That Shakespeare Life

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Ep 94: James Loehlin and the 16th Century Question Mark Feb 03, 2020

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No one asks a question better than William Shakespeare. When we explore his plays, they are full of question marks but it turns out that for the 16th century, the concept of what constituted a question was still a new thing for printers who were in charge of selecting the actual marks which would go on the page to indicate a question. Not to mention, since Shakespeare's plays were written on paper originally, or recounted in letters, often times the text that printers were working with to compile works like the First Folio required the printers to interpret pretty hard to read Elizabethan handwriting. That resulted in what is known as punctuation variations, and as our guest this week presented at the recent Blackfriars Conference, there were even some writers who suggested there be brand new kinds for question marks all together. Our guest, James Loehlin, is here this week to take us back to Shakespeare's England and explore how we know when Shakespeare was actually intending to ask a question.

Ep93: Julia Lupton and Shakespeare's Role at State Banquets Jan 27, 2020

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For many of the performances we know Shakespeare performed at Whitehall Palace, including staging "Twelfth Night" in 1602, he would have performed at Banqueting House. Unfortunately, the original Banqueting House burned down after Shakespeare died, and while rebuilt in 1622 by the famous Inigo Jones for James I , the structure there today is not the original site where Shakespeare's company would have performed. Nevertheless, the name Banqueting House reminds us that for Queen Elizabeth the banquet was a large affair, full of all the pomp and circumstance you might expect from the Queen of England. After all, these state occasions were often used to welcome and entertain visiting dignitaries as well as to mark special occasions, such as royal birthdays or the Christmas season. But what was Shakespeare's role at these banquets? We know he was there, but was he just a performer, there to put on a play, or was he allowed to be a guest at the lavish dinners as well? And what were the standard aspects of a royal banquet in the 16th century that would have been seen and heard in the Palace of Whitehall or Hampton Court Palace those years that Shakespeare was performing there? Here to take us back to Shakespeare's lifetime and help us experience the formal banquet through the eyes of Shakespeare is our guest, Julia Lupton.

Ep92: Helen Cooper on Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Mystery Plays Jan 20, 2020

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Theater began in England as a way for the church to share messages about the Bible with the public. Written in Latin, the Bible was not accessible to parishioners outside of mass and Catholic England relayed the tales of heroism and miracles found in the Bible through dramatic productions. This tradition came with some particular approaches to storytelling, theater, and stagecraft. As with much of what the Church did in the Middle Ages, they had rules about what was acceptable to perform which was the gold standard for public performances for centuries. After the dissolution of the monasteries and the establishment of the Church of England, the nation as a whole redefined much of its' culture, including its' approach to theater. For William Shakespeare, he was born as the nation was still trying to figure out where it was going to stand in terms of defining good theater and rules about performance, and in many ways, the stage was set during his infancy for the bard to take the world by storm through theater. We can see influences of the biblical mystery plays in Shakespeare's works, and the bard was known to heavily consult poets from the medieval period like Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower in writing plays like The Two Noble Kinsmen, and Pericles. But do these influences mean Shakespeare's plays are products of the humanist movement in which he was living, or does his work build on the medieval foundations that preceded him? Our guest this week, Dr. Helen Cooper, argues that Shakespeare's London really ought to be called "Medieval London in the age of Shakespeare" and we are delighted to have her here to share with us how she came to this conclusion.

Ep91: Alicia Andrzejewski and 16th Century Pregnancy Tests Jan 13, 2020

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When you study the life of William Shakespeare, one of the first facts you will learn pretty quickly is that his wife, Anne Hathaway was pregnant when she and William were married. We know she was pregnant based on the birth records of Susanna Shakespeare, who was born just about 5 months after the November 2, 1582 marriage of Anne and William Shakespeare. But as anyone who has had children will tell you, until you are far enough along to start feeling the baby, you use a pregnancy test to confirm if a woman is pregnant, which brings up two important questions about the life of Shakespeare: Did Anne Hathaway know she was pregnant when she got married? Did William know it, too? And if they did know, what did they use to find out? Here to answer all of these questions and to help us explore the history of prenatal medicine, and 16th century pregnancy tests, is our guest, Alicia Andrzejewski.

Ep90: Taresh Solanki and King Edward VI Grammar School Jan 06, 2020

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In the 16th century, King Edward VI before he died quite young, was focused on bringing education to the small towns and villages of England and that included officially chartering a school in Stratford Upon Avon called, fittingly, King Edward VI Grammar School. This school is where all the boys, including William Shakespeare, went to school for their primary education. There are a lot of myths and theories about the education of young William Shakespeare, and our guest this week, Taresh Solanski, is here to walk us through the history of the school itself, sharing what was studied there, how long students went to school each day, and what it was like growing up in Stratford Upon Avon as a young boy.

Ep89: Mira Kafantaris and the Spanish Matches Dec 30, 2019

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William Shakespeare lived in a time when politics and religion ruled the strategy of Kings and Queens throughout Europe, but perhaps the most notable method of securing peace for the self-styled King of Peace was through marriage. Bringing his own form of stability back to England through his marriage and children on the heels of the infamously virgin Queen and heirless monarch, Elizabeth I, James had marriage as a focal point of both his life and his political strategy. One of the defining moments of his reign was his and Queen Anne's focus on procuring marriage to his son Charles, and seeking out specifically a Spanish Match for that son. Today, our guest Mira Kafantaris is here to share with us the history of James "Spanish Match",what the cultural reception to all of the marriage for peace was in the common realm of England during and just after Shakespeare's lifetime, and whether we can see echoes of this cultural reality show up in the plays of the bard.

Ep88: Jared Kirby and Fencing at the Blackfriars Dec 23, 2019

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When Hamlet and Laertes duel in the final act of Shakespeare's Hamlet, they are using a very specific style of fencing called rapier and dagger fencing. It's called for in the stage directions and the dialogue of the text as well. Other plays like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as well as King Lear also use very specific fencing terminology that demonstrates a knowledge of contemporary fencing styles at the highest level of the fencing industries and Shakespeare's indoor playhouse, the Blackfriars was even a professional fencing school before it was bought by the Burbages for use as a theater. But what does that mean William Shakespeare knew about fencing, and did he work with some of the famous fencing masters of the 16th century like Rocco Bonetti, Vincento Saviolo, and others? Here to take us back to the 1590s, as Shakespeare was writing some of his most famous fight scenes in plays like Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and even Henry V, to share with us where the life of William Shakespeare overlaps with the history of fencing, and explore where Shakespeare learned about swordsmanship, as well as the role of professional fencing in the theater, is our guest professional fight coordinator for stage and film, Jared Kirby.

Ep 87: Kenilworth Castle with Philippa Brewell Dec 16, 2019

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One of the greatest mysteries about the life of William Shakespeare is where, precisely did the bard first encounter theater. Was it the roving theater companies which speckled the countryside with their pop up performances for which Shakespeare's father was the town alderman, and therefore would have had to approve the players when they appeared in Stratford? Or was it at Grammar School, where students used theater to learn their Latin, English, and transcription? Well, for many one of the most tantalizing suggestions about where Shakespeare first saw a large scale theater production was when he was just 11 years old. That year, in 1575, Robert Dudley used an elaborate theatrical display as part of his presentation to Elizabeth I where he tried to woo, and propose to the queen. Though his efforts ultimately proved in vain, the fact that many of the features of the performance that day show up in Shakespeare's plays later in life, lead many historians to speculate that the Shakespeare family, and young William in particular, just might have made the relatively short journey from Stratford to Kenilworth Castle, being drawn in by the promise of a grand display and the potential for a glimpse of the Queen.

Here today to help us explore the story of Kenilworth Castle, Robert Dudley's proposal, and how likely it might be for Shakespeare to have attended, is our guest, Philippa Brewell. Philippa visited with us for our very first episode of That Shakespeare Life and we are simply delighted to welcome her back to the show.

EP 86: Amy Lidster on Philip Henslowe's Diary Dec 09, 2019

Show notes

In Elizabethan England, much of what we know about how theaters were operated comes from the diary of a man who ran dozens of theaters during Shakespeare's lifetime: Philip Henslowe. Henslowe was enterprising and ambitious, setting up the Bear Garden for bear baiting, and establishing the Rose, the Fortune, and the Hope theaters, among others. Throughout his dealings with numerous playing companies including Shakespeare's The Lord Chamberlain's Men, Henslowe kept a diary about who he paid to perform, what productions were done, and even what props and costumes were used. The result is a fascinating tale of bits and pieces that give a real insider's look into the daily operations of what it meant to hire actors, collaborate across playing companies, and even part of how Henslowe was able to achieve a royal office in the court of James I as a theater owner in Shakespeare's lifetime. Since we do not have a similar diary of Shakespeare's dealings at The Globe, Henslowe's records help us see into the world of Shakespeare's theater to get an idea of what it was like to build dragons, stage the Battle of Shrewsbury, and where exactly the resources came from to pull off the grand feats of performance these theaters have gone down in history as having accomplished.

Our guest this week, Amy Lidster, returns to the podcast for her second visit here at That Shakespeare Life to talk with us about Henslowe and his diaries.

Ep 85: Anthony Bale and Jews in 16th Century England Dec 02, 2019

Show notes

There were only a few hundred Jews living in England during Shakespeare's lifetime, and of the ones who were there, they would meet and worship in secret. Outwardly, these Jews would either have converted to Christianity or lied about their faith to keep from coming under suspicion. As callous as it seems for the nation to have been suspicious of Jews, famous Jewish people in high places, like Roderigo Lopez, physician to Queen Elizabeth I, gave the nation cause to be scared of them as Lopez was arrested for trying to poison the Queen. Despite the suspicions around Jewish people, and their faith, many Jews were employed at universities like Oxford and Cambridge during Shakespeare's lifetime, as teachers of Hebrew, and even at the Bodleian library helping with the Hebrew collections there. In light of Shakespeare's very Jewish play, Merchant of Venice, we have our guest, Dr. Athony Bale, here this week to help us explore the presence, reputation, and reception of Jews, and characters like Shylock, by the average playgoer during Shakespeare's lifetime.

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