Small-time Shakespeare: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2003

López, Jeremy

doi:10.1353/shq.2004.0071

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“…I do not want to "attack" Lopez's point of view and intentions in his essay, so much as add to his work, complimenting and supplementing it. Even though he makes assumptions about live theater that the homo academicus on a whole makes, Lopez (2004) provides significant headway in the direction that calls into question these assumptions. However, my own populist approach wants to take this direction further than Lopez's thesis which intends to focus on the "relationship between actors and audience" (p. 200).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…After hearing my mentors talk about performances they have seen at some of the great theaters in the world, my expectations followed a prescribed script: anything other than an "elite" production is banal. Lopez (2004) uses "banal" often in his response to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. And at one point in his essay, he grapples with the place of "banal" Shakespeare asserting that "Academic discourse has not yet come to terms with the phenomenon of bad Shakespeare productions, .…”

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“…So why has academic discourse not come to terms with "bad Shakespeare productions"? According to Lopez (2004), it's because "this phenomenon is so persistent" (p. 207). I suggest that academic discourse had not come to terms with "bad" Shakespeare because it's too closed-minded and wrapped up in maintaining its own elite status to explore the options in the cultural value of alternative and community-based productions of Shakespeare (Note 12).…”

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“Is All Our Company Here?”: Shakespeare Festivals as Fields of Cultural Production

Kulmala

2015

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I have traveled to and enjoyed the productions at seven Shakespeare festivals in the following states: Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. And over these years I have concluded that we miss something valuable in our understanding of the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries by investing our academic, scholarly interest in performances by the elite theater groups rather than considering the totality of Shakespeare's material influence and cache. Whether culturally inculcated or universally absolute or a multifaceted mixture of both of these factors, Shakespeare as a material good enjoys the remarkable status of high art while also circulating within both large-scale and restricted cultural investment. Simply, as a marketing tool, Shakespeare is entrepreneurially ubiquitous. And as I traveled to these Shakespeare festivals, I found myself wrestling with this question about these productions: Is this "small-time" Shakespeare less than the "big-time" Shakespeare of London, Toronto and New York? In general, we have good reason to maintain a hierarchy of power for dramatic performances. How do we justify our critical approaches to theatrical performance, and how do we justify "star quality," the establishment of elite theater status, and economic investment if we include "small-time" Shakespeare as fodder for critical engagement and academic interest? Durant, Oklahoma or London, England? Predictably, if one were to plan a trip to see Shakespeare anywhere in the world, that person would probably NOT look to Nebraska or Oklahoma as the vacationing hub of Shakespearean live drama. I intend, though, to have readers rethink such decisions.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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