Review: The RSC's production of Love's Labour's Lost

This Autumn, I have been lucky enough to see the RSC's production of Love's Labour's Lost on two occasions: a fact which, I hope, tells you how much I enjoyed it! As far as we know, this Winter is the first time that Love's Labour's Won (sometimes going by the name of Much Ado About Nothing) and Love's Labour's Lost have ever been performed in conjunction with one another: enough to give any early-modernist mild palpitations! The two productions have gone down an absolute storm, winning 4 and 5 star reviews from all the major newspapers.

The production is set in summer, just prior to the outbreak of World War One, with Love's Labour's Won set on the other side of this unifying concept, just after the end of the war. Given this year's centenary anniversary of the start of the war, this fact in itself is not, perhaps, surprising. What Christopher Luscombe manages to do with this setting, however, was certainly a pleasant surprise! It was one of the best productions by the RSC that I have ever seen (the other two contenders being last year's Titus Andronicus and A Mad World My Masters). The unrelentingly fast-paced witticisms of the play, which have often seen it collecting dust in theatre repertoires, were superbly delivered by all the cast, but particularly so by Edward Bennett's Berone, and Michelle Terry's Rosaline. This is a play whose dialogue requires impeccable timing and delivery, and in no way did the cast disappoint.

Stealing the show at several points, though, was Nick Haverson's Costard. Playing on a dynamic that was certainly reminiscent of Basil and Manuel from Fawlty Towers (it's not as anachronistic as it sounds, I promise!), Costard and Adriano don Armado (John Hodgkinson) produced several of the biggest laughs. This was especially the case during Costard's failure to understand the meaning of 'remuneration' (from Armado's direction to him to deliver his letter to Jacquenetta: 'bear this significant [Gives a letter] to the country maid Jaquenetta: | There is remuneration'). I'm not going to say any more than that, as I don't want to ruin the joke for any of you who might still go and see this production. That said, however, think Manuel's sustained monologue in one episode about  speaking English well because 'I learned it from a booook', and you're on the right lines.

Whilst these various bits of characterization meant, for the first half and for most of the second, that we were in no doubt we were watching a Shakespeare comedy, the final ten minutes or so were incredibly moving. Developing the short masque, or show, performed by the Nine Worthies in the final scenes, Luscombe chose to move the news of the death of the Princess of France's father, and had the herald arrive to deliver the news before this masque had finished.  With an action like a guillotine, this news signalled that the comedy of this production was emphatically over. Never have a seen such a shift in tone handled so well. As the anticipation that war was about to break out grew, the sudden realization that the hedgerow (which had taken centre stage at the back of the set during the outdoor scenes), was scattered with poppies, immediately took on a new poignancy.

During a closing song that was born out of setting part of Berone's sonnet, addressed to Rosaline, to music, this shift from comedy to sombre respect and painful goodbyes was accelerated. As the song, sung by the entire cast, drew to a close, a faint whistle was heard, and the four friends of Berone, Longaville, Holofernes, and Dumaine marched on stage, dressed in full military uniform, and faced the cast. After Don Armado delivered the final lines, 'The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of | Apollo. You that way: we this way', the four departed. Off they went to the war to end all wars, giving their earlier promises of a faithful return to their loved ones in twelve months time a tragically open-ended and uncertain tinge, chillingly reflecting the optimism with which the news of the war was originally met.

This was a truly triumphant production, and one which I would happily go back and watch again and again. Whilst many programmes on television have tried to sensitively pay homage to the centenary anniversary of World War One, this production is by far the best approach I have seen. Proof yet again that the work of the bard really is timeless.

'Varieties of Dissenting Expression': a one-day conference

Yesterday, I attended the one-day 'Varieties of Dissenting Expression' conference at Dr Williams's Library in London! I had the pleasure of spending the day there with one of my Ph.D supervisors, Dr Rachel Adcock (@RachelCAdcock if you are on Twitter!). The day was organised by the Centre for the English-Speaking World of Aix-Marseille Université in association with the Dr Williams's Centre for Dissenting Studies and the University of Liverpool.

The conference focused on the forms of dissenting expression available to dissenters and their congregations, both in England and in America, throughout the seventeenth century. Within this remit, it also looked at how the written materials available to dissenting communities and congregations were intimately related to their religious and social experiences.

It was a conference packed with a great variety of papers given by scholars from many different areas of academia: several covered the usefulness of the contents of Church Record books to researchers; others examined the transition of these records into the digital age; and another looked at the relationship between poetry, politics and dissenting experience. Anyone who knows my research interests will immediately be able to tell that this last paper was the one I was most excited about!

That said, the talk from Margaret Bendroth (Executive Director of the Congregational Library, Boston, MA) and James F. Cooper (who also does work with this library) was fascinating. Their intention is to recover the church records of congregations across America, and to be able to provide digitized versions of them both to researchers, and to those who are just curious to explore their religious heritage. The website for the library is a veritable treasure trove for researchers so, if you are at all interested in religious writing, and especially that relating to dissent or congregationalists, then I urge you to go and explore: http://www.congregationallibrary.org/. I for one will definitely be returning to this website, and am very tempted to look into the possibility of doing some transcription of the church records: watch this space! Both Peggy and Jeff (as they are commonly known!) were wonderful speakers, and have inspired me to seriously take note of this oft-neglected avenue of research. Just because a resource is not 'literary' in the strictest sense, does not mean that it will be of no use to us!

The final paper that Rachel and I were able to go to was George Southcombe's wonderful talk on 'Poetry, Politics and Dissenting Experience'. Throughout my studies, any non-conformist poetry that I have come across, or paid significant attention to, has tended to be that of the libertines. Whilst this poetry is certainly worthy of our attention, I was excited by several new names that George's paper brought to my attention, including Robert Wild and Benjamin Keach (if I had heard of these men before, I had definitely forgotten...). So, apart from opening my eyes to an area of poetry that I have definitely neglected until now, George's paper reminded me of the need to always see the poetry of dissenters as participating in a much broader early-modern culture. In other words, the fact that they, like other 'conformist' writers, used the poetry of their predecessors such as Milton and Dryden for their specific political purposes, should mean that we read their work within the broader context of seventeenth-century poetry. A valuable point to bear in mind!

All in all, the day was a brilliant one (despite the 4.30am start!), and has really ignited my passion for research once again. I don't know about all of you, but I find going to stimulating conferences like this one always reminds me of the reasons why I love what I do.

If you are curious about the other things that the Dr Williams's Centre for Dissenting Studies has to offer, do have a look at their website: http://www.english.qmul.ac.uk/drwilliams/

'Absence extinguishes the minor passions and increases the great ones': We're back!

After what seems like an age, I am pleased to announce that the little corner of the internet that is 'My Early-Modern World' is back up and running! Cue some seventeenth-century merriment:

So, where have I been since the last post back in February (*hangs head in shame*)? Truthfully, I haven't really been anywhere, largely due to the whirlwind of fun and stress that was my MA year! Unfortunately, after that last post in February, I decided that it was easier to take some time off from the blog so that I could focus my attention solely on my MA work and other commitments (alongside the fact that much of the work I was doing didn't really lend itself to blogging!). This level of focus did have its drawbacks, though, but I will be saying more on that in an upcoming post that I hope will highlight some of the struggles that PGT and PGR students face during their research and studies.

Anyway, I am pleased to announce that one of the very exciting products from these last few months has been my offer to start my Ph.D in my beloved Department of English and Drama at Loughborough University! As you will see from a forthcoming post, I am only really starting to now get underway, but I cannot tell you how excited I am by the prospect of everything to come over the next few years. Another plus point of my entry into PGR study is also that, by its very nature, I will be finding far more little snippets of seventeenth-century literature and culture to share with you all: huzzah!

So, there is my little explanation as to where I have been over the last 6 months or so, and I look forward to sharing all the goings-on of my Ph.D in due course!

Just in case any of you don't know, you can also follow the blog on Twitter: @MyEMWorld.

(The quotation from the title of this post is from Francois de la Rochefoucauld's Reflections: or, Sentences and Moral Maxims: 'L'absence diminue les médiocres passions, et augmente les grandes, comme le vent éteint les bougies et allume le feu' (Maxim 276)).