Following Elissa Dubinsky in the second session of today’s thesis project festival, Sarah Keyes presented Puppets on the Early Modern Stage. Puppet shows were a popular form of entertainment in early modern England, but we know little of how puppet shows were incorporated into the drama of the period. Most of the evidence surrounding these shows is from provincial records and the terms themselves are fluid: for instance, puppet shows were sometimes called “motions.” She points to The Blind Beggar of Bednall Green and Bartholemew Fair as a primary examples of plays that feature puppet shows, and cites multiple quotes from the latter play that make reference to puppet shows. Keyes points to Henslow’s diary, which lists dragons and dogs as properties, and dumb shows by Luprene that suggest that the actors used puppets rather than dressing up as animals to perform the dumb shows. The B text of Doctor Faustus, has a stage direction, enter a devil, Mephistophiles, in the shape of a dragon, and Keyes suggests that the dragon was a puppet. Keyes argues that the dragon/devil (synonymous terms in the early modern period) would have come through the trap in the floor, as the woodcuts and the cue in the promptbook suggest, and demonstrates her argument with a successful staging. In discussing the terms, “puppet”–which during the early modern period had derogratory connotations of frivolity, emptyheadedness, or religious idolotry–and “motion”–gestures, bodily movements, impulses of the mind and body–Keyes demonstrates that puppet shows deal with base humour, bodily functions, religious satire, or frivolity.

Hi everyone, I’m back. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll be helping Sarah Keyes with her presentation this afternoon, so I’ve recruited fellow graduate student Victoria Reinsel to keep things up to date while I operate a puppet.


First up, we’ll have MFA candidate Elissa Dubinksy presenting “Staging Henry IV, Part 1 in the Classroom: Using Dramaturgical Practices to Teach Shakespeare through Performance.” Dubinsky starts off by introducing her approach to dramaturgy as being the sort that is geared more toward the classroom than for performance. She highlights, however, the importance of performance in understanding the work of Shakespeare, and details some of her dramatrgical work as a teacher’s assistant in introducing a performance based-curriculum toward understanding the play. The introduction to the performance based curriculum had some predictable difficulties, requiring instructor intervention to highlight what stage actions were communicated through the lines of the text, but it was not long before they were discovering these moments on their own. It was from these experiences that led Dubinsky to develop a modern performance edition for students.


In preparing this edition, she used the Moby Shakespeare as it was an electronic, public domain text in modern spelling. She keeps Shakespeare’s text separated from the comments on stage directions, and uses footnotes doe individual word definitions. She also highlights the contrast between explicit stage directions and embedded ones, citing Gadshill’s need to borrow a lantern in 1 Henry IV as an example. Her performance text highlights clues within the text of the scene to suggest stage action that could create meaning in performance. She explores other scenes from 1 Henry IV, including Falstaff’s boasting of his fight and wounds during the robbery, Glendwr and Hotspur arguing over the map, and Falstaff’s mocking of the king, Hal’s father.


The crux of Dubinsky’s argument lies in the acceptance that literature students are too unfamiliar with staging conventions to envision dramatic possibilities on their own. The edits she has made to the text are to, in her words, help her students “see the text through a theatrical lens.” In Q&A Justin Schneider (who was heard form this morning) points out that there may be a danger in making these directions too specific as it limits the imaginative possibilities of the scene. Although Dubinsky argues that she has attempted to keep the directions vague enough to allow for interpretation, another audience member suggests phrasing these directions as questions. Dubinsky admits that she hadn’t considered that, but stands by her affirmation that she wants to keep the focus of her edition on students who are less familiar with reading Shakespeare as a performance text.


And now I need to run down to the trap room to get ready to unleash a dragon, so I’ll turn this over to Victoria.

Mary Baldwin College’s M.Litt/MFA Spring 2010 Thesis Festival is here, and right out of the starting gate we’ve got Veronica Watts, presenting “Meeting Virginia State 9th grade Language Arts Standards of Learning Through Best Practices Instruction of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.” Watts explores survey statistics analyzing how Virginia teachers approach teaching the texts of Shakespeare in general, and Romeo and Juliet in particular. She explores issues that educators face, such as administrators who are opposed paying actors to perform in their schools. Watts also explores some approaches to teaching Shakespeare using performative components.


Next we have Justin Schneider presenting “Live Nude Dramaturgy.” Schneider begins by declaring his preference for the question “why a dramaturg” as opposed to “what is a dramaturg.” He compares the use of a dramaturg in a production to visiting Italy with a knowledgeable tour guide as opposed to just a guidebook. He establishes the ethical responsibility of the dramaturg as someone whom, if incorrect, will likely not be noticed as such. For his presentation, Schneider demonstrates the dramaturgical process by having his actors read through a scene and ask him follow up questions.


Concluding our morning session we have Bonnie Morrison presenting “Country Clowns to City Wits: Kempe, Armin, and the Development of Shakespeare’s Fools.” As the title of her thesis predicts, Morrison reviews some of the changes in the development of clowns between when Will Kempe left the Chamberlain’s Men and was replaced by Robert Armin, but her thesis is that both of these men may have been members of the Chamberlain’s Men at the same time. Morrison cites the fact that Kempe referred to himself as one of the Chamberlain’s Men during his nine day’s Morris dance to Norwich. There is no clear evidence to indicate why Kempe left the Chamberlain’s, but the plays in the Worcester’s Men’s repertory seem to be less conducive to his particular clowning style. Hamlet, Morrison points out, has roles for two clowns, the first and second gravediggers, and was written at the time when both men would have been in the Chamberlain’s simultaneously, if in fact they were.


Bringing the morning session to a wrap, we’ll break for the moment and be back a little bit later with some more