Daryl Chase: Shakespeare Subtitled

23rd July 2024

Film director and BSA member Daryl Chase shares his project Shakespeare Subtitled and the ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘why’ of the project.

Shakespeare Subtitled is a passion project, the seed of which was sewn around fifteen or more years ago. 

‘How?’. ‘Why?’. More of that later. First the ‘What?’.

Shakespeare Subtitled is an ongoing series of filmed extracts designed to inspire, entertain and educate. Original language performances are complemented by modern language subtitles, providing a jumping-off point for further exploration of Shakespeare. The project encourages both conventional and unconventional approaches to Shakespeare’s work, from diverse casting to unusual locations. Experimentation and play are welcomed in order to discover new meanings.

Films can be watched with or without subtitles, depending on your reason for watching. This is because Shakespeare Subtitled is not only about subtitles and language, it’s about the process of filmmaking. Whether in the classroom or on a film set there’s a thrill in asking questions; what if we set this somewhere unusual? What if we cast against type? What does it do to the sentiment? Does it speak to modern issues?

Shakespeare Subtitled extends its filmmaking focus by also celebrating the incredible wealth of talent out there, both in front and behind the camera. From those just starting out, to established names, the project is open to all and collaboration is key.

As well as entertainment, Shakespeare Subtitled embraces education, offering workshops, supporting materials and other content. It also ranges from the creation of new films to the use of existing ones, and spans all age groups. With a background in social enterprise filmmaking, I am also interested in engaging with underrepresented demographics and alternative provisions.

The project has ambitions to apply these principles to long form adaptations of full plays, also featuring original language performances with modern language subtitles.

So… that’s the ‘What’. How about the ‘Why’ and ‘How’?

Growing up I had a fascination with film, (no doubt inspired by my dad watching endless rented VHSs). However, with no connection to the industry I would sit in the local library with Kemp’s International Film and Television Directory and note down company phone numbers. Returning home I would call them all asking for work experience – old skool! Finally, one agreed to take me on and I was hooked. I became a runner, an editor, I shot my own shorts, music videos and anything else I could point a camera at, until eventually I was lucky enough to make commercials and films for a range of brands. Despite this, I was always keen to work on a more personal project, something that embraced the joy of filmmaking, inspired by my love of just ‘making stuff’. Initially I toyed with the idea of monologues – regularly released films with a range of actors – but it felt like it was missing an edge. So instead it sat with me for years, like an ear worm.

Fast forward many (many!) years later, and I was fortunate enough to be offered the chance to direct a social enterprise adaptation of Macbeth. This was an incredible opportunity to work on a production that engaged with underrepresented demographics and socioeconomically challenged young people, giving them opportunities within the film industry. Having personally experienced the challenges of entering the industry, I was keen to help those facing far more obstacles than I ever did. But – and it was a big but – the prospect of adapting and directing Shakespeare filled me with fear. The last time I had engaged with such a text was for GCSEs, and I’d found it challenging then! Despite this I accepted, hiding my nerves as best as I could and adhering to the mindset that you need to do things that scare you as otherwise you aren’t pushing yourself. 

I got all the books I could, and began working hard on the text. Very quickly I felt like I did when I was back at school; struggling with the ‘words’, but too afraid to speak up. Whether it’s my own perception or not, there resurfaced an underlying expectation (this time within myself) to ‘understand’ the words, and a fear of the reactions of others if I admitted I didn’t. This time, older and supposedly wiser, I assessed the challenges in a different way. If I was asked to adapt a French, Spanish or German text I would be taught the language first, or be offered an initial translation. To me, the language of Shakespeare is similar, in that it is in some part a foreign language. I also then considered my own workplace experience and the foreign language films I watch… for those I immediately turn on the subtitles. I don’t assume the subtitles are word perfect translations, but combined with performance and visual language they help towards understanding. So, what if I could do the same with Shakespeare? Could language barrier solutions – subtitles – combine with performance to give me an initial, simple foothold upon which to build and explore.

It was then that I remembered the ‘monologues’ idea. Shakespeare is obviously filled with incredible monologues, sonnets, soliloquies and all manner of predominantly single character dialogues. And so the fledgling concept of Shakespeare Subtitled began.

Armed with the footage from Macbeth, I secretly began playing with modern language subtitles. Coincidentally, there were increasing press articles around subtitling – a higher percentage of younger viewers were using them as a matter of course (Youngs, 2021; Kelly, 2022) , plus Stranger Things was getting notoriety for embracing highly descriptive language (Bitran, 2022). This inspired my exploration further, and as I added the subtitles I found myself understanding scenes I hadn’t before. Performance, location, costume and other elements had already brought new meaning to the text, but modern words added even more understanding for me. They were not definitive ‘translations’, but they were a starting point for personal exploration.

Wanting to test the concept further, I shot some extracts specifically for the project, enlisting a few extremely generous and highly talented actors and friends. Each piece proved to be a joy to create… and with ‘joy’ being one of the motivations for starting a personal project in the first place, this was a success for me. They came alive, forcing me to dig deeper into the text, collaborate and experiment. Interestingly, in a recent (and brilliant), BSA teach meet, run by the fantastic Karen McGivern (BSA Trustee and Chair of Education Committee), I heard this concept summed up perfectly by Jennifer Kitchen when she quoted Gibson: “Shakespeare wrote his plays for performance and… his scripts are completed by enactment of some kind” (Gibson, 2016, p. viii). I couldn’t agree more. Traditional film scripts can also be hard to read. Bereft of detail, they are blueprints, stripped back to their bare bones. Practitioners then add the additional layers needed to come alive. Shakespeare is no different. This also speaks to the previously mentioned fact that these films and the project itself operate beyond the subtitles and language focus. Although these are a key creative elements, I am also inspired and excited by the questions filmmaking asks of text, and how different meanings can be offered via imagery and performance.

With these test extracts in tow, I contacted Maria Shmygol (Joint Chair of the BSA), who I’d met through the campaign to complete Macbeth. I was keen to assess if what I was doing had any merit in the eyes of those who really knew Shakespeare. Maria kindly didn’t laugh me out of the room and just as helpful as she had been on Macbeth, this time putting me in contact with Karen McGivern, who in turn, not only generously invited me to the BSA Teach Meets, but also shared her thoughts on the project. Karen opened my eyes to the usefulness of my filmmaking background, and that it shouldn’t be taken for granted regarding the skills that could be passed on to others and the way it gives value to the project, on a par with the language focus. What is most inspiring is that the approach Shakespeare Subtitled takes seems to have some similarities to the processes others have taken in classrooms, embracing a more active approach to the teaching of Shakespeare. I believe I would have benefitted more when I was young had there been more active ways to explore Shakespeare, combining it with drama, filmmaking, photography and other disciplines to bring it to life.

Shakespeare Subtitled was launched recently, with help from the BSA Small Grant Fund, for which I am hugely grateful. I am under no illusion that it could be a ‘Marmite’ project. Am I suggesting I know better by offering subtitles? I’m no Shakespeare expert so no. Am I trying to ‘dumb down’ the language? I believe not, because by celebrating the original language audibly, alongside the modern language visually, I’m avoiding pure simplification. Combining this with the idea that these films are not focused on language alone, the results are an exciting exploration of text resulting in a broad range of interpretations. Current examples, released and unreleased, include Lear in a Launderette, enduring a storm of the mind (more manageable to capture than a storm on a heath!); Brutus lurking behind the scenes of Caesar’s 1980s campaign trail; Petruchio hinting at domestic abuse; and a female Hamlet drinking from a can on a beach. All of these exist from collaborative questioning of the text. Whether the subtitles are then written in the contemporary English or in modern slang, the films themselves stand alone and focus on the joy of ‘making’, as originally intended. The project has exciting and wide-reaching ambitions and is open to any conversations regarding involvement in the exciting journey ahead.

Shakespeare Subtitled can be found on the following platforms, please share, follow, subscribe, and like. 

Wesbite: www.shakespearesubtitled.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shakespearesubtitled/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/shakespearesubs

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shakespearesubtitled

Thanks

I would like to thank the BSA for their fantastic support, in particular Maria Shmygol for offering thoughts, support and kindly connecting me to Karen McGivern, to whom I also owe a huge thanks. I’m grateful for your opinions and welcoming me into the Teach Meets, both of which will no doubt continue to help shape the project. I would also like to thank all the attendees I’ve met in the sessions, whose openness about their own work has been invaluable. I highly recommend attending the Teach Meets, whether in education or not. They are a window into engagement practices that are enlightening whatever your connection to Shakespeare. I would also like to thank Kat Hipkiss for making sense of the sludge of words I sent for this piece. Lastly, thanks to anyone who has been involved in the project and films until now, you have made it great, and most importantly you have made it a joy to be part of.

Works Cited

Bitran, T. (2022) ‘Meet the Wordsmiths Behind the Genius ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 Subtitles’, Tudum by Netflix, 8th July. Available at: https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/stranger-things-season-4-captions [Accessed 22nd July 2024]

Kelly, G. (2022) ‘How Generation Z became obsessed with subtitles’, The Telegraph, 24^th July. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/how-generation-z-became-obsessed-subtitles/ [Accessed 22^nd July 2024]

Youngs, I. (2021) ‘Young viewers prefer TV subtitles, research suggests’, BBC, 15^th November. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-59259964 [Accessed 22nd July 2024]

Header image courtesy of Daryl Chase.

Sheffield Centre for Early Modern Studies – CFP: Page, Performance, and Culture

6th March 2024

BSA 2024 Conference Seminar and Panel Presentation Deadline Extended!

13th February 2024

Due to some technical issues with the enrolment process, the seminar and panel enrolment deadline has been extended until the 29th February.

Full details and instructions are available here: 
https://www.britishshakespeare.ws/bsa-2024-conference-seminar-enrolment-and-cfp/

If you have any issues with seminar or panel enrolment, please contact webmaster@britishshakespeare.ws

Similarly, if you have any issues with renewing your membership to the BSA, please contact membership@britishshakespeare.ws and webmaster@britishshakespeare.ws

Honorary Fellowships and Innovation Award Nominations open

15th September 2023

The 2023 Awards Committee invites nominations for:

• up to two Honorary Fellowships recognising eminent individuals who have made major contributions to our understanding of Shakespeare through scholarship, education, and/or performance; and
• an annual Innovation Award recognising an individual or organisation involved in Shakespearean studies, performance, and/or the cultural and creative industries that has substantially innovated engagement with and/or appreciation of Shakespeare and his works.

Each nomination should comprise a formal written proposal (200–500 words) addressing the criteria and the names of the proposer and seconder (both being current BSA members in good standing).

The closing date for nominations is 20th October 2023. Nominations before this deadline should be submitted to the Chair of the Awards Committee, Brett Greatley-Hirsch, via email to b.d.greatleyhirsch@leeds.ac.uk.

“Trophy II.” by Patrick Gage is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

CFP for LINGUACULTURE: In Honorem Professor Michael Hattaway

7th April 2022

LINGUACULTURE, vol. 14, no. 1, June 2023

Issue editors: Professor Nicoleta Cinpoes (n.cinpoes@worc.ac.uk),Professor Alison Findlay (a.g.findlay@lancaster.ac.uk), Professor Peter Smith (peter.smith@ntu.ac.uk) and Veronica Popescu (journal@linguaculture.ro)

For this special issue, In Honorem Professor Michael Hattaway, we welcome original contributions connected to Professor Hattaway’s research interests, particularly Shakespeare Studies and Renaissance Studies, as a means to honour his contribution to the field and his influence on young researchers and colleagues in his long career as a Shakespearean scholar. We are especially interested in papers in the following areas:

• Shakespeare’s history plays
• Shakespeare’s plays in performance
• cinematic Shakespeare
• foreign Shakespeare
• humanism and posthumanism in Shakespeare studies
• Shakespeare scholarship during the pandemic

Contributions (4,000 to 7,000 words) to be published in the June 2023 issue are expected by 15 December, 2022 and they should not have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. All submissions will go through a blind peer review process and notification of acceptance will be sent by 15 March, 2023.

LINGUACULTURE is currently indexed by ERIHPLUS and DOAJ.

Timeline
Abstracts & short bio to be sent to journal@linguaculture.ro: 1 September 2022
Submission of manuscripts: 15 December, 2022
Review period: 15 December, 2022 – 15 March, 2023
Submission of final articles: 15 May, 2023
Issue published online: 30 June, 2023

Please consult our Instructions for Authors page for further information about submissions and additional requirements.

Use the Submissions page to send us your contributions.

This call for papers is also available as a PDF.

Jayoon Byeon: Review of As You Like It

6th April 2022

Jayoon Byeon (Lancaster University) reviews As You Like It (Dir. Laurie Samson for Northern Broadsides) at the Dukes Theatre Lancaster, 3 March 2022

Jayoon’s review is also available in Korean.

Welcome to the Forest of Arden, where garments are afloat in the air and coat hangers stand tall as trees. There is a striking emphasis on garments in the Northern Broadsides’ production of As You Like It; actors enter and exit the stage through a coat rack, highlighting how gender and class identities are fluid, like trying on clothes.

Northern Broadsides expand the gender-bending aspects of the text through inclusive casting, minor yet memorable amendments to the script, and a capacious wardrobe of diverse costumes. Rosalind is portrayed by a non-binary actor EM Williams; both the character and the actor go by the pronoun ‘they’ instead of ‘she,’ thus evading a binary, heteronormative narrative. Joe Morrow shines as the glittery Touchstone in drag, going beyond the boundaries of the script both verbally and sartorially. With vibrant adlibs designed to engage the audience, he boldly goes against Hamlet’s advice for players to ‘speak no more than is set down for them.’

Ada (Clare Hackett) Photograph: Andrew Billington

The contrasts between oppressive court are emphasized by Ali Gademan’s skilful doubling of Duke Frederick and Duke Senior. Another notable character in this production is Ada, a maternal substitute for Adam in Shakespeare’s text. While Adam enigmatically disappears in the original text, the Northern Broadsides’ production gives Ada a proper exit from the stage world. With a coat, Duke Senior tenderly covers her aged body and finally her face, and Jacques (Adam Kishmiry) crosses himself and prays for her. By marking the death of this nurturing figure, the value of caring service that she embodies is ritually acknowledged and revived in Duke Senior’s court.

Rosalind (EM Williams) and Celia (Isobel Coward) Photograph: Andrew Billington

The Forest of Arden opens up a space where characters can oscillate between female and male, homoerotic and heteronormative relationships. The production especially highlights Rosalind and Celia’s relationship: they are physically intimate in the court scene, sharing touches, hugs, and kisses on cheeks and hands. With Rosalind in exaggeratedly feminine attire and Isobel Coward’s Celia in a traditionally masculine suit (see picture), the cousins’ relationship visually mimics heteronormativity. There is a slight pause after Celia tells Duke Frederik (Ali Gademar) that she and Rosalind have ‘slept together,’ which subtly connotes a frisson among the triad on stage and the audience. The cousins reverse gender positions to go out into the Forest of Arden, but for Celia, their journey to freedom perpetuates their time as a couple, regardless of the gender position each takes. 

When Rosalind (disguised as Ganymede) and Orlando (Shaban Dar) enact a marriage ceremony and later kiss, their excitement, centre stage, draws the eyes of spectators. This is contrasted by Celia’s evident distress throughout. She wipes tears, whimpers, and complains to Rosalind, raising the tension between the two once again. Another notable element is the dramatisation of the hunting sequence as Celia’s dream, in which her nightmare of being parted from Rosalind is visualised as an aggressive intrusion of men. The production proceeds according to the original plot, but leaves the audience wondering where the play might have gone had Rosalind and Celia’s relationship not been interrupted.

Photograph: Andrew Billington

While providing the audience with food for thought about gender, sexuality, and identity, the overall tone of the production is energetic and lighthearted. The audience shares in the pleasure of a world where ‘there’s no clock in the forest,’ and a final maypole dance where diverse colours, genders, and sexualities are intertwined.

Header image: Andrew Billington

Kat Hipkiss: Framing Margaret in Performance

16th March 2022

New BSA Trustee Dr Kat Hipkiss gives us a glimpse into her research on the framing of women in contemporary productions of Shakespeare, and tells us why she’s excited to join the board of the BSA as Web and Communications Deputy.

I began my PhD thesis – ‘”My body shall pay recompense”: The Embodiment of Margaret in Selected Staged and Televised Cycles of the First Tetralogy’ – with a description of a scene that contains (in my opinion) one of the most powerful stage pictures in the works of Shakespeare: Queen Margaret entering into the middle of a court planning their escape, holding the decapitated head of her lover Suffolk in her arms (2HVI, 4.4). As well as being a brilliant theatrical moment, the scene also enables me to combine several approaches and aspects of my research: the body in performance (Margaret localises her grief in her body whilst lamenting the loss of her lover’s); the multiple societal positions women occupy (wife, mother, widow, all at once); and the gendered presentation of women on stage and screen, especially hair and hair covering in performance (for example, Peggy Ashcroft’s Margaret in 1964 wore a corrupted bridal veil as she mourned her lover in front of her husband).

The scene of Margaret cradling Suffolk’s head, and the myriad of possibilities within it, also helped lead me towards another key focus of my research: the framing of women. By this I mean interrogating how women in contemporary performances of Shakespeare are framed both literally in stage and screen images, and metaphorically in how they are constructed within the world of a production. In my thesis, I returned to the cradling of Suffolk’s head across four major cycles of the first tetralogy, and found that the way in which each production presented this scene could be analysed to understand how they conceived of Margaret across the cycle as a whole.

One of the productions that enabled me to use the cradling of Suffolk’s head to dig further into this dual sense of framing was Jane Howell’s 1983 BBC/Time-Life cycle for The BBC Television Shakespeare (which is my goto production recommendation for anyone who hasn’t watched the first tetralogy in full!). When studying the cycle, I found myself returning again and again to the way in which Howell literally frames Margaret within the camera lens, and how this has the impact of centring her both within the shot and the narrative.

The centring of Margaret in Howell’s cycle is particularly apparent in Howell’s use of repeated screen images. Across the approximately twelve hours of television, Howell returns to particular shot constructions time and again. These repeated images – combined with a single set which evolves across all four plays, and the use of an ensemble cast – have the effect of emphasising both the sense of time moving forward and the cyclical, recurring nature of the first tetralogy in performance. Importantly, at the centre of these images, Howell places Queen Margaret (played by Julia Foster), and through the foregrounding of Margaret’s body creates a cycle that has the narrative development of Margaret at its centre.

The cradling of Suffolk’s head forms part of one of Howell’s screen motifs: Margaret cradling the male body. The image is first seen in 2 Henry VI where Margaret holds the living body of Suffolk before they part. It is then shown again after Suffolk’s death, as Margaret holds the decapitated head of her lover to her in front of the court. The cradling image is repeated in 3 Henry VI where Margaret clutches the corpse of her son Prince Edward to her. And finally, the last image of Howell’s cycle is a lingering shot of Margaret sitting atop a pile of corpses, holding the body of Richard to her as she laughs into the end credits of Richard III. The repetition of the cradling image throughout Howell’s cycle means that this final shot of Margaret on top of a pile of corpses, her hair golden in the spotlight, where she is both triumphant and alive atop a heap of death, is a logical conclusion to Howell’s Margaret centred cycle, and one which reifies the way in which she drives the narrative of the first tetralogy.

It is also an image that Dominic Cooke was potentially referencing in the closing shot of his 2016 cycle The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses, also for the BBC. After the crowning of Richmond and Elizabeth, the camera passes through Richard’s chamber and out onto the battlefield, where it finds Margaret. She stares defiantly into its lens, tears brimming her eyes as the camera lifts higher and higher into the sky until, eventually, she is indistinguishable from the thousands of corpses that litter the battlefield. Whilst Howell uses the final camera shot of her cycle to centre Margaret and show her as triumphant, Cooke shows a Margaret defeated, and a victim similar to the many other faceless corpses amongst which she stands.

The subsuming of Margaret into the field of corpses – as opposed to her being triumphant atop them – can be traced back to the cradling of Suffolk’s head. Or, in Cooke’s cycle, the absence of the cradling of Suffolk’s head. In the highly adapted version, the head of Somerset (who plays the role of Margaret’s lover in the production) is dropped into Margaret’s lap after she follows him out onto the battlefield. She does not get a prolonged interaction with it. In fact, she never even picks it up. This moment is just one of many in Cooke’s cycle where Margaret (and the other women of the production) are silenced through both a lack of lines and a lack of action.

Just as it is a logical conclusion for Howell’s cycle to end with a triumphant Margaret, it is the logical conclusion of Cooke’s to end with a defeated one. In my work, I argue that the way in which each cycle frames Margaret in their final tableau offers a defining image of Margaret that is representative of the treatment of her in the cycle as whole.

The consideration and interrogation of framing is part of my research on bodies, and parts of bodies, in performance. I am currently developing this work for publication, as well as my work on reading hair in theatrical performance as a site of cultural, theatrical, and feminist analysis.

I also wanted to use this blog post to introduce myself as the new Web and Communications Deputy of the BSA! I am excited to help further the web presence of the BSA, particularly in terms of creating opportunities for ECRs. For example, providing opportunities to write blog posts for the BSA website, and strengthening the potential for the website to act as a central hub to connect ECRs to the BSA, each other, and more established members of the Association. Throughout the pandemic we have seen an increase in engagement and accessibility through online events, and I am excited about the opportunity to develop these initiatives, ensuring that the lessons we have learnt about accessibility are utilised as we move forward.

If you would like write a blogpost for the BSA Website, or discuss some ECR news, then please contact me at webdeputy@britishshakespeare.ws

Dr Kat Hipkiss

BSA Web and Communications Deputy; Associate Lecturer (Bath Spa University)

To read more about Kat’s work, please visit her website.
Kat tweets @kat_hipkiss

Header image: “BOLEX B8 MOVIE CAMERA 8mm” by glen edelson is marked with CC BY 2.0.

BSA Statement in Support of Ukraine

4th March 2022