I attended a performance of Emma Rice’s Cymbeline which Tom Sutcliffe refers to (In defence of Shakespeare’s difficult bits, 6 January). I went with a large mixed party of adults, teenagers, and two children, of all backgrounds. The setting, a ruined castle, was magical. But within 15 minutes of the opening, the children were bored to death, the teenagers still waiting for a real play to begin, and the adults already appalled. It wasn’t the banality of the language and the forced jokes, it was the extraordinary condescension of the director that did for us. As we left, along with a good number of others, at the interval, what people were talking about was the arrogance of someone serving up something she assumed was more captivating, and more imaginatively stirring, than Shakespeare’s language – which, by implication, she seemed to believe we were not able to take in. I am certain that those who value the subtleties and lively inventions of the present company, if she tries on this sort of thing with them, will quickly enlighten her.
As for your article heading about gender rules (New director ready to bend gender rules on Globe stage, 6 January): whatever does this mean? Who better than Shakespeare understands gender fluidity, and who makes better plays about it? Whatever made the Globe think, with only her Cymbeline to judge her by, that Emma Rice will be able to nurture and develop the thoughtfully evolved traditions and talents of one of the world’s finest Shakespeare companies, among whose purposes is getting as close as possible to the atmosphere, dress, techniques and conditions of an open-air Elizabethan production?
Richard Wilson
Oxford
• Tom Sutcliffe echoed John Humphrys’ concern that Emma Rice, who diffidently claimed “custody of the canon”, is about to smooth out linguistic difficulties in the verse. In the 1980s, the Church of England succeeded in persuading almost all congregations to use the New Revised Standard Version in place of the King James Bible of 1611. Some of us were puzzled by the timing when a new generation was rediscovering the mystery and poetry of language, often through Shakespeare. It was possible then to make a small protest by no longer reading the lesson. Today we need not refuse to attend performances where the verse is made audience-friendly or even inclusivised (an Anglican neologism?). We can agree with Sutcliffe that by “the play’s the thing”, we mean the whole production. Anyhow, the Shakespeare industry is a broader church than the C of E.
Iain Mackintosh
London
• When I read that in a new production of Cymbeline “dandelions” had replaced the chimney-sweepers who “come to dust” in the play’s most famous lines, I could, as Dr Johnson once remarked, scarce restrain my risibility. “Dandelion”, according to the producer, is Warwickshire dialect and this qualifies them to replace the chimney-sweepers of the poem especially, presumably, as Shakespeare was a Warwickshire man. But it also turns the poem into nonsense. Dandelions cannot “come to dust” in any of the phrase’s most resonant meanings; the suggestive power of the references to dust is thus completely lost. Dust we are and to dust we shall return, as the Bible has it. The change is defended with the argument that “nobody will be left out”. Well, the chimney-sweepers will be and I doubt whether a dandelion, dusty or not, will prove a satisfactory substitute.
Alan Shelston
Bowdon, Greater Manchester
• Come on, Emma Rice. Dandelions? Shakespeare’s poetry? What about his sense of humour? For what could be dustier than the work of a chimney sweep? Sigh. Facepalm.
David Milne
Salford
• An excellent column from Tom Sutcliffe. Elegantly put and spot-on in its conclusion: messing with Shakespeare’s language, however opaque it may occasionally be, puts at risk the whole value of the works. One additional thought, though, on his interpretation of the Cymbeline quotation, “Golden lads and girls all must/As chimney-sweepers come to dust”. Isn’t the sense here less about “coating the most gilded of us in the soot of experience”, but more a forerunner of the notion from Gray’s Elegy that “The paths of glory lead but to the grave”?
Michael Jones
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
• “Big on magic and folklore,” says Tom Sutcliffe on Emma Rice’s new Globe season – sounds like a breath of fresh air and well worth the risk of an exploding petard, in either of its slang senses of firecracker or fart.
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
• Well! Having been challenged by two academics (Letters, passim) claiming that the First Folio must have misspelt Innogen, I learn that, this year, the Globe will present Cymbeline but will be renaming the play Imogen. On behalf of William Shakespeare, I am glowing.
Christine Ozanne
London
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• This column was amended on 11 January 2016. An earlier version of the antepenultimate letter referred to Hardy rather than Gray’s Elegy.
