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Viral Shakespeare
This Element offers a first-person phenomenological history of watching productions of Shakespeare during the pandemic year of 2020. The first section of the Element explores how Shakespeare 'went viral' during the first lockdown of 2020 and considers how the archival recordings of Shakespeare productions made freely available by theatres across Europe and North America impacted on modes of spectatorship and viewing practices, with a particular focus on the effect of binge-watching Hamlet in lockdown. The Element's second section documents two made-for-digital productions of Shakespeare by Oxford-based Creation Theatre and Northern Irish Big Telly, two companies who became leaders in digital theatre during the pandemic. It investigates how their productions of The Tempest and Macbeth modelled new platform-specific ways of engaging with audiences and creating communities of viewing at a time when, in the UK, government policies were excluding most non-building-based theatre companies and freelancers from pandemic relief packages.
- GenresAcademic
114 pages, Paperback
Published January 20, 2022
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December 29, 2021
"For Shakespeare studies, this might well mean a turning point: a point where we, as individual scholars, have to stand by our own witness statements, acknowledge our limitations and positionality yet more openly than hitherto and also listen to the stories of people whose experiences and interests are profoundly dissimilar to ours." (93)
This book is important, not just in its considerations on the binge-watching practices of a pandemic life/experience, but also in its exploration of how we read, see, and experience Shakespeare in the 21st century. Aebischer's account highlights the significance of performing Shakespeare even under circumstances which seemingly don't allow performance. However, rather than presenting this as a radical, subversive response to governmental inaction, she frames the continued efforts of creative industry professionals as productive in its own right. This comes through most powerfully in the particular phenomenological mode in which she presents a thoughtful and empathic perspective on Shakespearean performance in a world that finds itself increasingly infested with the brutality and violence of a virus. The book shows that valuing ones feelings and experiences in these times present a powerful way that can defy the separating forces of the pandemic, even if not all of these experiences are necessarily good ones. Despite her sympathy, Aebischer does not shy away from voicing what many creatives and scholars have had to deal with in the last two years: the incapability of a governmental plan of action to save and value the creative industries. Such a critique feels energetic because it mediates between the virtual worlds of the performances she witnesses and the cultural reality of a contingent COVID-19 society. What struck me most in this book was the historical breadth of performance studies scholarship used by Aebischer to describe her experience(s): ranging from the beginning of performance studies as an academic field in the 1970/80s to scholarship that is yet to be published in 2022, this book metatextually offers a sense of the anachronism of our times through the lens of performance studies. Aebischer embraces this and shows us new ways of performance scholarship beyond the confines of the text and the stage.
This book is important, not just in its considerations on the binge-watching practices of a pandemic life/experience, but also in its exploration of how we read, see, and experience Shakespeare in the 21st century. Aebischer's account highlights the significance of performing Shakespeare even under circumstances which seemingly don't allow performance. However, rather than presenting this as a radical, subversive response to governmental inaction, she frames the continued efforts of creative industry professionals as productive in its own right. This comes through most powerfully in the particular phenomenological mode in which she presents a thoughtful and empathic perspective on Shakespearean performance in a world that finds itself increasingly infested with the brutality and violence of a virus. The book shows that valuing ones feelings and experiences in these times present a powerful way that can defy the separating forces of the pandemic, even if not all of these experiences are necessarily good ones. Despite her sympathy, Aebischer does not shy away from voicing what many creatives and scholars have had to deal with in the last two years: the incapability of a governmental plan of action to save and value the creative industries. Such a critique feels energetic because it mediates between the virtual worlds of the performances she witnesses and the cultural reality of a contingent COVID-19 society. What struck me most in this book was the historical breadth of performance studies scholarship used by Aebischer to describe her experience(s): ranging from the beginning of performance studies as an academic field in the 1970/80s to scholarship that is yet to be published in 2022, this book metatextually offers a sense of the anachronism of our times through the lens of performance studies. Aebischer embraces this and shows us new ways of performance scholarship beyond the confines of the text and the stage.
Displaying 1 of 1 review