obsessed with punishing her, and since he no longer views her as having a place at court, he argues that she should be sent to prison: If I mistake In those foundations which I build upon, The center is not big enough to bear A schoolboy’s top. Away with her, to prison. (2.1.100-103) With a place-based metaphor, Leontes rejects any claims of Hermione’s innocence and vows to punish anyone who tries to defend her. He has transformed the formerly safe space of the court into one that is punitive based on his delusions. In the next scene, the relationship between considering someone’s societal “place” in terms of where their physical place should be continues. However, in this case, the opposite argument is being made from Leontes in the previous scene. When Paulina visits Hermione in prison, she asks: “No court in Europe is too good for thee; / What dost thou in prison?” (2.2.3-4) In Paulina’s view of Hermione as a good person, she feels that she could have access to any space seen fit for those of high “places” and should not be confined within the single place of imprisonment. Social status, or one’s place in society, is indicative of their belonging within certain spaces within the world of The Winter’s Tale. If Hermione is an adulteress, she would not be considered worthy of inclusion in the place of the court. However, since this transgression is imagined by Leontes, her prison sentence doomed her to a life of displacement. Paulina cannot fathom that her friend’s fate is prison, and while she is incapable of freeing her, she is able to remove the newly born princess from this place: “This child was prisoner to the womb, and is / By law and process of great nature thence / Freed and enfranchised” (2.2.73-75). Leontes does not respond kindly to this, and he banishes the child, which will be discussed further in the next 58 section of this chapter. And it is his determination to dictate Hermione’s place, both physically and socially, that ultimately proves fatal–she tells him due to his order she was “hurried / Here to this place, i’ th’ open air, before / I have got strength of limit” and shortly thereafter Paulina announces that she has died (3.2.111-113). Of course, this is not the last time Hermione’s place is discussed despite her supposed death. Although to a lesser extent than As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale is also concerned with the exile or banishment from the court. Polixenes is forced to flee the court to survive Leontes’s jealous wrath, as Camillo warns him that his friend plans to have him murdered. This poses a conundrum for Camillo–he either has to commit the murder of what he believes to be an innocent man or leave his home behind: I am sure ’tis safer to Avoid what’s grown than question how ’tis born. If therefore you dare trust my honesty, That lies enclosèd in this trunk which you Shall bear along impawned, away tonight! Your followers I will whisper to the business, And will by twos and threes at several posterns Clear them o’ th’ city. For myself, I’ll put My fortunes to your service, which are here By this discovery lost. (1.2.520-529) If Camillo fails to kill Polixenes, his own life is on the line. Thus, if he is to live, he is required to leave Sicilia behind. While this is not technically a banishment, the effect is still the same: Camillo can never return to the court without fear for his safety. To protect himself, he must exile himself, creating a parallel to Perdita and Florizel’s self-exile from Bohemia in act 4. Despite the fact that he is now entering the court of Bohemia, it is not the same as being within his home court. The one true banishment in the play is that of the infant Perdita. When the enraged and jealous king bids Antigonus to take the princess somewhere far from his kingdom and leave her 59 there, he specifically requires that she be taken to a remote “desert place” far removed fro his dominions—implying a place of death: We enjoin thee, As thou art liege-man to us, that thou carry This female bastard hence and that thou bear it To some remote and desert place quite out Of our dominions, and that there thou leave it, Without more mercy, to its own protection And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune It came to us, I do in justice charge thee, On thy soul's peril and thy body's torture, That thou commend it strangely to some place Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up. (2.3.214-224). By declaring Perdita a “female bastard,” she is immediately exiled from court before ever physically being removed “strangely to some place.” In this case, the leaving to a desert place is not as simple as leaving court by foot and entering a neighboring wooded area. Leontes is ordering that a helpless, defenseless child be left to the elements–“where chance may nurse or end it”—in a foreign land. As with the characters in As You Like It, the safe pastoral landscape is not initially identified as such by those sent there from the court. But, this is necessary for the pastoral mode to function in the play. Without Perdita’s banishment, there cannot be a return to the court–even if it takes sixteen years to get there–in keeping with the conventions of Shakespearean comedy. Antigonus takes the child to Bohemia, the land of Leontes’s friend-turned-enemy. In another moment of disorientating geographic references, he asks the Mariner: “Thou art perfect then, our ship hath touch’d upon / The deserts of Bohemia?” (3.3.1-2). As established earlier, Bohemia would not have a coastline, thus making this question a puzzling and potentially comic one to audiences. Other than the geographical inaccuracy, Bohemia is quickly painted as the perfect place to fulfill Leontes’s instructions for exile. The Mariner instructs Antigonus to 60 Make your best haste, and go not Too far i' the land: 'tis like to be loud weather; Besides, this place is famous for the creatures Of prey that keep upon't. (3.3.9-11) This landscape is one that is uninhabitable, fitting for the banished infant of a maddened king. In many ways, this depiction of Bohemia matches the initial perceptions that the characters in As You Like It had of the Forest of Arden. Banishment to a desert place is of utmost severity, as without other bodies occupying the space it becomes one that is unsuitable for human existence. Yet, before long young Perdita is rescued by a shepherd shortly after Antigonus’s death. He and his son discover not only the infant but the gold left with her, and decide to take her home with them. Soon, this “desert place” is transfigured into the epitome of the pastoral. However, this transformation into the pastoral is impossible without accounting for the passage of time. In the case of The Winter’s Tale, the audience has the opportunity to hear about the relationship between time and space from Time itself. After the darkness and violence of the first acts of the play, and with the characters scattered across multiple countries, Time is sent in to help reorient the audience and ease them into the pastoral landscape that is produced in Bohemia.28 Time’s intervention helps to not only explain where the action of the new act will take place, but also when: I, that please some, try all—both joy and terror Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error— Now take upon me, in the name of Time, To use my wings. Impute it not a crime To me or my swift passage, that I slide O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried Of that wide gap, since it is in my power To o’erthrow law and in one self-born hour To plant and o’erwhelm custom. (4.1.1-9) 28 Mark Rose discusses Time’s role in tying together the halves of The Winter’s Tale at length in Shakespearean Design, as the play is “a diptych” in which “the first or winter panel is a miniature tragedy,” whereas “the spring panel [is]concerned with rebirth even as the first is concerned with death” (44). 61 The figure of Time is accounting for the gap between the events of the first half of the play and the second, uniting them despite their tonal and generic differences. Time can use “use [its] wings” to bridge this gap, and it is capable of operating outside the constraints of the world the other characters inhabit. Time is embodied in this scene specifically for the purpose of orienting the audience within the world of the play. In this semi-metatheatrical moment, Time acknowledges the impossibility of the time jump within the plot when considering the constraints of the passage of real time for the audience.29 Without the presence of Time, the production of space falls apart. Time acts as a conduit for shifts in setting to occur on the empty stage where physical markers of these changes may not be present outside the bodies of the actors. The introduction of Time at this point emphasizes the significance of the relationship between space and time, especially in regard to creating pastoral landscapes and green worlds of Bohemia as it contrasts to the court world of Sicilia in the first half of the play. After reminding the audience that Leontes is still in Sicilia facing the fallout from his actions, Time begins to curate the way space is produced. The audience is informed that the new act will take place elsewhere–and that perhaps the supposed wasteland where Perdita was dropped as an infant is not as horrible as it initially seemed: Imagine me, Gentle spectators, that I now may be In fair Bohemia, and remember well I mentioned a son o’ th’ king’s, which Florizel I now name to you; and with speed so pace To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace Equal with wondering (4.1.19-25) 29 Inga-Stina Ewbank discusses the significance of Time in the play’s plot in “The Triumph of Time in The Winter’s Tale.” Christopher Baker discusses the performance history of the role in “‘Perform’d in this wide gap of time’: A Stage History of The Winter’s Tale,” while José A. Pérez Díez discusses the way Time is portrayed on-stage more recently in “The Wide Gap of Sixteen Years: The Performance of Time in The Winter’s Tale in Britain, 2001-2017.” 62 This intervention is crucial in several ways–remember, the “elsewhere” of the pastoral is in “time as well as space” (Young 27). By locating the action in both a new setting and in the future, Time is marking the pastoral shift in the text. However, keeping in mind Ahmed’s argument that true orientation requires disorientation, in many ways this reorientation first necessitates disorientation. This act is completely different from the three prior, and this new setting is impermanent. By the end of the act, Perdita is crossing the ocean once more, this time with Florizel, and returning to a Sicilia that has been ruled by a lonely and rueful Leontes for over a decade. But the figure of Time is not going to tell the audience of Perdita’s fate. Rather, only the passage of time can tell what will happen to the lost princess. While Time itself could potentially be considered a harbinger of the pastoral setting that will solidify in the fourth act, he also does so by telling us how Perdita has been cared for the past sixteen years: What of her ensues I list not prophesy; but let Time's news Be known when 'tis brought forth. A shepherd's daughter, And what to her adheres, which follows after, Is the argument of Time. Of this allow, If ever you have spent time worse ere now; If never, yet that Time himself doth say He wishes earnestly you never may. (4.1.25-33) In doing so, Time once again engages in a metatheatrical dialogue with the audience. As time is an orienting influence within the world of the play, pointing us to the pastoral it is also an orienting influence aware of the audience and their time within the theater. Like the pastoral, the theater is a place to suspend disbelief; to run free with imagination and engage with disbelief. But Time is there, ticking away in the background, and even if the play is not what they expected, it is a short while before they must go back to the real world regardless of whether they enjoyed the play or not. 63 Time’s speech is not the only prelude to the pastoral festivities of the sheep-shearing feast. Shakespeare introduces a clown character who would have been unfathomable in the first half of the play. In act four scene three, Autolycus comes across the shepherd’s son and swindles him before deciding to attend the feast to look for additional targets to con. Autolycus’s presence in Bohemia is disorienting; the character’s thievery and ballad-mongering is more typical of a city comedy than a pastoral. But, despite his nefarious–if comedic–actions, Autolycus helps to establish the shift into a pastoral landscape through his disorienting presence, re-emphasizing how different the second half of the play is from the first. Prior to this scene, the only indication of an introduction of a pastoral landscape was the incorporation of shepherd characters and mentions of the upcoming feast. Yet, with his bawdy song, Autolycus begins to conjure additional elements of the pastoral: When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh, the doxy over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year, For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale. (4.3.1-4) His references to nature–flowers, landscape, and the changing of seasons–help to signal the transition from the winter of Leontes’ jealousy in the Sicilian court to the spring of young love in Bohemia. Through this song, Autolycus manages to tonally shift the play and create a space where spring, frivolity, farce, and sexuality can be embraced and explored–the latter of which was specifically the cause of problems in the first half of the play. Autolycus’s songs and fraught relationship with the shepherds helps to shepherd in the elements of the pastoral and comedy after the tragedy that occurred in Sicilia’s court.30 As in all of Shakespeare’s plays that flirt with 30 For more on the role of Autolycus helping to establish this shift in both the generic tone and the dissonance between the court and the green world, see Jonathan Baldo’s “The Greening of Will Shakespeare” and Jill Phillips Ingram’s “‘You Ha’ Done Me a Charitable Office’: Autolycus and the Economics of Festivity in The Winter’s Tale.” 64 conventional pastoral themes and motifs, the green world expands and loosens the sensibilities of the characters within a natural and organic world. In scene 4, Shakespeare completely embraces conventional pastoral elements, enacting a feast and a hunt with references to flowers and flower crowns. Significantly, to make up for the empty stage by producing a distinct setting, characters repeatedly describe the sheep-shearing that is to occur, and they dress up in costumes to represent pastoral figures; the prince is quite literally able to briefly take up the mantle of the shepherd. Rather than Bohemia, audiences might instead feel as if they are viewing a scene from a Renaissance era Stratford-upon-Avon.31 The fourth scene of this act opens with “FLORIZEL, disguised as Doricles a countryman, and PERDITA as Queen of the Feast” (SD 4.4). The dialogue immediately points to a shift in mode, as Florizel says instead of Perdita he sees “Flora / Peering in April’s front. This your sheep- shearing / Is as a meeting of the petty gods, / and you the queen on’t” (4.4.1-5). Although Perdita has been raised by shepherds since her arrival in Bohemia, due to Time’s intervention this is the first and only scene in which audiences have the opportunity to see her in this role. As Queen of the Feast, Perdita is key in creating the pastoral space both for the audience and the other characters. She distributes flowers to the attendees of the feast (evoking Ophelia, who I will discuss in chapter 2), including Polixenes and Camillo, telling them “For you there’s rosemary and rue. These keep / Seeming and savor all the winter long. / Grace and remembrance be to you both” and welcoming them to the feast (4.4.86-88). Eventually she comes to Florizel, and when she responds to his joke about her bestowing him with flowers like a corpse, she tells him: No, like a bank for love to lie and play on, Not like a corse; or if, not to be buried, 31 See John Pitcher’s introduction to the Arden edition of the play for more on the relationship between the feast imagery of The Winter’s Tale and rural Renaissance England. 65 But quick and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers. Methinks I play as I have seen them do In Whitsun pastorals. Sure this robe of mine Does change my disposition. (4.4.130-135) Not only does this dialogue blatantly acknowledge the dramatically created pastoral nature of this scene, but the reference to “Whitsun” marks it specifically as an English pastoral. In her role as Queen of the Feast, Perdita is largely responsible for producing the space for the feast as a kind of play. The place of the Bohemian countryside is left behind, and in its stead is the Early Modern English countryside. As John Pitcher suggests, “The setting for the feast in Bohemia is particularly unforeign. It is pure Warwickshire, in fact. The price of wool and holiday food and games are straight from Shakespeare’s Stratford” (100). While Perdita does not originate from Bohemia, her status as a princess raised by shepherds firmly plants her in the pastoral tradition.32 Her position as Leontes’s daughter keeps her from truly belonging in the green world, as her return to Sicilia is inevitable. Polixenes suspects this, telling Camillo: This is the prettiest lowborn lass that ever Ran on the greensward. Nothing she does or seems But smacks of something greater than herself, Too noble for this place. (4.4.185-188) In fact, Polixenes deliberately disrupts the pastoral celebration to try and prove his suspicions correct. While the other characters happily accept flowers from Perdita as Queen of the Feast, Polixenes instead engages her in a discussion on the relationship between art and nature. When he comments on the specific flower she provides him and Perdita replies with an expression of the belief that humans should not interfere with nature, Polixenes argues that: Yet Nature is made better by no mean But Nature makes that mean. So, over that art 32 See Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene for another famous example of an unknown princess, in this case Pastorella, growing up with shepherds. 66 Which you say adds to Nature is an art That Nature makes.... This is an art Which does mend Nature, change it rather, but The art itself is Nature. (4.4.88-97) The King of Bohemia seems to suggest that there is nothing wrong with intervening with nature; he directly engages with a well-known debate often generated around the pastoral mode, and he argues that there is nothing inherently unnatural in grafting “a gentler scion to the wildest stock” (4.4.93).33 Shortly after this, Polixenes reveals his identity and forbids the relationship between Florizel and Perdita, shattering the pastoral ideal entirely and directly contradicting his stance from this earlier debate with Perdita.34 To be together, the pair must flee. Perhaps for selfish reasons, Camillo advises the young lovers that “if you will not change your purpose / But undergo this flight, make for Sicilia” (4.4.645-646). It is only upon the revelation of Perdita’s true identity that the relationship becomes acceptable; the pair must permanently leave the pastoral world, with all its celebrations of a natural rural setting and all its activities, behind them. However, this could not be done without the pastoral intervention–a season of reset and renewal was required in order to make a return to Sicilia, and a more generically traditional comedic ending, possible after the tragic events of the first act. Even though the opening of the fourth act is the only point at which Time makes an appearance, evocations of time haunt the play. The sixteen years between the first and second halves marks more than a decade of a broken family, a despairing king, and a disrupted court. In fact, it is on this note which the play ends. After Hermione is revived, Leontes directs Paulina to: Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely 33 John Pitcher discusses the revival of the art versus nature debate around the time of the writing of The Winter’s Tale in his introduction to the Arden edition of the play. He also explains how this conversation between Perdita and Polixenes references not only the attempts of Elizabethan gardeners to improve nature but how this particular flower is a stand-in for Perdita’s suspected bastardy, pp. 53-58. 34 For more on how The Winter’s Tale “is concerned with the relationship between art and nature,” see Rose’s Shakespearean Design. 67 Each one demand an answer to his part Perform'd in this wide gap of time since first We were dissever'd: hastily lead away. (5.3.189-192) Previously, Time had to move forward quickly in order to account for all of the events that would occur to bring the family back together again before the end of the play. However, as the play ends and they leave the stage, time is no longer of a concern. Although the pastoral landscape may have been left behind in Bohemia, the fact that Leontes feels that they can “leisurely” account for their time apart is indicative of its lasting effects on the play and life at court. As Lefebvre argues, “time…retrieves its use value” in the spaces made for leisure (384). After the years the family lost due to Leontes’s jealous rage, the reformed King expresses a desire to recoup some of the time through leisure. Although nothing in the text indicates that Sicilia is a place on par with the pastoral leisure experienced in Bohemia, this hint of embracing a leisurely pace marks a hopeful shift in the lives of those in this court as Bohemia begins to permeate Sicilia bringing the spirit of the pastoral. At the end of the play, one of what is perhaps the most disorientating events in all of Shakespeare occurs. Even after Perdita has been to Bohemia and is returned to Sicilia, the court is still not fully healed. The court has been defined by the grief of their misguided King for over a decade, and Perdita’s return launches the series of events to restore the kingdom to its golden age. All it needs is for their Queen to be reborn. To do this, the final scene introduces the audience to a private space (more on private spaces in the next chapter) that has not yet been encountered in the play. Paulina takes Leontes, Perdita, and Florizel into her gallery, which she has kept “lonely, apart” in this place, even going as far as to keep it behind a curtain that is referenced multiple times (5.3.18). While for the latter two it is their first time admitted to this space the king has clearly been there before. He tells Paulina: 68 But we came To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery Have we passed through, not without much content In many singularities, but we saw not That which my daughter came to look upon, The statue of her mother. (5.3.9-14) The introduction of a new location and setting this late in the play serves a purpose–it is not only disorienting to the characters who are introduced into this space, but to the audience as well. In the sixteen years between Hermione’s imprisonment and subsequent death, Paulina has kept a statue of her, and in this scene, she comes to life. Quite literally in Hermione’s case, “disorientation involves becoming an object” (Ahmed 159). Since she is no longer included in the space of the court, she was relegated to the role of object, and it is not until once again she has a “place” as mother, wife, and queen that she can re-enter the world. In many ways, Hermione’s return was the only way for the play to have a truly happy ending. However, this ending is not just about the reformulation of a broken family. With the family reunited, there is hope that the kingdom can return to its former state: The point is not whether we experience disorientation (for we will, and we do), but how such experiences can impact on the orientation of bodies and spaces, which is after all about how the things are ‘directed’ and how they are shaped by the lines they follow. The point is what we do with such moments of disorientation, as well as what such moments can do— whether they can offer us the hope of new directions, and whether new directions are reason enough for hope. (Ahmed 158) Disorientation is necessary for orientation, and it is up to those who occupy spaces how to respond to it. Paulina seems to be aware of this, as she instructs those gathered to “quit presently the chapel, or resolve you / For more amazement” (5.3.86-87). The return of the dead Queen and the exiled princess reconfigures the court around their introduction back into it. Even if their reappearance is disorienting, their presence is necessary for the other characters and the audience to reorient themselves in this new Sicilia. Shakespeare chooses to disorient us in order to send us 69 in these new directions. Applying Ahmed’s view of the positive possibilities of disorientation, we can note that without disorientation, the members of the court cannot return from Arden. Sicilia cannot overcome Leontes’s dark history regarding his wife and daughter without Hermione’s impossible and disorienting revival, but this disorientation allows both characters and the audience to ultimately feel hopeful about the family’s posited future together moving forward from the end of the play. Both characters and audiences must be disoriented in order for the spatial politics of the plays to make sense. In both As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare uses the pastoral as means for characters to produce space in a way that helps bring the audience into the world of the play. By building on familiar pastoral themes and tropes, such as banishment to a seemingly desert place and perceptions of the passage of time, Shakespeare produces a space that allows for imaginative explorations of ideals and fluid desires as opposed to the fixity of oppressive worlds. The production of space in these plays creates the pastoral to first disorient, then reorient characters in a way that allows for audiences to make new meanings of places described in the text while watching scenes play out on the bare stage. Space is produced by characters’ subjective experience within a pastoral framework, with their responses orienting spectators within the world of the play. The pastoral mode lends itself to the imagination, and when characters work within and against a framework of known pastoral motifs it opens up a whole realm of spatial possibility. 70 CHAPTER 2: PUBLIC, POLITICAL, AND PRIVATE SPACE: METATHEATRICAL MANEUVERINGS IN HAMLET AND HENRY V Although Henry V marks the end of Shakespeare’s Henriad, the play opens very differently from the other histories in the canon. The playwright uses a Prologue and a Chorus figure to help orient the audience within the world of the play as the action moves back and forth between England and France. The Prologue immediately acknowledges the restrictions of a playhouse when trying to tell a story of such geographical scope, “A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, / And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!” (3-4). A few lines later it gets even more specific—the Prologue makes a direct reference to the Globe, relying on place-naming to both highlight the physical space in which the audience is located as well as to reference far-away places with which they would historically be familiar: PROLOGUE: Can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt? (11-14). Although other plays make references or allusions to their audiences, this instance is unique in that it positions the audience, actors, and characters all in the same place and moment. To orient spectators in a play structured by travel, the Prologue first orients them within the actual playhouse in order to make it possible to envision other, imaginary locations. The Prologue attempts to unify subjective audience experiences by acknowledging the state of togetherness in the space of the theater. This metatheatrical acknowledgement then opens up a kind of contract with the audience, in which they all agree to ignore the physical bounds of theater-going for the span of the performance.35 35 For more information on the expectations of early modern audiences and the relationship between playwright and playgoer, see the introduction to Andrew Gurr’s Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London. 71 This chapter moves beyond the literary elements, such as the pastoral mode, that are the foundation for the production of space in Shakespeare’s plays by demonstrating how writing metadramatic moments into the text facilitates the production of theatrical space. I explore the way metatheatrical techniques and practices are incorporated into the text, thus self-reflexively revealing the production of space on the stage. I argue in this chapter that, through the development of a metatheatrical framework in Hamlet and Henry V, Shakespeare uses the titular characters of each play to produce theatrical space based on how they orient themselves (and the audience) within this structure.36 Metadramatic moments are woven into many of Shakespeare’s plays (including The Winter’s Tale, as discussed in the previous chapter); the Chorus’s direct references to the Globe in Henry V is just one of many ways the playwright does so. Each of Shakespeare’s settings merges elements of reality with imagined worlds.37 I focus here on Hamlet and Henry V, two plays that mix a variety of metatheatrical techniques that contribute to the production of space. Both titular characters find themselves playing roles, and this influences the production of public, political, and private space in each play. In general, Shakespeare’s spatial practice is built on this interplay between the bodies of characters and those of actors. This only works via metatheatrical structures used to imbue characters with a self-reflexivity that invites the audience into a shared theatrical/third space that makes up the world of the play. Plays like Hamlet and Henry V, which are based on history, complicate the relationship between the play character and stage actor, showing how theatricality unveils the divide between private person and political actor. The public versions of historical 36 James Calderwood first explored these plays through a metadramatic lens in his books Metadrama in Shakespeare’s Henriad: Richard II to Henry V (1979) and To Be and Not to Be: Negation and Metadrama in Hamlet (1983). 37 Ralph Berry and Hannah Crawforth et al. discuss this merging of reality in fiction for Shakespeare’s settings in Shakespeare's Settings and a Sense of Place and Shakespeare in London, respectively. 72 figures are often known by the political “roles” they play, thus complicating the additional “roles” Shakespeare’s characters play in the text. Since Shakespeare uses the bodies and the speech of characters to produce space, characters necessarily engage in a kind of performance of their own to bridge the gap between page and stage. In Hamlet, I draw on Hamlet’s performance of madness and his invocation of the “unweeded garden” and the “prison” when producing Denmark as a kind of theatrical space by marking distinctions between the public and private. In Henry V, I consider how Henry’s performance of kingship impacts the way political space is produced in Shakespeare’s renderings of fictionalized moments of history and how Henry’s historical identity impinges on the character in the play. Both Hamlet and King Henry find themselves playing roles, and this influences how public, political, and private space is produced in each play. Metatheatrical Frameworks in Shakespeare’s Plays Shakespeare is often highlighted as a playwright who meticulously incorporates metadrama into his plays. While this chapter will focus on examples of the use of metadrama in the production of space in Hamlet and Henry V, examples of metadramatic moments are rife in Shakespeare’s canon. In the last chapter, I discussed the role of the embodiment of Time in The Winter’s Tale, exploring how Shakespeare uses this metatheatrical interlude to transport the audience through both time and space. The metadrama helps to move the plays from works of literature, including those with historical themes, into the realm of performance, setting up theatrical space–which I discuss further below. Another example of this move is how Rosalind engages in a direct address to the audience in her Epilogue to As You Like It, explaining “’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue,” while providing examples of how the audience might find they enjoyed the 73 performance (Epilogue 4). Continuing in the realm of comedy, Midsummer Night’s Dream ends similarly to As You Like It with Puck’s direct address to the audience: If we shadows have offended, Think but this and all is mended: That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear. (5.1.419-422) As with his use of the pastoral, Shakespeare’s deployment of metatheatre transcends genre and selectively subscribes to or circumvents common practices of its structure. By writing characters that selectively work within or against known components of metadrama, Shakespeare is able to develop a spatial practice that telegraphs embedded meanings by relying on audiences’ preconceived notions of these structures. Although metadrama is a fairly new term, audiences at the time would have been familiar with the elements if not the term.38 The invocation of metadramatic elements can serve many purposes, both for practical and for storytelling purposes, but I am primarily concerned with what it means for the spatial politics of a play. This section explores the evolution of the concept of metadrama and how it shapes Shakespeare’s spatial practice. The term metatheatre was coined by Lionel Abel in his 1963 book Metatheatre: A New View of the Dramatic Form. Following a discussion of Hamlet as a metatheatrical dramatic work, and as he begins to delve into Shakespeare’s other works and other drama that tend to share similar traits, Abel writes that: all of them are theatre pieces about life seen as already theatricalized. By this, I mean that the persons appearing on the stage in these plays are there not simply because they were caught by the playwright in dramatic postures as a camera might catch them, but because they themselves knew they were dramatic before the playwright took note of them…They represent to the playwright the effect of dramatic imagination before he has begun to exercise his own, on the other hand…they are aware of their own theatricality. (60) 38 See Sarah Dustagheer and Harry Newman’s “Metatheatre and Early Modern Drama” for more on the history of the presence of metatheatrical elements and audience awareness of the features in early modern plays. 74 Abel’s formulation of the metatheatrical indicates that the characters in Shakespeare’s plays are, to some extent, aware of the dramatic nature of their surroundings–and of their identities in terms of roles. The dramatic spaces of these plays are produced as Shakespeare deploys the self- reflexive strategy of characters referring to their own role-playing within the theatrical context of their stories. This self-awareness and the characters’ resulting ability to reference their theatrical status serves as yet another mode of orientation for the audience. Thus, the way the bodies of characters/actors move through and interact with the places of the play help to produce the spaces of Shakespeare’s fictionalized worlds as they are able to consciously move through theatrical space, which I explore further below. In his book Drama, Metadrama, and Perception, Richard Hornby defines metadrama as “drama about drama; it occurs whenever the subject of a play turns out to be, in some sense, drama itself” (31). Hornby specifically points to Shakespeare as an example of a playwright who often uses metadrama in a variety of ways. He continues to describe specific examples of metadrama, explaining that “possible varieties of conscious or overt metadrama are as follows: 1. The play within the play. 2. The ceremony within the play. 3. Role playing within the role. 4. Literary and real-life reference. 5. Self reference” (32). Based on Hornby’s definition, the Chorus of Henry V aligns most closely with points four and five, but most if not all of these examples can be found throughout Shakespeare’s canon.39 Hornby points to “The Mousetrap” in Hamlet as being one of the more obvious examples of how metadrama is a key feature of Shakespeare’s spatial practice, and I will discuss this play-within-a-play later in this chapter. Metadramatic moments in the canon often seem to defy genre and are crucial in developing the spatial politics, 39 James Calderwood has written extensively about Shakespeare’s use of metadrama across the canon in his books Metadrama in Shakespeare’s Henriad: Richard II to Henry V, Shakespearean Metadrama, and To Be and Not to Be: Negation and Metadrama in Hamlet. 75 or the way the drama highlights the public and politicized uses of place and space as constructed entities. While both this and chapter 1 of this dissertation examine the plays as texts, these readings cannot be separated from the fact that these are texts intended for performance. In many ways, the metadramatic nature of Shakespeare’s works invites the spectator to embrace the physical place of the theater alongside the fictional spaces represented in the play. As Judd D. Hubert argues in his book Metatheater: The Example of Shakespeare, “As spectators, we need never suspend our disbelief, because all along we consciously indulge in, and react to, patently fabricated fictions” (2-3). Metadramatic moments in Shakespeare’s plays point to these fictions (or rather, fictionalized historical moments), and although we are invited to imagine everywhere from London to Agincourt to Denmark, we do not need to forget the material conditions of the theater space to do so. These texts cannot be considered independent from the stage conditions of the early modern theater. Shakespeare was writing for these received narratives—from cultural, literary, and historical works—to be staged in particular spaces, and this meeting of fictionalized and imagined historical space is something that audiences would be aware of in these works. While metatheatricality is a structural device used in many of Shakespeare’s plays, this inclusion is not necessarily consistent in his writing. The metatheatrical can appear, disappear, and reappear throughout a text, and additionally, its invocation is not always necessarily meant to have the same effect. In his essay “Are Shakespeare's plays always metatheatrical?,” Stephen Purcell attempts to answer the title’s question by exploring the common use of metatheatre in early modern drama while also trying to determine whether this use is constant and consistent throughout Shakespeare’s canon. In conclusion, he determines that: metatheatricality cannot be a constant state: it is always the result of a shift in the ways in which the two planes relate to each other…Shakespeare's plays are not always 76 metatheatrical, and that staging them according to the principles of realism can in fact efface their metatheatrical potential altogether. Metatheatre is a game that is, in many cases, invited by the text, but one that can be played only in performance. (33) Of course, Shakespeare’s plays are not always staged according to the principles or conventions of realism; I would argue that performance is not necessary for metadrama to be apparent, even if performance may complicate or highlight a text’s metadramatic features. However, it does seem that Shakespeare’s use of metatheatre is not something that is “always” happening in his plays, regardless of the time period in which he was writing. Rather, Shakespeare is choosing when to acknowledge the reality of the theatrical conditions as they would be staged. Shakespeare uses these moments of metadrama to bridge the gap between literature and the stage by having characters operate within this framework to aid the construction of public, private, and political spaces as they shape his plays. The Production of Space within Metadrama Therefore, if Shakespeare is writing for the stage, if he is aware of this merging of fictionalized and historical space, and if he is selectively employing a metatheatrical structure, how do these spatial conditions merge within the text to telegraph space? In plays like Hamlet and Henry V, Shakespeare relies on his audience possessing a certain awareness of these various elements to become actively involved in the production of the imaginary worlds of his plays. As he does with genres like the pastoral, Shakespeare deploys the characters, and thus the actors, within a metatheatrical framework to help (dis)orient the audience by directing their attention to this tension. Tim Fitzpatrick explores this idea in his monograph Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance: Shakespeare and Company. He argues that: patterns are deducible from the texts because the playwrights embedded them there; that they did so because they expected the actors, experienced as they were in a strong and developing performance tradition, to decode them from the text and re-encode them in 77 spatial patterns in performance; and that the audience in the playhouse would in turn decode these spatial patterns and use them to make meanings. (4) The spatial practice of the stage cannot be separated from the spatial practice of the plot; the play is built in a particular way to not just portray the spaces of an imagined world, but also to rely on actor and audience understandings of the way the play makes use of the stage. The presence of the theatrical space is actively built into the text of the play. Fitzpatrick continues later on that “there is no point in using the text to project spatial sign-making strategies in performance unless the audience can read the resulting spatial ‘meaning’—unless, that is, the audience shares with the actors and the playwright a set of spatial conventions with which to make and extract meanings” (10). The spaces in Shakespeare’s plays, despite being set in different locations and relying on place names, are still bound by a reliance on the knowledge and acceptance of the theater space in the audience’s understanding of the text. To not know the conditions of the theater space is to lose opportunities to make meanings within the literary realms of these texts. It seems that in performance, the spaces of fiction and history combine to create another kind of space. In the previous chapter, I discussed representational space in the context of the fictional tropes of the pastoral landscape as a representational space. But, what of representational space not in the context of fictionalized space? What of the actual, physical, and real space of the theater? Henri Lefebvre accounts for this nuance in his Production of Space, in which he explains that: In theatrical space, with its interplay between gazes and mirages…actor, audience, ‘characters’, text, and author all come together but never become one. By means of each theatrical interplay bodies are able to pass from a ‘real’, immediately experienced space (the pit, the stage) to a perceived space–a third space which is no longer either scenic or public. At once fictitious and real, this third space is classical theatrical space. To the question of whether such a space is a representation of space or a representational space, the answer must be neither–and both. Theatrical space certainly implies a representation of space–scenic space–corresponding to a particular conception of space… The 78 representational space, mediated yet directly experienced, which infuses the work and the moment, is established as such through the dramatic action itself. (188) Lefebvre’s conception of theatrical space relies on a layering of character, actor, and audience understanding that is pivotal to metadramatic structures. Theatrical space is dependent on the bodies within it, and on how those bodies experience space. The bodies of characters are translated by the bodies of actors for the audience, thus creating a pathway into this “third” space built on metatheatrical structures. The characters/actors allow the audience to orient themselves within this representational space by mediating their perspective. Based on Lefebvre’s conception of theatrical space, it is impossible to separate theatrical space from the text of the play. By incorporating metatheatricality into his plays, Shakespeare is acknowledging and complicating the separation between reality and dramatic creation, between actor and character, between audience and text. In doing this, he is thus able to develop a spatial practice that is aware of representational space established through dramatic action, through which he is then able to develop different kinds of space on the stage. The Shared Space of Character and Actor But, what of the bodies and personas of the characters within the text? They are the agents of the production of space; they remind us of the roles they are playing even as they remain the actual, embodied producers of space in the production. In this chapter, I consider two specific characters and their role in the production of space: King Henry V in Henry V and Prince Hamlet in Hamlet. These plays represent a variety of places and spaces, and they also incorporate a number of famous metadramatic and metatheatrical moments. Both titular characters are political figures, and both would possibly be known to early modern audiences prior to their engagement with their respective plays (Henry V from English history, Hamlet from the Ur-Hamlet). To some extent, this automatically makes them metadramatic, per Hornby’s fourth example of metadrama, 79 which involves making references to literature and/or real-life. The first and second items on Hornby’s list are also fairly present, considering The Mousetrap and the various ceremonial moments in Henry V. Yet, it is the third item that is most important to the production of space in the play: “role playing within a role.” The roles Hamlet and Henry play are often dependent on the space they occupy at that moment, but they are also using their “roles” to force perspective and anchor the audience’s perception of space within the play. It is this metatheatrical layering of character, role, and actor that allows for the meeting between fictional and real worlds and produces the space of the play. On the empty stage, it is the body of the actor (in addition to a few specific props and costuming) that is responsible for conveying the dramatic action. Within these conditions in Shakespeare’s plays, we can observe that it is the characters that produce space. When actors then embody those characters on the stage, they take on not only the role of the written character but also the role of embodied and active producers of Shakespeare’s spatial practice. As Setha Low argues in her book Spatializing Culture: The Ethnography of Space and Place, “Embodied space addresses both the experiential and material aspects of the body in space as well as the merging of the body in space as well as the merging of body/space as a location that can communicate, transform and contrast existing social structures” (94). In performance, it is the body of the actor that is the locus of this merging of body/space. Shakespeare relies on metadrama to better illustrate how characters are able to produce this embodied space in merging body/space. In following this process of embodiment, we can understand the dynamics of Shakespeare’s spatial practice. As for instance, Steven Mullaney, in his chapter “Affective Technologies: Toward an Emotional Logic of the Elizabethan Stage,” highlights how this embodied mode of production can extend beyond the actors on stage to incorporate the bodies of 80 the audience in these moments of shared meaning-making: “Theater is the most social of the arts in terms of its mode of production–it is completed only in performance, and thus it is produced not only for but also by its audience–and in terms of the means and objects of its embodied representations–it uses actual bodies to enact or embody virtual selves (or characters) on stage, in imaginary social relation to one another” (73). As a whole, works of theater can only exist in the bodies that perform the text and in those who receive it, and therefore these bodies cannot be separated from the production of space in Shakespeare’s plays. James Calderwood highlights just how much Hamlet and Henry, the characters, are also actors within the worlds of these plays. In his book To be and Not to be: Negation and Metadrama in Hamlet, Calderwood analyzes how “Hamlet accepts his role as one of the Princes of the World and at the same time his role as one of the Players in the Globe” (40). Calderwood is also aware of the similar kind of role King Henry plays in Henry V. He explains, “To play the king is to play the actor, for the king must have many roles in his repertoire” (Shakespeare’s Henriad 170). Both Hamlet and Henry often present themselves in ways that do not truly represent their own feelings, thoughts, or motivations. They often manipulate the situations they find themselves in, and thus skew the way the space they inhabit is produced at a given moment. The roles each of these characters play is often dependent on the space they occupy at that moment, but they are also using their “roles” to force perspective and anchor the audience’s perception of space within the play. It is this metatheatrical layering of character, role, and actor that allows for the meeting between imagined and real worlds and produces the space of the play. Public and Political Space As both Hamlet and Henry are public figures, they are most often making these metatheatrical moves when they are in public. The spatial politics of the play are not just limited by the spatial 81 politics of the real theater, but of the fictional (even when inspired by real events) politics of the plays. Of course, this synthesis of the political, public, spatial and theatrical extends beyond the realm of Denmark or medieval England. As Ralph Alan Cohen writes in “Directing at the Globe and the Blackfriars: Six Big Rules for Contemporary Directors,” “All of his plays have such public moments that transcend the bounds of the stage to include the world inside the theatre” (219). In many ways, actors and audiences together are included in these public moments of Shakespeare’s plays. Instances of metatheatre not only extend the world of the play into the space of the theater, they also serve as an opportunity to incorporate the audience into the world of the play. Theater is inherently a public act. It is also often political. In Shakespeare’s day, plays constantly riffed on contemporary politics, and were potentially censored by the Master of Revels to make sure they never became too political.40 Yet, despite the constant censoring and subsequent rewriting of the plays, theater continued to be both public and political; the bodies meeting in the theater produced a space which made it possible. This fits within Setha Low’s formulation of space, which she argues is “preeminently social, produced by bodies and groups of people, as well as historical and political forces” (32). Space is produced as public and political in the plays because, for the most part, the actions of the characters–even in private moments–have the potential to shape the world of the play for the other characters (and, of course, the audience) due to their status as public figures. And, since we follow Prince Hamlet and King Henry, the audience’s perception of space in the play is mediated through the eyes of these specific political and historical figures. James Calderwood acknowledges the significance of this in Shakespeare’s work in his book Metadrama in Shakespeare’s Henriad: From Richard 40 Andrew Gurr discusses the Master of Revels and the Revels Office’s influence over the playing companies and the content of plays in The Shakespearean Stage, 1574-1642. 82 II to Henry V, arguing, “It is his plainest admission of a truth he has grown to recognize more clearly from play to play–that the passage from poetry to drama involves a loss of creative independence, a sacrifice of self to the political office” (178). Hamlet and King Henry play large but different roles in shaping the public and political spaces within the world of their respective plays, indicating to audiences how they should perceive these spaces. As political figureheads, through ambivalence and through embracing of responsibility, Hamlet and King Henry each play a large role in shaping the public and political space within the worlds of their plays. Even their actions in moments of privacy have implications for sociopolitical world-building. Private Space On one level, both Hamlet and Henry V are plays dominated by public and political concerns. While this complicates notions of privacy in these plays, characters are still able to produce moments of private space. Particularly in Hamlet, Shakespeare demonstrates a preoccupation with the interiority of the titular character. When Hamlet appears alone, he is often expressing himself via a soliloquy, a metatheatrical practice that reminds the audience that with their presence, he is never truly alone. The former king’s garden and the Queen’s closet, both spaces depicted as private, have become two of the most famous locations in the play. King Henry is almost never alone on stage, making private moments where he can turn inward even more significant. When Henry’s future Queen is introduced in a domestic, private space in the fourth act, it stands out as significant in a play marked by the constant forward momentum of war in exterior spaces. As Ronald Huebert discusses in his book Privacy in the Age of Shakespeare, scholars can trace “the evolution of a distinctly private space in the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries” (8). Representing these kinds of interior spaces on the early modern stage was a fairly novel phenomenon. Additionally, although private space is often coded or believed 83 to be more of a sphere for women, Huebert notes that “it would appear that men in early modern culture felt more secure about their experience of privacy than did women” (200). In both plays, moments of privacy often either include women or happen off stage. These private spaces are critical to the story, and often shape the public and political productions of space in terms of how they impact both Hamlet and King Henry. One particular space that is referenced often in Shakespeare as a place of privacy is the closet. In her book Cultural Aesthetics: Renaissance Literature and the Practice of Social Ornament, Patricia Fumerton explores a variety of ways through which early modern aristocrats developed the notion of their own selfhood, including how they utilized and related to public and private spaces within their homes. Fumerton explains that the bedroom and closet spaces were some of the most private, but in order for guests to reach them they would first have to work their way through public spaces. These private spaces “...[were] increasingly situated at the heart of a long succession of public rooms. The outer rooms would become progressively less common as one penetrated further inward...Such an experience must have registered with a double emphasis: one moved inward, but inwardness could be reached only after running a gauntlet of public outerness” (71). The further one moved into the more private spaces, the more intimate information they would be privy to; however, even with an expectation of privacy these places were never truly private, as they were accessible to servants and invited visitors. To some extent, even a closet might sometimes function as a political space that influenced the public. As an aristocrat in Elizabethan England, there was no guarantee for true privacy at any point, but these inner closets were the closest they could ever get (Fumerton 77). When audiences are permitted to see within these private places, and characters such as Gertrude and Katherine do momentarily let their guard down and permit Hamlet and Henry to follow suit, they 84 are potentially just as impactful on the spatial politics of the play. 41 These moments of privacy help orient audiences by acting as conduits for characters to behave differently, and perhaps more authentically, as the men are allowed a moment to be free from their personas curated for public performance. These tensions between public/political and private work together with Shakespeare’s metatheatrical structures to highlight the subjective experiences of characters in the production of space within both plays. “King of Infinite Space”: Performing Public and Private Space in Hamlet Hamlet is a play that is seemingly built on juxtaposition: public versus private, madness versus sanity, domestic versus state, and, perhaps most famously, “to be or not to be.” These pairings heavily influence the production of space in the play—as well as the spatial awareness of the characters, especially Hamlet’s. Shakespeare’s Denmark seems to be built on oppositions, and Hamlet pushes audiences to question these binaries while sometimes finding himself trapped within them. Even in a world where “there are many confines, wards, and dungeons,” Hamlet believes that “Denmark [is] one o’ th’ worst” (2.2.246-247). Hamlet’s interior musings and feelings as he tries to navigate the complexity of his revenge quest seep into his surrounding environment and ultimately influence the way the spaces in the play are mediated for the audience. As Hamlet performs his madness, a play is performed within the play, and the story ends with bodies being “high on a stage be placed to the view;” the play is packed to the brim with metatheatrical and metadramatic moments. Simultaneously, the text consistently makes us very aware of the fictional space Hamlet inhabits: the place-names of Elsinore and Denmark are constantly referenced and linked to Hamlet’s very identity, even when his portrayal of these 41 Of course, Gertrude knows the space is not initially truly private, as she allows Polonius to observe her interaction with Hamlet. The space behind the arras blurs the boundary between public and private, at least until Hamlet stabs Polonius. 85 places as an “unweeded garden” or a “prison” seems to conflict with the perspectives of other characters. This complex spatial awareness of the various characters permeates the text. It is crucial in the sociopolitical landscape of the play; with Fortinbras’s army looming in the margins, there is the sense that this place is always at risk despite the solidity of Denmark’s court. The opening scene of the play follows the watch and Horatio explains how this looming threat “is the main motive of our preparations, / The source of this our watch, and the chief head / Of this post-haste rummage in the land,” drawing attention to the fact that the space projected by the new king is not as stable as it may seem (1.1.104-106). Scenes such as the closet scene between Hamlet and Gertrude also make us very aware of the tensions between public and private spaces (often not as private as they may seem), but there are also many spaces and places mentioned in the text that we never have the opportunity to see: Wittenberg, England, and even a pirate ship that saves Hamlet from execution, all of which are constructed as outside and in opposition to Elsinore. Of all the places referred to or identified in the text, private, domestic space is a rarity in the play. The former king’s garden and Gertrude’s closet stand out as exceptions, and both become significant to Hamlet’s understanding of Denmark–and the production of the space designated as Denmark on stage. There are moments where characters have soliloquies alone onstage, although these are often brief and given in public spaces. Spaces are therefore necessarily produced by characters as they need them, and their subjective views of this produced space is what is relayed to the audience. When trying to express his current relationship to Denmark in the second act of Hamlet, the titular prince tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count / myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I / have bad dreams” (2.2.253-255). Hamlet is 86 expressing that it is not Denmark itself that is fueling his current behavior, but rather his own experience that is shaping the way he interacts with the space around him. The kingdom may seem unmarred to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern–who are there as a favor to the new King Claudius–but to Hamlet, who has just experienced the death of his father and is grappling with the charge of revenge from his Ghost, Elsinore is tainted by “bad dreams” in a way only he can understand. But, how can the same place be so extraordinarily different for all these characters, and how does the audience form its view of Denmark when there are such contrasting representations of space in play? Through the character Hamlet, Shakespeare creates the spaces of the prison and the garden—an intertwining of reality and the prince’s imagination—to produce a sense of instability in the play’s setting. Hamlet’s audience is informed early on that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” and the play primarily produces space through Hamlet’s subjective experience and his modes of orientation and disorientation within the produced spaces. As shown by his supposedly feigned madness, Hamlet’s relationship with Denmark is represented as being different than that of the other characters of the play. Yet, the audience is clearly supposed to forge their relationship with this space through the eyes of the Hamlet, a “king of infinite space.” For instance, in the Folio text of the play Hamlet tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern “Denmark’s a prison,” but he is met with a response of “we think not so, my lord” (2.2.242, 247). This moment emphasizes that Hamlet’s Denmark is not the same as that of the other characters, as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern make clear in their response. But Hamlet himself seems to understand this principle, as he goes on to say a few lines later, “thinking makes it so” (2.2.249). This dialogue engages with the idea that space is subjective—Denmark is completely different for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern than it is for Hamlet despite their being in the same physical 87 place. This is a recurring theme, as Hamlet represents his father’s garden, his mother’s closet, and even the graveyard in a way that does not seem to connect with the other characters in these spaces. Since the audience tends to follow Hamlet through the play, their understanding of this space is mediated through his experiences—even if other characters relate to it differently. In this section, I primarily focus on the image of the unweeded garden to demonstrate the way Hamlet’s subjective experience produces the spatial narrative in the play. In Dance, Space and Subjectivity Valerie Briginshaw argues that it is the process of individual bodies ‘becoming’ that makes the space around them legible, as this process “recognizes the non-fixity and instability of subjectivity, such that the subject never reaches a stable state of being which can be fixed in a binary opposition, it rather has the possibility of fluctuating the spaces in between” (18). Throughout the play, the audience is privy to Hamlet’s inner thoughts more than any characters—through his soliloquies and projections of madness, Shakespeare consistently portrays Hamlet as “fluctuating the spaces in between.” Throughout the play, Hamlet fluctuates between the prison and the unweeded garden, and the audience—in its own in-between state as spectator—is aware of this instability and thus distanced from the perspective of the other characters. Despite Hamlet’s famous proclamation, he is not the first character in the play to bring up the idea of a prison. The first character to use prison imagery is the Ghost, when he tells Hamlet “I am forbid /To tell the secrets of my prison-house” (1.513-14). Here, the Ghost is referring to the influx state of his soul after death as it is trapped in the in- between of purgatory. Hamlet picks up on not only the image of the prison and the secrecy of his revenge quest, but also the mutability of existing in space (although, he interestingly does not seem to fear that his revenge quest will end up with him in the same “prison” as his father) (Greenblatt 17). This is just before the Ghost of King Hamlet describes his murder in his private 88 orchard, which, in addition to the prison, becomes another space with which Hamlet becomes obsessed. In many ways, the idea of the unweeded garden could almost be considered the exact opposite of the prison. The garden becomes an important marker of space in the play, as it shifts from a space of privacy to one of public performance. Since the garden is the space of the murder of his father and also representative of the “poison” of his mother, it has captured Hamlet’s imagination and he reproduces this space throughout the play. It has become another representational space “embodying complex symbolisms” that occupies Shakespeare’s works (Lefebvre 33). According to Henri Lefebvre in The Production of Space, natural spaces “may be marked abstractly, by means of discourse, by means of signs. Space thus acquires symbolic value. Symbols, in this view, always imply an emotional investment, an affective charge (fear, attraction, etc.), which is so to speak deposited at a particular place and thereafter ‘represented’ for the benefit of everyone elsewhere” (141). Since the orchard does not appear on stage and there is no anecdote of Hamlet visiting it, his response to it is not attached to the physical space but rather a symbolic one. Rather, he is continually constructing an imaginary garden, and is instead linking his negative feelings to the space as the site of his family’s destruction by bestowing its features onto others. It is this merging that becomes what he perceives as a prison. Since his affective response to the orchard was founded on words alone, it is through words that he continually spreads this response by verbally recreating the site of his father’s murder and using it to justify his harsh behavior toward those he associates with the crime. As Charlotte Scott discusses in Shakespeare’s Nature: From Cultivation to Culture, “For many of Shakespeare’s characters the garden becomes a space of relative privacy in which plots of desire or death can be orchestrated, and fears and hopes expressed. The metaphorical garden, 89 however, is often more complex” (5). The image of the garden in Hamlet constantly wavers between a “real” but offstage space and metaphorical (or imaginary) space. While the audience never has the opportunity to see it, the garden in the play does technically start out as a tangible place: it is where King Hamlet is murdered. This serves as the catalyst for the play’s action (or, at least for a time, Hamlet’s inaction), and the necessity for Hamlet’s metatheatrical approach to grappling with the aftermath. When the Ghost meets with Hamlet on the battlements of the castle, he informs his son that he was the victim of a “murder most foul,” explaining that: ...Now, Hamlet, hear: 'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his crown. (1.5.34-40) The Ghost uses the orchard space as a microcosmic representation of Denmark as a whole; the kingdom has been lied to about their ruler’s death, and as such are similarly poisoned through the ear. The space of the orchard and Denmark, previously believed to be one that is safe and secure, has been compromised from within. Hamlet is now the only person who knows, and thus must bear the burden of, this truth. In Reading the Unseen: (offstage) Hamlet, Stephen Ratcliffe emphasizes the need to acknowledge the implication of the orchard only being rendered through dialogue—by a potentially unreliable character at that. He directly links the Ghost’s first reference to the orchard and serpent to the garden of Eden, further cementing the relationship between this place and the site of original sin. Ratcliffe argues that “neither place nor the physical act taking place there are performed on stage in Hamlet except in these words. Being thus invisible to the audience of Hamlet as well as to the reader of the text, King Hamlet in his orchard becomes a ‘figment’ of 90 multiple imaginations: Shakespeare’s, the Ghost’s, Hamlet’s, the actors who play them, ours” (41). This is not the only link between imagined space and verbal representations in the play; in fact, another offstage death is linked to an orchard-like or garden-like space as well; that of Ophelia’s in the fourth act. Although her death does not take place in King Hamlet’s garden, the imagery invoked when Gertrude describes her death evokes another scene of nature outside of the castle, albeit one that is uncultivated: “There is a willow grows aslant a brook, / That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream” (4.7.164-165). Once again, Shakespeare positions an outdoor location as a place of privacy and death that exists only in the imagination–an “unweeded garden,” perhaps.42 This re-emphasizes Hamlet’s biggest problem—the fact that the orchard, and what happened in it, merely exists through words. He has no evidence of what occurred in this space. With the Ghost now inaccessible to him, to determine the truth Hamlet needs some kind of external validation that the events of the garden are not merely in his own mind. As Hamlet quests for revenge, the space of the orchard becomes crucial to his assessment of Claudius’s guilt and how he understands the space he occupies within the kingdom. To accomplish his uncovering of the crime, Hamlet invites the players to reproduce this space through The Murder of Gonzago/The Mouse-trap, which is often cited as a prime example of metatheatre.43 The orchard breaks free from Hamlet’s second-hand memory and this synthesis of real and imaginary is brought forth before the entire court through performance. This meta- theatricality also re-emphasizes how Hamlet’s audience is coming to understand the spaces in the 42 However, an early modern audience may have recognized this as an allusion to the murder of Mary Queen of Scots’ first husband, Lord Darnley, whose death may have occurred in either an orchard or garden. For further analysis on how this scenario might connect to Hamlet and influences the relationship between the prince and his mother, Stephen Deng traces the history of this connection in his paper “Hamlet and the Politics of Misogyny.” 43 See Lionel Abel’s Metatheatre: A New View of the Dramatic Form, James Calderwood’s To Be and Not to Be: Negation and Metadrama in Hamlet, and Judd D. Hubert’s Metatheater: The Example of Shakespeare. 91 play through the prince’s perspective—in this moment, the other characters and the audience are briefly in the same place and being forced into similar perspectives. The players reenact the scene not once, but twice—first as a dumb show, and then with Hamlet’s added lines. The stage directions for the dumb show read: Enter [Players as] a king and a queen, the queen embracing him and he her. He takes her up and declines his head upon her neck. He lies him down upon a bank of flowers. She seeing him asleep leaves him. Anon come in [a Player as] another man, takes off his crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleeper’s ears and leaves him. The queen returns, finds the king dead, makes passionate action. The Poisoner with some three or four [Players] come in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner woos the queen with gifts. She seems harsh awhile but in the end accepts love. (3.2.128) This is the first time audience members or readers would see any rendering of the physical space of the orchard in the play, albeit not the actual space referenced by the Ghost. This rendering of the space of the garden is built from Hamlet’s perspective. It is unclear at this moment if Hamlet insisted on this play even before he inserted his own lines of dialogue because of this dumb show or if this was another addition in an attempt to detect Claudius’s guilt. Regardless, the lines between reality and fiction are once again easily blurred—the napping king poisoned through the ear in this idyllic garden space almost exactly mirrors the Ghost’s account. However, there is an interesting addition—nearly half the dumb show focuses on the response of the queen. The Ghost only mentions his wife in passing, but here she is just as prominently featured in the account of events as the murderer himself. If we accept this as Hamlet’s interpretation of what happened in the orchard, he has forged an association between his mother and the murder, and he has attached her to this formulation of original sin. It is striking how the production of the garden space from the ghost’s reference mutates in theatrical reality via the dumb show. Immediately following the dumb show, the Players launch into the actual dialogue of their play. As with their silent performance, the queen’s presence in the garden is emphasized— 92 the majority of the action is dialogue between the king and queen. However, the actual setting is not mentioned in the context of this play. As part of his unclear location during the performance, it is Hamlet who provides context for the site of the final scene before “the king rises:” “’A poisons him i’ th’ garden for his estate. His name’s Gonzago. The story is extant and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife” (3.2.254-257). Although Hamlet is the one to explicitly conjure the image of the garden, it is the Player Queen who utters the last direct mention of prison in the play: Nor earth to me give food nor heaven light, Sport and repose lock from me day and night. To desperation turn my trust and hope An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope. (3.2.210-213) The recreation of the garden scene generates what Hamlet desired—he hopes to successfully “catch[es] the conscience of the King.” (2.2.540). Yet, it also highlights something that has escaped him throughout the play—the sense that the queen, his mother, feels trapped in a prison as he does. Once more, Hamlet conflates the site of the garden with not just the murder, but also what he perceives as his mother’s betrayal. He emphasizes the role of Gertrude as an accomplice in the crime—either in murder itself or by engaging in a relationship with Claudius (possibly off- stage before his father’s death); the evidence of which also currently only exists in the space of his imagination. For Hamlet, the orchard has taken on new meanings that begin to evolve separately from the Ghost’s account of events. As a symbol, the garden transcends the actual, real site of King Hamlet’s murder, and becomes another kind of theatrical or third space that is representative of Denmark’s evolution into “something rotten.” When his initial characterization of gardens is confirmed by this event, Hamlet envisions the garden as a kind of mental stage where he plays out suspected treachery. 93 He starts to constantly render the space elsewhere through the use of metaphor, and oftentimes, in a similar use to his first reference to gardens in the play. Scott explains that [for] Hamlet, the garden mutates from the physical space in which his father was murdered to a figurative image of wholesale iniquity. The ‘unweeded garden’ emerges as a form of neglect in which inaction allows ‘things rank and gross’ not only to rise to the surface but to take root. The garden analogy allows husbandry to manifest as a practice of moral intervention, in which action, or weeding, is an inherently sociable practice of moral cleansing. (6) With the move from physical to a similar symbolic space, the garden no longer exists within the bounds of an actual tangible site. Although the orchard is not responsible for the King’s murder and unforgiven sins, Hamlet represents various components of the garden as being tangible representations of that sin. Through his language, Hamlet codes the elements of his life via these images. The weeds of this “unweeded garden” begin to appear in the fractured relationships between characters, and the garden slowly spreads throughout the prison. This evokes a conflation of two locations. When the space of the garden is transgressed, it begins to unravel the space of Elsinore as a whole. Nowhere is safe, and this lack of security is emphasized through moments of surveillance in seemingly private moments. In Shakespeare and Domestic Life: A Dictionary, Sandra Clark explores how the tainting of the garden changes Hamlet’s relationship with all space in the play. She somewhat reiterates Scott, relaying that “the orchard can also be a place of solace...but in [Hamlet] this place is violated by the murderous act of Claudius,” but she adds that “...the regularity of Old Hamlet’s activity, and his sense that this is his ‘secure hour’ when he expected to be able to relax alone and safe, make the violation of this private and domestic space the more heinous” (255). Private, domestic space is a rarity in the play, but these spaces offer the few moments where the metatheatrical elements can be decentralized. Claudius’s violation of the garden may be the first transgression against privacy, but it is far from the last. 94 Characters are constantly being watched: Claudius and Polonius observe Ophelia’s interaction with Hamlet while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are hired to keep tabs on the prince. There are a few moments of seeming genuine privacy where characters have soliloquies alone onstage, although those are often brief and given in public spaces. Other instances of intimate moments are subject to secret surveillance, such as when Claudius and Polonius view Hamlet and Ophelia’s interactions, or when Hamlet spies on Claudius as he prays. Many feminist critics have picked up on this language of the garden in Hamlet’s interaction with both Gertrude and Ophelia. Janet Adelman explores the importance of the symbolic space of the garden in Hamlet’s relationship with his mother in Man and Wife is One Flesh: Hamlet and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body. She unravels the ways Gertrude’s role in the play has become embroiled in—and sometimes collapsed with—this place. She uses both biblical and mythological imagery to demonstrate the dynamics between Gertrude and the male figures in the play and how Gertrude’s fall “sullies” Hamlet by association. The stories of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel become inextricably intertwined—the symbolic garden of Hamlet’s imagination becomes the first garden, and thus is unquestionably the site of the original sin: Beneath the story of fratricidal rivalry is the story of a woman who conduces to death, of the father fallen not through his brother’s treachery but through his subjection to this woman; and despite Gertrude’s conspicuous absence from the scene in the garden, in this psychologized version of the fall, the vulnerability of the father—and hence of the son—to her poison turns out to be the whole story. (Adelman 24) Images of the unweeded garden are linked to flesh and embodiment, which Hamlet seems unable to bear. In his recreation of the garden scene through The Mousetrap and his subsequent explanation (as recounted above), emphasis is placed on the stealing of Gonzago’s wife rather than the murder itself. The garden is no longer just a symbol of death, it is now also a symbol of 95 adultery. As Adelman addresses, despite the crime in this garden being that of Cain and Abel, Hamlet has transformed it into the story of Adam and Eve. This draws his attention from his task of revenge and contributes to the chaos as his plot spins rapidly out of control. The next moment of true privacy, and in one of the only other domestic spaces shown in the play, is in Gertrude’s closet (once the rat is killed, of course). Gertrude, who has in many ways become the garden for Hamlet, is now in her own equivalent space—and by the end of the scene, it is revealed to be an important space of privacy for Hamlet as well. Gertrude’s closet is arguably the one space that is the most clearly delineated in the play, and thus it has unquestionably captured the imagination of audiences and critics alike. While the King left the castle walls for privacy, the Queen retreats into its inner depths. Although the scene between Hamlet and Gertrude is quite violent—Polonius is murdered and Hamlet is often portrayed as getting physical with Gertrude—it is important to note that he was invited into the closet. This place is not inherently a private one, rather it is produced as one by the meanings bestowed upon it by those who utilize it. Melissa Auclair explores the significance of Gertrude’s closet—and Shakespearean queens’ closets in general—in “Coming into the Closet: Spatial Practices and Representations of Interior Space.” She explains how even if closets may never be truly private spaces, there is a code of expected behavior that those who entered them would be expected to follow. Auclair suggests that, in regard to Hamlet, “...the room’s privacy is far more important to the scene’s structure than its femininity… Hamlet feels free to speak plainly to his mother, and even to make threats without fear of interruption or detection. Despite the seeming impropriety of his heated words, Hamlet has shown discretion by choosing only to reveal his true feelings in his mother’s closet” (151-152). If the closet is the only equivalent private space Hamlet has to the garden within the play, based on the practices around royalty’s private closets, the murder of 96 Polonius could be considered defensible (Auclair 148). Polonius is an interloper in Hamlet’s private space (but not Gertrude’s, as she invited him), and in contrast to the garden, it is the intruder who is killed, allowing privacy—and safety— to be, momentarily, restored. This is also the only other time within the play in which Hamlet (and the audience) sees his father’s ghost. Particularly in the first quarto of the play, it seems that even if he might be an unseen intruder in some sense, he also feels at liberty to enter the privacy of the closet. A stage direction in scene 11 of Q1 reads “Enter the GHOST in his night-gown,” and in this version of the play, the Ghosts requests that Hamlet comfort his mother, making it seem as if the King also engaged with this space in a domestic context. For a brief moment, Hamlet’s family is reunited and he is allowed a momentary reprieve from the role of mad-avenger that he has been playing. As Hamlet argues with the Queen and eventually persuades her to keep his confidence, the closet replaces the garden as a sanctified place of privacy as the Ghost disappears from the scene and, subsequently, the rest of the play. After this, the garden imagery dissipates from Hamlet’s vocabulary; in fact, the language of the garden tainted by death is merged with and eventually replaced by the language of the grave. While Hamlet is abroad and Ophelia falls into madness, the use of the garden imagery is reinvented. It is also one of the few moments in the play where it seems more of a surety that madness is not a performance. When Ophelia first enters for her mad scene in the fourth act, she wanders about the stage singing of betrayal by a lover, but also of death—particularly of the grass at a gravesite and the flowers one might leave while in mourning—before departing the scene. When Laertes arrives, she returns singing once more, but also with wildflowers. She disperses these to her brother, Claudius, and Gertrude, explaining: There’s rosemary: that’s for remembrance. Pray you love, remember. And there is pansies: that’s for thoughts…There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for 97 you, and here’s some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’Sundays. You may wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. (4.5.169-178) Ophelia, in her madness and nearing death, has become the representative of the garden.44 As mentioned above, Gertrude also tells the audience that she drowned while hanging the flowers from a tree in a garden-like space by a brook. Once more, the garden is a space of death. Despite the King’s literal orchard and the imagery linked to Ophelia, the garden operates as a private space in both instances. As Amy Tigner discusses: In the domestic space, a well-run household relies upon a well-tended garden, and it is the female members of the household who are ultimately responsible for the garden’s uses within the domicile. If we think of the castle of Elsinore...also as a domestic space, then Ophelia’s...association with the garden makes another kind of sense, for aristocratic and even royal women were often directly involved in the knowledge base of gardens...Ophelia delivering plants to the court may indeed be a desperate effort at normalcy rather than a sure sign of her lunacy. (99) Once again, the garden is meant to be a safe haven but is corrupted. However, Tigner also argues that there is an important distinction—it is implied that Ophelia is not in the royal garden when picking these flowers or at the time of her death, but rather, she has surpassed the kept garden into a more natural, unkempt space (100-101). Essentially, the wildflowers she presents are the weeds of the much-referenced “unweeded garden.” This is the garden of Hamlet’s imagination brought to life, and it is what ultimately kills Ophelia. It is fitting that the language of the garden within the play ends in the graveyard. Throughout the play, this imaginative space has been tainted by the King’s death, and it is once again tainted by Ophelia’s. However, it is perhaps Hamlet’s interaction with the gravedigger before Ophelia’s funeral that is what truly sparks this transition. The only character to directly mention gardens other than Hamlet is the gravedigger, who also invokes this image in reference 44 For more on the historic meaning behind Ophelia’s herbs and flowers, see Rebeca Larouche, Medical Authority and Englishwomen’s Herbal Texts, 1550–1650 (London: Taylor & Francis, 2016). 98 to the original sin: “There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers and grave-makers They hold up Adam’s profession” (5.1.29-31). William Kerrigan argues in Hamlet’s Perfection that not only are the stories of Cain and Abel conflated with the story of Adam and Eve, but that Adam as the original man and the idea of the garden are forever linked to the cycle of life. He writes: ...the biblical digging has to do with agriculture, the food we fallen gentlemen labor in order to eat, whereas graves are made for corpses, the food we fallen gentlemen become. The transposition from farmer to gravemaker is of course appropriate inasmuch as Adam, the former gardener, made all our graves. The stage is set in large theological terms for Hamlet to encounter one last time the ‘rank unweeded garden’ of his fallen world. (Kerrigan 126) All of the references to the garden throughout the play led to this moment. For the garden to survive, its inhabitants must eventually die. The legacy of not just the former King, but also Denmark’s future as a nation—as signified by Ophelia as the potential mother of Hamlet’s children—has come to an end. It seems that Hamlet is not giving up his imaginary garden as he takes up the imagery of the grave, but that he is finally realizing that the spaces of Denmark, the garden, and the grave are all one and the same. He finally claims his identity as “Hamlet the Dane”—his place—in Ophelia’s grave. Not even in death is there truly private space in the world of Hamlet. As demonstrated by the gravedigger and Hamlet’s recognition of Yorick, not even the dead have the privilege of privacy. As Ophelia is laid to rest, Laertes once more revives the image of the garden before leaping into his sister’s grave: “Lay her i’th’ earth, / And from her fair and unpolluted flesh / May violets spring” (5.1.227-229). Shortly thereafter, Hamlet joins him. As the play ends, all of the corrupted figures of Denmark die together in a public space as they either participate in or observe Hamlet and Laertes’s fencing match. Almost immediately following the demise of its royal family, Denmark falls to the Norwegian army—once more the garden is infiltrated by an 99 outsider. The invader, Fortinbras, orders for them brought “high on a stage be placed to the view,” re-emphasizing the metatheatrical maneuverings that brought about these deaths. But, perhaps this tragic ending full of death is not completely hopeless. Horatio survives and is transplanted into the new regime as an actor, ready to perform his tale of Hamlet’s tragedy. As indicated by the gravedigger, if the garden begets death, then this death begets new life to be played out on a different political stage. “You Know Your Places”: Politicizing and Performing Space in Henry V In many ways, Henry V shares many similar spatial themes with Hamlet. The text demonstrates a consistent preoccupation with public and political productions of space as the titular character helps anchor the audience’s perspective within the world of the play. However, there are marked differences in the ways that Shakespeare uses metatheatrical techniques to execute this spatial practice. As discussed in the opening of this chapter, the Chorus is perhaps one of the most consistent and obvious methods of the use of metadrama in helping the audience navigate space and time in the play. As Phyllis Rackin describes in Stages of History: Shakespeare’s English Chronicles, “the use of metadramatic anachronisms focused the radical contradictions implicit in the entire project of historical recuperation on stage” (97-98). The audience knows that the action taking place on the stage in front of them is not literally moving back and forth between England and France within the span of a single act, but by including these “metadramatic anachronisms,” Shakespeare defines space within the world of the play. Rackin continues, “Although all Shakespeare’s metadramatic allusions are, ipso facto, anachronistic, not all his anachronisms are metadramatic. Nonetheless, even those anachronisms that do not invoke the fact of theatrical performance often debase the objects of historical representation by associating them with the forces of present social change and disruption” (98). These anachronistic moments that do not 100 necessarily invoke metadrama are where the audience comes in. To produce space and meaning in the play, Shakespeare relies on communicating the plot through the bodies of the characters, but it is ultimately up to the audience to parse the meeting of the fictionalized and the historical and the merging of past and present. As demonstrated by the example of the first Chorus at the beginning of this chapter, Henry V is often interrupted by metatheatrical interludes to define the relationship between the space of the theater and the places represented in the play with resonant historical place-names such as Agincourt. The Chorus directly invites the audience to actively participate in the production of space in the play during performance: “Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts. / Into a thousand parts divide one man, / And make imaginary puissance” (1.0.23-22). This acknowledges the lack of visual signifiers of a battlefield and the fact that only a single actor is meant to represent the many soldiers that supposedly occupy it while still defining vast spatial parameters of the play.45 However, similar to Time in The Winter’s Tale (as discussed in the previous chapter), this imagined space exists outside the restrictions of the audience’s perception of real time: “Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times, / Turning th’ accomplishment of many years / Into an hourglass” (1.0.29-31). Once again, time and space are inseparable. To account for the quick leaps across space, the audience must also assume leaps across time. The Chorus closes with a plea for the audience to “Admit me chorus to this history, / Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray / Gently to hear, kindly to judge our play” (1.0.32-33). While the presence of the Chorus marks the play as metadramatic in and of itself, this plea to the audience to “kindly judge our play” clearly aligns characters with actors and the 45 As Stephen Deng argues in “Sexual and Poetic Figuration and the New Mathematics in Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” “The actors…combine with the audience’s imagination…in order to recreate the accurate scale at Agincourt…a few bodies can authentically represent the great battle by tacking the ciphers of the audience’s imaginations on to each figure on stage.” 101 stage with scenes of England and France. The history plays are never a fully accurate view of history, but this disclaimer firmly places this play within the context of a playhouse and asks the audience to remember this theatrical location. However, the Chorus is not merely confined to the Prologue. The role is woven into the very structure of the play, appearing at the beginning of each act and often calling attention to the physical, spatial limitations of the early modern playhouse. The entire play highlights this merging of fictional and historical space and invites the audience to make meaning from this merging of historical play and playhouse. As Phyllis Rackin writes in Stages of History: Shakespeare’s English Chronicles: The choruses in Henry V disrupt, parody, and interrupt the historical action to undermine the authority of historical representation. They direct the audience’s attention to the present reality of actors and audience in the theater, to the barriers of historical time and theatrical mediation that separate them from the desired objects of historical recuperation. (29) Rather than merely allowing the historical characters themselves to produce space alone, the Chorus acts as a disruptive force to make the audience aware of the merging of actor, character, and historical figure and to orient them as an anchoring point in the anachronistic merging of time and space in the play. By acknowledging the presence of the stage and the actors within the context of the play itself, Shakespeare weaves together the space of the theater with historical places and moments in time and space to highlight the fact that this is his own, editorialized version of historical events. I argue that the embodied presence of the Chorus reemphasizes Shakespeare’s spatial practice, whereby the transformation of place to space hinges on the bodies of characters (and thus actors).46 While the playwright is working within a historical framework, 46 Per Michel de Certeau in The Practice of Everyday Life, “space is a practiced place” (117). This understanding of space–as something that place becomes through the actions of those within it–is deployed through this dissertation. In my readings, the place-named locations referenced throughout the plays are produced as space through the way characters interact with these places. 102 the story told in the Globe is one that is a fictionalized rearrangement of history which relies on dramatic appropriations. Shakespeare incorporates moments of metadrama to highlight the use of theatrical space in forcing audience perspective on his rendering of historical events while stressing the constructed nature of historical narrative. The first act does more to establish the idea of the king as playing a role and being an actor in their own right. When discussing the new king’s reign with the Bishop of Ely, the Bishop of Canterbury marks the new ruler’s change from Prince Hal to King Henry. He describes a seemingly impossible transformation, describing how: “The breath no sooner left his father’s body / But that his wildness, mortified in him, / Seemed to die too” (1.1.25-27). As an early modern audience would most likely be aware from both Henry IV plays, the King Henry presented to them is quite different from the character Hal they were familiar with. When Hal takes on the role of king, he becomes nearly unrecognizable to those who knew him before. The role is very different, both in the context of the plot and the context of performance. The Bishop of Canterbury continues, saying that upon the previous king’s death: Consideration like an angel came And whipped th’ offending Adam out of him, Leaving his body as a paradise T’ envelop and contain celestial spirits. (1.1.28-31) Of course, this mention of Adam and paradise parallels the symbolism of the garden in Hamlet, while also hinting at a belief in the divine right of kings that was present in the early modern period.47 While Hal/Henry is clearly the same person, and there are earlier hints at the possibility of his reformed behavior, his father’s death undoubtedly changed him in some fundamental way. The public persona of Hal ceases to exist; the space he occupied before now is space occupied by 47 Ernst Kantorowicz outlines early modern beliefs regarding the duality of kingship and the divine right of kings in his influential book, The King’s Two Bodies. 103 a king. The death of a parent might influence the characterization of any person, fictionalized or historical, but it also is the first hint of the divide between Henry the person and the role he plays when the crown is passed to him. Canterbury seems shocked by Hal’s transformation, and he begins to lay the groundwork for the possibility that there is some level of performance or “art” to the king’s new behavior. The pair are glad for the change and anticipate that this will help them politically as they move forward in their fraught interactions with France. Particularly, as king, Henry seems to be a skilled speaker, and: when he speaks, The air, a chartered libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in men’s ears To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences; So that the art and practic part of life Must be the mistress to this theoric (1.1.47-52) Canterbury also continues to emphasize the fact that this behavior is seemingly the complete opposite of the man he was before he gained the crown, since “addiction was to courses vain, / His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow, / His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports…” (1.1.54-56). It seems as if Hal and Henry are two completely different people (which, in performance, they very well may be). Or, perhaps when Hal steps into the role of king, he is no longer Hal but rather performing the role of King Henry. Of course, he also no longer occupies the same places he did as Hal. Taverns are replaced by throne rooms. Despite his new status, his positioning as a public figure also prevents him from moving through and occupying space in the same way he did prior to his father’s death. In the very next scene, Canterbury explicitly links the idea of the role of a public figurehead to that of some kind of actor. He describes how one of the king’s relatives, Henry’s 104 “great uncle…Edward the Black Prince,” “on the French ground played a tragedy” (1.2.105-6). Not only does Canterbury specifically cast Henry in the role of actor after hinting it in the last scene, but he goes on to describe how Henry’s ancestors played their own parts in past conflicts with France, a significant place name, as if those conflicts were a play. He suggests a similar approach to the future: Making defeat on the full power of France Whiles his most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling to behold his lion’s whelp Forage in blood of French nobility. O noble English, that could entertain With half their forces the full pride of France And let another half stand laughing by, All out of work and cold for action! (1.2.107-114) Canterbury draws a parallel between Edward’s actions on the battlefields and “play[ing] a tragedy,” and he is hoping that King Henry will do the same. To Canterbury, with Henry cast in the lead role, the forthcoming war with France will be nothing but a play that will “entertain.” This is just another dimension to the character Henry must play as king, now with the battlefields of France as his setting. By making these comparisons, Shakespeare further defines the parameters of the metatheatricality for this play, blurring the boundaries between character, actor, and historical figure as well as reimagining the spatio-temporal parameters of the history. After emphasizing the new king’s evolution from Hal to Henry and how the ruler is taking on a kind of role, the play seems to double-down on other metatheatrical components. The Chorus re-emerges before the commencement of act 2, and once again specifically references the theater space and how it relates to the spaces in the play. Once again the Chorus invokes England and France as place names in the play’s constructed history, but he also draws attention specifically to Southampton. The choral figure explains that 105 There is the playhouse now, there must you sit, And thence to France shall we convey you safe And bring you back, charming the narrow seas To give you gentle pass; for, if we may, We’ll not offend one stomach with our play. (2.0.36-40) At first glance, this choral interlude does not seem that different from the prologue, but, “till the King come forth, and not till then, / Unto Southampton do we shift our scene” (2.0.41-42). It seems that following the Bishop of Canterbury’s discussion of Hal’s transformation after his coronation, Henry is now being labeled as the main character of this drama outright. While this might seem obvious considering the title and subject of the play, it also serves the purpose of linking the king to the way space is traversed in the world of the play. The scene does not exist until he arrives; the world of the play is only generated in relation to his presence. We are viewing Shakespeare’s fictionalized Henry V’s version of history, and thus space is produced from his subjective experiences as he evolves into a king. In the third choral interlude, Shakespeare begins to rely less on justifying shifts in space and time by discussing the physicality of the theater or King Henry’s role. Rather, the spatial production of this speech moves more firmly into the “third space” of theatrical space as articulated by Lefebvre. It is neither fictional nor public, but rather purely a creation of the theater for its own sake. The Chorus consistently points to how the play relies on the thoughts or imagination of the audience, explaining that, “Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies / In motion of no less celerity / Than that of thought” (3.0.1-3). At this point, the audience is expected to no longer need urging to accept spatio-temporal shifts; we are just being instructed as to when those shifts happen. The Chorus continues to appeal to the mind of the audience in the creation of space and the making of meaning, imploring that they “Play with your fancies and in them behold,” “O, do but think,” and to “Work, work your thoughts” (3.0.7-14). Finally, the 106 audience is asked to “Still be kind, / And eke out our performance with your mind” (Chorus 3.0.34-35). The play provides the building blocks for the imagined scene of the historical action, but it is ultimately up to each spectator to extrapolate meaning. The Chorus continually redirects us to follow Henry’s story so that we do not become lost in space or time, and so that the theatrical space does not become too subjective for each audience member. Following the Chorus, act 3 begins with what is perhaps one of the most obvious blurring of the line between actor and character without verbalizing the metatheatricality of the moment. Although Henry is surrounded by his troops and advisors, he is the only one to speak in this scene as he delivers a monologue meant to rally his troops for the upcoming battle against the French. He cries out the now famous lines “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, / Or close the wall up with our English dead!,” and the speech comprises the entirety of the scene (3.1.1-2). In this moment, the audience and the soldiers merge into a single group of spectators for Henry’s performance as not just a king but a war leader. This monologue is a prime example of the self-awareness of theater, as it “produces double images by combining overt mimetic representations of the story with covert performative and metadramatic clues pointing to its own operations at the risk of undermining or at the very least of problematizing the fable” (Hubert 2). Although Henry is strictly not giving a theatrical performance, he is performing a role nonetheless. While the context is historical, it is most likely that this speech was completely created by Shakespeare. This moment is fictionalized, but is also representative of Henry’s legacy as king. In a stark contrast to Henry’s performance to prepare his troops for battle, mid-way through the play Shakespeare introduces the audience to both the future queen of England and what is seemingly the first instance of truly private space in the play–and also the first instance 107 of French being spoken despite the many French characters and French settings. As Calderwood argues, “Up until Katherine’s English lesson in act 3, the French have all spoken English, as of course they must in an English play. Yet precisely because they must, the fact that they do passes largely unnoticed” (165). Throughout the play, especially for those in the audience familiar with the history it draws from, there is no question that France will fall to the English. While there are a few instances of only French characters appearing in a scene together, it all ultimately ties back to the political conflict with the English, and it is thus relayed to the audience in English. The space of Katherine’s closet is the only purely French place in the entire play, one that is domestic and (seemingly) as of yet untouched by the politics. Katherine is momentarily isolated and exempt from the traditional structures of spatial practice in the play. Despite France being repeatedly named as a place name throughout the play, this is the only time France is produced through the characters speaking their native language. Perhaps this is due to the other French scenes somehow pertaining to the conflict with the English, but Katherine is not unaware that she will potentially take on a role of her own in this conflict. As James Calderwood explains, Shakespeare “introduces, before Agincourt, a scene in which the French princess takes a lesson in English speech–as though it were foreordained that Katherine’s French must in the future give place to Harry’s English” (Henriad 167). This scene, in the playwright’s metatheatrical construction, is merely a kind of rehearsal for Katherine to prepare for the political drama she will take part in. She asks her companion, “Alice, tu as été en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage…Je te prie, m’enseignez. Il faut que j’apprenne à parler” (3.4.1-5).48 Although she has not had contact with the English thus far in the play, Katherine’s desire to learn English demonstrates an awareness of a need to prepare for this eventuality. She participates in a brief 48 Translation: “Alice, you have been to England, and you speak the language well. Please teach me. I have to learn to speak.” 108 lesson, responding to Alice’s compliment of her grasp of the language with “Je ne doute point d’apprendre, par le grâce de Dieu, et en peu de temps” (3.4.36-37).49 Not only is Katherine aware she needs to learn English, she is also aware that there is an urgency to the situation. The private, French space she and Alice produce in this scene is only temporary and she demonstrates an awareness of this fact. Shortly before the end of the scene, she expresses her feelings toward English as a language, exclaiming, “Ô Seigneur Dieu! Ils sont les mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames d’honneur d’user. Je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France, pour tout le monde. Foh!” (3.4.47-51).50 This whole appearance of Katherine as well as this proclamation is a stark contrast to the similar (although not quite as) private moment between her and Henry toward the end of the play. The next time she appears, the space she produces is one that is political and moves to unite France with England. But at this moment, although she is aware of the role she will need to play later, Katherine expresses a distaste of her role in this political drama, and the audience is briefly shown the separation between character and “actor.” Of course, the Chorus once again introduces act 4, but the metatheatrics extend into the act beyond this repeated device. The earlier acts hinted that King Henry is primarily an actor in his role of king; he uses disguise to step into another role, layering metatheatricality on top of metatheatricality. While his role as king provides him access to most spaces, he must conceal his identity to learn what his soldiers truly think of him. The soldiers’ roles prevent them from speaking their true feelings directly to him as the king. By taking on a disguise and playing a different role, he can experience the space of the soldiers’ encampment in a different, perhaps 49 Translation: “I have no doubt that I will learn, through the grace of God, and in a short time.” 50 Translation: “O Lord God! They are the words of its bad, corruptible, fat, and immodest, and not for ladies-in- waiting to wear. I would not like to say these words before the lords from France, for everyone. Foh!” 109 more authentic, way. When he poses as a soldier, he is asked whether their commander has told the king his perception of the events of the war. Henry replies: KING HENRY No. Nor it is not meet he should, for, though I speak it to you, I think the King is but a man as I am…when he sees reason of fears as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are. Yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army. BATES He may show what outward courage he will, but I believe, as cold a night as ’tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here. KING HENRY By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King. I think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is. BATES Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men’s lives saved. (4.1.99-119) Here, Henry articulates that the king is a performer, and underneath the crown he is just like any other man. By performing this role, he is able to express his own fears and feelings and enter into spaces to which he would not normally have access. And, by taking on this role, he also allows his soldiers to shed the roles they are normally expected to perform when interacting with royalty and their superior officers. According to Phyllis Rackin, It is only as actors that kings can mingle with common people and only by resorting to theatrical fiction that playwrights can incorporate plebeian characters and plebeian life in their stories. The fictiveness of the scene on the night before Agincourt is necessitated by the exclusions of Renaissance historiography; its theatricality invokes a dramatic tradition that transgressed the boundaries dividing subject from king in a hierarchical society. Only by moving beyond the boundaries of historiographic discourse into the liberties of theatrical invention can Shakespeare find a place for the common soldiers in his historical drama. (226) By meeting his soldiers in their own space, public but only implicitly political, Henry is able to better understand the subjectivity of the experience of war.51 However, it is just another role he is playing, and society demands that he leave this play-acting behind. 51 Of course, we see the unraveling of this role-playing later in act 4 when Henry gives his glove to Fluellen and manipulates a confrontation between him and Williams. 110 Shortly following this interaction, Henry seems to experience a brief and rare moment of privacy. Momentarily, he is able to stop playing the role of king (or king’s soldier) and consider what playing this role means for himself. The king questions the theatricality, or “ceremony,” of the role he has inherited, but he comes to realize that: I am a king that find thee, and I know 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farced title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread… And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of the country's peace, Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace. (4.1.251-275) After his interaction with his soldiers, Henry feels deeply misunderstood. He takes his role as king very seriously even though he realizes his subjects cannot always see past the pageantry. In his attempts to “maintain the peace,” he feels he is protecting his country, and even if those of lower statuses feel that they are suffering, the ruler is doing his best to keep everyone safe. Even if much of being king is a kind of performance, Henry ultimately believes that the role is a burden involving a lot of suffering that is not, and cannot be, seen by the public. Although this scene seems to be a glimpse past the metatheatrical components of King Henry, it is layered with the knowledge that this scene in particular must be completely fabricated by the playwright. 111 In the final Chorus before the epilogue, the audience is reminded that this is fiction, specifically “to those that have not read the story” (5.0.1). The Chorus specifically names Calais as our destination, returning us to a key location near the Battle of Agincourt and the site of the brokering of peace between England and France. But before we get there, the Chorus charts the King’s path by invoking London and Blackheath, referencing the English celebrations of Henry V’s victory without showing the celebrations. Perhaps more than at any other point in the play, the Chorus has to prompt the audience as to where the action for the act will take place, explaining away the spatio-temporal shift that has brought the King from France to England and back again to France: omit All the occurrences, whatever chanced, Till Harry's back-return again to France: There must we bring him; and myself have play'd The interim, by remembering you 'tis past. Then brook abridgment, and your eyes advance, After your thoughts, straight back again to France. (5.0.40-46) For a final moment, the audience is asked to engage with the theatrical space produced through the combining of play text (including historical source), playhouse, and performance. Once again, Henry is emphasized as the focal point for spatial production. The final act is perhaps in many ways one of the most metatheatrical. While the play does not end with a true play-within-a-play, the story ends with a clear moment of political theater with the negotiation of a marriage between King Henry and Katherine of France. This is Katherine’s second and only other appearance in the play, and with her arrival in this act there is a merging of public, political, and private space. She is called forth to be cast in the role of Henry’s wife, the mother of his children, and ultimately the broker of peace between England and France. In a brief private moment, out of the eyes of the King and Queen of France (but 112 under the watch of a chaperone), Henry outlines this role for a skeptical Katherine, explaining that: The Princess is the better Englishwoman.— I’ faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding. I am glad thou canst speak no better English, for if thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say “I love you.” Then if you urge me farther than to say “Do you, in faith?” I wear out my suit. Give me your answer, i’ faith, do; and so clap hands and a bargain. How say you, lady? (5.2.121-130) Not only is her role outlined for her in this interaction, but Henry is feeding her lines. He is portraying the humble and bashful lover, and he anticipates Katherine responding in the way he has outlined. However, she has not yet fully embraced her role in this political performance. Although Henry primarily runs the conversation, Katherine does not make the orchestration of their political alliance easy. Throughout this interaction, Katherine makes interjections that do not follow Henry’s imagined script. Because they are in private, she is able to respond in a way that is perhaps not anticipated: KING HENRY No, faith, is ’t not, Kate, but thy speaking of my tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely must needs be granted to be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much English? Canst thou love me? KATHERINE I cannot tell. KING HENRY Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I’ll ask them. Come, I know thou lovest me; and at night, when you come into your closet, you’ll question this gentlewoman about me, and, I know, Kate, you will, to her, dispraise those parts in me that you love with your heart. But, good Kate, mock me mercifully, the rather, gentle princess, because I love thee cruelly. If ever thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore needs prove a good soldier-breeder. (5.2.187-201) In truth, the marriage between Henry and Katherine is not made due to any love match. While Henry plays the devoted lover, Katherine is still not acting in her assigned role. In fact, it is not until Katherine asks if it would please her father to enter the marriage that she is convinced. When Henry expresses that it will, she responds, “Den it sall also content me” and begins to play 113 the coquette lover: “Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur, en baisant la main d’ une—Notre Seigneur!— indigne serviteur. Excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon très puissant seigneur” (5.2.247-251).52 Only once Katherine fully accepts her role in this political drama does she begin to play along. And now as the future Queen of England, she too has a part to play. The implied union of Henry and Katherine neatly ties up this slice of history and serves as a neat finale to close out this dramatized recreation. As Calderwood writes, “The small time of history has become even smaller on Shakespeare’s stage. History is linear and unrepeatable, except in drama, and now that Shakespeare has freed his own drama from the eddying of 2 Henry IV it too has become linear and unrepeatable. The dramatic succession moves on” (181). This private moment sets the foundation for the next act of Henry’s reign, the brief time of peace before his death and the rise of Henry VI’s England. While the action of the play truly ends with the betrothal of King Henry and Katherine, the Chorus makes one last appearance to break the fourth wall and reinforce to the audience the fictionality of the play they just watched. The Chorus no longer even attempts to maintain the pretense that the audience is imagining England or France, rather, it seems that this final moment is directly set in the playhouse itself: Thus far with rough and all-unable pen Our bending author hath pursued the story, In little room confining mighty men, Mangling by starts the full course of their glory. Small time, but in that small most greatly lived This star of England. Fortune made his sword, By which the world’s best garden he achieved And of it left his son imperial lord. Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned King Of France and England, did this king succeed, Whose state so many had the managing That they lost France and made his England bleed, 52 Translation: “Let, my lord, let, let! My faith, I do not want you to lower your greatness by kissing the hand of an—Our Lord!—unworthy servant. Excuse me, I beg you, my most powerful lord.” 114 Which oft our stage hath shown. And for their sake, In your fair minds let this acceptance take. (5.2.365-378) History surpasses the play, and the Epilogue acknowledges this. The France and England of Henry V are merely place names, referencing fictionalized histories that are used as the foundation of a play that produces its own space by invoking these places names. In a way, in theatrical space, this moment takes place outside of space or time. It is both past and future, in England and France, but also inside the playhouse where the performance is taking place. Metadramatic moments like this one encapsulate the many layers of theatrical space and demonstrate the ways Shakespeare’s spatial practice, despite surviving across time via play texts, can extend beyond the fictionalized events on the page to the stage, and is even unable to be confined to the playhouse. Whether it is intertextual or historical, audiences bring prior knowledge with them and gather meaning from the plays based on moments of recognition. Shakespeare’s use of metadrama, particularly regarding the emphasis on characters, engages in a kind of self-reflexive role-playing. Through renderings of public, political, and private space, Hamlet and Henry V serve as prime examples as to how metadrama can help transition a play from literary modes of spatial production to theatrical space, bringing the play closer to its intended form: live performance. 115 CHAPTER 3: FROM PAGE TO STAGE: CORPOREAL REIMAGININGS OF THE WORLDS OF OTHELLO AND RICHARD III In January 2024, Shakespeare’s Globe announced its summer season, which included productions of Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, Anthony and Cleopatra, and The Comedy of Errors. As part of the press release, the Globe’s artistic director, Michelle Terry, released a statement, asking, “Where, as human beings, are we afforded a safe space for exploration, experimentation, reflection, and conversation. A space to at least question the issues, ideas, thoughts, and feelings that have the power to change our lives for good or for bad? Theatres should be that space” (“Summer Season 2024”). Since its inception in 1997, Shakespeare’s Globe has undergone many leadership changes while consistently striving to be one such space where artists, scholars, and actors alike learn from and experiment with Shakespeare’s works and legacy. The space produced at the Globe is one that both experiments with original practices of Shakespeare’s day and encourages contemporary notions of equity and inclusion.53 Of course, while Terry was chiefly speaking as artistic director, that was not her only reason to give a press release–she also announced that she would be taking on the titular role in Richard III. As Terry has been cast in a variety of roles, ranging from Hamlet to Cordelia, via the Globe’s recent gender-conscious casting practices, this is not terribly surprising, but her casting did spark a backlash due to her positionality as an able-bodied actor in a position of power within the organization. 53 Shakespeare’s Globe has been through several artistic directors, and each one has brought their own approach to the space. Mark Rylance’s time as artistic director is often remembered for productions in this space that centered attempts to replicate original practices to better understand the stage conditions of Shakespeare’s day. Recently, more attention has been put towards practices of more equitable casting. For more on the evolution of the way this space is used, see Shakespeare’s Globe: A Theatrical Experiment, edited by Christie Carson and Farah Karim- Cooper. 116 It is this combination of the text and the actors breathing life into a script that produces the space of a play, and thus casting is a crucial element in the production of space in performance. As they are plays, Shakespeare’s works are fully realized only through the process of embodiment, whether during his time or for the audiences of today. In this chapter, I use the term “embodiment” to discuss the practice of bringing Shakespeare’s plays to life through the embodied presence of actors in performance, and further explore how contemporary identity politics impact the way audiences then interpret space within the play. More specifically, this chapter analyzes the way understandings of race, gender, and disability in our times influence the way Shakespeare’s plays are performed. Andrew Bozio specifically writes about the significance of the corporeal presence of the actor on the stage in Thinking through Place on the Early Modern English Stage, in which he writes: [D]rama’s formal reliance upon bodies as a means of invoking the settings of a particular play also enacts a speculative argument about the nature of place: this reliance reasserts the intimacy between embodiment and environment that we find within Aristotelian theories of place, effectively qualifying the degree to which early modern drama can be read as a technology of abstraction. (20) Regardless of who occupies the stage, their body is necessary to invoke place and space. Settings exist through actors projecting and representing them in their speech and gestures, and therefore actors, following the text, influence the way space is produced in any given production. As Shakespeare writes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. (5.1.14-17) Although here Theseus is not referring specifically to dramatic poets, it rings true of Shakespeare’s spatial practice as a writer with the intention of his words to be uttered aloud. Here, Shakespeare is describing the process of creating characters which then go on to produce 117 spaces for itself from “airy nothing.” As actors continue to be drawn from different communities, there are new potentialities for reimagining Shakespeare’s spatial practice in performance. Therefore, Terry’s embodied presence as Richard III would impact audience perceptions and interpretations of the play. In this chapter, I argue that the social space of the theater, created by the modern bodies of actors and audience response to their embodiment of the role, merges with—and helps to define—the theatrical space produced in performance. This merging thus influences the meaning of the text in performance, as audiences begin to interpret the world of the play through contemporary understanding of social spatial production which can in turn blur the line between reality/fiction as we view historical dramatic constructs through a modern lens. Through the previous chapters, I demonstrated how Shakespeare deploys literary modes such as the pastoral and structural devices such as metatheatre that are familiar to audiences and provide a framework from which characters imaginatively evoke and thus produce space on the empty stage. This chapter moves from these close readings and analyses of the plays to explore how the actors in modern performances–live on the stage as opposed to the text–of Shakespeare’s works produce space on stage and layer new meanings and interpretations onto the text. After examining the dynamics of the production of space on the early modern stage, I shift to an analysis of how the corporeal attributes of contemporary actors influence performances in theaters such as Shakespeare’s Globe and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Through the lens of critical theories of embodiment (such as those outlined by Valerie Traub), I explore how the bodies of actors representing varied, diverse identities encourage audiences to consider new possibilities for redefining spatial practices—particularly in regard to the intersecting identity formations that are woven into Shakespeare’s plays. For instance, how do the spaces of the Venetian military change if you cast other Black actors in Othello beside the 118 titular character? Or, how does casting a disabled actor in the role of Richard III highlight the way the king’s corporeal presence shapes the space of medieval England’s court? I examine scenes from productions of Othello and Richard III within the last ten years to explore how modern conceptualizations of race, gender, and disability can alter audience interpretations of the text through performance. In particular, I am interested in the production of contemporary social space, as formulated by Henri Lefebvre, and how it is imbued with cultural understandings of identity politics via readings of Sara Ahmed’s discussion of how identity impacts the way space is produced. I apply Lefebvre’s and Ahmed’s theories to the plays as they operate in performance, particularly through the concept of embodiment, and I explore the way the audience then applies their understanding of the corporeal presence of the actor’s body onto the textual depiction of the characters. These factors in combination have the potential to shift the possible interpretations of the spaces in Shakespeare’s plays, changing their meaning as they are analyzed through contemporary social and cultural lenses of identity. Embodied Performance: Race, Gender, and Disability In previous chapters, I have discussed Henri Lefebvre’s concepts of representational, symbolic, and theatrical space. Another kind of space is social space, and Lefebvre argues, “(Social) space is a (social) product” and “space embodies social relationships” (26-27). This kind of space is often more abstract and can be dependent on a particular society and on those who occupy that society. Our modern understandings of identity are integral to the production of space due to the impact of identity politics on social relationships. We cannot help but take this social space with us into the theater. Therefore, in contemporary Shakespeare productions, audiences subconsciously apply their understandings of the relationships that produce social space to their interpretation of space within the world of the play. For example, Iago’s manipulation of Othello 119 is perceived as at least partially racially motivated, and so when Iago is played by a Black actor, we then interpret the play through the lens of a relationship between two Black men rather than via the assumed structural inequities in the relationship between a white man and a Black man. Sara Ahmed, in Queer Phenomenology, provides an example of how markers of identity–in this case, race–impacts the way a body might be orientated in space. She explains, “The alignment of race and space is crucial to how they materialize as givens, as if each ‘extends’ the other…racial others become associated with the ‘other side of the world.’ They come to embody distance. This embodiment of distance is what makes whiteness ‘proximate,’ as the ‘starting point’ for orientation” (121). Characters marked as “other” in the plays can influence audience understandings of space, indicating distance, but also inclusion and exclusion from certain places within the world of the play. To continue with the example of Othello, Shakespeare clearly marks Othello as an outsider in Venetian society; it is only his high position in the military which gives him access to the court, highlighting his “otherness” in establishing audience orientation in the play. Of course, within the social space of the theater, western audiences may also contemplate how this reflects back onto their own lived experience, and how they position themselves in relation to those with identities different than their own. 54 Ahmed later elaborates on the role of race in understanding space, arguing that in terms of racial identities such as whiteness, “Bodies stand out when they are out of place…The effect of repetition is not, then, simply about a body count: it is not simply a matter of how many bodies are ‘in.’ Rather, what is repeated is the very style of embodiment, a way of inhabiting space, which claims space by the accumulation of gestures of ‘sinking’ into that space” (135- 54 Non-Western audiences and audiences in other locations may respond differently, but as the productions I am focusing on in this chapter are produced at the Royal Shakespeare Company in England for primarily English audiences I focus on this context for social space. 120 136). The different bodies within a space influence the way that space is produced. While the actors on the early modern stage may have been fairly uniform, textual markers of otherness and who exactly took up space impacted the spatial production of the play. So, when an actor with a physical identity who is not white, able-bodied, or male performs a character incorporating the above identity, it necessitates that their embodied presence impacts the production of space in performance. Modern shifts from race and gender “blind” casting to race and gender “conscious” casting indicates that the body of the actor does indeed crucially impact the embodiment of the character on the stage, whether the casting is “blind” or not.55 When the body of the actor intersects with or diverges from the textual depiction of a character–for instance, if an actor of color portrays a traditionally white character or a female actor portrays a traditionally male character–it influences our interpretations of the plays via our connotations of certain corporeal markers of identity. While the plays were always intended to be performed, Shakespeare’s works have survived history due to their printed form. There is plenty to learn from the plays as works of literature, but they can only reach their full potential through performance. Despite attempts made at theaters such as Shakespeare’s Globe and The Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, we can never recapture these exact performance conditions as they were in the early modern playhouse. Nevertheless, performance remains an integral component to Shakespeare’s plays. As Marvin Carlson argues in his book The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as a Memory Machine, “While the dramatic text has traditionally been considered a kind of founding element of theatre, that text does not in fact become theatre until it is embodied by an actor and presented to an audience…the conventional basic elements of theatre are text and actor” (52). In this equation, at 55 For an in-depth discussion on the history of colorblind casting within Shakespeare studies, see Ayanna Thompson’s edited volume Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance. 121 first, there does not seem to be much room for variability: theater equals text plus actor. Barring textual variants between quarto and folio versions or specific cuts made by an editor or dramaturg, the texts of plays themselves remain fairly static. However, as there are very few stage directions, the complex language and word play enables varied choices by actors. Each actor brings a certain uniqueness through their embodiment of the role, and also, through their own physicality and their social markers of identity, they can impact how the world of the play is produced as a space in performance. Jerzy Grotowski makes a similar point in “Towards a Poor Theatre,” but in an interview with Eugenio Barba, he further emphasizes the role of audience within this formulation: “Can the theatre exist without an audience? At least one spectator is needed to make it a performance. So we are left with the actor and the spectator. We can thus define the theatre as ‘what takes place between spectator and actor.’ All the other things are supplementary - perhaps necessary, but nevertheless supplementary” (32-33). The audience is a necessary component, as they are necessary to interpret the actors and the roles they perform, and their interpretations are shaped by their social milieu. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, while initially the term “embody” was used in more abstract contexts about giving corporeal form to something, starting in approximately 1741 the term started to be used in context more specific to art and literature: “To give a concrete form to (what is abstract or ideal); to express (principles, thoughts, intentions) in an institution, work of art, action, definite form of words, etc.” It is through performance that Shakespeare’s plays become embodied. Actors embody the characters, and they therefore become responsible for the production of space and for translating the work from page to stage. So, what does it mean for both the performance space and the spaces and places within the play when Lear is played by a female actor, as with the Shakespeare’s Globe production in 2020 starring Kathryn 122 Hunter? Or, how does a male Helenus shift our view of the way space is understood, especially now that the forced relationship with Demetrius is same-sex, as with Emma Rice’s controversial production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream from 2016? What about having a Black actor play Iago, as Iqbal Khan’s 2015 production of Othello for the Royal Shakespeare Company did? Non- traditional casting invites the audiences to apply their conceptualization of contemporary social space to the spaces within the plays. In her introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: Gender, Sexuality, and Race, Valerie Traub identifies embodiment as a fruitful lens through which to examine the intersections of a variety of markers and how they render in performance. She explains the critical role of embodiment in modern performance of Shakespeare’s plays, “As that which assumes or is given corporeal form, embodiment as a critical concept bridges the material and discursive, the experimental and analytical, the sensory, the affective, the cognitive. It offers a spacious and commodious analytic, including within its purview the physical body, gender, sexuality, race, desire, ability, species, and a whole spectrum of corporeal acts” (32). I agree with this general account of embodiment in contemporary performance of Shakespeare’s plays; however, I add on the dynamic between the physical body of the actor and the role they are assigned. While varying elements of embodiment are present in Shakespeare’s texts, the possible identity markers of the physical body of the actor–who brings their own gender, race, ability, and more to a role–complicates the embodiment of the characters. While any actor embodying a character might align with identities of the character in some ways, they will almost certainly diverge in others. With modern casting practices, there is often an increase in the disjuncture between corporeal body and dramatic identity–for instance, when women are cast in traditionally male roles like Richard III. Traub continues to explain, “While social identities cannot be 123 reduced to embodiment, its utility as a concept is that it allows scholars to place different aspects of identity in paratactic and interactive relation” (33). Embodiment helps us understand the way contemporary, varying identities–social, sexual, gendered, racialized–function in Shakespearean performance and impact the production of space in whatever play is being performed. There can be unintended ramifications when diverse, contemporary actors do not represent a one-to-one correspondence between the social, racial, and gendered identities of the actors and the roles they play. In this chapter, I explore this disjunction and how it impacts the production of space in the plays when audiences layer their own, lived experiences and understanding of social space. The Identity Politics of Taking on a Role It is this contemporary understanding of social space and the significance of the actor’s embodied presence that served as the foundation for the backlash to Terry taking on the role of Richard III. News of Terry’s casting spread quickly across the internet following its announcement, and on January 30 the Disabled Artist Alliance released a statement in response. In an open letter posted to the social media website X, the group pointed out that “[t]he script frequently mentions how he is disabled from birth, and the effects of the viewing of his disabled form affects his relationships, power, status and perception.” In his first (and perhaps most famous) soliloquy in the play, Richard describes himself as “I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, / Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature, / Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time” (1.1.17-19). From the outset, Richard’s disability is one of his defining characteristics, and he states that it is part of the motivation for his actions throughout the rest of the play: “since I cannot prove a lover / To entertain these fair well-spoken days, / I am determined to prove a villain” (1.1.28-30). The letter continues, arguing that “disabled identity is imbued and integral to all corners of the script. The production cannot be successfully performed with a non- 124 physically disabled actor at the helm, steering the complex and vitally important narrative” (@DisArtAlliance). As Terry is not a disabled actor, the Alliance argues, she should not perform the role of Richard. The world of the play is built around Richard, and as thus his disability is integral in making meaning from the play. However, the letter then moves away from the context of the play itself to include the statement, “[Disability] isn’t something one can wear for the sake of a show, and remove in the dressing room” (@DisArtAlliance). Over the last several decades, similar to the rightful eradication of practices like blackface performances, there has been a movement for able-bodied actors to stop playing disabled characters.56 This points to the body of the actor having a major influence on the world building of the play, and the theatrical experience as a whole through processes of embodiment, as I define and elaborate upon below. In many ways, audience expectations are shaped by cultural identity politics evoking a distinct social space. As such, there is some expectation that the body of the actor should authentically align with the body of the character–for instance, by today’s standards, it is largely considered unacceptable to have a non-Black actor play Othello due to a complicated history of white actors in blackface and minstrelsy.57 In the case of Richard III, this requires the casting of a disabled actor to do justice not just to the play, but also to honor the disability community within the theater space. Shakespeare’s Globe responded in a press release the very next day, with Terry suggesting “And then what play are we left to experiment with if this conflation is removed? We are left with a play about tyranny, abuse of power and toxic misogyny. And right now, we feel that this is something important to explore.” It seems, based on this statement, that Terry’s 56 For more on the history of casting disabled actors in the role of Richard III specifically, see Jeffrey R. Wilson’s book Richard III's Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity: Shakespeare and Disability History. 57 Ayanna Thompson discusses this history in-depth in her book Blackface. 125 argument is for her playing Richard as a woman. As a woman, Terry seems to think that she can bring a different kind of embodied experience to the role that will shift the focus of the text in a way to explore women’s disempowerment (although, it is worth noting that female disabled actors have also played the role before).58 She continues, stating that “I will not alter my physicality to explore it. I will not be playing Richard with a visible or physical impairment, and we will frame this production in such a way as to make it very clear the lens through which this interpretation is being explored” (“Shakespeare’s Globe’s response”). Here, Terry seems to respond directly to the Alliance’s disability-as-costume allegations. Through her unaltered, embodied presence as a female actor playing Richard, this performance can restructure the world of the play to highlight the power imbalances aligned with gender. This can generate a different kind of imagined space within the theater, shifting focus to women’s agency in Shakespeare’s text. Both Terry and the Alliance, despite their disagreement, seem to believe that the world- building that must happen in the play originates from the body of the actor/character. Imbricated in their argument about theatrical world-building is the larger question about the body of the actor. In her statements, Terry acknowledges the social space that is produced in the theater, particularly when attempting to instigate conversations about the many nuances of human experience. It raises the question: how does giving corporeal form to characters, whom we come to know through their textual speeches, contribute to the production of space in a play in performance? Our perceptions of contemporary identity politics impact how we interpret 58 Kathryn Hunter, Debbie Paterson, and Kate Mulvany are all disabled actors who also identify as female that have played Richard III (just to name a few). For more information on their performances, see Jeffrey R. Wilson’s Richard III's Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity: Shakespeare and Disability History. 126 Shakespeare’s plays in performance, and thus audience perceptions of the body of the actor impacts understandings of a character’s positionality and how it alters social space. Performance in the Early Modern Playhouse While this chapter will explore the diversity of actors as they appear on stage in modern, contemporary Shakespearean performance, I first turn to the corporeal attributes of the actors that would have historically appeared on stage in the early modern period to contextualize the extent to which the body of the modern actor may impact audience response due to the vast difference in contemporary casting practices. Whereas now we anticipate seeing actors representing many identities on stage, for the early modern playgoer, the actors they would see at a performance would be of a fairly homogeneous group. With the formation of acting companies, oftentimes roles were specifically written with an actor in mind, and audiences might see the same actor play a variety of similar roles across Shakespeare’s canon.59 All the actors on stage would typically be English and male. The biggest variation in actors would be age, as boy actors would play female characters.60 In fact, it was not until the time of the Restoration when women would take the English stage to perform Shakespeare’s plays, and even longer for actors of color.61 Yet, as can be gleaned from the way characters are written, the actors were still largely responsible for the production of Shakespeare’s imagined worlds on the early modern stage. Andrew Gurr and Mariko Ichikawa in Staging in Shakespeare’s Theatres articulate how, as I 59 See Marvin Carlson’s The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine for more information on character “types” and the actors who played them. For instance, Carlson points to Will Kemp and Robert Armin as clown characters and how Shakespeare’s writing adapted for the change in actor (61-62). 60 Harry R. McCarthy discusses the impact of the physicality of boy actors on the stage in Shakespeare’s day and how their performances differed from those of adult actors in his monograph Boy Actors in Early Modern England. 61 Elizabeth Howe discusses the introduction of female actors to England’s playhouses in The First English Actresses: Women and Drama, 1660-1700. 127 have established above, “Plays told stories. Each one was the embodiment of a fiction simulated in the appearance of real people. Eloquence of expression, in voice, and in body language together, provide colorful words to amplify the narrative” (69). However, they also argue, “It is the story…that gave the play its shape, its justification, and its ‘truth’” (69). On the early modern stage, audiences would repeatedly see the same actors in similar roles each time they went to the playhouse. Not only were audiences seeing the same actors over and over, most plays were performed by two major companies. Actors had to learn many lines, and Gurr and Ichikawa believe “no modern actor would dream of trying to work at that rate” (41). While there are some records of over-the-top performances, little is known about early modern acting styles. Places like the new Shakespeare’s Globe have tried to capture components of early modern stage conditions, but even if practitioners can replicate costuming or props, it is still difficult to know if actors are truly emulating early modern performance. What we do know, however, indicates that performances of Shakespeare on the early modern stage lent themselves to conjuring the same kinds of space from one performance to another of any particular play. Since today’s casting practices do not involve only a couple of groups of specific actors, modern actors have come to influence the “shape” and “‘truth’” of a play in unprecedented ways, thus transforming the space of both the performance environment and the world of the play. Performing Shakespeare in Shakespeare’s Theaters Although actors embody characters in any theatrical performance, modern productions of Shakespeare present an interesting convergence of the production of theatrical space and the production of social space due to the impact of modern casting practices on historically contextualized plays. The majority of this chapter focuses on how the relationship between the corporeal attributes of actors and characters impacts the production of Shakespeare’s imagined 128 worlds in performance, but I want to briefly address the significance of the performance space and some of the major influences in this conversation, particularly in regard to Shakespearean performance. Modern performances of Shakespeare’s plays have introduced a number of new embodied identities to the production of space, but these have also been accompanied by some attempts to faithfully recreate the material circumstances of Shakespeare’s early modern theaters. For instance, as Christine Carson and Farah Karim-Cooper describe in the introduction of Shakespeare’s Globe: A Theatrical Experiment, in the process of building the new Globe, “[t]he key area of agreement is about the direct relationship between the texts of the plays and the architecture of the building. Performed in their natural environment, stripped of technology, these plays present fundamental questions to practitioners and scholars alike” (8). Shakespeare’s Globe as a place was a critical, foundational element of the production of performance space itself. In many ways, the physicality of the theater is just as critical in creating meaning as the actors and the text. Of course, in spaces like Shakespeare’s Globe, it is not just the actors and their role that produce space within the theater. Audiences are also a critical component of the performance space. As with Shakespeare’s practice of place-naming, the place-name of “Shakespeare’s Globe” is intended to invoke a certain meaning for audiences who attend performances within it. Carlson argues that the audience’s presence haunts the performance space just as much as the actors taking on roles are irrevocably tied to the original Globe and thus its successor. He writes: The Globe…is gradually building an audience of repeating viewers who bring to each new season the memories of previous experience at this theatre, surely the majority of those attending are still and will probably continue to be tourists and schoolchildren…although their physical experience of the theatre is a first-time one, ghosting nevertheless is centrally involved in that experience, though the ghosting is not the normal physical remembrance of a previously visited space but something closer to a ‘touristic’ memory. (151) 129 Audiences come to places like Shakespeare’s Globe with a specific set of expectations, and while the spectators change just as much as the different actors who take up the same roles season after season, they bring this “touristic memory” which helps to stabilize the spatial practice in this kind of performance space. The Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia attempts to do something similar with its practice of place-naming and of subscription to original practices, but it does not quite manage to invoke the same kind of heritage-influenced spatial practice as Shakespeare’s Globe.62 Despite the fact that Shakespeare’s career occurred outside of his hometown, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) theaters in Stratford-upon-Avon have come to possess a similar cultural heft to Shakespeare’s Globe. Thousands of tourists pour into the town each year, and I will discuss Stratford’s Shakespearean cultural heritage sites in the next chapter. Many of these visitors attend performances at the RSC, and a large part of the draw of the theater itself is that the audience gets to experience a Shakespeare performance in his birthplace and hometown. Although seeing a performance at the RSC is now considered one of the main selling points of visiting Stratford, a successful theater did not actually take root in the town until the advent of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1879.63 Although it possesses a thrust stage similar to the Globe, the mainstage at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (and its smaller counterpart, the Swan) is a more traditional indoor theater with no yard. However, regarding the RSC and Shakespeare’s Globe, per Colin Chambers’s account in Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company: Creativity and the Institution, the two theaters never intended to create the same kinds of performances: a season at the RSC would represent a different Shakespeare to the one on offer at the 62 Paul Menzer’s edited collection Inside Shakespeare: Essays on the Blackfriars Stage includes a number of articles on the spatial practices of the Blackfriars Playhouse. 63 See the introduction to Julia Thomas’s Shakespeare's Shrine: The Bard's Birthplace and the Invention of Stratford-upon-Avon. 130 replica Globe… Informing much of the RSC’s Shakespeare has been an a-historicism that stressed similarities between the present and the past, placing the audience in a line of continuity within history, rather than emphasising the differences and drawing attention to the possibilities of change. (120) Despite these factors, the RSC draws similar tourist and school audiences as Shakespeare’s Globe, and its location in Stratford invokes a similar kind of place-name recognition. Through analyses of Iqbal Khan’s 2015 production of Othello and Gregory Doran’s 2022 production of Richard III, I examine how the “a-historicism” of the RSC plays into a production of space that encourages the audience to connect their modern conceptions of social space to what is happening within the world of the play. “The time, the place, the torture:” Recasting Racialized Social Space in Othello When considering place and space, especially in terms of the corporeal presence of the actor and how the social production of space can impact one’s understanding of the play, Othello is an ideal choice for examination. Othello is thought to have been first performed around 1603 to 1604, although the play was not published until its quarto version in 1622, just one year before its publication in the First Folio. It is believed that in the first performances of the play, the role of Othello was played by Richard Burbage; a Black actor would not play Othello until James Hewlett in 1822.64 As a text, Othello is an excellent example of the practice of place-naming–we begin in Venice before moving quickly to Cyprus, where the army is poised to battle against the Turkish fleet if need be. However, Othello’s presence as a Moor and an “other” in the Venetian army has been complicated by modern understandings of race. Therefore, modern performances of the play that cast a Black actor as Othello demonstrate the way social space and the imagined spaces of this fictional world meet via the body of the actor. This section examines Iqbal Khan’s 64 In her “Introduction” for the Arden edition of the play, Ayanna Thompson details a production history of the play. While Ira Aldridge is often credited as being the first actor of color to play Othello, Aldridge is thought to actually follow in Hewlett’s footsteps (78). 131 2015 production of Othello and how a diverse cast of actors changes the spaces within the play by connecting them to contemporary understandings of race and how it functions in the production of social space. Othello has come to be at the center of many conversations of early modern race studies, which is not surprising, given that Shakespeare’s plays as a whole have become a site of debate for casting practices that consider the relationship between the body of the character and how the body of the actor might influence an audience’s perception of that character. Over the past several decades, there has been a move for companies to cast actors regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or ability. This stems from the concept of color-blind casting, in which directors would cast roles regardless of any markers of identity embodied in a particular actor.65 While this was intended to make casting more equitable, it has raised new issues for theater practitioners. In the foreword for the edited volume Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance, Ania Loomba highlights one of the ways colorblind casting can pose a problem: “Blindness to difference is often blindness to inequality, just as ‘inclusion’ can often be on terms that reinforce existing hierarchies, a point that has often been made in debates about secularism, multiculturalism, and antiracism in various contexts” (xvi). Having actors of different identities on stage does not transform the theater or the setting of the play into an inclusive space, and audiences do not forget these “debates” when they enter the theater. By ignoring the identities of actors, creative teams are taking a risk, and they can unintentionally change the meaning of the play for an audience that may be unable to separate the character from the corporeal presence of the actor. 65 Although I will use this term throughout the chapter, it is important to note the problematic, ableist connotations of referring to this kind of casting as a “blind” process. As I also discuss later in the chapter, as a community we are engaging in important conversations around making the theater a more equitable space for disabled actors, and raising awareness of this kind of ableist language will need to happen to truly promote inclusion. 132 However, the definition of colorblind casting is not as cut and dry as it may first seem, and there have been adjustments to the process to try and navigate this awareness. As suggested by a number of scholars in Colorblind Shakespeare and elsewhere, imagine if the practices of colorblind casting were applied to the role of Othello, which, with very few exceptions, has been universally determined to be a role that can only be played by a Black actor in modern performance. Ayanna Thompson explores exactly how the definition of colorblind casting has shifted to account for these facts, arguing that: Inherent in this approach to colorblind casting is an admission that socio-political and cultural-historical factors influence an audience’s viewing abilities... Actors of color have been cast in roles not traditionally associated with race, color, or ethnicity in order to make a socio-political statement about the character’s subjection, outsider status, untraditional knowledge, and so on... Directors and producers who engage in this practice do not assume that the audience can or will be “blind” to an actor’s color, race, or ethnicity. Actors and directors, then, exploit this lack of “blindness” by drawing attention to the actor’s race. (7) What Thompson describes here is also sometimes referred to as a kind of color-conscious casting, a process through which the creative team may cast actors in roles different from the identity of the character they will play, but with consideration of how the layering of the actor’s identities onto that character might be perceived by the audience. When color-conscious casting brings diverse identities to the stage, it has the potential to disrupt the one-to-one identification between the actor and their role. Whereas early modern casting practices of using boy actors to portray women is thought to have been historically accepted by audiences (with dissonance sometimes referenced in the plays), contemporary audiences acknowledge the disruption of the one-to-one identification between actors and the role. Therefore, productions cannot ignore the identities of their actors when building a production. Thus, the corporeal attributes of the actors cannot be divorced from the embodiment of the character they portray, and therefore this impacts how space is produced in the performance 133 of the play. Recall that in Ahmed’s formulation of space, that race is often read as an embodiment of distance or a marker of “other:” “racial others become associated with the ‘other side of the world.’ They come to embody distance” (121). And, as Thompson discusses, audiences bring their own socio-political understandings into theater. For plays like Othello, these casting practices automatically layer a production of social space onto the theatrical space generated by the plays. For instance, to contemporary American audiences, the body of a Black actor playing Othello evokes historical relationships of white dominance and systemic inequities. Thus, casting practices impact the spatial production of a performance, and if creative teams engage in completely colorblind casting practices it risks transforming the narrative arc of a play in unintended ways, as for instance, it can erase racial difference. A prominent example of the impact color-conscious casting can have on the way space (and meaning) is produced in Shakespeare’s works occurred in 2015, when director Iqbal Khan staged a production of Othello at the RSC that challenged previous understandings of the representation of racial difference in the text. In a play that already has a preoccupation with the way people interact with place to produce space, Khan’s vision upended the seemingly straightforward means of spatial production through Othello’s racialized body by casting a Black man as Iago. Khan’s re-imagining of the play, which led The Guardian's theater critic Michael Billington to claim in the review’s headline that “history is made with RSC’s fresh take on the tragedy,” caused a stir with Lucian Msamati’s casting as Iago opposite Hugh Quarshie’s Othello. This production challenged the way audiences had previously understood the play, as many of them were used to the racial dynamics of an all-white Venice against a Black Othello (although this production was certainly not the first to cast a Black actor as Iago; Khan was simply the first director to do so at the RSC). 134 Over the years, Quarshie has spoken about the risks of Black actors playing Othello, believing that the role legitimizes racial stereotypes.66 In a programmed debate during the run of the production, Quarshie argued that the text “suggest[s] that black people behave as they do because of their ethnicity, and it seemed to me that the convention of the Moor in Elizabethan England on the stage, whenever a Moor appeared, that usually signalled something menacing or a threat to the social, moral and sexual order of society.” As such, he believes that when a Black actor takes on the role of Othello, they must “be aware of the possible implications of the role and resist any attempt to endorse what I thought might be racist assumptions” (Royal Shakespeare Company). Here, Quarshie interprets theatrical space through the social production of space. From his perspective as a Black man, he interprets the way Othello produces space through the lens of a play written by a white man—a play detailing the response of other white characters to the presence of a Black character. At the same debate, Msamati addresses how it is understandable, if not inevitable, for an actor to completely divorce their own positionality from that of the character they play. He argues: “It is almost impossible, as a practitioner, to have any sense of objectivity, simply because, regardless of what people think or feel, every night you have to live with this; every night you have to deliver it truthfully, honestly, and with integrity.” It seems that, for Msamati, social space impacts the space produced in the theater, and in return theatrical space has the potential to influence the production of social space. Modern performances may shape our understanding of Shakespeare’s text, but in turn it seems that space produced in the theater may seep back into society even after final bows. While the cast of actors embodying these famous characters help shape the space of Khan’s Othello, they are not necessary to establish place. Almost immediately, the play’s 66 Quarshie discusses his perspective on the character of Othello and what it means to perform the role as a Black man in his lecture-turned-book Second Thoughts about Othello. 135 opening setting is defined as a kind of modern-day Venice. Khan’s production does not embrace the potential of the empty stage available to him in a theater like the RSC; rather, the scene evokes a Venetian setting, going so far as to have water on stage so Iago and Roderigo can perform the first scene from a boat on one of the city’s famous canals. The audience need not wait for Brabantio’s cry of “This is Venice” later in the scene–the location is almost immediately evident (1.1.103). At first, it seems as if Msamati’s portrayal of Iago changes nothing for the play. But, when Roderigo exclaims “What a full fortune does the thicklips owe / If he can carry ’t thus!,” the tone of the scene makes a (deliberately) uncomfortable shift (1.1.65-66). For a moment, the action screeches to a halt, and this very small exchange highlights the impact of the way the corporeal body of the actor can change the meaning of the play. Of course, by the standards of a modern audience, this comment would be viewed as a racist remark toward Othello, but, in Khan’s production, even if it is not directed at Iago, it suggests a bias Roderigo will hold against his partner in crime throughout the play, irrevocably shifting the dynamic between the pair. Before Roderigo utters this line, Iago is about to light a cigarette. Instead, he pauses, the underscoring intensifies, and Iago repockets his cigarette. The dialogue does not change from Shakespeare’s original words, but Iago’s embodied presence as a Black man recasts the scene–Iago may be smarter than Roderigo and be in control of manipulating the situation, but Roderigo has his own insidious kind of power in their dynamic. For a moment, it seems that Iago will engage Roderigo in a physical conflict–Iago hits Roderigo, before pausing once more. Then, unexpectedly, the pair begin to laugh and buzz their lips at one another. Then Iago shoves Roderigo from the boat, telling him to “Call up her father, / Rouse him, make after him, poison his delight, / Proclaim him in the streets…” (1.1.66-68). Just as quickly as the dynamic shifts, the scene proceeds according to the plot. However, it is made clear 136 that Msamati’s embodiment of Iago has the capability to alter our understanding of the way space operates within the play–Othello is not the only one representing an outsider or distance in Venice. Venetian space seems less inviolate as there is more than one “outsider.”67 This scene was necessary to define the way his race impacts Iago in the play, and thus define the parameters for how Msamati’s corporeal presence as a Black man would influence the audience’s understanding of this production’s take on race. Susan L. Fischer emphasizes the importance of this interaction for the production as a whole, arguing that “this was a pivotal moment in determining whether a black Iago would change the dynamics of the play; the conclusion was that the black man could exploit the nervousness of the white man around the language of race. That Iago was able, moreover, to release the tension building up in the audience gave him enormous power” (44). Race is still integral to this version of the play, but in a way the subverts audience expectations. In this production, Iago’s presence as a Black man alters the way his manipulation against Othello operates. Socially, he moves through space differently than a white Iago would. Othello is consistently referred to by his race, with Brabantio arguing that Desdemona could not love him because he is “what she feared to look on,” while the Duke defends Othello, “your son-in-law is far more fair than black,” indicating that he defies what they would expect (1.3.99, 291). With a modern audience’s understanding of current racial politics, this Iago is able to use this aspect of his identity to manipulate the social space of the play. Space is no longer produced merely through repeated place-naming in the text and a historical understanding of Othello’s position as “other.” Rather, the presence of the two Black actors complicates the spatial and racial dynamics of the play, thus forcing audiences to reimagine Shakespeare’s Venice as space not merely defined by a sole outsider. 67 Of course, from Iago’s perspective Cassio is also an outsider: “Michael Cassio, a Florentine… / Mere prattle without practice / Is all his soldiership” (1.1.19-26). 137 The way a production can incorporate social space and how the way space is produced in Shakespeare’s plays can be altered through contemporary societal demarcations of racial difference is perhaps best highlighted in the staging of act 2 scene 3, where the soldiers gather to drink and celebrate the destruction of the Turkish fleet. Khan’s casting of a diverse group of actors is most evident in the party scene, as it demonstrates that the soldiers under Othello’s command are not a single, homogenous unit. Since the company comprises actors of a number of different races, genders, and abilities, the party scene creates a tableau demonstrating why this rendering of this military outpost at Cyprus is a different kind of space–one more relevant to our times–than traditionally presented in productions of Othello without a single line of dialogue. Per the review in The Guardian, “By making Othello the commander of a multi-racial unit, Khan also exposes the unresolved tensions in the group: you can see exactly why Iago would detest a Caucasian Cassio who tries to show his kinship with the men by taking part in a rap contest during the Cypriot drinking scene” (Billington). In fact, Iago presses on Cassio's insecurities, and it quickly highlights Cassio’s weaponization of whiteness and his inability to fully accept a Black commanding officer. At first, the scene seems to proceed as normal, although this line of Iago’s functions slightly differently: “Come, lieutenant, I have a stoup of wine, and here without are a brace of Cyprus gallants that would fain have a measure to the health of black Othello” (2.3.26- 29). As Iago is also Black, it seems odd that he would highlight Othello’s race to Cassio (played in this production by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd). By referring to Othello as “black,” Iago is manipulating white stereotypes. Although he is Black man in this production, he understands white racism. However, as the scene unfolds, Cassio begins to drink, and as the party progresses it amplifies the lieutenant’s twisted biases, providing an alternative understanding for the rivalry between him and Iago. 138 In this production, much of act 2 scene 3 is out of order, contributing to the disorienting staging of the party. Songs are moved later in the scene and lines are given out of order from the original printed text. Although the stage directions merely call for many of the military characters to enter “followed by Servants with wine,” in performance, the party is a vibrant display of the way social space is produced within Othello’s military community. From the beginning of the party, Khan’s production makes it clear that Cassio’s stabbing of Montano is inevitable, and not just due to the latter being the one who happens to intervene in Cassio’s spat with Roderigo. As Cassio stands above the rest of the party to propose a toast “To the health of our General,” Montano, played by David Ajao, is positioned as his opposition, and while he replies, “I am for it, lieutenant, and I’ll do you / justice,” the pair descend into a drinking contest (2.3.80-81). Despite the friendly connotations, there is clearly an edge to the competition that unfolds throughout the rest of the scene. The party quickly shows how an audience’s understanding of social space can define the relationships of a play and performance, and this production uses this scene to demonstrate that Othello’s unit is not as cohesive as it first may seem. While Desdemona’s “Willow Song” is the most famous instance of music in the play, Khan’s production capitalizes on the musical moments of act 2 scene 3. In this production, Shakespeare’s original songs are mixed with references to contemporary music, and the songs also incorporate original lyrics, marking an affective crescendo leading to the brawl initiated by Roderigo antagonizing a drunken Cassio. In Shakespeare’s text, the use of music is fairly straightforward– the soldiers sing a drinking song: “And let me the cannikin clink. / A soldier’s a man, / O, man’s life’s but a span…” (2.3.65-67). Iago begins to sing a traditional Zimbabwean 139 song and the room falls silent, save for a few other soldiers harmonizing.68 Cassio pulls faces throughout Iago’s performance before he interrupts by approaching Iago and balancing a beer bottle on his head. As Cassio becomes more intoxicated, it is quickly revealed that, like Roderigo, he subscribes to racial biases. The soldiers do not seem comfortable with Cassio’s behavior, and sensing that he is doing something wrong, the lieutenant proclaims, “[F]ore God, an excellent song,” clapping before proclaiming, “[B]ut this is more exquisite” and breaking into the chorus of Shaggy’s “Mr. Boombastic” (2.3.70). Of course, Iago’s dialogue explaining of his song that “I learned it England” no longer applies, and it briefly looks like Cassio’s behavior will result in conflict (2.3.71). Instead, the band joins in, and Iago quickly regains control of the space, leading the room in a rousing rendition of the original text’s song proclaiming “Why, then, let a soldier drink” (2.3.68). Yet, the music evolves once more, and the tension between Cassio and Montano comes to a head. Montano takes up the microphone, rapping, “I feel sorry for Cassio, Deep down he’s really sad, because his mother is promiscuous, so we all could be his dad.” While the majority of characters respond in a playful way to Montano’s musical challenge, Cassio is clearly bothered by Montano’s words. In his response, Cassio brings Montano’s race into the conversation: “[T]his man became a soldier, a tough choice I’m sure, because it’s rare to see a black man on the right side of the law.” As the commanding officer in the room, Cassio’s behavior has already been unseemly, but at this moment, he publicly labels Montano as “other,” as out of place in Venice’s military. While the surrounding characters once more “ooh” and “ahh” at the verbal 68 For more on this song, a Chimurenga ballad titled “Amaima baba,” and its context within anticolonial resistance movements, see Zainab Cheema’s “Post-9/11 Othello: Representing the Global Post-Colony in Iqbal Khan’s 2015 RSC Production.” 140 sparring, it is clear that there is an unpleasantness simmering beneath the surface. However, Montano does not accept this racially-charged callout, and instead, he flips it in his reply: “[T]his guy’s a lieutenant, so we had better run, because we all know what happens when you give white people a gun.” Cassio is clearly enraged by Montano pointing out how he is weaponizing his whiteness, particularly when Montano follows his verse stuttering “I didn’t know” and “I thought he had a weapon.” A visibly upset Cassio cannot come up with a reply, and Montano uses this opportunity to get in another dig: “[T]his guy is a pro…he was a superstar before, now he’s in the Cyprus war taking orders from a Moor.” It is this callout that proves too much for Cassio to handle and, seemingly due to his insecurities as a white man taking orders from a Black man, he strikes Montano. The pair are quickly separated and Cassio attempts to storm off. Iago intervenes, returning to the dialogue of the original text, but the space produced by the production is now vastly different from that conveyed by Shakespeare’s words alone. Iago asks Cassio, “Will you hear ’t again?” which further aggravates the lieutenant (2.3.94). When Cassio finally gathers himself enough to reply, despite Iago’s attempts to encourage the rest of the soldiers to lighten the mood, his response as written by Shakespeare possesses new meaning: “No, for I hold him to be unworthy of his place that [says] those things” (2.3.95-96). Clearly, Montano struck a nerve in Cassio. Even though Cassio was the one to bring race into the conversation, he is holding a double-standard by condemning Montano’s jabs at his whiteness. All of this is due to the layering of the identities of the actors onto the characters. Textually, there is no evidence that Montano is Black, and this dialogue is not even directed at him. The social space of the party is shaped by the new meaning created by the corporeal attributes of the actors in these particular roles. When Cassio states, “Well, God’s above all, and there be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved,” it is abundantly clear who he believes should and 141 should not be saved (2.3.96-98). It is not just drunkenness that makes it so easy for Roderigo to prod Cassio into brawling, and by the time Montano and the other soldiers attempt to stop him, Cassio is more than ready to attack Montano personally. Although Othello is absent from the majority of this scene, it is not until his intervention into the conflict that the full demarcation of social space at this outpost of the Venetian military is on display. Othello’s intervention into the conflict is significant, as it works differently from the text than when the melee is embodied by a more diverse cast. In her review of the production for the journal Shakespeare, Rebecca Agar further highlights how the merging of these well- known characters with the corporeal attributes of the actors can impact our understanding of the play: “Othello spoke with a British accent and had isolated himself from his cultural heritage, taking advantage of a certain level of privilege that allowed for his promotion to General and more preferable treatment. For Iago, it was instead implied that he had earned his trust through complicity by accepting the racism that pervaded this military environment” (212). In a diverse cast, Othello is no longer the lone character who is “othered.” Once again, it is the physicality of the actor(s) that telegraphs this information and helps to define how the characters are included in the social spaces of Venice and Cyprus within the play. While accents are sometimes indicated in play texts via unusual spellings, the choice for the accents to highlight difference is firmly a performance choice in this case. The shift in dynamic between Iago and Othello from text to performance becomes more obvious in act 3 scene 3. In a play where Othello is the only character definitely described as an “other,” any time these two characters are together in a place there is a complex negotiation of hierarchies. Whereas, textually, Othello is of a higher rank than Iago in the military, Iago has the upper hand in terms of racial identity and privilege. It is Iago who “belongs” in Venice and its 142 army. Within Khan’s staging of this scene, it is clearly Othello who has the power, while Iago as both a Black man and an ensign is lower in status. As demonstrated by the party in act 2 scene 3, space in this rendering of the play is not always rooted in what is delineated by the text, but rather by the blocking of the actors in the scene. This shift in the way Khan’s casting of the production reinvents the dynamic between Iago and Othello is further demonstrated in their interaction toward the end of act 3 scene 3, in which “Othello tied Iago to a chair and performed a series of Abu-Ghraib-style tortures on him, not surprisingly, given his endorsement of such military methods earlier…in which Iago himself had participated: An ironic case of the torturer turned tortured, the manipulator manipulated, and of the general (ab)using his power” (Fischer 54). In the earlier scene Fischer points to, Venetian soldiers torture a captive while Othello looks on. Without any dialogue, the actors create a scene that underscores how, beneath the surface, the spaces overseen by the Venetian military are incredibly dangerous for those deemed enemies. At the end of act 3 scene 3, Othello demands proof from Iago to back up his claims that Desdemona has been unfaithful. Once again, the existing dialogue of the play is laid over unscripted physical actions that changes how space might be perceived. As Othello storms back into the room after Emilia’s exit, he begins to physically intimidate Iago, crying out, “Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore” (3.3.362). It is quickly made evident that he is willing to torture the “ocular proof” out of Iago, as he zip ties him to a chair in the center of the stage. This moment highlights the power that Othello has over Iago, as his rank and social identity somewhat protects him as he engages in these tactics. While the text does involve an angry Othello pressing Iago for answers, the effectiveness of the torture scene that unfolds in this production is dependent on the horrors that Othello inflicts on Iago’s body, and it completely alters the affective impact of the scene. In his review of this production for the journal 143 Shakespeare, Michael Joel Bartelle highlights just how impactful this scene is, and how it is made possible by the casting of a Black actor in the role of Iago. According to Bartelle, the corporeal presence of another Black man on stage allows for fluctuations in the affective construction of the text. He writes: The distributed nature of Black actor/characters’ emotionality in this production allowed Quarshie to explore affective textures within the role that are generally unavailable to actors who are the exception in an all (or mostly-) white company…Quarshie’s Othello was able to keep his own feathers fairly unruffled deeper into the play’s timeline than is typically the case. The eventual snap...betray[s] a capacity for deliberate cruelty that is highly atypical of most interpretations of the role. (85) When Othello says “Thou hadst been better have been born a dog / Than answer my waked wrath!,” as he strikes Iago with a hammer, Khan’s staging leaves no questions about the true extent of what Othello is capable of when in the throes of his “waked wrath” (3.3.365-366). Even if Iago is still the manipulator in control of the overall narrative, it is Othello who is physically in control of this scene. This is not the Cyprus of Shakespeare’s text. The relationship between these two Black men in this moment produces a space of incarceration; in Khan’s production, this is a social space of a contemporary post-911 politics of terrorism.69 The production leans into a juxtaposition of Othello’s words and his actions; it is impossible to ignore the physicality of this scene. For instance, when Othello tells Iago, “If thou dost slander her and torture me, / Never pray more,” he is digging through a box of torture tools that they used earlier on a military prisoner (3.3.371-372). Iago may be putting Othello through a kind of mental torture with his accusations against Desdemona, but as the audience, it is hard to feel sympathetic as we watch Othello perform a very visible and corporeal kind of torture on a man, who may be his subordinate, he claims is a friend. By the time Iago asks Othello, “Are you 69 Zainab Cheema discusses this in depth in her essay “Post-9/11 Othello: Representing the Global Post-Colony in Iqbal Khan’s 2015.” 144 a man? have you a soul, or sense?,” the question is undoubtedly legitimate as we have watched Othello transform into a monster before our eyes (3.3.377). At this moment, it is not impossible to imagine that this man, who has been a loving husband up to this point, is capable of murdering his wife. When Othello proclaims “If there be cords or knives, / Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams, / I’ll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!,” this is not merely an expression of his mental struggle, but rather a very real and palpable threat against Iago (3.3.391-393). Othello’s torture of Iago becomes more extreme–he goes as far to almost suffocate his new lieutenant with a plastic bag. By the time Othello demands Iago to “Give me a living reason she’s disloyal” as he begins to strangle him, it is no wonder that Iago would confess to anything (3.3.412). What is truly a marvel is that Iago is able to continue weaving his web of lies under these circumstances. It is not until Iago brings up the handkerchief that Othello stops his torture, and his capacity for violence now turns toward Desdemona. Overall, the casting of not just a Black actor as Iago, but an overall more ethnically and racially diverse group of actors portraying the Venetian army, significantly changes the way space is produced in the play–representing a “third” space beyond the binary place names of Venice and Cyprus; one that gestures to contemporary social realities. To some extent, Khan’s production was controversial, as it shifted the racial dynamics impacting the way space is socially constructed both by the characters in the world of the play, but also by the audience’s response to the actors’ embodiment of their roles in the theater.70 Othello has become a play that is primarily read through a Black/white racial binary, or by who “belongs” in Venice or who is “other” and an outsider. Michael Joel Bartelle argues that: While the diversity of this production rendered the traditionally dichotomous, Black- versus-white nature of racism in the play far less straightforward, it did so in a way that 70 Ayanna Thompson outlines the overall trajectory of the controversy caused by Msamati’s performance as Iago in her introduction to the Arden edition of the play. 145 updated the conversation for today. With Msamati in the role of Iago, it became clear that nothing in the text indicates that his hatred of Othello stems directly from racial bigotry. However, the fact that Iago was nonetheless able to stoke racist fears in order to bring about the general’s down-fall…demonstrates how possible it is for a person of any background to weaponise such structural stereotypes. (86) Khan’s production still managed to emphasize that, even if this famous villain’s hatred is not spawned by racism, the places of Venice and Cyprus are reconfigured as spaces constructed by modern social understandings of race. Even without a white actor in the role of Iago, this performance achieves this through casting diverse actors. And, by stripping race as a particular motivation for Iago, this performance demonstrates that Shakespeare’s plays provide a distinct framework for spatial practice that is reliant not only on the characters, but on the presence of the actors as well. “Unfit for any place but hell:” Embodied Evil, Corporeal Disability in Richard III Casting practices have evolved over time to embrace -blind and -conscious trends, resulting in a shift in the contemporary social understandings of plays such as Othello. These new casting trends better respond to the production of social space and telegraph the dynamics between characters to modern audiences, who are very conscious of the implications of the corporeal body of the actor. While the deployment of colorblind and color-conscious casting has become a norm over the past several decades, more recently, this has also been applied to the casting of disabled actors in roles of both disabled and able-bodied characters. As emphasized by the Disabled Artist Alliance in their response to the casting for Shakespeare’s Globe’s 2024 summer production of Richard III, the role of Richard has become a battleground for disabled actors fighting for more equitable casting practices. The Alliance argues that the subject of Richard’s disability is woven into the very fabric of the text and is thus inseparable from the play’s plot. As such, the argument continues, productions of Richard III must cast disabled actors. Since 146 Richard is the protagonist of the play, his manipulation and control make him a driving force in the production of space in the play. With modern understandings of disability and a push to cast only disabled actors in the role of Richard, how might this alter the production of space in the play via performance? This section looks at Gregory Doran’s 2022 production of Richard III to examine how an audience’s understanding of disability in contemporary social space influences performance and layers new meanings onto the text’s spaces when a disabled actor is cast as the titular king. There are a number of arguments that one could make about why there should be a better effort to cast more disabled actors in the theater industry as a whole, but Shakespeare’s play is one of the few major canonical works in theater history where disability is a fundamental part of the narrative. In Richard III’s Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity: Shakespeare and Disability History, Jeffrey R. Wilson addresses the significance of casting disabled actors, particularly in Richard III, and how doing so it fits into a larger system of casting practices: A study of theatrical cripping can illuminate more general efforts to reclaim historically stigmatized identities in dramatic representation and public discourse at large. It is not true that theatrical producers and audiences are demanding identity-accurate casting. The rise of color-blind casting in recent years shows that producers and audiences are willing to suspend disbelief, use their imagination…Casting is not becoming more exactly mimetic; it is becoming more explicitly inclusive. This inclusivity manifests in seemingly opposed ways: in the case of color-blind casting, there is a separation between the identity of the actor and the identity of the character, whereas the casting of disabled actors for Richard III involves a union of actor’s and character’s identities.71 (188) While the responses to the casting of Khan’s production of Othello proves that the audience cannot always completely separate their impressions of the actor’s corporeal presence from the embodiment of the character, modern understandings of race do not influence audience perceptions for roles that are not explicitly tied to this element of social identity. Khan was able 71 Wilson defines “cripping” as “a term of empowerment, indicating efforts to reclaim and reconfigure the stigmas associated with disability based on knowledge gained from disability activism and disability studies” (176). 147 to cast a Black actor in the role of Iago and specifically choose how that would impact the text, whereas it is unthinkable that he would cast anyone other than a Black actor in the role of Othello. In the case of Richard, it is not yet a given that a disabled actor will be cast in this role even despite the fact that the text explicitly characterizes Richard as having some kind of physical disability.72 In another history making production for the RSC, the 2022 production of Richard III directed by Gregory Doran cast Arthur Hughes as the first disabled actor to play the role of Richard for the company. Prior to the start of the RSC production, lead actor Arthur Hughes interviewed extensively with the British press regarding the significance of having a disabled actor play the cold-blooded king. In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Hughes explained how “Richard is one of the most famous disabled characters in the English language. I've always wanted to play him. I think a lot of disabled actors will think playing Richard is their birthright…Every time a disabled actor plays Richard, it's an important step for representation” (qtd. in Saunders). Of course, just because Hughes was the first disabled actor to portray Richard at the RSC, that does not mean he was the first disabled actor to portray the king ever. A number of other disabled actors have played Richard over the last two decades, including Kathryn Hunter in a 2003 run at Shakespeare’s Globe and Peter Dinklage at the Public Theater in New York, both of whom have had high profile careers on stage and screen.73 However, the cultural significance of, specifically, the RSC’s first disabled Richard captured 72 Wilson also discusses the nuances of disabled actors portraying disabled characters and whether their experience of disability necessarily aligns exactly with that of the character in the sixth chapter of Richard III’s Bodies: From Medieval England to Modernity, titled “Richard III’s Disability in Modern Performance: The Changing Bodies of Character and Actor.” 73 Wilson provides a detailed history of productions that have cast disabled actors in the role of Richard III. 148 public attention and revived conversations around how social space is produced in the theater when it includes and represents disabled bodies versus when it fails to do so. 74 Doran previously directed a production of Richard III at the RSC starring Antony Sher in the role of Richard in 1984. Although Sher was not disabled, he relied on his recent experience with an injury to inspire his performance of the king as “that bottled spider” (1.3.241).75 In an interview leading up to the 2022 production’s run, Doran told reporters that “Tony's performance now would probably not be acceptable. It’s the Othello syndrome isn't it? That moment when white actors stopped thinking of Othello in their repertoire, because it was not acceptable to have blackface any more, at least until the level playing field is achieved. It’s the same with disabled actors and Richard” (qtd. in Sanderson and Maxwell). While Khan’s production was historic in the casting of a Black actor as Iago opposite Othello, it was expected that the titular character himself would still be portrayed by a Black actor to match the character’s racial identity. Doran’s casting of Hughes as the titular character in Richard III was revolutionary due to the fact that a disabled actor was finally playing the disabled character for the first time at such a prestigious venue. This emphasizes Wilson’s point that it is a step in the right direction for inclusivity, but it seems that inclusivity does not look the same across texts or productions–there have been a number of disabled and able-bodied actors to play Richard while possessing diverse racial, gender, and sexual identities. Of course, when considering the character of Richard’s disability and the actors who played him, actor and character need not necessarily align with the “real” Richard. As 74 A production that comes to mind is the 2022 production at the Public Theater, in which able-bodied Black actor Danai Gurira portrayed Richard while the other characters were played by actors with various disabilities. By deliberately casting against audience expectations of race and ability for this play, this production pushed the rethinking of social space and disability in a similar way to how Khan’s Othello challenged the way race and social space interacted within the play. 75 Sher discusses his experience playing Richard after experiencing an injury that rendered him temporarily disabled in his memoir Year of the King: An Actor’s Diary and Sketchbook. 149 demonstrated in the last chapter, Shakespeare is presenting in his history plays a fictionalized version of events–not quite “real,” but also not completely imagined. Richard III has been a particularly potent historical presence, especially with the discovery of the titular king’s remains under a car park in Leicester. In the program notes for Doran’s production, Turi King explains “There was no evidence of a withered arm, or a limp. Shakespeare clearly had been embellishing Richard’s physical faults, embroidering his outward character with extra threads of inner evil.” If anything, that perhaps increases the weight of the argument about the corporeal presence of the actor within the role. Historically accurate representation of Richard’s scoliosis is not relevant to this fictionalized Richard–still, Shakespeare’s Richard is unquestionably disabled, and the character’s disability fuels much of the narrative. As Stephen Greenblatt points out in his essay “In Pursuit of Power,” which is also included in the program for the production, “The play hints at the origin of [Richard’s] qualities: a body that differs from supposedly ‘normal’ bodies, or rather a response to the revulsion and fear that this difference arouses in others; a failure of maternal love; the pursuit of power as a compensation for sexual frustration; rage against the world coupled with a sadistic sense of humour.” The stage and the imaginary worlds of Shakespeare’s text are changing through modern representations of disability. In the play, Richard is shaped by the social understandings of disability in his society, thus impacting the way space is produced in the world of the play. This production of social space in the play is formulated by the treatment of Richard due to his disability; yet, a modern audience’s perception of Arthur Hughes’s corporeal attributes as a disabled actor is defined by contemporary understandings of disability in a theater space. Examples of how Richard’s disability links to his villainous tendencies permeate the text. Not only does Richard blame his disability for his actions, as outlined in the introduction to this 150 chapter, but those around him do so as well. When he attempts to woo her, Anne refers to Richard as a “diffused infection of a man” and a “hedgehog” (1.2.82, 104). While cursing Richard, Margaret calls Richard “thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog” (1.3.227). Later on in the same scene, she refers to him as “that bottled spider” and “this poisonous bunch-backed toad,” insults that Elizabeth will reuse later in the play (1.3.242, 245). Shakespeare’s Richard undoubtedly has some kind of “deformity,” but its characterization is hard to pin down in the text. In “Enabling Richard: The Rhetoric of Disability in Richard III,” Katherine Schaap Williams explains how, Richard’s ascent to power depends upon the manipulation of the body he marks, along with other characters in the play and critics alike, as insufficient, lacking, and deformed. By presenting his body along a continuum of ability, in which his physical difference becomes more or less apparent depending upon how he emphasizes it, Richard’s use of his physical frame–a body that he initially decries–challenges the conceptual binary between able/disabled bodies. Richard is aware that his embodiment of his disability can influence those around him, and he uses this awareness for political gain. This complicates the popular argument that Shakespeare represents Richard as disabled as an outward manifestation of his evil, and it marks an awareness of how other characters and the audience would perceive this fictionalized king. Doran’s production seems to capitalize on this challenge to this “conceptual binary.” In his charismatic performance, Hughes selectively refers to his own disability in his embodiment of the character, highlighting Richard’s manipulative tendencies. In their review of the production, Deborah Cartmell and Peter J. Smith discuss how Hughes-as-Richard works against early modern stereotypes of disability while navigating Shakespeare’s descriptions of the king: Having Richard played by a disabled actor, rather than one pretending to be disabled, makes an enormous difference to how contemporary audiences respond to him. It has taken a long time for the RSC to make this casting choice and the final play in the tetralogy needs to work hard to present a Richard who challenges rather than endorses an 151 outmoded stereotype of the villain in which a ‘twisted body’ reflects a ‘twisted mind.’ (404) While Richard is unquestionably the embodiment of evil in this play, this production makes it clear that, although other characters may view Richard’s behavior as a result of his disability, this is certainly not the case. Later in their review, Cartmell and Smith point out that, in actuality, “the production made very little of Richard’s alleged disabilities. There was no limp or hunchback and in spite of the publicity that was generated about casting, for the first time at the RSC, a disabled actor in the role of a disabled character, the production paid surprisingly little attention to this” (409). This highlights the tension between the social space in the text versus how that social space is perceived by a modern audience–although the text emphasizes Richard’s disability and connects it to his behavior, Doran’s production merely shows a disabled Richard existing in space. Contemporary audiences would not culturally link disability with evil, similarly to how they would not link Othello’s Blackness to his behavior–neither of these factors would impact their relationship to social space. Yet, these modes of casting hold up a mirror to early modern attitudes. As such, the moments that turn the audience’s attention to the corporeal presence of the actor, and thus the embodied character of Richard, have little to do with any kind of innate viciousness. One such moment of invoking the actor’s disability occurs in act 3 scene 1, when the young princes first arrive at the Tower. Of all scenes in the play, this one in particular emphasizes the significance of historical place. Shakespeare invokes place-naming with repeated references to the Tower of London, and early modern audiences (and hopefully some modern audiences) would recognize its significance not only for its rich history but also as the site of the mysterious murders of the young princes. In Doran’s production, this is one of the few scenes where Hughes’s disability is incorporated into the scene, and Richard’s response is dependent on 152 this collapsing of actor and character rather than dictated by the text. Additionally, this scene includes child actors to play the boy princes, and their corporeal presence emphasizes the moral darkness in which Richard plots their murder. Richard regards Prince Edward with annoyance throughout the scene, making asides such as “So wise so young, they say, do never live long” and “Short summers lightly have a forward spring” (3.1.78, 94). However, he quickly becomes enraged following the entrance of the young Duke of York, who is presented as quite young in this production. The young Duke demands “I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger,” and Richard replies in a similar tone to his asides, “My dagger, little cousin? With all my heart” (3.1.110-111). After a brief exchange, the young Duke says to Richard, “Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me. / Because that I am little, like an ape, / He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders,” and he begins to pull on Richard’s disabled arm (3.1.129-131). This first elicits laughter from the other characters, but Richard flies into a rage and pulls his dagger on York. Quickly, however, Richard manages to regain composure. He adjusts his motion to act as if he had been planning to gift the dagger to York all along, and with a forced smile replies, “My lord, will’t please you pass along?” (3.1.136). For the rest of the scene, Richard keeps his arms crossed, hiding his disability from view. By the time Prince Edward says, “I fear no uncles dead… An if they live, I hope I need not fear,” Richard’s outburst has made it clear that they do, in fact, need to fear him (3.1.146-148). The next time attention is brought to Hughes’s/Richard’s disability is in act 3 scene 4, when he accuses Lord Hastings and his mistress of witchcraft. Whereas Richard’s friendly facade slipped in the interaction with the young Duke of York, in this scene, Richard remains in complete control. This is a prime example of what Williams referred to regarding Richard’s manipulation of his body to facilitate his rise to power; Hughes incorporates reference to his own 153 disability in the scene to underscore this textual manipulation. In this scene, the space is clearly delineated as political–a group of lords and other political figureheads gather around a table discussing Prince Edward’s upcoming coronation when Richard arrives, hoping that his “absence doth neglect no great design / Which by my presence might have been concluded” (3.4.24-25). Richard quickly pulls Buckingham aside, privately informing him that “Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,” and that it has not gone as they had hoped (3.4.36). The pair quickly withdraw, and when they next enter, Richard executes his plan to get rid of Hastings. After some further conversation amongst the lords, Richard reenters much more dramatically, a stark contrast to his previous entrance. He storms up to the table, shouting accusations of witchcraft: I pray you all, tell me what they deserve That do conspire my death with devilish plots Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevailed Upon my body with their hellish charms? (3.4.58-61) In the scene at the Tower, Richard was upset when attention was drawn to his body. But now, when it will serve his purpose of bringing about Hastings’ downfall, he is more than ready to draw attention to his corporeality. Climbing onto the table, Richard demands, “Look how I am bewitched! Behold, mine arm / Is like a blasted sapling withered” as he removes his sleeve and gestures pointedly to his non-disabled arm (3.4.67-68). This moment is yet another where the line between Richard’s body and Hughes’s body wavers. The other characters on stage do not seem to know how to respond to this action, and additionally, this elicits a few laughs from the audience as he kneels to better show the clearly non-existent “witchcraft [that] thus have marked me” (3.4.71). Doran’s production monopolizes on the combination of the body of character and actor to engage in a social production of space that relies on the audience’s understanding of disability outside of the play. This hints at an expectation that they will then apply their 154 interpretations of Hughes’s disabled body to the spatial production Richard contributes to within the play. Several reviews of the production foreground the complications of showing affinities between the body of the character with the body of the actor. For these reviewers, the world of the play is rooted in the corporeal presence of the actor’s body and how it shapes their understanding of Richard as a character. In her review for Shakespeare Newsletter, Diane Lowman explains how “when [Hughes as Richard] referred to his ‘deformity’ (I.i.20), he drew attention to his own withered right arm. It added complexity and credibility to know that the actor himself had dealt throughout his own life with the challenges and triumphs of living with an attribute that made him different to others.” Here, Lowman seems to collapse actor and character–Hughes’s disability is Richard’s disability, and what she perceives to be Hughes’s real-life experience impacts how she understands Richard’s role within the play. In Arifa Akbar’s review of the production for The Guardian, she explains how she felt: “While the text ties the ‘rudely stamp’d’ character’s evil nature to his ‘deformity’, Gregory Doran's production goes some way to correcting that false equivalence. This Richard is an ambitious amoralist, not exaggeratedly hunched and limping in the Laurence Olivier mould.” Although not quite as blatant as in Lowman’s review, Akbar’s review demonstrates how much of an impact Hughes’s embodiment of the role impacts her view of the role of Richard’s disability in the text. Once we look at Shakespeare’s plays through the lens of contemporary production of identity in society and on stage, it adds another dimension to place and the production of space. Place-naming may literally define place, but it is charged with the social and cultural issues of our times, not only in terms of the plot of the play but also through social space. Thus, these spaces are not neutral, and while the place names may invoke a specific location, the meanings 155 can shift to reflect the contemporary knowledge of the audience. Social space does not come from the theater. Audiences are either incapable or unwilling to completely divorce the corporeality of the actor from their understanding of the character, and thus, the meaning of the play is influenced by these production choices. It seems that truly “blind” casting practices are impossible, as audiences will respond to the embodiment of the characters in a way that impacts their interpretation of the text. In their review of the RSC’s Richard III, Cartmell and Smith argue in a way which seems to support Wilson’s theorization of how the corporeal presence of disabled actors influences audiences, that “the ‘truth’ existed only as Richard chose to see it – that the trumped-up nature of his accusations was visible in the lack of non-normativity. Richard, Shakespeare and ultimately the theatre itself construct the reality in front of the courtiers/the audience. We see what we’re told to see” (409). Within the theater, space is produced by the combination of characters in the text and by actors on the stage as well as by the audience. Modern performances of Shakespeare’s plays are influenced by the social production of space, which has rightly led to the casting of only Black actors for Othello and an increase in the casting of disabled actors for the role of Richard. This is the core of why Terry’s casting is controversial, as Shakespeare’s plays have now become a site for inclusive rather than mimetic casting and for creation of a recognizable world. While Shakespeare’s text still provides the template for the theatrical space that will be produced with every individual performance, modern actors and audiences align textual space with social understandings of space to create new meanings based on contemporary understandings of the corporeal body and markers of identity. 156 CHAPTER 4: THE STRATFORD-UPON-AVON HERITAGE GUIDE: MONUMENTAL SPACE, AFFECTIVE HISTORIES, AND MEMORY In 1814, Robert Bell Wheler published his comprehensive history of Shakespeare’s hometown in A Guide to Stratford-upon-Avon. Published locally by J. Ward, Wheler’s guide is one of the first detailed explorations of Stratford’s connection to Shakespeare. In the opening pages, Wheler describes how “Stratford-upon-Avon is possessed of peculiar attractions; and by every admirer of the matchless Bard to whom it gave birth, and of his poetry, which for two centuries has so brilliantly illumined the dramatick hemisphere, is approached with sentiments that few places inspire” (3). Wheler identifies it as a space that evokes a particular affective response from those who visit it, and moreover, he posits that this response is specifically tied to both cultural and individual memories of Shakespeare and his works. He continues, “So natural, and so laudable, is the curiosity which induces every inquisitive and enlightened traveller to visit this classical and consecrated ground, that very few leave unexplored any part of the town that bears the slightest memorial of the divine bard, who was and ever will be its greatest pride and ornament” (3-4). A famous place name, Stratford is produced as a heritage space for these literary pilgrims via the diffusion of guidebooks, among other resources. Thus, it is a place that is specifically visited so tourists can feel some kind of connection, something like an affective nostalgia for Shakespeare. Over the centuries, visitors have traveled from all over the world to explore every inch of the town, and in response, the town has evolved to increase the number of streets, businesses, and heritage sites that make reference to Shakespeare and expand the “memorial of the divine bard.” Stratford is produced as a space through the responses of visitors to its curation as a town-wide monument to Shakespeare. The presentation of Shakespeare’s legacy has evolved over the centuries, and narratives regarding the greatness of the playwright have been curated in very intentional ways to cement 157 him as an English cultural icon. Although Shakespeare wrote all his plays in London, his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon has grown to become more closely associated with the playwright through the visitors’ interactions with these constructed histories.76 It is useful to recall that this gravitation toward the playwright’s childhood home and gravesite did not become common until the 19th century. However, this century saw Stratford become a prime destination for those wanting to find a real-world connection to Shakespeare’s literary spaces–whether they were seeking the Forest of Arden or reimagining Hamlet by looking for biographical hints about Shakespeare’s relationship with his own father, wife, and son. The establishment of a theater in the town also provided opportunities for visitors to engage with Shakespeare’s dramatic spaces through performance. In many ways, Stratford is a space produced by a different kind of audience involved in the production of space–one enacting an attempt to reconstruct the space of Shakespeare’s life. By analyzing guidebooks as a key archival source from this period, I demonstrate how public understanding of the various monuments in Stratford have evolved, and also how generations of visitors have continually reinvented the information provided in these guidebooks. I highlight the subjective nature of Stratford’s relationship with Shakespeare and explore how visitors mediate and appropriate narratives about the town that are presented as completely objective. The Stratford-upon-Avon Heritage Guide reveals how culture is constructed via guidebooks evoking heritage and memory and how these narratives can change. This project contributes to ongoing conversations about Shakespeare’s legacy and its connection to Stratford and provides a new way to revisit the spatial turn in Shakespeare studies. Through a combination 76 Robert Bearman’s Stratford-upon-Avon 1196-1996: The History of an English Burrough, Richard Schoch’s Shakespeare’s House: A Window onto his Life and Legacy, and Julia Thomas’s Shakespeare’s Shrine: The Bard’s Birthplace and the Invention of Stratford-upon-Avon are just a few books that detail the ways in which Shakespeare’s legacy has shaped his hometown. 158 of mapping and text analysis, I demonstrate the way Stratford has been recreated as a site of memory and how this recreation takes shape through the invocation of Shakespeare’s literary and dramatic spatial practice and how the affective responses generated by visitors have shaped the town from the nineteenth century onwards. Monumental Space and Sites of Memory In the introduction to his guide, Wheler aims to emphasize Stratford’s power as a space that merges the public legacy of Shakespeare with visitors’ private recollections and experiences with the playwright’s works. Guidebooks operate as a kind of orienting device that help to produce the town as a space of memory for the many travelers who explore it. In other words, Stratford serves as a kind of “monumental space.” Henri Lefebvre highlights the crucial involvement of the bodies that pass through these kinds of spaces as representative of a consensus around the social space–as discussed in the previous chapter–produced by those who interact with these heritage sites. This practice can be summed up via Lefebvre’s formulation, which he explains as follows: “The affective level–which is to say, the level of the body, bound to symmetries and rhythms–is transformed into a ‘property’ of monumental space…Inasmuch as the poet through a poem gives voices to a way of living…the experience of monumental space may be said to have some similarity to entering and sojourning in the poetic world” (224). Analogous to audiences who visit the theater to experience the affective worlds of Shakespeare’s plays, tourists travel to Stratford to experience Shakespeare’s world in his lifetime. They seek out a space produced as a memorial to Shakespeare, and these tourists hope to experience the playwright’s hometown through the spatial practices of the memorializing communities that focus on his legacy. Lefebvre continues his depiction of monumental space, explicitly connecting it to drama, arguing that “it is more easily understood, however, when compared with texts written for the 159 theatre, which are composed of dialogues, rather than with poetry or other literary texts, which are monologues” (224). Just as Shakespeare’s plays are built on dialogue and the dramatic space produced by interactions between the characters, his hometown is produced in a similar way by the interactions between the heritage sites and the bodies of visitors as well as by the guidebooks, which represent and mediate expectations about their interactions. Tourists are both actor and audience in Stratford as monumental space is produced through this exchange between historical memories and these sites. It is continually produced and reproduced by tourists’ affective response when they visit, hoping to find a semblance of Shakespeare’s lived space. Previously in this dissertation, I explained how Shakespeare invokes literary and dramatic space and how performances of his places have reciprocally been shaped and re-shaped by contemporary notions of social space. Stratford, as a monumental space, is a culmination of Shakespeare’s spatial practice. Through the bodies of those visitors who initially may have been impacted by the production of space in his plays, the town is recreated in memory of the playwright and his works, with guidebooks acting as a kind of promptbook for the dialogue between tourist and heritage sites. Thus, we can assume that visitors also bring to bear their memories of Shakespearean productions onto the memorializing process. In her book Building Histories: The Archival and Affective Lives of Five Monuments in Modern Delhi, Mrinalini Rajagopalan describes how monuments are not fixed in time and space, but rather continually changing via their interactions with the people who visit them throughout history. She writes “…the destabilization of the archival histories of the monument can only be understood by an examination of the affective meanings that the monument accrues at various points in its life” (5). A monument alone does not create meaning—it is the reactions of those who interact with it that contextualize it and imbue it with cultural importance, causing those 160 monuments to accrue additional meanings as years pass. By performing this literary pilgrimage, visitors to Stratford contribute to the continued production of space in the town and to the shifting meanings in this place’s cultural capital. As time elapses and different bodies momentarily inhabit Stratford-upon-Avon, this synthesis of a fixed and living monument gathers new affective meanings, constantly changing the way Shakespeare’s memory survives through his hometown. Over the years, the entire town has been memorialized as a kind of shrine to Shakespeare even though none of the works Shakespeare is famous for were written, published, or even performed in the town during his lifetime. From a place name of biographical history, Stratford has been transformed into a space in which visitors are constantly re-oriented by their engagement with the plays and imaginings of his life. The town is shaped by those who visit it to feel closer to Shakespeare, whether for scholarly or for sentimental reasons. It is this process of memorializing—of producing the Shakespearean world via heritage monuments—that I hope to capture in the digital portion of my dissertation, the notion that there are “deeply subjective and affective histories embedded within the institutionalized histories of monuments” (Rajagopalan 16). This is made evident repeatedly in the history plays, as Shakespeare names famous landmarks and battle fields—such as with the Agincourt references in Henry V or via the scene in Richard III where characters discuss the cultural history of the Tower of London. Briefly, this even applies to the statue of Hermione in The Winter’s Tale, since she serves as a symbol of the cultural history in Sicilia after her and Perdita’s presumed deaths. This does not even begin to address the “subjective and affective histories” that are intertwined with elements of intangible cultural heritage—as invoked, for example, via the Robin Hood myth in As You Like It. Just as Shakespeare relied on these subjective and affective histories as represented in his plays, the 161 places of his birth and death have come to rely on the subjective and affective histories of his legacy that are continually reaffirmed by the tourists/visitors. The Stratford Heritage Guide explores how the monumental space of Stratford is shaped through visitors’ responses to this legacy as a kind of shared cultural memory. Stratford-upon-Avon has become a place-name, imbued with meaning in its own right, just as the spaces and places invoked in Shakespeare’s plays were, and thus completing a circle of interconnected spatial practices. The Stratford-upon-Avon Heritage Guide The Stratford-upon-Avon Heritage Guide project combines a multimedia map with data visualizations derived from data mining via topic modeling. While mapping may seem like a logical choice for a project centered around spatial production, why incorporate a textual analysis component? Pairing mapping with text analysis in a single project allows users to better understand the role that cultural narratives play in developing a spatial practice. I hope to fill this lacuna in early modern digital humanities projects that offer limited engagements with textual analysis, especially those related to space. The map represents the physical places, but the textual analysis of these guidebooks helps to document the history of the curation of cultural heritage sites and of related programming that helps to shape the physical locations into spaces. As Matthew L. Jockers explains in Macroanalysis: Digital Methods and Literary History, this “macroanalytic approach helps us not only to see and understand the operations of a larger ‘literary economy’ but, by means of scale, to better see and understand the degree to which literature and the individual authors who manufacture that literature respond to or react against literary and cultural trends” (28). By relying on this method of “distant reading,” I am able to trace trends in the narratives surrounding Stratford by detecting the way guidebooks discuss 162 different heritage and memorial sites across time.77 Therefore, I can better understand the dialogues occurring at places to transform them into monumental spaces and represent them visually on a map to underscore these shifts in meaning on a spatio-temporal scale. Similar to the many cultural narratives surrounding Shakespeare’s hometown, the Stratford Heritage Guide has taken several forms before it reached the current version included in this dissertation. I first conceived of a digital project centered on guidebooks for a mock grant proposal, rooted in the idea that pairing digital mapping (including visualization) with text analysis in a single project allows users to better understand the role cultural narratives play in developing a spatial practice. I created a pilot version of the project during my time as a 2021- 2022 Cultural Heritage Informatics (CHI) Fellow. The Stratford Memory Map included a Leaflet-based map of Stratford with pins positioned at the major cultural heritage sites in the town. Each pin included a word cloud visualization, created in Voyant, indicating which words were most often used to describe each site across a corpus of twelve 19th century guidebooks. The following academic year, I returned as a senior CHI Fellow and created the first draft of The Stratford Heritage Guide. I then spent the 2023-2024 academic year working with the MSU Digital Scholarship Lab’s Project Incubator Program to refine the site’s user interface, clean the data to run better analyses, and create new data visualizations. Most components of the Stratford Heritage Guide website are built using a Bootstrap framework. The map page uses Leaflet with MapBox tiles, and there are twelve layers on the map to represent the individual guidebooks. Each heritage site is represented by a numbered pin, which includes an image of that place and a link to a page with more information and analysis about that location. I used the Topic Modeling Tool (TMT) to conduct text analysis on copies of 77 Franco Moretti coined the term “distant reading” to refer to a data-driven approach to analyzing a large literary corpus, which he discusses at length in his book Distant Reading. 163 guidebooks from Google Books that had been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR). However, before running the texts through the TMT, I cleaned the data in each document manually to ensure the text was correctly read by the software. Using the data derived from the generated topics, I then developed a series of interactive data visualizations in Flourish. The visualizations relevant to the entire corpus live on the “Narrative” page of the website and take the shape of a multimedia essay, whereas topics for individual locations are featured on the separate heritage site pages. The guidebooks tab includes a button for each guidebook that takes users directly to the corresponding resource on Google Books (I hope to eventually create my own guidebook scans, with the permission of libraries, and post them directly to the website). Finally, the “Method” page includes information about the process I used to clean the data from the guidebooks, run the topic models, and create the map and website. The URL for the project is (at the time of submission of this dissertation) stratfordheritageguide.kiknowles.com; however, as the project continues to grow it will eventually be moved to its own domain. “Affective Histories:” Stratford’s Spatial Significance This construction of Stratford-upon-Avon as a living monument to Shakespeare as we know it today did not begin until 1769 with David Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee. The elite of England traveled to attend parties, pageants, and performances framing the unveiling of a statue to honor the Bard, positioning him as England’s national poet. This multi-day celebration is often credited with sparking the rise of bardolatry and the institution of the cult of Shakespeare, and it simultaneously cemented Stratford-upon-Avon as a must-visit location for those wanting to pay tribute to the playwright.78 As Roger Pringle writes in “The Rise of Stratford as Shakespeare’s 78 Julia Thomas discusses just how significant the Jubilee was in sparking the Victorian fascination with Shakespeare and Stratford in her introduction to Shakespeare’s Shrine: The Bard’s Birthplace and the Invention of Stratford-upon-Avon. 164 Town,” “Garrick’s groundbreaking commemoration put Stratford firmly on the cultural map and in some respects marked the beginnings of the tourist industry proper” (166). Although this event was integral in cementing Shakespeare as a cultural icon, not a single one of the events was actually a performance of the plays. Focus was instead placed on producing the town as a space/place where the characters could be imagined walking the streets and promoting the idea that Shakespeare’s presence might be felt anywhere. This ignited a tradition of tourists performing Shakespeare worship through visiting Stratford; the plays can be located in Shakespeare’s hometown because their audiences desperately wish to find them there—through several generations. Thus, they can imaginatively “bring them to life.” Today, Stratford-upon-Avon is essentially made up of a network of sites related to Shakespeare and the infrastructure supporting the tourists that these places attract. However, a single organization manages the properties of the Shakespeare family and maintains the world’s largest archives and special collections with artifacts relating to both Shakespeare and early modern drama more broadly. According to the webpage of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (SBT): The [SBT] is the independent charity that cares for the world’s greatest Shakespeare heritage in his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. It is the global centre for learning about and experiencing the works, life and times of the world’s best-known writer… [SBT] was formed in 1847 following the purchase of Shakespeare’s Birthplace as a national memorial. The Trust now cares for the world’s greatest Shakespeare heritage sites - the five beautifully preserved homes and gardens directly linked to Shakespeare and his family in Stratford- upon-Avon. (“What We Do”) The five properties mentioned by the SBT span the whole town, even neighboring ones; however, the production of Shakespeare’s heritage extends beyond the SBT’s carefully 165 cultivated reach in Stratford-upon-Avon.79 The Guild Chapel is promoted as the church of Shakespeare’s childhood; the King’s New School is advertised as Shakespeare’s school; and, perhaps most famously, Holy Trinity Church houses Shakespeare’s grave. No single site is the town’s memorial to Shakespeare alone (although, visitors to the town can find a large statue dubbed “The Shakespeare Memorial” down by the river). Rather, the entire space of the town has been constructed as a monumental space—a tribute to the playwright. It is not just the authentic history of these sites that have transformed Stratford-upon- Avon into a monument. As Julia Thomas explains in Shakespeare’s Shrine: The Bard’s Birthplace and the Invention of Stratford-upon-Avon, the famous cultural heritage industry that has fueled the town for over century is not necessarily a perfect recreation or representation of Shakespeare’s childhood in the town, but rather a construction of how the Victorians (and many people since) have imagined Shakespeare. Thus, the town is created through a shared British cultural memory generated by a “dialogue” between visitors and the heritage sites, resulting in an affective response triggering the evolution of these places into monumental space. As properties in Stratford-upon-Avon were restored in Tudor styles, Shakespeare’s relationship with the town was cemented beyond the fact that he was born and raised there, and this, in turn, created more opportunities to develop the connection: “Without the acquisition and growing significance of the Birthplace, it is unlikely that the scheme to bring a world-class theater to Stratford would ever have been proposed, much less come to fruition…With the acquisition of the properties and the building of the playhouse, Stratford was intertwined with Shakespeare” (Thomas 165). Today, many renditions of early modern drama are performed in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (formerly the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre), which has become a popular site of performance 79 The SBT properties include Shakespeare’s Birthplace, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, Shakespeare’s New Place, Mary Arden’s Farm, and Hall’s Croft. 166 and a space of cultural memory by constantly reimagining and reinventing plays within contemporary contexts. The merging of past and present through performance in Stratford-upon- Avon sparks a shared affective experience for those who wish to conjure him in the place of his youth beyond the properties historically absent of his art. When visiting the town, people are asked to imagine a young Shakespeare reading source materials and experiencing the situations he would later incorporate into his writing before they ever step into the theater. Tourists are encouraged to imagine Shakespeare’s spaces by considering from where and how he would gather the place-names invoked in his plays. The desire to connect Shakespeare’s works more directly to his home has remained consistent through time. With the founding of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (later the Royal Shakespeare Theatre) ten years after the Jubilee, the theater has brought the plays to Stratford along with a stream of new audiences. The first production in the theater was an As You Like It set in Warwickshire’s Forest of Arden incorporating references to hunting in the nearby Charlecote, which is a direct reference to an anecdote from Shakespeare’s youth (Thomas 165). This is just one example of the recurring appearance of Stratford and the surrounding area in performances at the RST—the same local imagery was invoked as recently as the 2014/15 paired productions of Love’s Labour’s Lost and Love’s Labour’s Won (Dench 3). The theater has continually brought tourist groups to the town, who often spent the day touring the town’s many heritage sites before attending a performance at the theater. Often, references to whatever play is being performed have been incorporated into the narrative at these locations outside the theater. Then, the audience brings this local context into the theater, and following the performance, the audience then exits back into the town as tourists. They take their impressions of the play with them, and they use their new understandings of Shakespeare’s work to create meaning in their 167 experience with Stratford. In turn, they look for the ways the town may have impacted the play. Thus, the spaces of Shakespeare's worlds merge and mingle with social and monumental space. Memories of play and place become inextricably intertwined and consistently shape and reshape the town as a living monument to Shakespeare and his works. The affective responses generated by the bodies of audiences and tourists transform Stratford as a famous place-name into a produced space. I represent the historical transformation of these narratives and their impact via my digital project, and in doing so, mediate space through my interpretation of the heritage sites and guidebooks in yet another way. Navigating the Heritage Guide Figure 1: The homepage of the Stratford-upon-Avon Heritage Guide 168 From the Heritage Guide homepage, visitors can use the main navigation to access pages allowing them to learn more about the website, visit the map, read the project narrative, analyze the methods used in developing the map and data visualizations, or access the guidebooks that are available for free via Google Books. Alternatively, they can choose to explore the map, read the narrative, or view the guidebooks by clicking one of the buttons at the bottom of the homepage. The majority of the content for the website can be accessed via the map. Figure 2: The map feature of the Stratford Heritage Guide On the map page, visitors to the website can select which guidebook’s data they would like to view from a box on the right-hand side of the screen. This will generate a series of pins, numbered to indicate the order in which that particular guidebook suggests that you visit the different heritage sites. By clicking a map pin, as in the screenshot above, users can then pull up a popup that provides an image of that location (either a modern photograph or the illustration provided by the guidebook). For this example, I selected A Pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon by Charles Vaughan Grinfield and then Pin 1: Shakespeare’s Birthplace. The popup also includes a link to the pictured heritage site. By clicking the linked place-name, users will then be directed 169 to a page that includes data visualizations derived from a topic modeling analysis of the corpus of guidebooks and a brief analysis explaining them. Figure 3: An example visualization featuring topics regarding Shakespeare’s Birthplace The first visualization on each site page is a stacked bar chart that demonstrates the frequency of all topics across the entire corpus of guidebooks. By hovering over the specific topic, users can access the top twenty words associated with a given topic. The topic words are generated in categories by the Topic Modeling Tool (TMT), but they were titled by me. For instance, I named the “Family History” category due to the presence of various names of members of the Shakespeare family. However, these labels are not fully comprehensive–words such as “poet” and “ancient” do not necessarily fit under that title, but it does sum up a number of the listed words. While the topics were generated in no particular order, the individual words within the topic are ordered based on the frequency with which they appeared in the guidebook.80 80 For more information on how the Topic Modeling Tool generates topics, see Scott Enderle’s “Quick Start” guide included in the Tool’s documentation. 170 In the above example, the 1828 guidebook by Illustrations of Stratford-upon-Avon and its Vicinity featured a high topic score of .96 for this “Family History” topic. Figure 4: Data visualizations on the Shakespeare’s Birthplace site page breaking down individual high-frequency topics found in the guidebooks. The other data visualizations on each site page represent individual topics with the highest overall frequency scores. To continue with the example of the “Family History” topic, the individual graph makes it easier to trace the topic’s rise and decline across time. While the topic of the Shakespeare family was invoked often in guidebooks at the beginning of the century, this trend declined going into the 20th century. Alternatively, the “Birth Room” topic increases in frequency at the end of the 19th century. Named due to the appearance of terms such as “room,” “history,” “trustees,” and museum, this trend might suggest that the Birthplace increased in popularity as a tourist attraction after the advent of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1847. Although I offer my own interpretation of this data on each page, I present the data in these visualizations so visitors to the website can draw their own conclusions regarding the narrative trends about Stratford’s many Shakespearean cultural heritage properties. 171 Methodologies The data used in this project was collected from digitized guidebooks spanning the 19th century that are housed on Google Books. The quality of the digitized guidebooks varies quite significantly across the corpus due to the lack of standardization in scanning requirements for the Google Books initiative. I used Google Docs OCR to transform the scans from PDFs to txt files so they could be readable by TMT. I then cleaned these OCR copies, which included removing images, stray characters, and cleaning up errors that resulted from the software being unable to read the font. The output from the TMT provided the topics and scores for the trends in each guidebook. Using the data derived from the generated topics, I created a series of interactive data visualizations in Flourish. For each site, I created two different kinds of graphs: one includes all of the topics that resulted from the topic models, and the other focuses on a single topic. The number of visualizations displaying a single topic on the site pages is dependent on the number of largely significant topics for that site. Both graphs are in the form of a column chart, although the one demonstrating multiple topics is stacked, to clearly demonstrate the breakdown of each of the topics for each guidebook. The first graph on each page includes all topics generated for that site via the TMT, regardless of how infrequently they appear in that particular text. Each column adds up to the full topic score of 1.0. For the second kind of graph, I included the top two to five topics. *** The Stratford-upon-Avon Heritage Guide traces the history of cultural memory of Shakespeare’s hometown through 19th century guidebooks to demonstrate how the way spatial production shifts across town. It is the movement of bodies through these cultural heritage sites that has transformed these places into monumental spaces via the affective response of those bodies. By 172 infusing the real locations of Shakespeare’s biography with the literary and dramatic spaces he imagined, visitors to the town solidify a shared understanding of the social space of Stratford. Thus, these memorial sites have accrued layers of meanings over the centuries. This combination of public and private sentiments toward these places from Shakespeare’s lifetime transforms the town into a monumental space serving as a real-world locus of the playwright’s legacy and also as a symbolic yet tangible connection to his imagined worlds. 173 CODA: BODIES IN SPACE: EMBODIED PASTS AND IMAGINED FUTURES In 2016, I attended a production of Hamlet at Kronborg Castle in Helsingor, Denmark. This very real site (and famous place-name) was transformed into the fictional Elsinore, through which the characters of the play could move freely, seemingly unaware of their audience. The performance was spread throughout the castle–scenes were performed continuously, but the “off-stage” characters lingered, in-character, in other parts of the castle. While Hamlet interacted with the players, I followed the actor playing Gertrude to where she sat looking out the window. For once, I was not experiencing the play through Hamlet’s perspective, but rather my subjective playgoing experience dictated space through my choice to follow a different part of the story. My experience of both Helsignor and the play were mediated through my choice to follow who I perceived as a conflicted queen, questioning the actions that led her son to act mad, and my interaction with this space in performance was, unusually, fully divorced from Shakespeare’s text. Many theater companies have sought to put on productions of the play at the “actual” Elsinore castle, which is thought to have been visited by Burbage and Kemp during their days as members of Shakespeare’s theater company. Visitors to the castle seek the affective histories, to use Rajapolan’s concept, of Hamlet. By visiting this site, tourists imbue it with meaning, and their understandings of and desires to be involved with the world of the play intermingle with those brought to this space by other tourists throughout time. However, by performing Hamlet within the castle itself, the authority of the text is imposed onto this space, and responses to the place are mediated once more via the play. In this dissertation, I discussed the production of space through a variety of lenses, including representational, theatrical, social, and monumental space. My research contributes to literary and drama studies by exploring new ways to understand space as it is produced by the body’s positioning in familiar structures ranging from generic modes like the pastoral to 174 theatrical forms like metadrama. I demonstrated how the bodies of characters, actors, and the audience contribute to the production of space as related to Shakespeare, whether it be in the text of the plays, through performance, or at heritage sites related to the playwright’s biography. Practices such as color-conscious casting have shifted our understanding of Shakespeare’s plays and performance spaces by introducing contemporary notions of the way space should be produced socially in response to identity politics and social justice issues of our times. Furthermore, cultural heritage sites are real-world locations transformed into spaces that in turn influence our responses to the worlds of the plays. While many of the explorations focus on geographies or stage practices, my contribution to new explorations of the spatial turn is the idea that place is transformed into space by those who are imagining, interpreting, and thus producing it. The subjective and embodied experience of characters, actors, and audience are what (dis)orient us within Shakespeare’s work and legacy, and our individual affective responses to these elements impact our understanding of Shakespeare through time. Recent trends in digital performance demonstrate this desire to further the possibilities of subjectively experiencing the space of the plays. The relationship between audience and Elsinore as a represented space has been explored further through digital productions of Hamlet. These digital performances are an attempt to further increase the active role of the audience within the world of the play. One of those productions is Hamlet 360—a virtual reality experience that allows audience members to seemingly observe the performance, which was pre-recorded on 360 video viewable via a headset, from the center of the action. Advertising for the performance suggested that the purpose was to give the audience more agency in this modern-dress production; and although the viewer can navigate the screen to look in any direction, they are still rooted to the center of the video, as if they were still anchored to a seat. Another attempt at 175 allowing audiences to have greater access to Elsinore is Hamlet VR, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017. The production involved actors performing their roles live while being recorded using motion capture technology to render them digitally in the virtual castle. Through virtual reality technology, the audience was then able to enter the play as well and move through Elsinore alongside Hamlet. The role of the spectator may be more active, but as Hamlet produces the space of the play the audience is still tethered to his location within this fictionalized world. It seems these digital renderings of Hamlet operate, to some extent, within the same spatial frameworks that rendered Elsinore legible on the early modern stage. Yet, scholars and theater practitioners still seek different ways to experience the worlds of the play rooted in centering the spectator experience outside of the titular character. Ultimately, the productions at Elsinore/Helsingor and those in virtual spaces all attempt to eradicate the spatiotemporal distance between contemporary audiences and the plays. The embodied experience of spectating shifts to an embodied experience of participation. Spaces and places are always accruing meaning, which changes how we understand them–whether they are real or fictional. Live performance allows for the spaces of the plays, static on the page, to move beyond past representations and lead to other imaginative dimensions. As we continue to reinvent the ways we can interact with the plays, and especially as these encouraged interactions become further individualized, our understandings of space and place will become even more fluid and dynamic than they are currently. In chapter 3 I discussed the role of identity politics in modern casting and the way understanding of social space rooted in the body of actors impacts the way we understand the plays. This further leads us to reconsider the role of audiences: what happens when the bodies of spectators, with their many positionalities, enter into the world of the play in new ways? 176 We see this to some extent with the interactions of visitors with places like Stratford- upon-Avon, or even Helsingor. While practices such as place-naming can help invoke shared knowledge of a location, it is important to consider that space is interpreted through their subjective experiences and affective responses. In this dissertation, I explore how visiting heritage sites or casting practices influence the tensions between bodily experiences of space and the way space is represented textually. Going forward, it seems that questions of space in Shakespeare studies should consider the ways we try to unify interpretations of plays via new methods of attempting to control the interactions of bodies with space in new and path-breaking ways. In the future, I hope to expand this project to explore literary heritage sites related to Shakespeare all over the world, from Kronborg Castle in Helsignor to Juliet’s Balcony in Verona and beyond. I believe that, at least to some extent, the future of the spatial turn in Shakespeare studies exists within understandings of the subjective nature of space, and how only through embodied experience can we be oriented within space. Throughout Shakespeare’s canon, space is constantly in flux—albeit very deliberately. As characters pass through, the way they use and experience Shakespeare’s representation of space influences how the audience perceives it. Going forward, it seems that questions of space in Shakespeare studies should consider how we try to unify interpretations via new methods of attempting to control the interactions of bodies with space in new ways–ways in which space is no longer seen as a benign or neutral entity. Rather, as Sara Ahmed argues, “Space…becomes a question of ‘turning,’ of directions taken, which not only allow things to appear, but also enable us to find our way through the world by situating ourselves in relation to such things. The concept of ‘orientation’ allows us then to rethink the phenomenality of space— that is, how space is dependent on bodily inhabitance” (6). The imaginative rendering of space gives the 177 audience an access point into the play and helps them navigate the story, although their navigation of the play’s spaces is informed by their own contemporary understandings of spaces and its uses and deployments. After developing a familiarity with common conventions of creating space through specific staging practices, close readings of the text can yield a plethora of examples of how space was produced on the early modern stage and shed light on the role the audience played in developing a shared understanding of spatial practice. But the process of meaning-making via means and methods of orientation is what brings the vast and varying places described in the plays to life. 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