Shakespearean Costuming Conditions in The Life and Death of Jack Straw.

One of the staging conditions we don't talk quite as much about here at Bad Quarto Productions is our costume choices, which are, like everything we do, inspired by what our counterparts in early modern London did to bring these plays to life. That is to say, we perform our plays largely in modern dress, usually using items we get from thrift shops.

John Ball (James Overton) delivers a sermon to incite a revolt in Bad Quarto Productions' 2016 presentation of  The Life and Death of Jack Straw. Directed by Tony Tambasco. Photo by James M. Smith. 

By and large, costumes in the early modern era came from the early modern equivalent of the thrift shop. It was customary for the well-to-do to leave their clothing to their servants when they died, but loosely enforced sumptuary laws prohibited those from the lower classes from wearing certain types of cloth in certain amounts, which usually corresponded with the types of clothing the ruling classes wore.

Since they couldn't wear them publicly, it was not uncommon for the servants to sell these wardrobe items to the playing companies: the Elizabethan equivalent of a thrift shop.

There are, of course, some aspects of the costuming of these shows that we have to bow to. Certain characters are referred to as wearing capes, cloaks, and often certain kinds of hats, and who could forget the swords? They're not exactly part of the modern suit and tie ensemble, but we can often make them work with a modern base of the suit and tie (dressing down from there).

The Peachum drawing.

That all said, we know that early modern players sometimes costumed there plays more specifically. When the King's Men first performed Middleton's political satire A Game at Chess in 1624, for example, they took some pains to acquire the wardrobe of Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Count of Gondomar, and former Spanish Ambassador to England, on whom Middleton based the character of the Black Knight. Likewise, the Peachum drawing suggests that togas might have been used for Titus Andronicus, which opens the door to their being used in other Roman plays.

Working with Joanne Famiglietti, who costumed The Life and Death of Jack Straw, when we were confronted with the question of what some of these characters might have worn, we didn't have to look too far to find an answer....

John Ball encouraging Wat Tyler rebels from ca 1470 MS of Froissart Chroniques de France et d'Angleterre in BL.

Granted that manuscript dates from about 100 years after the fact, but it gave us a pretty clear place to begin when designing the costume for James Overton, who plays John Ball in our production of Jack Straw (see the photo above). Froissart's Chronicle was also helpful for costuming the young King Richard II....

Death of Wat Tyler Froissart Chroniques de France et d'Angleterre Book II (c 1483) 175 BL Royal MS 18

We've seen that image before in our discussions of this play: while the image describes the death of Wat Tyler, the most prominent figure is King Richard II, in a blue robe atop his horse. Here is how that translated to our production....

King Richard II (Maria Pleshkevich) knights the Lord Mayor of London (Courtney McClellan) for his service during the revolt in a scene from Bad Quarto Productions performance of The Life and Death of Jack Straw. Directed by Tony Tambasco. Photo by James M. Smith

I like to put kings in lighter colored suits than the rest of the cast because it helps draw focus to them, and I wanted to use the same crown for Richard II that King Harry wore in our production of Cronicle Historie of Henry the Fift, but the blue cloak was suggested by Froissart.

Mounting a play at Bad Quarto Productions always means trying to create a modern early-modern experience of seeing them, which means, ultimately, that we filter what we know about the ways these plays were staged through a 21st century theatrical sensibility, and do so for the benefit of audiences who will likewise view the experience through their own 21st century theatrical sensibilities. It also means adapting the techniques of the early modern playing companies to the technologies and cultural institutions available to us today. How we costume our players is one of the foremost aspects of that process, even though it might not be one of the ones more commonly featured in our pre-show speeches.

Two Typefaces

If you've been keeping up with our most recent posters, you've probably noticed that our Second Shepherds' Play poster uses a different type face than some of our others....

That moderately fancy, and somewhat hard to read typeface in The Second Shepherds' Play title is what we refer to as "black letter," which differs from the more familiar typeface that you find in The Cronicle Historie of Henry the V the The Taming of a Shrew titles on their posters. And, yes, there is a reason for it.

The written word has been around a lot longer than the printed page, and around 1450, when Gutenberg introduced mechanical movable type printing to Europe, the earliest type faces were designed to emulate the letters of written script. We actually do this today all the time, and the number of typefaces (aka fonts) that come with whatever word processor you use: not only will your word processor simulate manuscript letters (think of your signature typefaces), but it will also simulate other forms of type, including the descendant of the type face on the Henry V and A Shrew titles above... Times New Roman.

The roman type face was a later development, and in its earliest applications was used for books printed in Latin (most schooling after the age of 6 would have been in Latin and Greek in early modern London). By the end of the 16th century, you can almost judge a book by it's typeface: books printed in roman typefaces catered to the more educated reader (who would have been accustomed to the typeface from their studies), and books designed for those without a formal education were printed in the blackletter typefaces that were reminiscent of the texts used in the most rudimentary levels of schooling.

The Wakefield manuscript, opened to the first page of
The Second Shepherds' Play

The use of a typeface that simulates those found in early modern printshops is one of the ways we set the tone for the type of performances you'll see at Bad Quarto Productions, and so we offer the blackletter font for our Second Shepherds' Play poster this year as a gesture to the manuscript writing that The Second Shepherds' Play survives in.

If you're interested in learning more about these fonts, or using them yourself, they are produced and distributed by Jeff Lee, and they are freely downloadable (and licensed for use) from his website.

Trust the Text - Part 1

Special thanks to Saralynn Evenson for the idea behind this post.

I have a theory that the best performances of Shakespeare all start with the acting clues already written into the script by Shakespeare himself. My work on Flewellen and The King of France for Bad Quarto’s 2014 production of Henry the Fift is proof this theory is correct!

Patrick Tucker's research suggests Shakespeare and his actors had busy performance schedules, often doing six or more different shows per week.

Patrick Tucker also suggests Shakespeare's actors never received the full script. This was done to save time writing and to prevent theft of the story.

With only their own lines to work from, the actors had no idea how the scenes would play out until they actually performed it in front of a paying audience. This meant their acting choices had to be bold and deliberate.

How did Shakespeare and his company pull off this impossible task?

SHAKESPEARE AS SHEET MUSIC

Imagine Shakespeare was a composer instead of a playwright, writing symphonies instead of plays.

To write these symphonies Shakespeare selects notes and chords for the proper effect, and indicates when to pause, when to grow louder, and when to speed up. Shakespeare’s musicians would have no problem reading the sheet music because they all speak the common language of music theory and musical notation.

This idea of “Shakespeare as composer” is more accurate than you might believe. Shakespeare used words and grammar like a composer uses notes and measures, creating a notation system with his actors to quickly communicate stage directions and character choices in his scripts.

Does this notation system work? What happens if we defy it?

THE SPEECH OF KINGS

Now you Lords of Orleance,
Of Bourbon, and of Berry,
You see the King of England is not slack,
For he is footed on this land alreadie.

— Scene 5

This is my first piece of dialogue as the King of France. This is what I know:

• The speech is written in verse
• The meter is iambic pentameter
• The first two lines are each only three measures long
• There are four , and one .
• The King references four people by title.

Verse Is Emotional

Language written in verse is more emotionally charged than prose and the character is choosing to speak this way. While speaking in verse suggests the King is fully invested in the invasion from England and has an opinion on the events, the fact that he's still speaking regular iambic pentameter suggest his emotions are still under control.

Short Lines Are Pauses

Short lines in a block of verse indicate a pause for stage business. The pause can be at the start of the line or at the end, but never in the middle. The stage business could be as simple as the King indicating each actor playing the lords. Or it could be used for a slow, methodical walk across the stage. Whatever the reason, it should be a bold, deliberate choice.

Thoughts Are Longer than You Think

The . indicates the end of a thought. The , are small gear shifts within that thought. Even though there are pauses for stage business in the speech, the momentum of the thought must be played through to the end.

Referencing People Means They're on Stage

The King's speech starts with Now you, which is a direct reference to someone in the playing space. This tells me Lord of Orleance, the Lord of Bourbon and the Lord of Berry are most likely on stage with the King during this scene. There may be other people on stage in addition to the three lords, but because the King doesn't reference them he might not know they are there.

The King of England is referenced indirectly, suggesting Henry is elsewhere during this scene.

Titles Reveal Relationship and Status

Addressing a character by name implies familiarity and equal social status. Addressing a character by title is more formal, and implies unequal social status. The King of France is the supreme head of state, and addressing the other characters on stage by their title of Lord suggests the King is still in command of his country.

The King of France references Henry by the title of King of England, suggesting recognition and respect of Henry as a legitimate monarch.

PERFORMING THE ROLE

The clues in this speech suggest the King of France is someone very thoughtful, who takes his time and calculates his every move. The King chooses his words carefully, and recognizes that his decisions about the war with England will decide the fate of his kingdom.

To emphasize the slow, methodical nature of the King, I may choose to move slowly and deliberately while on stage. To highlight the King's superior status, I may choose to remain in one place for the whole scene, forcing the other characters to change position.

LEAP OF FAITH

Whatever my choice as an actor, it must be bold because what I do on stage will influence the other actors' understanding of the scene. The King of France may think he's in command, so all my acting choices must announce this idea. The other characters on stage may disagree, so the actors must make strong choices to announce their disagreement.

Without rehearsal, there's no way of knowing how the scene plays out until its performed in front of the audience. As long as the King fights for what he believes in and the other characters do the same we have conflict, which is at the heart of every great play we love to watch.

Henry V and Shakespeare's Rape Culture

Tom Berger, scholar in residence at the American Shakespeare Center's graduate program at Mary Baldwin College, was fond of reminding us to be careful about applying our post-Enlightenment sensibilities to pre-Enlightenment works, which I have found to be a wise mantra for anyone who performs Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare's misogyny, in particular, can be appalling, and early modern rape culture is on full display in Henry V, or at least in the Folio version of it.

In versions of Henry V based on the Folio text, audiences are familiar with Henry's threat to the Governor of Harfleur:

If I begin the batt'rie once againe,
I will not leaue the halfe-atchieued Harflew,
Till in her ashes she lye buryed.
The Gates of Mercy shall be all shut vp,
And the flesh'd Souldier, rough and hard of heart,
In libertie of bloody hand, shall raunge
With Conscience wide as Hell, mowing like Grasse
Your fresh faire Virgins, and your flowring Infants. (TLN 1266 - 1273)

The quarto text implies more than it actually says:

if we begin the battery once againe
I will not leaue the halfe atchieued Harflew,
Till in her ashes she be buried,
The gates of mercie are all shut vp.
What say you, will you yeeld and this auoyd,
Or guiltie in defence be thus destroyd? (TLN 1265 - 1270)

Who knows why, but it's not hard to imagine either Burbage, Shakespare, or even the printer not wanting the epitome of Christian Kings threatening to order his men to rape the women and children of the first town in France he conquers.

By the time the play was printed, the gory specifics of Harry's threat were a bridge too far, and though the coarser verse in the quarto text may be a result of cutting and re-assembly, there are also possible performance implications of King Harry, who has previously declared that his passions are restrained by his reason, is uncomfortable with the idea of having to threaten (and follow through) this kind of destruction. Notably, the Folio-text verse, including the lines specifically threatening rape, is much more regular.

That all said, sexual violence was and is a part of war; it's not the part they put on the recruitment posters, and it's the part they want you to forget when they tell you to support the troops, but if the national embarrassment that was Abu Ghraib teaches us nothing else, it's that even female soldiers are not necessarily free from the lure of sexual violence in military conflict. This is all to say that Shakespeare, in the Folio text, may simply be acknowledging the reality of his (and Henry V's) time.

Still, the Folio text, the version regarded as solely the work of Shakespeare's hand, goes further:

     Dolphin. By Faith and Honor,
Our Madames mock at vs, and plainely say,
Our Mettell is bred out, and they will giue
Their bodyes to the Lust of English Youth,
To new-store France with Bastard Warriors.
     Brit. They bid vs to the English Dancing-Schooles,
And teach Lauolta's high, and swift Carranto's,
Saying, our Grace is onely in our Heeles,
And that we are most loftie Run-awayes. (TLN 1406 - 1414)

Rape is here not regarded as a crime of violence against women, it is adultery, and the petty treason of wives conspiring against their husbands is elevated to a higher form. French women are not being raped, they are throwing themselves at their conquerers to breed superior children. In performance, it generally comes off as a joke about the comparative weakness of the French, but Shakespeare is indicting female sexuality in general here.These lines, like Harry's explicit threats to Harfleur (Harflew) cited above, are notably absent in the quarto text.

This, it seems to me, is another great reason for exploring the quartos of Shakespeare's plays. While previous generations of scholars and editors disparaged the quartos as being the products of the play house, and thereby tainted by other hands and minds, they present us with a picture of early modern philosophy that we might rather regard as "less misogynist."

It's worth saying again that we don't know exactly who or why these changes were made to the text, and that we should be careful about applying our own post-Enlightenment philosophies to pre-Enlightenment works. Still, when the quarto texts speak better to our post-Enlightenment sensibilities, Shakespearean companies who ignore them because of the judgments of Victorian minds are passing up the opportunity to give their audiences a Shakespeare that, among other things, is more inclusive and accessible to the modern world.

Early Modern Thriftshopping

When the King's Men staged Middleton's A Game at Chess in 1624, their satire of the Spanish ambassador Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, conde de Gondomar was so explicit that they acquired pieces of Gondomar's wardrobe to use as costumes for the character of the Black Knight. The example is extreme, but not atypical. To the contrary, early modern plays were commonly costumed using the early modern equivalent of a thrift shop.

In early modern London, it was customary for lords of all ranks to bequeath their wardrobes to their servants in their wills. The clothing was typically expensive, and so the bequeathal would not be insubstantial, but the catch is that members of the servant class could not actually wear the clothing of their masters.

Early modern Englishpersons were extremely class-conscious, and a series of sumptuary laws defined who could wear what, and a series of fines for violating those laws. Also, this was a matter of practicality: the fanciest dress of the early modern era requires a servant to assist in dressing; if you can't afford a servant to help you dress in a suit, you have no business owning a suit you need a servant to assist you in putting on.

So what's a newly unemployed servant to do with their bequeathal of clothing that they can't wear? The answer was often sell that clothing to the playhouses. Exactly what that clothing entailed can be a bit hard to pin down. No records from the Lord Chamberlain's / King's Men are extent, and where Philip Henslowe, of the rival Admiral's Men, has recorded wardrobe items in his Diary, they are often in the form of "ij payer of grene hosse, and Andersones sewte," or "j owld white satten doublette." Robes for Henry the VIIIth, or gowns for Maid Marion are the order of the day; in most cases, once the players acquired their clothing pieces, where they came from ceased to matter, and what they were to be used FOR became of primary importance.

When Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" came out in 2012, those of us who work in theatre, and have spent many hours hunting for props and costumes in thrift shops were excited to have a theme song for the task, but as I and other members of The Cronicle Historie of Henry the Fift company look for the perfect pieces for the show, it's also good to know that this, too, is the modern form of an early modern staging condition.