Inventing the Human: Brontosaurus Bloom and “the Shakespeare in us”
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7045 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007387 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351963534/chapters/10.4324%2F9781315264264-15
- Description: preprint , This essay was occasioned by the casual reading of a book called Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare (2002), a collection of responses, pro, ante and puzzled, to Bloom’s Shakespearean magnum opus. The more I browsed in the assembled essays, some of them originally reviews and conference papers, others specially commissioned responses, the more curious I became. On the whole, the contributors seemed not to understand Bloom, at least not to understand him adequately, which is a devastating handicap when the task in hand is to pass judgment. The problem seems to be that few academic commentators take Bloom seriously, accepting that he means what he says; more accurately, they find it hard to entertain with full seriousness matters Bloom intends should be taken entirely seriously. Shakespeareans, locked into their various ways of understanding the world and critical activity, generally try to find Shakespeare (or “Shakespeare”) through reading Bloom, whereas he wants us to find ourselves through reading Shakespeare: to uncover what Emerson called ‘the Shakespeare in us’ (‘Shakespeare, or The Poet’, 256). The difference is stupendous. We ought first to ask in regard to Bloom’s blockbuster the question Bloom tells us he learned from Kenneth Burke, ‘What is the author trying to do for himself or herself by writing this work?’ (Shakespeare, 412).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7045 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007387 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351963534/chapters/10.4324%2F9781315264264-15
- Description: preprint , This essay was occasioned by the casual reading of a book called Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare (2002), a collection of responses, pro, ante and puzzled, to Bloom’s Shakespearean magnum opus. The more I browsed in the assembled essays, some of them originally reviews and conference papers, others specially commissioned responses, the more curious I became. On the whole, the contributors seemed not to understand Bloom, at least not to understand him adequately, which is a devastating handicap when the task in hand is to pass judgment. The problem seems to be that few academic commentators take Bloom seriously, accepting that he means what he says; more accurately, they find it hard to entertain with full seriousness matters Bloom intends should be taken entirely seriously. Shakespeareans, locked into their various ways of understanding the world and critical activity, generally try to find Shakespeare (or “Shakespeare”) through reading Bloom, whereas he wants us to find ourselves through reading Shakespeare: to uncover what Emerson called ‘the Shakespeare in us’ (‘Shakespeare, or The Poet’, 256). The difference is stupendous. We ought first to ask in regard to Bloom’s blockbuster the question Bloom tells us he learned from Kenneth Burke, ‘What is the author trying to do for himself or herself by writing this work?’ (Shakespeare, 412).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Language policy and planning: general constraints and pressures
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7043 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007385
- Description: preprint , The general idea of language policy and planning is easily expressed. Christopher Brumfit, for one, defines language planning as “The attempt to control the use, status, and structure of a language through a language policy developed by a government or other authority” (see the Oxford Companion to the English Language). The Random House Dictionary of the English Language concurs, but adds some detail: language planning is “the development of policies or programmes designed to direct or change language use, as through the establishment of an official language, the standardization or modernization of a language, or the development or alteration of a writing system”. Such definitions could easily be multiplied, and they differ only slightly in nuance and depth.Language Policy is the formal, often legally entrenched, expression of language planning.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7043 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007385
- Description: preprint , The general idea of language policy and planning is easily expressed. Christopher Brumfit, for one, defines language planning as “The attempt to control the use, status, and structure of a language through a language policy developed by a government or other authority” (see the Oxford Companion to the English Language). The Random House Dictionary of the English Language concurs, but adds some detail: language planning is “the development of policies or programmes designed to direct or change language use, as through the establishment of an official language, the standardization or modernization of a language, or the development or alteration of a writing system”. Such definitions could easily be multiplied, and they differ only slightly in nuance and depth.Language Policy is the formal, often legally entrenched, expression of language planning.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Introduction: Stimela: railway poems of South Africa
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7058 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007420
- Description: preprint , A collection of railway poems is an unusual undertaking. More than an exercise in nostalgia, this anthology captures a large slice of modern South African life, viewed from different perspectives. Many of South Africa’s best poets have written railway poems. This is unsurprising, for railways hold special meaning for a variety of people – people in all walks of life – who find them not only fascinating but emotionally sympatico. The place of railways in the South African economy is changing rapidly, and it will be interesting to see in the coming years whether the less personal, more streamlined business model that is taking shape will attract the same naïve fascination engendered by South African railways over the past two centuries.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7058 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007420
- Description: preprint , A collection of railway poems is an unusual undertaking. More than an exercise in nostalgia, this anthology captures a large slice of modern South African life, viewed from different perspectives. Many of South Africa’s best poets have written railway poems. This is unsurprising, for railways hold special meaning for a variety of people – people in all walks of life – who find them not only fascinating but emotionally sympatico. The place of railways in the South African economy is changing rapidly, and it will be interesting to see in the coming years whether the less personal, more streamlined business model that is taking shape will attract the same naïve fascination engendered by South African railways over the past two centuries.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Hill of Fools: a South African Romeo and Juliet?
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7039 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007377 , http://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC47866
- Description: preprint , What kind of debt does Hill of Fools owe to Shakespeare? Look up ‘Peteni’ in the Companion to South African English Literature (1986) and you will be told that Hill of Fools is “loosely based on the story of Romeo and Juliet” (155). Scan the first newspaper reviews (see “The Early Reception of Hill of Fools” in this volume) and it is noticeable that a great many journalists focus on the Shakespeare connection as a means of introducing the book to their readers. One of the publisher’s readers, Henry Chakava, urged before publication that once all references to tribe or tribalism had been excised “the result will be a Romeo and Juliet type story much more superior to Weep Not Child.” The author himself reportedly described the book as “a black Romeo and Juliet drama” (Tribune Reporter 1988). And, indeed, some kind of parallel is patent to anyone who reads Hill of Fools with Shakespeare’s play in mind.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7039 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007377 , http://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC47866
- Description: preprint , What kind of debt does Hill of Fools owe to Shakespeare? Look up ‘Peteni’ in the Companion to South African English Literature (1986) and you will be told that Hill of Fools is “loosely based on the story of Romeo and Juliet” (155). Scan the first newspaper reviews (see “The Early Reception of Hill of Fools” in this volume) and it is noticeable that a great many journalists focus on the Shakespeare connection as a means of introducing the book to their readers. One of the publisher’s readers, Henry Chakava, urged before publication that once all references to tribe or tribalism had been excised “the result will be a Romeo and Juliet type story much more superior to Weep Not Child.” The author himself reportedly described the book as “a black Romeo and Juliet drama” (Tribune Reporter 1988). And, indeed, some kind of parallel is patent to anyone who reads Hill of Fools with Shakespeare’s play in mind.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
Introduction [to the book "Thuthula: Heart of the Labyrinth" by Chris Zithulele Mann]
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Book chapter
- Identifier: vital:7057 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007419
- Description: There are certain stories, the world over, that stir our hearts and minds to imaginings richer and deeper than the bald facts of history can easily satisfy. Such is the legend of Thuthula, the young Xhosa girl whose beauty and grace won the heart of Ngqika, chief of the Rharhabe Xhosa; the woman who was later married to his uncle Ndlambe, and then taken by Ngqika to become his wife. The events took place in or around the years 1806 and 1807 in what is now the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Prior to the central episode treated in the play, legend has it that Thuthula was out collecting firewood one day with her friends when she knelt at a spring to drink. Startled by the sudden appearance of a hunting dog crossing the stream below the spring, she looked up and saw a handsome young hunter chasing behind the dog. She was struck by his charm and good looks. Teasingly, as any young girl might do, she called her friends round her and challenged the young man to choose his favourite from among them. Amid much flirting and laughter, the object of all this girlish attention was pushed into making a choice. Inevitably, given her beauty, his playful decision fell on Thuthula. This was the first meeting of Thuthula, daughter of Mthunzana, with Ngqika, son of Chief Mlawu.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Book chapter
- Identifier: vital:7057 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007419
- Description: There are certain stories, the world over, that stir our hearts and minds to imaginings richer and deeper than the bald facts of history can easily satisfy. Such is the legend of Thuthula, the young Xhosa girl whose beauty and grace won the heart of Ngqika, chief of the Rharhabe Xhosa; the woman who was later married to his uncle Ndlambe, and then taken by Ngqika to become his wife. The events took place in or around the years 1806 and 1807 in what is now the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Prior to the central episode treated in the play, legend has it that Thuthula was out collecting firewood one day with her friends when she knelt at a spring to drink. Startled by the sudden appearance of a hunting dog crossing the stream below the spring, she looked up and saw a handsome young hunter chasing behind the dog. She was struck by his charm and good looks. Teasingly, as any young girl might do, she called her friends round her and challenged the young man to choose his favourite from among them. Amid much flirting and laughter, the object of all this girlish attention was pushed into making a choice. Inevitably, given her beauty, his playful decision fell on Thuthula. This was the first meeting of Thuthula, daughter of Mthunzana, with Ngqika, son of Chief Mlawu.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Something rotten in this age of hope, The HamletMachine: directed by Wesley Deintje. Rhodes University Theatre. 28 September 2007: theatre reviews
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455808 , vital:75458 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48108
- Description: Heiner Müller's most famous play (Die Hamletmaschine, 1977) has evolved into something of a familiar war-horse for student theatre. The United States in particular has taken to the work; indeed, it was meant in part for them : "Heil Coca-cola!" says the script. For today's South African ears this has become, very aptly, "Hail the Rainbow Nation!" What young director can resist it? Only eight pages in extent, the sparse yet densely referential text offers unfettered scope for interpretation and contextualization.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455808 , vital:75458 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48108
- Description: Heiner Müller's most famous play (Die Hamletmaschine, 1977) has evolved into something of a familiar war-horse for student theatre. The United States in particular has taken to the work; indeed, it was meant in part for them : "Heil Coca-cola!" says the script. For today's South African ears this has become, very aptly, "Hail the Rainbow Nation!" What young director can resist it? Only eight pages in extent, the sparse yet densely referential text offers unfettered scope for interpretation and contextualization.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Shakespeare and the bomber pilot: A reply to Colin Gardner
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455734 , vital:75452 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_59
- Description: I want to start at what may seem an unfair distance from the kind of view Colin Gardner has put forward. Early in 1947 the date is signifi-cant-a group of science students at Cambridge asked that some lec-tures on English Literature be organised for their special benefit. TR Henn responded and versions of his lectures were later published as The Apple and the Spectroscope (1951). In the book, Henn records the reaction of one of his students to Macbeth's speech at 1.7. 16-25: Be-sides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu'd against The deep damnation of his taking off; And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd U pan the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1988
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455734 , vital:75452 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_59
- Description: I want to start at what may seem an unfair distance from the kind of view Colin Gardner has put forward. Early in 1947 the date is signifi-cant-a group of science students at Cambridge asked that some lec-tures on English Literature be organised for their special benefit. TR Henn responded and versions of his lectures were later published as The Apple and the Spectroscope (1951). In the book, Henn records the reaction of one of his students to Macbeth's speech at 1.7. 16-25: Be-sides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu'd against The deep damnation of his taking off; And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd U pan the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1988
Shakespeare's Stories of the English Middle Ages: From Richard the Second, Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455779 , vital:75456 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48086
- Description: Here is the story of the history plays from Richard II to Henry 1V (both parts) and Henry V retold in piquant prose sufficiently gripping to hold the attention of anyone willing to make some effort, hi a sense the book reverses the dominant twentieth century pedagogical mantra by turning attention from stage to page, almost novelising the material.[...] the contrast between history proper and the Shakespearean mythography as seen in the plays becomes all the clearer when confronted in this orderly prose exposition, provided you also know the historical versions.[...] the poetry and the vibrant language of the original are missing, and the drama is transmogrified by this very different medium.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455779 , vital:75456 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48086
- Description: Here is the story of the history plays from Richard II to Henry 1V (both parts) and Henry V retold in piquant prose sufficiently gripping to hold the attention of anyone willing to make some effort, hi a sense the book reverses the dominant twentieth century pedagogical mantra by turning attention from stage to page, almost novelising the material.[...] the contrast between history proper and the Shakespearean mythography as seen in the plays becomes all the clearer when confronted in this orderly prose exposition, provided you also know the historical versions.[...] the poetry and the vibrant language of the original are missing, and the drama is transmogrified by this very different medium.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Shakespeare in the Media: Newspaper Response to Shakespeare in Post-Independence West Bengal, 1948-97, Lipika Sidkar: book review
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455757 , vital:75454 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48012
- Description: Reading this book is a cultural experience in itself, from the typography and layout, to the scholarly conventions observed, the treatment of the subject matter and its arrangement. I found it fascinating, perhaps exaggeratedly so because of abysmal ignorance on my part concerning the voluminous scholarly and text-book literature on Shakespeare which has streamed from the presses of the sub-continent.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455757 , vital:75454 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48012
- Description: Reading this book is a cultural experience in itself, from the typography and layout, to the scholarly conventions observed, the treatment of the subject matter and its arrangement. I found it fascinating, perhaps exaggeratedly so because of abysmal ignorance on my part concerning the voluminous scholarly and text-book literature on Shakespeare which has streamed from the presses of the sub-continent.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
Theatre Reviews: Confronting the African nightmate
- Wright, Laurence, Jefferey, C
- Authors: Wright, Laurence , Jefferey, C
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455890 , vital:75465 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_170
- Description: Yael Farber's adaptation of Julius Caesar marks something of a breakthrough in South African Shakespeare productions. The key achievement is that the play is no longer about Rome or Renaissance England, nor is it about processes of cultural translation or trendy theatrical Africanisation, largely cosmetic. This production is, in a generous way, squarely and pointedly about Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
- Authors: Wright, Laurence , Jefferey, C
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455890 , vital:75465 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_170
- Description: Yael Farber's adaptation of Julius Caesar marks something of a breakthrough in South African Shakespeare productions. The key achievement is that the play is no longer about Rome or Renaissance England, nor is it about processes of cultural translation or trendy theatrical Africanisation, largely cosmetic. This production is, in a generous way, squarely and pointedly about Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
The Winter's Tale shaping our own Renaissance. A play for the 21st Century
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455874 , vital:75464 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_198
- Description: The Winters Tale is an extraordinarily elusive play. My contention in this paper" is that, just as Hamlet became the Shakespearean drama for the nineteenth century, and King Lear spoke deeply to the twentieth centu-ry, so it may well be that The Winters Tale will take centre stage for the new millennium. We used to know what the play was about in an easy, non-problematic fashion. It was about repentance and reconciliation; it was about the cycle of the seasons; it was about the Pandosto sub-title,“The Triumph of Time"; later, it became a tricksy celebration of con-tention between Art and Nature (despite the considerable discomfort inflicted upon the dramatis personae), an experiment in the new genre of tragicomedy, or a glittering theatrical tour de force–a romance, but heartless and rather empty. I would maintain that beneath all such read-ings is the assumption that the play is really “a winter's tale': a some-what inconsequential yarn suitable for whiling away a cold evening round the fireside, a view often infused with some lingering taint of the Edwardian view that Shakespeare had “gone sloppy” in his technique."
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1999
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455874 , vital:75464 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_198
- Description: The Winters Tale is an extraordinarily elusive play. My contention in this paper" is that, just as Hamlet became the Shakespearean drama for the nineteenth century, and King Lear spoke deeply to the twentieth centu-ry, so it may well be that The Winters Tale will take centre stage for the new millennium. We used to know what the play was about in an easy, non-problematic fashion. It was about repentance and reconciliation; it was about the cycle of the seasons; it was about the Pandosto sub-title,“The Triumph of Time"; later, it became a tricksy celebration of con-tention between Art and Nature (despite the considerable discomfort inflicted upon the dramatis personae), an experiment in the new genre of tragicomedy, or a glittering theatrical tour de force–a romance, but heartless and rather empty. I would maintain that beneath all such read-ings is the assumption that the play is really “a winter's tale': a some-what inconsequential yarn suitable for whiling away a cold evening round the fireside, a view often infused with some lingering taint of the Edwardian view that Shakespeare had “gone sloppy” in his technique."
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1999
Trafficking in Shakespeare: origins and prospects for the'Southern Hemisphere Spread of Shakespeare'research and publication programme.
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455904 , vital:75466 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48091
- Description: This paper introduced the ‘Southern Hemisphere Spread of Shakespeare’ session at the 8th World Shakespeare Congress in Brisbane, July 2006. The purpose of the session was to outline the rationale for the research programme in order to extend its scope and encourage further participation by scholars in the field.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455904 , vital:75466 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48091
- Description: This paper introduced the ‘Southern Hemisphere Spread of Shakespeare’ session at the 8th World Shakespeare Congress in Brisbane, July 2006. The purpose of the session was to outline the rationale for the research programme in order to extend its scope and encourage further participation by scholars in the field.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
The Marowitz Hamlet: Directed by Floyed de Vaal for the University of Stellenbosch Drama Department, July 2004: theatre review
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455820 , vital:75459 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48041
- Description: THE MAROWITZ HAMLET : Directed by Floyed de Vaal for the University of Stellenbosch Drama Department. National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, July 2004. LAURENCE WRIGHT This was a brave and, on the whole, successful production of a difficult and highly cerebral text. The challenge of the play is to make it speak to a broad audience. Marowitz's experiments with Shakespeare in the 60s were conducted originally in small London theatres before some of the most sophisticated, literate audiences one could hope to find.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455820 , vital:75459 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48041
- Description: THE MAROWITZ HAMLET : Directed by Floyed de Vaal for the University of Stellenbosch Drama Department. National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, July 2004. LAURENCE WRIGHT This was a brave and, on the whole, successful production of a difficult and highly cerebral text. The challenge of the play is to make it speak to a broad audience. Marowitz's experiments with Shakespeare in the 60s were conducted originally in small London theatres before some of the most sophisticated, literate audiences one could hope to find.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
A Magical 'Dream': The Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival 2005
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455563 , vital:75439 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48058
- Description: Mannville has always had a special relationship with this particular play, which inaugurated the theatre in St George's Park with Lesley French's 1972 production, and has been performed there on a number of occasions since. It is the archetypal Shakespearean show for outdoor theatre, and the PE Shakespearean Festival productions in a sense transport the delightful balmy (and sometimes barmy!) traditions established at the summertime open-air theatre in Regents Park, London, where Lesley French enjoyed so many triumphs--not least with this play--to Eastern Cape soil. Outdoor theatre has its risks, logistical and climatic, but when it comes off, as this show did, the result is vividly memorable.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455563 , vital:75439 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48058
- Description: Mannville has always had a special relationship with this particular play, which inaugurated the theatre in St George's Park with Lesley French's 1972 production, and has been performed there on a number of occasions since. It is the archetypal Shakespearean show for outdoor theatre, and the PE Shakespearean Festival productions in a sense transport the delightful balmy (and sometimes barmy!) traditions established at the summertime open-air theatre in Regents Park, London, where Lesley French enjoyed so many triumphs--not least with this play--to Eastern Cape soil. Outdoor theatre has its risks, logistical and climatic, but when it comes off, as this show did, the result is vividly memorable.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
A checklist of South African theses and dissertations on Shakespeare
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1993
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455547 , vital:75438 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_23
- Description: This checklist is in two parts. The first lists South African Shakespearean theses and dissertations, as well as some work on Shakespeare completed abroad by South Africans recently or currently active in the country. A few items in which Shakespeare is an important subordinate focus are included. The second list is devoted to Shakespearean pedagogy. Neither list is comprehensive.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1993
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1993
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455547 , vital:75438 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_23
- Description: This checklist is in two parts. The first lists South African Shakespearean theses and dissertations, as well as some work on Shakespeare completed abroad by South Africans recently or currently active in the country. A few items in which Shakespeare is an important subordinate focus are included. The second list is devoted to Shakespearean pedagogy. Neither list is comprehensive.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1993
Much Ado: Directed by Linda-Louise Swain, 2006. 21 February-4 March: theatre review
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455654 , vital:75446 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48071
- Description: Shakespeare’s comedies are full of froth and frivol, none more so than Much Ado, which purportedly advertises an overt lack of seriousness in its title. If a production misses the essential lightness of such plays, two things happen. First, the audience is lost, hopelessly at sea, completely bewildered. Second, those unexpected moments where the genius of comedy suddenly erupts in searing insight become indistinguishable from the general temper of events.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455654 , vital:75446 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48071
- Description: Shakespeare’s comedies are full of froth and frivol, none more so than Much Ado, which purportedly advertises an overt lack of seriousness in its title. If a production misses the essential lightness of such plays, two things happen. First, the audience is lost, hopelessly at sea, completely bewildered. Second, those unexpected moments where the genius of comedy suddenly erupts in searing insight become indistinguishable from the general temper of events.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Epic into Romance: The Tempest 4.1 and Virgil's Aeneid
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455641 , vital:75445 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_95
- Description: At the conclusion of the betrothal masque for Ferdinand and Miranda, during the dance of the nymphs and reapers, Prospero calls out to the performing spirits," Well done, A void. No more." He has forgotten, as he tells us," that foul conspiracyl Of the beast Caliban and his confed-erates! Against my life"(4.1. 139-41). The entire spectacle vanishes into nothingness. Miranda and Ferdinand are taken aback. Miranda says she's never seen her father in such a state before. Prospero pretends that Ferdinand is alarmed, not by Prospero's own state of emotional disarray, but by the collapse of the masque. And he turns to Ferdinand and launches into what must be one of the three or four best-known speeches in Shakespeare: Be cheerful, sir; Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air, And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insub-stantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.(4.1. 148-158).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455641 , vital:75445 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_95
- Description: At the conclusion of the betrothal masque for Ferdinand and Miranda, during the dance of the nymphs and reapers, Prospero calls out to the performing spirits," Well done, A void. No more." He has forgotten, as he tells us," that foul conspiracyl Of the beast Caliban and his confed-erates! Against my life"(4.1. 139-41). The entire spectacle vanishes into nothingness. Miranda and Ferdinand are taken aback. Miranda says she's never seen her father in such a state before. Prospero pretends that Ferdinand is alarmed, not by Prospero's own state of emotional disarray, but by the collapse of the masque. And he turns to Ferdinand and launches into what must be one of the three or four best-known speeches in Shakespeare: Be cheerful, sir; Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air, And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insub-stantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.(4.1. 148-158).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
Bollywood Twelfth Night: Steven Beresford's Production. Albery Theatre, London, September 2004: theatre review
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455629 , vital:75444 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48040
- Description: BOLLYWOOD TWELFTH NIGHT : Steven Beresford's Production. Albery Theatre, London, September 2004. LAURENCE WRIGHT A Bollywood Shakespeare? Why not? Steven Beresford's directorial debut in West End theatre was pleasant rather than stunning, and one came away with a sense of the possibilities he had envisioned, more than those he had realized. The show opens with a tropical monsoon, sponsor of comedy's shipwreck. The setting is present-day India, a run-down street in a large city.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455629 , vital:75444 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48040
- Description: BOLLYWOOD TWELFTH NIGHT : Steven Beresford's Production. Albery Theatre, London, September 2004. LAURENCE WRIGHT A Bollywood Shakespeare? Why not? Steven Beresford's directorial debut in West End theatre was pleasant rather than stunning, and one came away with a sense of the possibilities he had envisioned, more than those he had realized. The show opens with a tropical monsoon, sponsor of comedy's shipwreck. The setting is present-day India, a run-down street in a large city.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
Aspects of Shakespeare in post-colonial Africa
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1990
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455614 , vital:75443 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_182
- Description: Two views capture in cameo the most obvious conflict over Shake-speare's presence in post-colonial Africa. The late Okot p'Bitek, when newly appointed as Director of Uganda's National Theatre, set tradi-tional drummers to play outside the building; he was, in David Rubadiri's words," challenging... the British Council, which thought it had exclusive rights to put Shakespeare there all the time instead of getting the ordi-nary people... to come and see local plays".
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1990
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1990
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455614 , vital:75443 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_182
- Description: Two views capture in cameo the most obvious conflict over Shake-speare's presence in post-colonial Africa. The late Okot p'Bitek, when newly appointed as Director of Uganda's National Theatre, set tradi-tional drummers to play outside the building; he was, in David Rubadiri's words," challenging... the British Council, which thought it had exclusive rights to put Shakespeare there all the time instead of getting the ordi-nary people... to come and see local plays".
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1990
Ariel in Africa: Leslie French and the Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival
- Mann, Bruce, Wright, Laurence
- Authors: Mann, Bruce , Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455588 , vital:75441 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_168
- Description: The Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival has good reason to remember the 23'd April. Quite apart from its being the official birthday of Shakespeare and St. George (after whom the park was named in which Mannville, the company's open air theatre, stands today), the 23'd April 1904 was the birthday of Leslie French, doyen of classical theatre in South Africa in the last century, whose productions established and consolidated open-air theatre in Port Elizabeth. He had a varied and successful career in the performing arts well before his association with South African theatre began. A gifted boy singer, his first appearance was in London at the Little Theatre, December 141", 1914, while he was still a chorister at the London College of Choristers. In the next four years he appeared regularly with Jean Sterling Machinlay and Harcourt Williams at the Margaret Morris Theatre, as a soloist at many important London churches (including St. Margaret's, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral), as well as singing at the Royal Albert Hall and the Queen's Hall in the Chapel Ballad Concerts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
- Authors: Mann, Bruce , Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455588 , vital:75441 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_168
- Description: The Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival has good reason to remember the 23'd April. Quite apart from its being the official birthday of Shakespeare and St. George (after whom the park was named in which Mannville, the company's open air theatre, stands today), the 23'd April 1904 was the birthday of Leslie French, doyen of classical theatre in South Africa in the last century, whose productions established and consolidated open-air theatre in Port Elizabeth. He had a varied and successful career in the performing arts well before his association with South African theatre began. A gifted boy singer, his first appearance was in London at the Little Theatre, December 141", 1914, while he was still a chorister at the London College of Choristers. In the next four years he appeared regularly with Jean Sterling Machinlay and Harcourt Williams at the Margaret Morris Theatre, as a soloist at many important London churches (including St. Margaret's, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral), as well as singing at the Royal Albert Hall and the Queen's Hall in the Chapel Ballad Concerts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001