I am surprised by the Globe’s decision to part ways with its artistic director. Chief executive Neil Constable praises Emma Rice for her “mould-breaking” productions but explains that “The Globe was reconstructed as a radical experiment to explore the conditions within which Shakespeare and his contemporaries worked” (Exit stage left, pursued by bearish critics, 26 October). What’s radical about that? I acknowledge and embrace the Globe’s raison d’etre, I really do. But I see no reason why Rice’s work could not have been included as part of a varied programme of theatre comprising both “shared light” and technically elaborate productions.
I believe that we must be faithful to the “spirit” of Shakespeare’s work, not simply the theatrical practices of his time or the architecture of his theatre. Shakespeare’s plays looked to the here and now. The Roman plays and the histories were not museum pieces, staged as they were in modern dress. And in terms of textual fidelity, there was no one more unfaithful than Shakespeare. He unashamedly plundered and radically, even irreverently, reworked old stories so that he could engage with his audience.
The theatrical practice of his company also absorbed and responded to new theatrical tastes. The popularity of the court masque led Shakespeare to experiment with the form in his later works, which owe a lot to spectacle.
I am therefore surprised that the Globe – of all theatres – should criticise Rice for daring to do what Shakespeare himself was unafraid to do: experiment. Thank goodness Burbage, Heminges, Condell et al never lost their nerve!
Shaun Passey
Stourbridge, West Midlands
• “The Globe was reconstructed as a radical experiment to explore the conditions within which Shakespeare and his contemporaries worked, and we believe this should continue to be the central tenet of our work,” says the chief executive of the Globe, announcing the departure of its artistic director, Emma Rice. If classical music were under discussion rather than theatre, the chief executive would be speaking up on behalf of “authenticity”, the fashion to play old music on old instruments and in such way that it is as close as possible to how it was in the past. The music cognoscenti would applaud. But because it is theatre, where the fashion lies in the opposite direction, to update and modernise, the reaction of the relevant cognoscenti is to condemn. “The message is clear: the Globe is not really a theatre but part of the heritage industry,” writes Lyn Gardner (Who would want to work in an artistic cul-de-sac?, 26 October). How absurd it is. Music and theatre both in the grip of fashions that, quite arbitrarily, point in opposite directions. It would be good to have a few more creative people prepared to stand up against the mob.
Nicholas Maxwell
London
• Surely appointing as artistic director at the Globe someone who says trying to read Shakespeare “doesn’t work” now looks downright silly. That statement promised, in Shakespeare’s and contemporaries’ dedicated arena, cultural vandalism and distortion to the point of disfigurement, which is what it delivered.
Emma Rice’s work with Kneehigh was astonishing but it is too literally out of context to work at the Globe. The idea that directors of “calibre and vision” will now shun this theatre is laughable, considering previous incumbents are Mark Rylance and Dominic Dromgoole. The Globe can embrace all the rampant creativity the plays were designed to cultivate and still to its own self be true as the “radical experiment to explore the conditions within which Shakespeare and his contemporaries work” described by chief executive Neil Constable.
In the hands of direction that understands the plays, what the intense theatricality of the Globe does is the exact opposite of administering “cultural medicine”, as I have witnessed many times with young people in the audience; it breathes exhilarating life into the plays. Thankful as many of us are that a change will come, the pity is that it could not be sooner than 2018.
No theatre is “an artistic cul-de sac” which opens and illustrates worlds and worldviews as those productions can. The clue is in the name.
Jane Price
Minehead, West Somerset
• It is not that Emma Rice is too innovative or too female for the Globe, it is that she has been unable or unwilling to fit her productions into the building that so warmly invited her in to do so.
I watched her production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream from one of the Gentlemen’s Rooms – I can’t say I saw it, for all the acting was projected relentlessly out front, with those of us at the sides not getting a look-in. An attender at the recent Macbeth complained to me that even though he was standing at the edge of the stage, not a single line was ever addressed to him because he was not standing out front but at one of the sides. (The artistic team at the Donmar make sure their actors carefully share their performances with all three sides – so it can easily be done.)
The “shared light” concept is not a wish to go back to dusty theatrical traditions, but a realistic acknowledgment that when half the performances are given in daylight, extensive lighting effects mean that the daytime audiences for any such production will not get the full theatrical experience.
Patrick Tucker
London
• I am sorry to see that Emma Rice is stepping down. She brought a breath of fresh air. I do hope she has not been hounded out by the ageing fuddy-duddy traditionalists.
Kathleen O’Neill
Hayling Island, Hampshire
• Sam Wanamaker, the founding father of the modern Globe theatre, did not envisage his Bankside theatre as a “radical experiment to explore the conditions within which Shakespeare and his contemporaries worked”. His was a more demotic vision of promoting the popular appeal of Shakespeare. Between his draft proposal of a brick drum and an extended riverside complex involving reconstructed buildings, the Wooden O of the Globe evolved. Once up and running, it did provide insights into contemporary theatrical practice, and over the years this structure has rewarded actors, directors and audience alike who were prepared to experiment with how the dynamics of movement and sound could function in such a space. The first productions began to explore the exciting possibilities of shared space and light, and even, slowly, to trust that the acoustics of so much timber provided a previously unsuspected resonance, such that even whispers and asides could be successfully projected from the stage.
Emma Rice’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (understandably for a director steeped in clifftop and canvas-clad venues) may have failed to trust and use the natural acoustics of the Globe, but in all else she has remained true to Wanamaker’s vision. It is worth remembering that the original Globe was sited in the then seedy suburb of Southwark because the material presented on stage was far too edgy and subversive for the respectable City across the Thames. Long may its modern drama remain both edgy and subversive. And shame on the theatre management for failing to support an experiment entirely in the spirit of both the playhouse and its founder.
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
• Anyone who went to the Globe this year and saw Midsummer Night’s Dream, from the new Rice era, and Merchant of Venice, a revival from Dromgoole’s time, will struggle to recognise the former as “innovatory” and the latter as “academic”. The Dream revived memories of dirty seaside postcards, with – for example – Titania struggling to take off her underwear. So all the magic of Shakespeare’s Titania is consigned to the trash can for the sake of a cheap laugh.
You can have a lot of fun with Shakespeare, in the right places, as Dromgoole has shown us with his innovatory use of the audience as props. In the Merchant two groundlings are pulled up on stage for a hilarious scene with Lancelot Gobbo. And the plays have such depths that there are always new aspects to explore, as with the Jewish parts in the Merchant, especially that of Jessica, which were handled here in a way that was new to me, at least.
Dromgoole was able to bring all this off because he respected the text: his actors understand each word and convey the meaning to us. Hamlet’s advice to the players remains the best guide we have to what Shakespeare wanted and it deserves to be written up in gold at the Globe, to avoid any repetition of Rice’s mistakes.
The fact something is popular does make it right (cf Brexit).
Paul Stephenson
London
