The History Of European Theatre

Episode 235: Last time I took a first look at ‘The Alchemist’ where Ben Jonson mixed farcical comedy with satire and more serious commentary on the society of the 1610s. The play is notable, among other things, for having the time of plague as it’s setting. It is, I think, the only play from that time to do this. And that was the jumping off point for my conversation with Kay Daly who makes a welcome return to the podcast after having previously discussed Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s world view. Those episodes are still out there on the podcast archive and, I think, well worth a listen if you haven’t done so already. Kay Daly is a writer, novelist, book and theatre reviewer, teacher, and public humanities advocate. Since earning her Ph.D. in English Literature from Northwestern University, she has written for a variety of publications and organizations including The Chicago Review of Books, TimeOut Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, WNET New York Public Media, The Library of Virginia’s blog UnCommonwealth, Dramatics Magazine, and Centerstage Chicago. She also teaches adult enrichment courses focusing on arts and humanities at the Newberry Library in Chicago. And at the end of this episode you can hear a bit about her debut novel which is also concerned with the world of Ben Jonson and is due out in April 2027. I spoke to Kay from her home over a zoom call. Link to Kay's website: https://www.kaydalywriter.com Support the podcast at: www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com www.patreon.com/thoetp www.ko-fi.com/thoetp You can find an advertisement free version of the latest podcast episodes by joining on Patreon at the lowest paid tier level – that’s for just £1 per month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 234: In 1610 Ben Jonson was penning what is often considered to be his most comic of comedies. Johnson was well into his middle age, being thirty-eight years old in 1610 and had several years of producing masques for the court behind him, but with the initial failure of ‘Epicene’ the previous year on the public stage still, no doubt, ringing in his ears. How much that failure influenced Jonson to turn to high comedy in ‘The Alchemist’ is difficult to say but the play is still one packed with satire, classical allusion, and comment on current fads and fashions, so still a very Jonsonian play. The early performance history of the play The source material for the play The early print history of the play The Acrostic summary of the play A not very brief but necessary summary of the play The play as a farce The vices as drivers for the plot The prologue The role of Alchemy in the play Models for Subtle, the alchemist The character of the main protagonists through their names: Face, Subtle, Sir Epicure Mammon, Drugger, Dapper, Kastril, and Dame Pliant The later performance history of the play Support the podcast at: www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com www.patreon.com/thoetp www.ko-fi.com/thoetp You can find an advertisement free version of the latest podcast episodes by joining on Patreon at the lowest paid tier level – that’s for just £1 per month Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 233: Did you know that in 2023 you could have seen the play at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London presented in Juba Arabic using a translation by Joseph Abuk which he had produced for the South Sudan Theatre Company in 2011? Cymbeline like all Shakespeare plays has been translated and performed in many languages and productions and publications using translations account for a large part of global reach. In his book ‘If This Be Magic’ Daniel Hahn explores the world of translating Shakespeare and looks at the challenges and benefits of Shakespeare in translation. By examining some of the very big and very small decisions a translator has to make when faced with a Shakespeare text Daniel takes the reader into a world or words and meanings and ponders the question of how does Shakespeare remain Shakespeare when every word has been changed? Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator. His recent work alongside ‘If This Be Magic: the unlikely art of Shakespeare in translation’, include translations of fiction from Argentina, Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. He is currently co-editing (with Padma Viswanathan) The Penguin Book of Brazilian Short Stories, and re-translating a French children's classic. Daniel very kindly fitted me into his very busy schedule, so I spoke to him over a zoom call from his hotel room in Nepal where he is about to hold some workshops for translators. Links to ‘If This Be Magic: Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/If-This-Magic-Shakespeare-Translation/dp/1805301624/ref=sr_1_1? Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/If-This-Magic-Shakespeare-Translation/dp/0593801660/ref=sr_1_1? UK Publishers Website: https://canongate.co.uk/books/5026-if-this-be-magic-the-unlikely-art-of-shakespeare-in-translation/ USA Publishes Website: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/743377/if-this-be-magic-by-daniel-hahn/ Support the podcast at: www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com www.patreon.com/thoetp www.ko-fi.com/thoetp You can find an advertisement free version of the latest podcast episodes by joining on Patreon at the lowest paid tier level – that’s for just £1 per month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 232: Although ‘Coriolanus’ is officially Shakespeare’s last Roman tragedy his next play, ‘Cymbeline’, is set in the Roman period, but in England, and suggests that Shakespeare was still deeply attracted to Roman history, although in this case his plundering of Roman history was not directly from Plutarch, but another of his favourite sources. There are some themes in ‘Cymbeline’ that you will find familiar from ‘Coriolanus’ and will encounter again in ‘The Tempest’, but once again we have a play from Shakespeare that is not quite like any other of his, despite some shared themes with the later plays. For many Cymbeline remains an enigmatic play, or a flawed experiment, or an example of the work of a playwright growing tired with his work, and perhaps something of all of that is present in the play, but there is, I think, a good argument that Shakespeare was in fact still experimenting with form and content and responding to concerns of his time in his plays just as he always had done. The dating of the play The early printing of the play ‘Innogen’ Vs ‘Imogen’ The sources for the play A summary of a complicated plot ‘Cymbeline’ as a tragicomedy The comic character of Cloten James 1st as represented by King Cymbeline The historical Britain represented in the play The nobility of the British characters in the play Iachimo, the other Roman characters and the English attitude towards Italians The sons of Balarius Imogen – a great Shakespeare heroine or slightly unsatisfying? A brief critical history of the play The later performance history of the play Support the podcast at: www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com www.patreon.com/thoetp www.ko-fi.com/thoetp You can find an advertisement free version of the latest podcast episodes by joining on Patreon at the lowest paid tier level – that’s for just £1 per month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 231: Shakespeare in noted for the diversity of deaths in the plays and the way that he represents the mechanics of those deaths. My guest for this episode has written a book on this very subject, ‘Death by Shakespeare’, who’s subtitle ‘Snakebites, Stabbings and Broken Hearts’, gives just a hint of that diversity. In the book Kathryn Harkup casts a scientific eye over the varied and creative ways that Shakespeare’s characters die and both questions and admires the accuracy of the portrayals of death in the plays and looks at how Shakespeare’s audience would have received these events, and much more. Kathryn Harkup is a former chemist turned writer and science communicator. Her interests are in anything gothic, gory and geeky, and preferably all three. She has written several books on the crossover between science, literature and pop culture including The Secret Lives of the Elements, The Secret Lives of Molecules, A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie, Making the Monster: The Science of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Death by Shakespeare: Snakebites, Stabbings and Broken Hearts, Superspy Science: Science, Death and Tech in the World of James Bond and Vampirology: The Science of Horror’s Most Famous Fiend. Her latest book is V is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death. I spoke to Kathryn over a zoom call Links to ‘Death By Shakespeare’ Katherine’s Website: https://harkup.co.uk Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B084RG3PXD Publisher’s website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/death-by-shakespeare-9781472958204 Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Shakespeare-Snakebites-Stabbings-Broken/dp/1472958209/ref=sr_1_1 Support the podcast at: www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com www.patreon.com/thoetp www.ko-fi.com/thoetp You can find an advertisement free version of the latest podcast episodes by joining on Patreon at the lowest paid tier level – that’s for just £1 per month Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.