Open-Air Shakespeare

Under Australian Skies

R. Gaby

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781349490936, 9781137426857
• eBook ISBN: 9781137426864
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Critica letteraria asiatica

Many people today first encounter staged Shakespeare in an open-air setting. This book traces the history of open-air Shakespeares in Australia to investigate why the anomaly of adapting 400-year old plays under Australian skies exerts such a strong appeal.

1

Early Experiments: Pastoral and Elizabethan Staging

Abstract: This chapter charts the early history of outdoor Shakespeares in Australia from the first productions mounted in the gardens of stately homes to the experiments in Elizabethan performance conditions of the 1950s and 1960s that aimed to showcase the comparative advantages of the Elizabethan open-air stage. Open-air Shakespeares discussed here include those staged by Allan Wilkie’s touring company in the 1920s, Colin Ballantyne’s 1951 As You Like It in Adelaide, and various productions staged in Perth at the University of Western Australia through to the opening of the University’s New Fortune theatre with Hamlet in 1964.

Gaby, Rosemary. Open-Air Shakespeare: Under Australian Skies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. DOI: 10.1057/9781137426864.0005.

Pastoral players

British settlers brought to Australia a rich theatrical heritage in which Shakespeare played a central role. For colonial Australia, Shakespeare functioned as an important point of contact with “the mother country” and as an occasion to escape from the local, alien landscape. As Bill Dunstone writes:

Shakespeare appears to have epitomized a stable, but scarcely attainable, Britishness to settlers who imagined their immediate surrounds to be “something unformed, illegible and intractable.”¹

The performance of Shakespearean texts transported settler audiences to another hemisphere and, in effect, embodied a devaluation of the southern hemisphere locality in which they sat. Shakespeare was produced in hermetically sealed environments: spaces in which audiences might forget they were in Australia and enter an alternative Shakespearean world untrammelled by their colonial history.

While the earliest Shakespeare productions in Australia were staged in found spaces – rough “fit-up” theatres in huts, hotels, and even bakeries – purpose-built theatres were soon constructed. A Theatre Royal opened in Sydney in 1833 and another in Hobart in 1837 and within a few decades elaborate Victorian theatres, some accommodating 3000–4000 people, were a focal point in most major towns and cities. By the 1880s, theatre design in Australia was beginning to take heed of the climate and the need for ventilation,² but for most of the nineteenth century the industry’s primary concern was to create spaces that replicated and rivalled the theatres of England; spaces that could adequately house the productions of touring tragedians such as G.V. Brooke, Barry Sullivan, Charles Kean and George Rignold. In effect, a visit to a Shakespearean performance in nineteenth-century Australia ostensibly provided an opportunity to escape local colonial space and connect with the British cultural centre.

By the turn of the century, however, some theatre enthusiasts were giving consideration to the suitability of the Australian climate for outdoor Shakespeare production. Reports of Ben Greet’s open-air Shakespeares in England started to appear in Australian newspapers, spreading the idea that “the ‘plein-air’ school”³ was the latest theatrical fashion. One review of Greet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1900 carried the headline, “A Hint for Sydney”;⁴ another item in 1899 for a section entitled “Women’s Realm” noted the shifting social mores that allowed an association between theatrical performance and church fundraising:

A theatrical performance in aid of church funds would seem most daring to old fashioned folk, but such a show was given lately by Mr Ben Greet’s company in the beautiful garden of Chelsea Rectory. “As You Like It” was the play chosen, with Dorothea Baird as Rosalind, and the play went admirably amongst pastoral accessories of century-old trees and trim lawns. As the fund to be benefited was for the electric-lighting of St. Luke’s Church, the entire modernity of the whole proceeding was most pronounced in this latest union of church and stage.⁵

Michael Dobson describes Ben Greet as “the single most important popularizer of outdoor Shakespeare” and claims that, though himself a hard-headed professional, Greet’s commitment to pastoral locations had a huge influence on amateur Shakespeare production.⁶ That influence extended to Australia where the first open-air Shakespeare productions were novelty events organized for charity and held in the gardens of local stately homes.

Open-air productions began in Australia at least as early as 1891 when As You Like It was staged “on the lawn in front of the Rev. Dr Harris’s residence, at the King’s School, Parramatta” in Sydney. A short review provides scant information, noting that the lawn was “realistically got up to represent the forest of Arden” and that there was a large attendance, but “unfortunately the weather militated against the success of the play.”⁷ A decade later, another Sydney production of As You Like It at Darling Point garnered much more attention. The play was staged in October 1901 within the grounds of “Mona” – generously provided by Mrs S.M. Rowe according to advertisements – and ran for two night-time performances and one matinee. The production raised funds for the Hospital for Sick Children and seems to have been an elaborate and fashionable social event. The actors playing Orlando, Jaques, and Touchstone were “specially engaged,” the entertainment included the Lotus Glee Club and the Vice-Regal Orchestra, and the opening night was “witnessed by his Excellency Rear-Admiral Sir Lewis Beaumont and suite.”⁸ To ensure comfort, advertisements announced that plans for reserved seats and boxes could be viewed in advance. An extended review in the Sydney Morning Herald links the production with Lady Archibald Campbell’s pastoral representations at Coombe Wood, Kingston-on-Thames, jokingly noting the possibility of seeing Rosalind play her part in galoshes. In the event, the threat of rain and a strong breeze did not mar the occasion and within the sheltered site “not a word was missed.” The production design made full use of the garden setting:

The lawn on which the spectators were placed sloped almost imperceptibly towards the play-scene, which was guarded on either side by two lofty sentinel pine trees. A screen of bushes concealed the orchestra and those of the actors off the stage, whilst the same means had been adroitly employed so as to give the effect of natural entrances to the forest glade. The powerful lights which illuminated the sphere of action were almost entirely hidden by foliage.⁹

Scenic verisimilitude was clearly a priority here, necessitating the sublimation of theatrical signifiers. Ironically, for this reviewer at least, attempts to conceal orchestra and actors actually drew attention to the division between onstage and offstage spaces.

As You Like It was the play of the moment for open-air productions at the beginning of the twentieth century. Clearly it was seen as the pastoral play that would most easily fit with the garden settings chosen for performance. Perhaps, too, it seemed more appropriate than A Midsummer Night’s Dream for events that were frequently associated with local church organizations. In February 1902 it was performed in the grounds of Jesmond House in Newcastle and helped raise £131 for the Anglican Cathedral fund. The production was notable for its Rosalind – Mrs J. R. Wood, better known as Essie Jenyns, a professional actress renowned in Australia for her Shakespearean performances. Jenyns had retired from the stage when she married in 1888, but later performed occasionally for charitable causes. This production was “worked up in seven days,” and the main attraction seems to have been Jenyns herself, who was repeatedly recalled at the end of the performance and showered with bouquets.

In the same month As You Like It was staged outdoors in Adelaide, South Australia, by members of the Cowandilla and University Shakespeare societies at “The Briars,” Medindie, in aid of the Boys’ Brigade. A lengthy review in The Register claimed that on a hot Saturday the event would have been unpleasant indoors, but that the novelty of the outdoor setting was a strong attraction, drawing around a thousand spectators and proving “what has been contended for in ‘The Register’ – that in a climate like ours open-air performances would become popular if encouraged.”¹⁰ The writer reveals a strong preference for scenic verisimilitude nevertheless, stressing how un-Australian the gardens seemed:

It was an exquisite moonlit night, and those who watched that perfect Arcadian picture at “The Briars” must have forgotten for the nonce that they were in dry South Australia. When somebody whispered in your ear that a million gallons of water had been used on the garden in a month you could understand how it was that everything was so delightfully fresh and green.¹¹

Much of the pleasure from the evening came from the felicitous conjunction of fine weather and botanical beauty. Whereas Rosalind (Miss Mabel Haslam) “looked exceedingly well, although she was a little too glaringly painted on one cheek,” the garden, illumined with limelight, inspired an elegiac description:

The play took place on a beautiful buffalo grass lawn surrounded ... by lovely olive trees. Away in the background were towering pines. Running away from the path were rows of chairs, and then a raised staging with seats in tiers. A great palm tree, with a wealth of graceful le...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction: Open-Air Shakespeare, Space, Place, and Performance
• 1  Early Experiments: Pastoral and Elizabethan Staging
• 2  Pageants and Festivals: Shakespeare in the Street
• 3  Glenn Elston and the Rise of Picnic Shakespeares
• 4  From Local Park to National Park: After the 1980s
• Conclusion
• Select Bibliography
• Index