Shakespeare Performances in England, 1993–1994

Summary

Shakespeare productions intersect with many histories. When the Duke tells Angelo, ‘There is a kind of character in thy life / That to th’observer doth thy history / Fully unfold’ (1.1.27–9), he is probably as wrong about Angelo as commentators tend to be about any theatre production. Thomas Postlewait’s brilliant analysis of the difficulties and contradictions of writing theatre history, using as his example the first London production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, is as applicable to the problems of writing about a production one has seen as to the problems of recovering information about a production one has not. Yet only parts of the history can be unfolded and parts of a production’s engagement with some of the interlocking patterns of history can be much more fully set out than others.

Productions intersect with the stage-history of the play, with the history of the theatre company, with the individual histories of all those associated with the development of the project (actors, director, designers). They set out, with more or less clarity, their engagement with specific historical moments: the moment of the play's first production, the moment of their own production, and the moments of history to which a production may allude. Their historical connections may interconnect with their geography, their place in the theatrical map as well as the places in which play and production are set: Measure for Measure's Vienna means different things at different times and a production in Stratford-upon-Avon means something different from a production in Stevenage.