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It may be more spectacle than substance, but this production of Doctor Faustus is so jolly that one can’t help but be carried along on the tide of flashes and bangs. While some of the subtleties and delicacy of Marlowe’s language get lost in director Matthew Dunster’s eagerness to rattle along to the next magic trick, these are done with such flair and joie de vivre that it’s easy to forgive this production’s weaker points.

Arthus Darvill is a jauntily-dressed, pointily-bearded Mephistopheles, who reeks malevolence and is clearly enjoying toying with Paul Hilton’s tormented Faustus. However, with both, there is a sense of holding back: Darvill throws away one of  Mephistopheles’ greatest lines (“why, this is hell, nor am I out of it”), almost muttering it to a cowering Faustus, and Hilton doesn’t always cut to the heart of Faustus’s inner turmoil – both could do with more emotional heft.

Although there were many things to enjoy in the production, that’s what’s stuck with me: it was a bit lightweight. For a play that examines the depths of human desires, that ponders intense philosophical questions, that deals with life and death, salvation and damnation, I can’t help but feel that Dunster has sacrificed depth for exuberant colour and clowning. It was much funnier than I was expecting, and while this is fine, it needed some darker moments to contrast.

However, the lighter moments are excellently done. The comedy trio of Robin, Dick and the horse courser are all excellent, playing up to the audience, milking every bawdy joke (and adding some in for good measure) and generally playing for laughs. The threat of hell for those who meddle in magic and necromancy is real enough, and Mephistopheles’s casual cruelty to those foolish enough to try briefly brings a much-needed sense of peril to the proceedings.

The props and puppets (designed by Paul Wills) are gorgeous – especially a rather wonderful pair of dragons. The costumes, too, are sumptuous, and Wills has let his imagination run riot for the devils and angels’ costumes with great effect. The music (composed by Jules Maxwell) is entertaining and mostly spot-on, although again I feel that Dunster relies rather too heavily on thunderous drum-rolls to create tension. He could do with coaxing his cast to produce more of the tension themselves.

The production overall is snazzy, slapstick and, well, sexy, but doesn’t always hit the mark in the darker scenes. Faustus’s soul-searching never comes to much, and despite Darvill embodying Mephistopheles with a louche swaggering menace, it is hard to believe that Faustus is really in mortal peril until the very end when he is dragged kicking and screaming to hell. For a show that is lacking in depth and has over-invested in spectacle, it is, at least, spectacular to look at.

Dr Faustus is playing at the Globe Theatre until 2nd October. For more information and to book tickets, see the website here.

After a triumphant Richard II, director Andrew Hilton has chosen one of Shakespeare’s gentlest comedies for his next production: there is no touch of melancholy, no edge here, as we are swept through a breathless couple of hours.

There is almost no let-up in Hilton’s rattling production, leaving the audience delighted and occasionally bamboozled as two sets of identical twins get mistaken for each other in every conceivable combination and permutation. This is light-hearted stuff (apart from the myriad beatings heaped on the shoulders of poor Dromio (Richard Neale and Gareth Kennerley)), and provides a cracking evening’s entertainment. Hilton has a gift for coaxing a freshness from his cast, making the language zip and sing – there are lines that sound as though they were written yesterday, and some thoroughly modern intonation. In the skillful hands of Hilton and his fantastic cast, this builds pace and humour without dumbing down or getting caught up in the intricacies of the language.

Neale and Kennerley are expressive and witty Dromios, who end the play on a beautiful moment when they meet, brother to brother, for the first time. Dan Winter and Matthew Thomas were strong as Antipholus of Syracuse and of Ephesus, doubly bearded and waist-coated, doubly cocky but likeable. Dorothea Myer-Bennett is a great Adrianna, playing Antipholus’s long-suffering but loving wife with verve, and treading a nice line between dignity and hysteria. Ffion Jolly as her patient, bookish sister does well with a slim part, and invests Luciana with a steely determination and fine comic timing.

The piece is played for laughs throughout, without much bother about depth of character or balance, which works with such a silly play. Even for Shakespeare, having two sets of identical twins is pushing it, and Hilton et al make the most out of every opportunity for silliness, physical comedy or an extra laugh. This is not a criticism – it is a pretty slightly plot – but merely than observation that, unlike many of the other comedies, this one does not have a dark heart – or at least Hilton has not gone looking for one. It works, because the cast have impeccable timing and the ability to be funny without speaking, but it does make for a fairly breathless production: with so much frenetic energy, there are very few calm or thoughtful moments, meaning that the audience leaves feeling a little steam-rollered by the play.

For such light entertainment, this production never lets up with the comedy and only just stays the right side of hysterical. The cast is good enough to avoid being hammy, but there are moments where the script invites it. Hilton picks his way through with aplomb, and keeps this production on the straight and narrow while maintaining the high-energy brand of humour, wit and verve that the Tobacco Factory is renowned for.

N.B. The morning of the show brought news that the Tobacco Factory was successful in its bid to become an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations, securing regular funding for the first time. In other good news, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, has announced a new partnership to tour productions to Exeter Northcott. Good news for one of my favourite theatre spaces.

The Comedy of Errors is playing at the Tobacco Factory until 30th April. For information and tickets see the website here.

I am continually awed by how fresh and vital a good director can make Shakespeare seem, and Andrew Hilton’s Richard II was an excellent example. His cast clearly trust him, and were prepared to give themselves wholeheartedly to a piece which, in less capable hands, can seem dry and irrelevant. As it happens, I have a soft spot for Richard II (the play not the man); I think it’s one of Shakespeare’s most subtle and interestingly ambiguous plays, and one that has depths to plumb. While this does set me up to enjoy a performance of it, it also means that a bad production will incur greater wrath.
However, as I say, the play was in the safe hands of Hilton, who coaxed some exceptional performances from his actors and brought the plain staging alive with intrigue, plots and murders. There can be a stigma around the histories, mainly because without the neat label of ‘comedy’ or ‘tragedy’ it can be hard to know what to expect. To my mind, when the ‘history’ plays are done well they combine the best of both worlds: Richard II has some of the funniest scenes in Shakespeare as well as some of the most desperately sad.
The play stands or falls on its eponymous king, and John Hefferman was a stunning Richard. The character is morally ambiguous, conflicted and complex. Hefferman charted Richard’s transition from king to pauper with subtlety and humour, making his eventual fall from grace and abject humiliation all the more poignant. He is not always the most likeable character, and Hefferman did well to make the petulant king sympathetic, even as you root for the usurping Bullingbrook to seize the crown.
The first half rattles along; this is high-octane stuff. Hilton skillfully keeps it going at a frenetic pace, making the sudden, quiet moments shockingly powerful. These shifts in tempo kept the audience tense, even if historical knowledge means you know how it’s going to end. The second half was generally more measured, and although this allowed Hefferman to demonstrate his range and to dig deep into the heart of Richard, I found the lack of contrasting, more frantic moments lessened the impact that the calmer moments had in the first half.
Matthew Thomas’s Bullingbrook found a nice balance between ambition and fealty, not giving the audience an easy ‘hero’ to get behind: the whole story is geared around a series of conflicted characters who do not fall into neat ‘good’ and ‘evil’ categories. This can make a nice contrast to the broader brushstrokes of the comedies, say, where there is often a single ‘baddie’ to direct antipathy towards. Paul Currier as the god-fearing and loyal Bishop of Carlisle gave a strong performance, and John Cording was brilliant as the Duke of Northumberland, a man torn between duty, reality and family. Ffion Jolly makes the most of the thinly-written part of Queen, endowing her with self-possession, a sense of entitlement and a deep attachment to her husband, in the space of a few lines.
The set is spare, in usual Tobacco Factory style. The bare stage is occasionally graced with a bench, a table, a stool, but beyond that the court, garden, prison are conjured by word and action. The actors work hard in the mostly empty space and it is delightfully easy to imagine the “gorgeous palace”, the quiet garden, the humble cell, as Hilton guides his cast through a play that resounds across the years and speaks to a contemporary audience in a surprisingly clear voice.

There was a curious inevitability about Pilot Theatre’s Romeo and Juliet, even before we learn in the prologue that these star cross’d lovers will take their life. Chloe Lamford’s visually stunning set is covered in an arresting array of flowers. Coupled with spare staging, simple lines and flickering candles, it was clear from the start that this stage would end up a tomb.

A bold concept for directors Marcus Romer and Katie Posner to stake their production on, but ultimately a gamble worth taking. What could easily have become gimmicky, mawkish, distracting, became a neat framing device, never allowing the audience to forget that this would end in tragedy. Mary Rose’s Lady Capulet was a grieving mother before she spoke a line, putting the deaths in universal human terms: we were never allowed to forget that the two hours traffic of the stage would culminate in the end of this lady’s child.

Posner and Romer were lucky in Rachel Spicer’s fantastic, touchingly young Juliet; she was strong enough to wrench real grief from the well-worn story. Her capricious Juliet flitted between emotions but the sheer joy emanating from her when she found Oliver Wilson’s tender Romeo was beautifully bittersweet. Wilson himself had his moments, and did a convincing line in love-lorn, but was a little contrived in his grief, a little overwrought, perhaps. Chris Landon’s impulsive Mercutio, always ready with an innuendo and a cackle, played nicely off Bryn Holding’s earnest, loyal Benvolio, and Landon demonstrated impressive versatility in his prissy Paris, too, giving him an air of never having been denied anything. Louisa Eyo, who played both Nurse and Duke, switched from lewd to stern, from servant to prince with ease, and was impressive in both roles. Her impassive Duke was a commanding presence, and her loving, laughing Nurse was knowing without stooping to the levels of coarseness practised by the young men.

Sandy Nuttgens’s inciental music was particularly striking, offering sound effects and emotive background without overshadowing the sounds on stage. An impressively varied score, and one that underlined the drama at every turn.

Dramaturg Juliet Forster and the cast have obviously had fun with the text, wringing every possible innuendo out of it, and adding some pelvic thrusts where none are strictly necessary for good measure. Romer and Posner have done a great job with the verse, coaxing admirably clear speaking from the whole cast, and making the words sound new. This is not reverent Shakespeare, although there is clearly affection for the language, but Shakespeare played to be understood and enjoyed, even at its saddest. The audience of school children clearly enjoyed the baser humour, and I left with a sense of youth and wit and fun needlessly wasted. Some judicious cuts kept the play near enough to two hours traffic, as opposed to the self-indulgent three that seems the norm, and kept the story zipping along to its sorry conclusion.

I should start with a disclaimer: this production was coloured by the fact that my companion and I were in the middle of a group of schoolchildren who talked at normal conversational volume throughout the first half, and I was homicidal by the interval. If “shh” could kill… but I digress…

So, my homicidal mania aside, we can return to the actual show. Which was, well, OK. But mediocre Shakespeare is not my idea of a good time, and Carl Heap’s production was not great. What I could hear of the first half (and the lack of audibility was as much the fault of the cast as the acoustics or the raucous children) was witty enough, but there was little spark. Heap had decided to play with the lights up, in deference to how plays would have been performed in Shakespeare’s time – in daylight. Now, this is all well and good if you’re, say, The Globe, and can really honour the whole idea. In a proscenium arch theatre with plush velvet seats and a seven-thirty start? Not so much.

And this is where the production frustrated me: I understand what was Heap was trying to do, and doing Shakespeare “properly” can be a laudable aim, but it was the wrong play, the wrong space, and, frankly, the wrong cast. The actors weren’t bad, just clearly uncomfortable playing to a noisy audience that they could see the whole time. It lead to more posturing, grimacing and hamming than brilliant comic acting, but the verse was nicely-spoken, the innuendo made the most of, and there were some nice moments. The contrast, though, between the more informal style and Victorian staging was odd, and made large parts of the play pantomimic. There was a lot of speaking lines to the audience rather than to other characters, which is not a style of which I am fond, and rather too much ad-libbing and audience participation.

There was a lovely sense of the pervasive mischief of the piece, but it often descended into camp posturing, playing up to the audience, and expecting the laughs to come from “Oh look! He’s hiding! Behind a tiny tree! We can see him! Isn’t it funny!”, rather than making an effort with the acting. Having said that, although unsophisticated, the set pieces were funny, I just felt that more could have been done.

Heap clearly loves the language and encourages actors to play with it,which should be encouraged. However, one wonders if he watched any rehearsals from the back of the stalls: Giulia Galastro’s Beatrice was practically inaudible from row P, and threw away some of her character’s best lines. Shakespeare didn’t write such fiesty women very often, so it seems a shame to waste good insults on the first three rows. My companion and I moved up to the circle at the interval, to escape the chattering, and the sound quality was worse, if anything, although my blood pressure certainly went down. Toby Young’s music was a distraction, too – it did not enhance the action or the dialogue – and the sound levels were wrong.

Oskar McCarthy’s Don John was wooden, and equated “evil” with “scowling”. One wonders if this was his fault or Heap’s. Michael Campbell’s Dogberry was also almost incomprehensible – when a character’s humour lies in their mis-speaking it helps to be to able to hear what they are saying. On the plus side, Nick Ricketts’ raffish Benedick was a delight, moving from cocky to sweet, and earning most of the laughs. He was also, blessedly, loud. Tadhgh Barwell O’Connor played a serviceable Claudio, and Simon Haines leant his Leonato an impressive depth. Mairin O’Hagan’s Hero was enjoyably mischievous, and O’Hagan made Hero a lot more interesting than this pious and wronged heroine is sometimes afforded. She and Galastro made a merry pair, and along with Ellie Nunn’s giggly Margaret and Tamara Astor’s winsome Ursula, actually seemed to be enjoying themselves.

To die upon my wedding sheets does have
a certain elegance, but that was all
that could in any way be deem’d elegant
’bout my untimely death. That my fair husband
5 should have been so beguiled by that base coward
Iago heats my gentle blood to boiling
and causes me to think unwomanly thoughts
and wish his tortured death upon the rack,
I feel as though my joining with Othello
10 has given me a soldier’s hot desire
to spill the blood of those who do me harm.
We were so blissfully contented at that
point, with our marriage now known to all.
We were so newly wed that only half
15 our vows had come to full fruition -
for when I stole forth from my father’s house
I hid me in the Saggit’ry, which is
no kind of place to consummate our vows.
I know the soldier’s life is rough and ready
20 but I would not lie with him where gleams
of candle-light bounced off the shining blades,
tenderness and love have no place there
among the trappings and raiments of war.
Should I have realised then that he was too hot,
25 that his black spleen would turn melancholy
to bitter rage? That he would make love midst the
swords and knives, should that have been a warning
that violence was ne’er far from his mind?
I know not, now, what I should have done, then,
30 but I followed him to Cyprus so that we
could be together as man and wife should be.
The sailors were not happy to have a woman
on board their ship, it was bad luck they thought,
but I became their lucky charm, and the
35 rude winds did seem to send us on our way
as smooth as babies in their cradle rock’d -
as though the ship had some maternal feeling
and tenderly did keep us far from harm
like a nurse who wraps a babe in swaddling
40 to keep it safe and sound, and yet still
I was afeared to plunge into the maine
and sink beneath the waves to wat’ry doom
with his strong arms not there to pluck me out
and hold me safe upon the sturdy planks.
45 And on arriving safe in Cyprus, more
heart-ache to find my lord had not arrived
and no news of his barque upon the waves -
I fearèd him forever lost, all hands
gone down – all hope gone I would wait in vain.
50 I hid my fear in courtesy and talked
overmuch with Cassio, it was
bordering on immodesty but I
assay’d only to hide my crippled heart
and impious fear that harm had come to him.
55 I could not bear to lose what I had so
newly won, and won at such a price
that I was now alone in strange comp’ny,
I forsook my country and my friends,
my father and my home, my way of life
60 to be a soldier’s bride and go with him.
So when my dear Othello disembarked
upon the tempest-tossed sweet shore of Cyprus
and held me close in welcome and relief
I stayed within the circle of his arms
65 and felt his words come rumbling from his chest
as he briefly told the story of their voyage.
His arms were as a cage but one where I
was willing pris’ner with no will to stray,
a bird so tame that even if the cage
70 were totally removed I’d have no wish
at all to fly away. No lime was needed
to keep me in that trap where I was mistress
of his moods and tempers and his love.
When he arrived I laced my slender fingers
75 inbetween his batte-hardened knuckles,
and marvelled at the contrast of our skin.
The first time that he took my hand in his
I tried to scrape the black away with my
little finger nail, to see what was ’neath
80 that ebony. He saw me scrape and felt
my foolish hand in his, he laughed and said
‘No sword has been forgèd that could do what
your little nail assays,’ and yet I always
think on if the sun had not beat down
85 so fierce on him if he would be as pale
as other men, as me who they call ‘fair’.
I cannot help but wonder sometimes if my
father was not right in thinking that he
bewitchèd me to make me fall so hard.
90 The moment that he ope’d his mouth I was
helpless. It was love at first sound not at first sight, although his dark-skinned visage
was not a fearful or unpleasant sight.
His stories made me cry alone for him,
95 that such a man should be so cruelly torn
from his homeland and his loving people. And yet I know that I enchanted him
at least as much as he enthrallèd me!
‘The captain’s captain’, they called me in jest
100 and while we wouldn’t discuss affairs of state
the small decisions were mine to make and he
was ruled by me, content if I were content.
Is that where he began to stray to madness?
To be ruled by one’s wife could be a heavy
105 load to bear, and yet were we not made
from Adam’s rib to be of comfort and of
help to all mankind? And should we then
not make our feelings known when all would be
more peaceful if we women were given
110 a little more free rein and time to speak?
He was so respected that giving in to me
in such small matter as Cassio’s transgression
would not have made a blot at all on his
spotless copy book, for all the men
115 looked up to him and learned to see beyond
the dark and diff’rent colour of his skin
to the great leader and the man within.

This essay is concerned with the verbal subjugation of women in Othello and Hamlet, and seeks to justify that Desdemona and Ophelia should be given a chance to speak – hence the soliloquies that are filed under ‘fiction’. However, in keeping with their domination by men in the plays, these soliloquies have to take place in an after-life space, where they have knowledge of their own stories and are allowed to finally speak without fear of the repercussions – the worst has happened and they are dead so there is nothing more to fear. The three main areas I will address are: firstly, the fact that sound and sight are closely linked to falling in love in these two plays, but that there is sometimes a gender divide between whether sight or sound is the more attractive sense. Secondly, the fact that Desdemona and Ophelia do not know a lot of their own story during their lives in the play impacts on their speech, and this lack of knowledge often prevents them from speaking at all. In my soliloquies I have assumed that they know full possession of the facts, and so have addressed this lack of knowledge in Ophelia and Desdemona’s new speeches rather than in this essay. Thirdly, while the importance of repressive cultural and religious norms cannot – and will not! – be ignored, I will argue that the silencing of these women has a lot to with their specific physical beauty, causing them to be objectified. In the introduction to her book Daughters Wives & Widows: Writings by Men about Women and Marriage in England, 1500-1640, Joan Larsen Klein asserts that ‘woman’s voice was usually confined to home, family and neighbours’1, and it is for this reason that I felt the need to give Desdemona and Ophelia a voice outside of this domestic sphere. Desdemona does not fit neatly into these domestic ideals of ‘subjection, obedience, silence, chastity’2, because she is part of ‘a soldier’s life’3 and therefore cannot conform to normal ideals of domesticity and maternity because she is living outside of them. In contrast, Ophelia is living under the patriarchal thumb of her father and the king, and to some extent Hamlet, so she has no space to form an identity of her own and has opinions imposed upon her. She conforms totally to ‘subjection, obedience, silence, chastity’, and therefore deserves time and space to speak her own mind without fear of the consequences. Women in Shakespeare’s time could not ‘speak their mind fully and openly in ordinary conversation’4 and so need a soliloquy to be able to speak freely.

Sound and sight in Othello and Hamlet are significant because there is often a gender split in how people’s senses cause them to fall in love. Broadly speaking, Desdemona and Ophelia are wooed with ‘words of so sweet breath composed’5 – sound not sight – whereas Hamlet and Othello fall in love with ‘the power of beauty’6 the visual rather than aural beauties that the women possess. This fascinates me because the women do not get much chance to speak in the play whereas the men clearly do. Silence was directly equated with virtue and chastity in Shakespeare’s time, ‘an open mouth and immodest speech [were] tantamount to open genitals and immodest acts’7, which shows that a talkative woman was perceived to be adulterous. Furthermore, ‘disallowed speech… is a sign of sexual transgression’8 so speaking without permission or directly contravening a husband’s or father’s order to remain silent advertised a supposed sexual transgression to the wider world. It is worth noting then, that despite Ophelia being accused of ‘wantonness’9 and Desdemona being directly called a ‘whore’10, neither woman is especially talkative. Although both written and spoken words are important in both plays, the fact that women are attracted to the ‘saying deed’11, whereas men are attracted to ‘the beautified’12 highlights the different ideals that cause problems in these relationships.

Desdemona does not speak a great deal onstage and yet Othello calls her ‘free of speech’13, and Ophelia who is silent for much of the play is warned against being ‘most free and bounteous’14. This imagery of freedom as a negative thing for women is continued for much of the two plays. Polonius says he will ‘loose my daughter’15, which suggests that Ophelia is a literal prisoner of her father’s whim; not only must she obey his command and act as bait in Polonius’s investigation into Hamlet’s madness, but she physically cannot go somewhere he does not want her to. She is more like a caged pet or hunting dog pursuing prey for a master than a woman with her own mind. Desdemona however is called ‘free of speech’ in a list of her good qualities, suggesting that Othello himself does not mind her being talkative – provided it stays within the realms of courtesy. While Othello is aware that his stories won Desdemona’s love, he also asserts that ‘she had eyes and chose me’16 which illustrates the importance that men place on the visual. Desdemona herself says that she ‘saw Othello’s visage in his mind’17 and that she loved his speech not his looks.

However, there is a serious suggestion in Othello that Desdemona’s ‘nature [errs] from itself’18, because, as John Swan wrote in Speculum Mundi in 1635,‘I know not which lead more unnatural lives, obeying husbands, or commanding wives’19. Desdemona is referred to as ‘our great captain’s captain20’, suggesting that she rules Othello, but more than that, that as a soldier he obeys her (as a ‘superior office’) without question or complaint, or even much thought. This would have been viewed as dangerous because women were seen as ‘the pathetic obverse of the male‘21 and as ‘inferior or lesser or incomplete man’22 and the implication then is that women should recognise their natural subordination to men. Although Desdemona does not speak a great deal, what she does say causes trouble: by being ‘half the wooer’23 and dropping hints she gets what she wants – Othello – which leads to her own destruction. To my mind, it is doubtful wherther Othello would have dared propse to Desdemona without such keen encouragement from her, and consequently her words are vital to the play. However, it is worth pointing out that it is her father, Brabantio, who accuses her of being ‘half the wooer’ and all of her ‘hints’ are only reported to the audience, by men. Desdemona herself only speaks in her own defence at the her father’s command.

Margaret Cavendish says that ‘we oftener enslave men than men enslave us. They seem to govern the world, but we really govern the world, in that we govern men’24. Iago says that Othello’s ‘soul is so enfettered to her love that she may make, unmake, do what she list, even as her appetite shall play the god with his weak function’25 and Othello says of Desdemona that she ‘might lie by an emperor’s side and command him tasks’26, which again highlights the danger of her feminine wiles making Othello love her when she should be guided and lead by him; ‘a good wife is the crown of her husband’27. Her ‘appetite’ suggests that she is fickle and easily moved, and his ‘weak function’ is a feminine trait and makes him seem less of a man (to a Shakespearian audience) – certainly less fit to command an army, and it casts aspersions on his manhood and ability to perform sexually. However, religious teachings of the time say that ‘whatsoever they say of the imprudence of women, if men would take sometimes advice of those whom God hath given them for helps in the government of their affairs, happily it had succeeded better with them’28, which suggests that Desdemona being ‘captain’29 of Othello should not necessarily be seen as such a bad thing. Many of the books written for women around this time time offered contradictory advice, which means that women were expected to be guided by their husbands and play things by ear, as it were, not learn them by rote.

The use of mirror imagery was a common trope in Renaissance writing for women: ‘the link between women and the mirror is… ancient commonplace’30. The woman should be a mirror wherein her husband can see reflected her grace and humility – and he will consequently love her and not be physically violent. Many ‘handbooks’ on marriage and maidenly life suggest reflecting your own goodness is the best way to cause your husband/brother etc to be good. However, in Hamlet and Othello this idea gets subverted. Ophelia cannot help but mirror Hamlet and follow him into madness, because she is so suppressed by patriarchal norms. She is so used to asking men what she should think and how she should act that she copies like a child – indeed Polonius tells her at one point ‘think yourself a baby’31. While I do not think that Ophelia’s madness is a direct result of Hamlet’s madness, I strongly believe that Ophelia is impressionable and biddable, and that Hamlet’s madness opens up madness as a possible route for her to escape down, something that she would perhaps not have fallen prey to without Hamlet. She is prevented from any kind of will of her own, and so becomes a mirror to those around her: she reflects the advice and views of her father and brother in rejecting Hamlet’s letters and presence, and eventually the madness of Hamlet effects her too, rather than her good qualities reflecting onto the men. Desdemona however, perhaps feels that as Othello’s mirror she cannot simply be submissive and gentle because Othello has to command an army. Desdemona therefore has to be cunning and strong, a tactician and solider, a ‘fair warrior’32 rather than ‘gentle’ in order to best serve her husband.

Stimpson notes that ‘women [are] objects of male desire and dependent on that desire for their status, livelihood, even their lives’33 which shows that women had to pander to male desire for self-preservation. Desdemona is at first reliant on her father for her status and livelihood, when she defects to Othello she has status as the general’s wife and the livelihood that goes with that, but, ultimately, Othello can and does take her life when he believes she has transgressed. Ophelia, too, is entirely reliant on her father and brother for protection, and when she tries to move away from them and believe that Hamlet loves her she is held back by her male relatives “for her own good”, and is driven mad and to ‘wilfully seek her own salvation’34. Perhaps the problem being portrayed here is that while it is fine for men to be ruled by women in small and insignificant matters in their private lives (‘ ’tis as I entreat you to wear gloves, or feed on nourishing dishes’35), when women’s control over men moves into a public space the men feel emasculated and have to reassert their dominance in the only way left – through superior physical strength, and, ultimately, violence.

Ophelia rarely speaks onstage, and when she does it is at her father’s command or for his ends. She answers a direct address to her as it right and courteous, but does not volunteer to speak further. A lot of Ophelia’s responses to male speech are questions, she is often unsure of how to answer and tentative in replies.36 Her other lines are mostly acquiences to her father’s will: ‘I shall obey’37, or vocal contemplations of her ineptitide: ‘I do not know, my lord, what I should think’38. In her madness she could gain a freedom from convention that allows her freeer speech, but she is only given songs and verses to speak that no-one understands. Ophelia’s wild appearance in IV.v discredits what she says anyway, her appearance undermines her speech because she is visually ‘mad’. She enters ‘distracted…her hair down, singing’39, so not only does she visually represent madness but she cannot speak, only sing. In Othello the same is true but this works in a different way: Desdemona’s appearance remains chaste and pure and virtuous even when Othello believes her to be a whore, she has ‘whiter skin…thank snow, and smooth as monumental alabaster’40. It is this gap between appearance and realtiy that enrages Othello and causes him to refuse to listen to Desdemona’s defence of herself, even when she directly says ‘I never did offend you in my life, never loved Cassio41’, whereas in Hamlet is it Ophelia’s mad appearance that means that people do not listen to her and take her looks as proof that ‘she is divided from herself and her fair judgement’42.

Both women are almost always referred to with the epithet ‘fair’, constantly drawing attention to their physical attractiveness. Desdemona’s ‘fairness’ clearly takes on another layer of meaning because it is a direct contrast to Othello’s ‘blackness’, but the audience/readers are explicitly told several times both Desdemona and Ophelia are beautiful, and this is why Othello and Hamlet fall in love with them. Roderigo in Othello comments on Desdemona’s ‘beauty’43, and Othello calls her ‘fair lady’44 and explains that he loves her because she exemplified a womanly virtue – pity. Du Bosc (again, writing slightly after Shakespeare’s time) elevates pity to great heights, and implies that it is a great virtue for women to feel pity but that it is also an intrinsic part of their nature: ‘pity is so natural to them, and their inclination is so powerfully carried to mercy, that even the Furies themselves could not choose but weep and lament the disaster of Orpheus’45. Gertrude says that Ophelia’s ‘good beauties’46 are the cause of Hamlet’s madness, as with Othello, Hamlet’s obsession with what he perceives to be the gap between sight and truth sends him mad. Ophelia is beautiful and seems virtuous yet he is convinced that she is a whore.

Desdemona has a ‘greedy ear’47 according to Othello, and is over-bold and neglectful of her household duties, in order to hear all of his story. Desdemona mostly speaks when she is bidden directly by her father or the Duke apart from when she begs not to be sent to her father’s house while Othello is at war with the Turks in Cyprus. For a woman who doesn’t get much chance to speak or defend herself, it is interesting how obsessed Desdemona is with Othello’s speech and story, she is willing to ‘with haste dispatch’48 her chores and housekeeping in order to return and hear him speak further. Ophelia’s ears are also mentioned; she is warned against having ‘too credent ear’49, for fear that Hamlet’s speeches of love, which are ‘forward not permanent, sweet not lasting’50 will cause her to open her ‘chaste treasures’51. Laertes’s dire warnings about the inconstant nature of mens’ love strike rather an odd cord because although the urging to keep her virginity is commonplace and inextricably linked to family honour, there is no sign that Ophelia has any intention of transgressing, indeed she exemplifies the ‘maiden never bold’52 which Brabantio believes Desdemona to be. So submissive is Ophelia that she asks ‘what should I think?’53 of her father, rather than attempting to build an opinion for herself. The title quotation refers to Ophelia54, she is also told ‘you do not understand yourself’55 without any chance to speak in her own defence.

When Ophelia does try to defend herself, in III.i, she is reduced almost exclusively to questions and prayers. Hamlet disabuses her of the idea that he loves her ‘you should not have believed me…I loved you not’, and tries to confuse her by refusing to accept back the love-tokens he has previously given her. Ophelia tries to defend herself ‘you know right well you did’ but Hamlet verbally attacks her and is explicitly and inappropriately sexual in his language: ‘why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?…I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice…’56 which is territory Ophelia is not happy in. Hamlet then returns to his preoocupation with the visual, syaing ‘god hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another’57. He not only universalises Ophelia to represent all women but then says that their duality and wantonness ‘hath made me mad’58. Ophelia has a relatively long speech (a whole 12 lines!) where she, too, equates Hamlet’s visual madness with his mental state, ‘the glass of fashion and the mould of form…quite, quite, down!’59. However, she is also aware of what he says, even though it is like ‘sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh’60, and it is only when Hamlet is mad (as in the reported scene when he appears in her chamber ‘all unbraced’61) that physical appearance becomes important to Ophelia. Furthermore, the visual is related to herself more than to her feelings about Hamlet, she says ‘O woe is me, t’have seen what I have seen, to see what I see!’62 which demonstrates that madness can be ‘read’ on the body despite it being in the mind. Therefore, perhaps Desdemona should be able to ‘read’ in Othello’s body that he has bid ‘farewell to tranquil mind’63, but moreover, Othello should be able to read in Desdemona’s body that she is chaste.

When women do not speak, however, other problems ensue. Silence is assumed to hide what is known in the mind, and the separation between thought and speech, between speech and meaning is another factor in the destructive events of these plays. Furthermore, it means that when women do try to speak in their own defence men are not ready to listen, with deadly consequences. Emilia dies ‘speaking as I think’64 in order to exonerate Desdemona, but she does die, also killed by her husband for disobedience, after demanding that he ‘speak, for my heart is full’65. As Desdemona lies dying Emilia entreats her ‘speak again!…O sweet mistress, speak!’66 but it is too late, and Desdemona choses to acquit Othello with her last words, the ultimate submission to male authority. Emilia tries to force Iago to admit his sins, to speak himself, but when he refuses she speaks for him, and says although it is ‘proper I obey him’67 these are exceptional circumstances and she must speak to make sure Iago is punished for his crime. Iago ‘will neber more speak word’68 when an explanation is most needed, highlighting the disparity between what people choose to say and what people choose to hear.

Thomas Overbury, writing just after Shakespeare in 1614 says that ‘she [the ideal wife] leaves the neat youth telling his luscious tales…yet her kindness is free enough to be seen, for it hath no guilt about it’69. This puts Desdemona in the wrong, she does not leave the Othello telling his exciting tales, she is entranced and attracted by them. However, the point about freedom of guiltless kindness is useful to an analysis of Desdemona’s character because it puts her rather forward defence of Cassio above suspicion, suggesting that Othello’s susceptibility to Iago’s slanderous speech has more to do with himself than with any transgression on Desdemona’s part. In the same way, Hamlet’s accusation of Ophelia that her “wantonness” ‘hath made me mad’70 is a ridiculous accusation given that everything we see of sane Ophelia on stage screams chastity, obedience and submissiveness. Hamlet and Othello, who were so beguiled by beauty and virtue early in the plays, are to blame for seeing things that are not there in their virtuous women. By placing too much importance on sight and not enough on their other sense, especially sound (Ophelia and Desdemona both attempt to defend themselves through speech) Othello and Hamlet directly cause the deaths of both women.

To conclude then, Ophelia and Desdemona cannot win. If they speak they are thought unchaste. If they remain silent they are called whores. If they try to defend themselves they are ignored. Speech is not the woman’s perogative in either Hamlet or Othello, and transgressive women are punished. In short, men’s perceptions of women and of what is appropriate behaviour for women
not only stifles women and removes from them their chance to speak, but also ultimately causes themselves harm. If Othello had listened to Desdemona’s denial that she was ever adulterous with Cassio, or indeed had remained true to his original speech that he will ‘see before I doubt’71 then he would not have committed murder and Desdemona would have lived. If Hamlet had not been so wrapped up in his own problems that he was aware of the damage her was doing to Ophelia’s mental health by rejecting her then her entreaties to him to explain himself might not have been in vein, and she might not have killed herself. If men listened when women spoke and did not discourage women from speaking then these plays would a lot less exciting, but Desdemona and Ophelia would not die, and, dare I say, the world would be a better place.

Cavendish, Margaret: Essay is Called What?, quoted in The Cultural Identity
of Seventeenth Century Woman.

Du Bosc, Jacques: The Complete Woman, France, 1632, quoted in
Daughters Wives & Widows.

Greenblatt, Stephen, with Cohen, W, Howard, J and Eisaman Maus, K (eds):
The Norton Shakespeare, Norton Books, New York and London, 1997.

Keeble, N. H (ed): The Cultural Identity of Seventeenth-Century Woman: a
reader, Routledge, London, 1994.

Klein, Joan Larsen (ed): Daughters Wives & Widows: Writings by Men about Women and Marriage in England, 1500-1640, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1992.

Newman, Karen: Fashioning Femininity and English Renaissance Drama, The
University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1991.

Overbury, Sir Thomas: A Wife, published in London, 1614, quoted in
The Cultural Identity of Seventeenth Century Woman.

Stimpson, Catherine R: Introduction to Fashioning Femininity.

Walen, Denise A: Unpinning Desdemona, Shakespeare Quarterly, 58.4, 2007,
pp.487-508. Viewed online at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ shakespeare_quarterly/ v058/58.4walen.html

Midsummer Night’s Dream – Oxford Playhouse, 17th Oct 2007.

From upside down acrobatics to a paper set, from neon costumes to Puck’s skimpy loin-cloth, from attempted rape to happy-ever-after, Supple’s production boiled down to sex and violence. It really emphasised the violence in the play, which created an interesting juxtaposition with its physicality and beauty. Hermia, Helena and Titania were all dragged around the stage by the various menfolk, and there was a very fine line between rolling on the floor in the throes of passionate mutual love and rolling on the floor in a desperate attempt to escape rape. What was particularly interesting in this production was how quickly the animalistic nature of the lovers took over once they had left the court. It is easy to argue that once enchanted by Puck or Oberon the characters’ actions are not their own and they cannot therefore be blamed, but in Supple’s staging of the play Demetrius attempts to rape Helena before any spells have been cast on him, to reassert his dominance over her when she refuses to leave him alone. An interesting dynamic is then raised, with Helena’s ‘spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me, only give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you’ taking on a dark, almost masochistic, significance, and Demetrius’s threat of ‘mischief in the wood’ is all too likely to come true.

As a theatrical experience the play was faultless; exuberant, entertaining and exhilerating. It was both fantastic and fantastical. It was sexy. However, some of the characters (and I’m thinking especially of the lovers here) were not particularly well fleshed out. This didn’t matter because the play as a whole was enchanting and entirely convincing in its unreality, but there were moments when some of the nuances of character were lost, overpowered by the visual feast. This may have been partly a language problem, too, as the play is performed in seven languages, with English spoken for about half. This naturally adds to the confusion both of characters and audience, and emphasises the ‘otherness’ of the wood. It also served excellently to highlight the confusion of those bewitched by love-juice or those in conflict, as often an actor would speak in one langauge and get a reply in another. Clearly in such a multi-lingual production the visuals take on immense importance, and Supple’s production did not disappoint. The first entrance of the fairies, bursting through paper-covered scaffolding, was breath-taking and their consequent high-rise acrobatics lead one to believe that they really were immortal beings. Titania’s red sleeping cocoon suspended high above the stage was beautiful but strange – epitomising the production and, indeed, the play.

Having suggested that the lovers were perhaps a little 2-D against such a vibrant backdrop, I must stress that this is not a criticism of the actors. One production is never going to be able to capture every variant of the play, and this one more than compensated in its glorious colour and exuberance. The mechanicals were earnest enough to be touching not just hilarious, and their Pyramus and Thisbe did not deserve as much mockery as the court gave it. Bottom was fabulously crude, and yet maintained a certain dignity throughout – although I maintain that his phallic vegetable should have had its own billing. The entire cast worked as a fabulously well-oiled machine, wich was just as well given that there were ample opportunities for mishap – hanging gymnastics, stick-fighting, dance. The whole piece was bursting with colour and life, and the choreography and movement successfully contrasted the restrained Athenian court with the unrestrained and magical woods. The play was perhaps more spectacle than substance, but done with such style and panache that the audience were blown away.

There has been an explosion of words written about whether the unidentified man in the ‘Cobbe’ portrait is Shakespeare. (For example, here, here and here.)With the backing of Professor Stanley Wells, chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and all-round Shakespeare buff, speculation and skepticism are rife. However, whether the calm, balding brunette in the picture is Shakespeare or not seems, to me, to be utterly irrelevant. Firstly, Elizabethan portraits were largely symbolic, and often painted to be flattering to their subjects (who, after all, held the purse-strings). This means that even if it is a portrait of Old Bill there is no guarantee that it actually looks like him. The notion that a real portrait would bring us closer to the ‘real’ Shakespeare is ridiculous. The funeral bust that sits in a church in Stratford, which is generally agreed to be pig-ugly, is generally accepted by scholars to be most likely to bear a resemblance. Where this fresh faced man on a plain black background fits into that theory is difficult to see.

But, far more importantly, why should we care what Shakespeare looked like? Much as I hate to agree with Jonathan Bate, (Shakespeare Professor at Warwick) he is quoted in the Guardian linking our desire to know what Shakespeare looked like with contemporary celebrity culture. The man’s talking sense. However, the most important point that seems to have been missed is that the words speak for themselves. More “information” about Shakespeare can be found in the plays and poems – critics and scholars will continue to theorise, speculate, and read-between-the-lines until doomsday – than in any picture. Even if archaeologists were to find a snapshot of Shakespeare, signed and dated (it’s not so far fetched, apparently Caravaggio used a type of camera 200 years before its official invention), it would reveal less than, say, Prospero. Or Lear. Or the presentation of Shylock. Or Othello. One of the joys of Shakespeare study (on which I could wax lyrical for many blogs) is the mystery, the not-knowing, the filling in the blanks, the guess-work and the interpretation. Just as there can never be a definitive performance of Hamlet or a definitive reading of Lear, there will never be a proven likeness of Shakespeare because, without a time machine, we just cannot know. And I like it like that.

Romeo and Juliet, Cambridge Arts Theatre, 4th March 2009.

A cunning switch in the prologue from “two hours traffic of the stage” to “three hours traffic of the stage”, stuck fear into my heart. Any messing around with the text tends to set my teeth on edge, and this was not the most auspicious start to this otherwise powerful and delicate production. The looming arches of the set effortlessly became street, feast-hall, balcony, tomb, and the red shading into white was an eerie foreshadowing of what was to come. The production was slick and polished, without losing its charm, and a talented cast clearly trusted their director and believed in what they were saying and doing.

The cast were sometimes too quiet to be heard from row P, and a restless audience of schoolchildren (I’m guessing R&J is a GCSE set text) gave them a hard time. I felt sorry for Paris (Adam Drew), whose dramatic but well-acted death drew giggles. Perhaps 14-year-olds have a hard time with pathos. I was actually moved to tears by Juliet’s (Lucy Evans) death, which a first. Her brilliant, breathless portrayal of Juliet as an occasionally petulant child made the tragedy of her death all the more poignant. The decision to have Romeo and Juliet both play very young was mostly effective, and served to make their deaths extra sad, but it did come up against some problems, most notably in the portrayal of their love. They were played so young that the supposed depth of their love was difficult to believe, but these two fine actors carried the play.

The cast had some cross-over with the Hamlet I saw a couple of weeks ago, and the improvements were remarkable, really showing the skill of Charlotte Westenra as a director. She managed to coax an intelligent and subtle performance from Jack Monaghan’s Romeo, and Catriona Cahill (who was a wooden and unengaging Gertrude) was superbly ribald as the nurse. Georgia Sams was overly hysterical as Lady Capulet, and Ed Rice as Capulet found it hard to tread the line between fond father and stern patrician, meaning that his violent outbursts were surprising for the wrong reasons, but generally speaking the cast were great. Particularly of note was James Walker’s mercurial Mercutio, well cast against Joey Batey’s gentle Benvolio (who again, was far better in this show than as Laertes). Harry Adamson was an imposingly grave Friar Laurence, and Rob Carter was a fiercely angry and impetuous Tybalt.

The play opened well, at a decent pace, and Westenra really brought out the humour. It lagged by the end of the first half, particularly as we had been warned to expect three hours-worth, but the second half was well-judged and kept the pace fast enough to maintain engagement without rushing Romeo and Juliet’s painful goodbye, Romeo’s banishment, or the final denouement. The fights were snappy and well done, not as stagey as most, er, stage fights, and choreography was frighteningly realistic. Wastenra’s interpretation was considered and intelligent. This production totally lacked a reliance on gimmicks or melodrama, and instead presented a clear, calm, and strong take on the play, while allowing the inherent tragedy to play out without obstruction.