The Restoration Reinvention of Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The next time someone complains about a director changing or tampering with Shakespeare… we’ve got an answer for them. The first generation of theater artists after Shakespeare weren’t particularly concerned about performing Shakespeare's plays the way they appear in the First Folio. After the English Civil War, the Puritan-led government outlawed theater for eighteen years. When Charles II ascended to the throne, in the period we now call the Restoration, theater came back to life. With no new plays, producers like William Davenant and Thomas Killigrew turned to Shakespeare… but they made some pretty big changes to keep up with the times. Restoration-era Shakespeare featured new characters, changed scripts, and grand musical interludes inspired by court masques. Dr. Richard Schoch of Queen’s University Belfast lay out this history in his new book, "A Short History of Shakespeare in Performance." We spoke with Schoch about the theater in the Restoration and what we can learn from them after our own year without live theater. Schoch is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Richard Schoch is a professor in the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen’s University Belfast. “A Short History of Shakespeare in Performance: From the Restoration to the Twenty-First Century” was published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 6, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Change It, Change It,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Gareth Wood at The Sound Company in London. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The next time you read a critic or maybe talk to your uncle about how this or that director has brutalized Shakespeare by changing it, the next time you hear that, we have an answer.
0:18.1	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:24.6	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folger's director.
0:27.6	In his new book, Richard Shook has what I would imagine will be a startling message for everyone who considers themselves to be a Shakespeare purist.
0:38.3	Doing the plays the way they appear in the first folio?
0:42.3	That was not a preoccupation of theater artists for several hundred years after Shakespeare's death.
0:48.3	In fact, throughout history, if you lined up all the Shakespeare performances there have ever been,
0:55.0	you might be able to count just as many productions that change the ending, or made up characters,
1:00.0	or set the play in outer space as ones that just played it straight.
1:06.0	Richard Shook teaches at the School of Arts, English, and Languages at Queen's University, Belfast.
1:12.7	He lays all of this out in his new book, A Short History of Shakespeare in Performance.
1:18.8	Professor Shook spoke to us recently from London about the time when this first started to happen,
1:24.8	the era we call the Restoration, when just like today, the theaters
1:29.2	reopened after being closed for a protracted period of time because of the English Civil War.
1:35.6	We call this podcast, Change It, Change It.
1:39.3	Richard Shook is interviewed by Barbara Bogave.
1:42.8	Well, just to start, let's bone up on our history.
1:45.4	When Charles II regains the throne in 1660,
1:48.8	there'd been no theater at all for the past 18 years?
1:52.4	There had been some theater, always illegal.
1:56.0	So the Puritans by law prohibitive theater in 1642.
2:05.7	So we have an 18-year period in which theater is outlawed.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Folger Shakespeare Library, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Folger Shakespeare Library and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.