eShakespeare and performance

Abstract

The capabilities of Web 2.0 technology are pushing digital communications into a new phase of development. The social networking environments of Facebook and MySpace seem to invent new strategies of learning and experience, but I argue that the theatre and university pedagogy have been involved in co-ordinating social interactivity for a very long time. In order to develop critical approaches to the online world and its interaction with Shakespeare it is necessary to draw on critical writing outside the boundaries of Shakespeare studies and even outside literary criticism. Drawing together practical examples of new digital approaches with a range of critical writing, this essay attempts to set out a productive approach to dealing with the creative, collaborative and interactive environment of the Web 2.0 world.

Keywords:

• Web 2.0
• interactivity
• digital performance
• Shakespeare in performance
• theatre

Notes

1. In form this talk illustrates the hybrid nature of online communication in that the full talk is available in video format from the English Subject Centre website, as is an abstract of the talk and a blog response to its presentation (Liu).

2. Audience members can read about productions in advance of attending the theatre. Teachers and students are able to prepare for their visits through online activities and, in the case of the Globe Theatre's “Adopt an Actor” scheme, can even enter into a dialogue with the company during rehearsals.

3. The Stagework project highlights the work of the National Theatre online, and Web materials are made available through the Royal Shakespeare Company's Learning Department website.

4. The recent work of John Joughin, Ewan Fernie, Graham Holderness and Hugh Grady (amongst others) reflects this movement. A wide range of this critical writing is usefully drawn together in Fernie et al.

5. During this period most of the high profile criticism was political. Prominent critics in this debate include Catherine Belsey, Graham Bradshaw, Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield. See also Margareta de Grazia and Peter Stallybrass and the debates that followed. Again, Fernie et al. provides a useful overview of this period of critical writing.

6. In this teaching resource, the video image, at regular intervals, has questions super imposed on the scene. When the user clicks on this question a new window opens up, which contains a series of interviews with the actors, the director and the designer all engaging with the question posed. Once this window is closed, the parenthetical debate ends and the scene carries on until the next question arises, which the user can then choose to accept or reject. This resource now appears in the “past productions” area of the RSC's Learning website.

7. The first of the English Subject Centre teaching packages looks at “Images of Violence in King Lear, Titus Andronicus and Othello” in order to help students address the difference between reading about violence and seeing it enacted (in person as opposed to on the screen). The second teaching resource looks at “Performance Approaches to King Lear” and involves drawing together the resources of the project to address the different creative processes undertaken by an actor, a director and a designer. An article describing the exploratory approach taken to developing these resources appears in the English Subject Centre Newsletter.

8. Collections such as Susan Broadhurst and Josephine Machon, and Colin Beardon and Gavin Carver. Also see Steve Dixon for a comprehensive overview of the topic.

9. The book series “Teaching the New English” published by Palgrave Macmillan and edited by the English Subject Centre offers a variety of discipline-specific critical perspectives on pedagogy.