The History Of European Theatre

Episode 163

My background reading while preparing the episode on Romeo and Juliet took me to many stories about and thoughts on the afterlife of the play and its continuing influence on western culture, what follows is just a few stories and thoughts that illustrate that continuing influence.

Verona and Juliet’s Statue

Juliet’s tomb

Cibber’s Juliet

Franco Zeffirelli’s film for the ‘love generation’

West Side Story

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Episode 162

In today’s episode I look at Shakespeare’s early tragedy and one of his enduringly popular plays ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

The dating of the play

The early printings of the play in quarto editions

The origins of the story and Shakespeare’s direct sources

The opening chorus

Violence and the hand of fate underlying the action

The opening brawl and the threat of violence to women

The calming voice of women in the play

Romeo as a Petrarchan hero

Juliet as an innovative character who drives the plot

Romeo and Juliet’s shared sonnet

The motivations of Friar Lawrence and Juliet’s nurse

A brief performance history of the play

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Episode 161

In today’s guest episode I will be discussing Shakespeare’s characterisations of the lower classes and looking at the role they play with Stephen Unwin, who’s book ‘Poor Naked Wretches’ explores the variety of working people in Shakespeare's plays as well as a vast range of cultural sources from which they were drawn and argues that the robust realism of these characters makes them so much more than mere Comic Relief. 

Stephen Unwin is an award-winning British theatre and opera director.  He has directed almost 100 professional productions and worked with many well-established actors and singers, as well as developing the careers of many younger ones.  He studied at the University of Cambridge.

In the 1980s Stephen worked at the Almeida Theatre, London, the Traverse in Edinburgh, in repertoire theatre and at the National Theatre Studio.  In 1993, he founded English Touring Theatre, for whom he directed more than 30 productions of classical and new plays, many of which transferred to London.  In 2008, he became Artistic Director of the new Rose Theatre in Kingston, which he ran until January 2014.  He has worked extensively at the Theatre Royal Bath and has directed more than 20 operas.  Ten of his productions have been seen in the West End.

Stephen has taught in conservatoires and universities in Britain and America and written 10 books on theatre and drama, including ‘Poor Naked Wretches’. He has also written five original plays: ‘All Our Children’ was premiered at Jermyn Street Theatre in 2017 and staged in New York in 2019, and ‘Laughing Boy’ opened at Jermyn Street in 2024 and also played at the Theatre Royal Bath. 

Stephen is a campaigner for the rights and dignities of learning-disabled people and ‘Beautiful Lives: How We Got Learning Disabilities So Wrong’, is published by Wildfire Book in June 2025.

This is only a shortened version of Stephen’s achievements and I would encourage you to visit his website for much more information.  

Episode 160

A synopsis of the play

The sources and dating of the play

The problems with a historical drama in verse

The historical accuracy of the play

King John as neither a hero nor anti-hero

Philip the bastard as a central character in the play

The theme of self-identity and changing fortune in the play

Blanche as a representation of innocence manipulated

Queen Eleanor as the power behind the throne

Constance in grief and, maybe, madness, but eloquent

Movement towards the personal in the second half of the play

The confusion over the character of Hubert

The fate of the king as a metaphor for England

The performance history of the play

Link to the silent film from 1899 of the death of king John

Episode 159

For today’s guest episode we are going back to the Italian renaissance theatre and the world of the Commedia Dell’arte.  You will remember that I covered the Commedia and other early Italian theatre in season five of the podcast, but in this conversation with Serena Laiena we have much more detail about a particular theatrical couple and the world of 16thcentury Italian theatre.  In her book ‘The Theatre Couple in Early Modern Italy: Self-Fashioning and Mutual Marketing’ Serena looks at the birth of a phenomenon, that of the couple in show business where she focuses on the mutually beneficial promotional strategies devised by two professional performers and husband and wife team, Giovan Battista Andreini and Virginia Ramponi.

Serena Laiena is Assistant Professor in Italian and Ad Astra Fellow at University College Dublin. Her research focuses on early modern Italian theatre, especially commedia dell’arte. Most of her time is devoted to the understanding of the social and cultural role of the first professional actresses in modern history.  The award-winning monograph that is the basis of our discussion today was published in 2023 by the University of Delaware Press.  Currently, she is working on a book-length project focusing on the correspondence by and about professional actresses to bring to light the managing roles they performed within theatre companies.

For more details on Serena's book: