What does it mean to take a piece of art you’ve been envisioning for years in one specific format and put it into a completely different format? I am a theatre practitioner and I spent almost ten years thinking about and planning a fully staged repertory of Shakespeare’s eight history plays. And though I know these plays intimately, I have always thought about them as works of theatre. It is quite an adjustment to try and re-imagine them within the context of audio performance, which is a new medium to work in not just for myself as a director, but for many members of the ensemble as actors.
Our primary goal in this new project is to produce not just audio dramas of Shakespeare’s eight histories, but audio dramas of BST’s version of Shakespeare’s eight histories. Though there is certainly a place for straightforward renderings of these plays, it was of utmost importance to me that our recordings have a point of view — that we found a way to retain the critique of (white, male) power that our stage productions were specifically exploring. Much of BST’s artistic identity (and artistic importance) is in the embodied feminist critiques we stage — so how do we maintain that point of view sans bodies and sans moments around and outside of text? In audio drama, there is no eye contact, no shared looks, no gestures.
These productions were always meant to be suspicious of monarchical power masquerading as merit and of our desire to see figures like Henry V as praiseworthy heroes. The audio dramas give us new ways to explore this point of view, through the intersection of history and art — narration gives us the opportunity to provide additional details and context. Historically, when Henry IV defeated the Percy family, the dead bodies of Hotspur, Worcester, and Vernon were placed on public display as a warning to others who would rebel. When Henry V captured the city of Harfleur, he had all the municipal records and title deeds burned; the French inhabitants of the town were dispossessed and owning and inheriting land was restricted to the English. We are still grappling with the history of violence contained in imperialism and colonialism, violence that continues to this day.
As a Shakespearean artist, my relationship with/to text is constantly evolving and it’s shifted once again in the course of preparing for this project. I’ve reached a new level of comfort in editing the text for clarity. When words are the only vehicle for conveying story, archaic phrasing and language feels even more obtrusive. I have to admit that now I understand the Play On Shakespeare project in a way I didn’t before. I’ve made more language edits in these plays than in any other text I’ve ever directed — swapping words to remove anti-black language, to reduce the masculine neutral, and to increase clarity. And the longer I work with Shakespeare, the more I’m convinced that nothing I do will damage what is wonderful about his plays, but I can increase understanding, enjoyment, and engagement of them for modern audiences.
The process has turned into one large experiment. We are testing out options and seeing what works. We are learning to let go of these plays as pieces of theatre and let them be something new and different. Since the method of engagement will be different, so is our method of producing and interpreting them. We’re all eager to see what form the final product takes and then to share that with our audience.
– Charlene V. Smith, Artistic Director