Does Dramaturgy Help Shakespearean Actors?

DRAMATURGS—WARNING SIGN OR ACTOR’S ALLY? If a casting notice mentions that there is a ‘production dramaturg’, then there are some things any actor should know about the dramaturg’s role. The first question for an actor is why is there a dramaturg at all? In our case, it is not the scale of our Shakespeare productions that necessitates a dramaturg--they are very small-- but the complexity of the interpretation that we are trying to convey. Our play development process could not be sustained by any ordinary theater, since our productions take place primarily as experiments in dramaturgy and in re-interpreting Shakespeare’s plays. Our main objective is to demonstrate the underlying allegories and inter-textual allusions in the play and to train a group of actors in allegorical theater. So our dramaturgy is an essential0Aprocess in creating and maintaining the overall meaning of the play, training the cast in this way of seeing, and then transferring that learning to the production. This is much more substantial than implied in the LMDA job description! Secondly, how does the dramaturg work with the director? In our case the director manages the play horizontally or longitudinally, from beginning to end. The dramaturg manages the play vertically in terms of how it relates inter-textually to other works, other plays, and how these allusions create the meaning of the play. The director is responsible for the plot, the actions, the lighting, the budget, and whether the surface of the play makes sense. The dramaturg is responsible for the underlying allegorical levels of the play and how they get communicated through that surface. In business it would be called ‘matrix management’ when two individuals are each responsible for a different dimension of a problem. Thirdly does the dramaturg impact the development process? In our case the process starts with the dramaturg, and typically takes 4 to 6 months of

trying to comprehend the meaning of the play, reading the relevant scholarship, and creating a first version of the script. This leads to briefing the actors and initial table readings which articulate a very rough version of the meanings. Then the director begins working on refining the script, and a process of negotiation begins between the horizontal and vertical dimensions. Finally does the dramaturg make it easier for the actor to understand the play, the playwright’s intention and their role? Off Off Broadway actors working multiple jobs do not have the time to do academic research to understand the meaning of a Shakespearean play. So our play analysis process creates discussion around the relevant pieces of the scholarly literature. For instance, as we prepare to play Ophelia as an allegory for the Virgin Mary, this required researching Renaissance theories of how she conceived Jesus like maggots in a dead dog, and on the various abortion-causing herbs that Ophelia appears with, and the implications of her death as a failed Assumption into Heaven. A more complex example is Othello, where Desdemona begins being alluded to as the Virgin Mary, then--on the feast day on which Joseph discovered that Mary was with child--she begins to be referred to using Jesus imagery, indicating that she represents the pregnant Virgin. This then leads to understanding that her husband was initially composed out of events in the life of Josephus, the well-known Judean general, then the anxious Joseph in the mystery plays, and finally from the gospel tomb scene with Joseph of Arimathea. Complex certainly, but once they are appreciated, these allusions and allegories create wonderful new opportunities for actors to understand how their character has been composed and what the playwright intended. So next time you see a casting notice in Backstage for a Shakespearean play, without a dramaturg, it means it will probably be straightforward to rehearse and perform. If there a dramaturg however, it probably means the production is attempting something much more risky---such as radically re-inventing Shakespearean performance.

John Hudson is dramaturg to the Dark Lady Players, an experimental Shakespeare company. Their next demonstration of the Virgin Mary allegories in Shakespeare’s plays is at ManhattanTheaterSource at 3pm on 5th September. He can be reached at [email protected].