![Sample our Arts journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110799/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Arts.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Modern Shakespeare promptbooks do not fit comfortably into any of the conceptual models current in discourses around the role of text in performance. Promptbooks operate as cue lists; records of unexpected acts; and records of or efforts to approximate ideal enactments. While promptbooks are not necessarily limited to these three temporalities, their encapsulation of all three points to their polychronic resistance to a straightforward and easily codified archival record of performance. This article presents a new theoretical model of promptbooks as temporal actants that are neither text nor performance in the ways currently understood in textual studies. The promptbook is more usefully conceived of as an actant within different theatrical networks at different times in production processes. To make this claim, the authors first revisit previous criticism on as well as misunderstandings of the purposes of Shakespearean promptbooks before theorising how a promptbook operates in relation to the larger event that is a theatrical performance. The article uses the 2005 promptbook of The Tempest from the Canadian Stratford Festival Archives as a case study to illustrate the ways in which promptbooks initiate the three kinds of temporal action the authors theorise: anticipated acts, unanticipated acts, and idealised polychronic assemblages.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For visual examples of professional modern promptbooks, see – below, along with a more in-depth analysis of promptbook content.
2 Malone. ‘Distract Parcels’, 71. Stratford’s re-use of prompt materials in this manner is not an unusual strategy, and past texts are regularly used to inform future productions at major companies and festivals (see, for example, Malone and Huber, 22).
3 A modern promptbook, as we define it, is a working text containing all technical aspects of the production, designed for use in rehearsal and performance, and that has evolved into far more detailed and vital records from their originally named purpose of offering prompts for forgotten lines. See Malone, ‘Distract Parcels’.
4 Hutt’s 2005 farewell production was a remount of the 1999 Stratford Tempest, also directed by Richard Monette. The widely praised 1999 staging was, at the time, considered a potential ‘farewell production’ for founding company member Hutt, described by critic Robert Cushman as an actor ‘who has come to symbolize all that is best about this theatre and its tradition’. Cushman, ‘Thunder of Applause for Hutt and History’, 24. As a result, a remount of this production was chosen as the ideal vehicle for Hutt’s eventual 2005 retirement.
5 Roberts-Smith et al., ‘Tagging Time and Space’.
6 Schneider, ‘Performance Remains Again’, 66.
7 Werstine, Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts, 141, n.1.
8 Ibid., 108.
9 See Osborne, ‘Rethinking the Performance Editions’.
10 Purkis, ‘Foul Papers’, 129.
11 Howard-Hill, ‘Crane’s 1619 “Promptbook”’, 169.
12 Ibid.
13 Shattuck, The Shakespeare Promptbooks, 3.
14 Mayer, ‘Annotating and Transcribing’, 176.
15 Knight, ‘Shakespeare and the Collection’, 194.
16 McInnis, ‘Samuel Phelps’ Antony and Cleopatra’, 73–75. See this article by McInnis, which is also published in Shakespeare, for visual examples.
17 Thompson, ‘I’ll Have Grounds’, 148.
18 Shafer, ‘Performance Editions’, 202.
19 Osborne, ‘Rethinking the Performance Editions’, 173.
20 See Malone, ‘A Digital Parallel-Text Approach’, 108–9, and Dente, ‘Studying the Reception’.
21 Malone, ‘Using Theatrical Prompt-Books’, 21.
22 Malone and Huber, Cutting Plays for Performance, 1.
23 Ibid., 14.
24 Smith, Shakespeare | Cut, 47–48.
25 We defer to the North American modern standard of ‘stage manager’ throughout with the understanding that this role has evolved, often depending on location. Users of promptbooks also include historical figures such as the book-keeper and prompter, as well as modern figures like the Assistant Stage Manager (ASM), Deputy Stage Manager (DSM, a UK title for the book compiler), and Apprentice Stage Manager. For convenience, we use ‘stage manager’ to encompass the industry of all these roles.
26 Malone, ‘Using Theatrical Prompt-Books’, 20.
27 Erne, Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist, 3–4.
28 Bennett, Vibrant Matter, 9.
29 Ibid., 28.
30 Latour, Reassembling the Social, 54.
31 Ibid.
32 Tribble, Cognition in the Globe, 46.
33 Harris, Untimely Matter, 4.
34 Holland, The Lost Workers, 13.
35 Kidnie, Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation, 2.
36 Pavis, Dictionary of the Theatre, 10.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid., 9.
39 Malone, ‘Distract Parcels’, 64.
40 The richness of Polley’s work makes it ideal for this case study, but it represents a standard example of a well-annotated promptbook. Works of other stage managers feature similar detail and organisation, but as we have stated, there is no standard beyond featuring enough detail for a particular stage manager to work effectively.
41 ‘Scene naming’ can often be referred to as ‘French scenes’, which indicates a change in the play, such as the entrance of a character, or a change in topic in the dialogue without a traditional scene change. For example, in The Tempest, 1.2, Prospero tells Miranda the story of their escape, and in the same scene, meets with Ariel and Caliban. Rather than treat this as a single unit, a stage manager might break this scene into three ‘mini-scenes’ (Miranda, Ariel, Caliban) to help organise their promptbook. We see an example of this annotation in , where a small section of the scene is noted as ‘Block 23’, with the shorthand name of ‘DOGS’. The term ‘French scenes’ is a common modern theatre term, and it derives from eighteenth-century French play traditions that did not feature traditional scene breaks.
42 Kidnie, Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation, 2.
43 Polley, Personal Interview.
44 Schneider, Performing Remains, 6.
45 Davis, ‘The Content Problem’, 209.