Symposium Two – Programme

Filming and PerformingRenaissance HistoryRepresenting Conflict, Crisis and Nation

19-21 September 2008

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Symposium Two Programme

Filming and Performing Renaissance History:Representing Conflict, Crisis and Nation

Friday, 19 September

Speakers’ Dinner: 7.30 (Gourmet Burger Bank, 33-35 Malone Road)

Saturday, 20 September

Paper Session One: 9.00-11.00(Graduate Research Centre, 18 College Green)

Chair: Adele Lee, Queen’s University, Belfast

Early Modern England as a Site of Conflict in 1916Clara Calvo, University of Murcia

In 1916, the Western Front and the North Sea were not the only sites of conflict.

At a time when the Great War had become a World War, with battle scenarios in

several continents, some of the most enduring battles were fought at the Home

Front. The 1916 Tercentenary turned Shakespeare’s England and contemporary

representations of the Renaissance into a site of conflicting views, needs and desires.

This paper aims to examine several areas in which early modern English culture

provided occasion for conflict, mostly focusing on people (Queen Elizabeth in relation

to Mary Stuart, Bacon in relation to Shakespeare) media (film in relation to theatre)

and nation (Germany in relation to England).

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Private Lives and Public Conflicts: The English Renaissance on Film, 1998-2008Andrew Higson, University of East Anglia

Despite the cultural prominence of Elizabeth and Shakespeare in Love, filmic versionsof the English Renaissance in the last ten years have been few and far between.Questions of nationhood and empire-building, political power and religious authority,inheritance and control, repeatedly emerge across the few films that do exist, fromthe machinations around Henry VIII’s desire to produce a male heir (The Other BoleynGirl), via Elizabeth’s struggle to maintain English sovereignty (Elizabeth and Elizabeth:The Golden Age), and the emergence of new colonies in America (Shakespeare inLove and The New World), to the rise to power of Oliver Cromwell (To Kill a King).Prominent though these themes are, such films are more likely to be promoted anddiscussed in terms of their attention to the private lives of monarchs and otherhistorical personalities. Affairs of the heart thus take prominence over the publiccrises and conflicts that tend to constitute the backdrop in these period films. Assuch, while for some audiences these may be films about Renaissance history, forothers they are simply variants on the romance or costume drama or tastefulmiddlebrow cinema, and that is how they work as industrial commodities. This paperwill consider these issues by exploring the production, promotion and reception ofthis handful of films, situating them in relation to wider developments in the mediabusiness, filmic tradition and representations of the English Renaissance.

Mirrors of Absolute Power and National Crisis inRenaissance England and Moldavia Gabriela Colipca and Ligia Pârvu‘Dunarea de Jos’ University of Galati

Over the latter half of the fifteenth century and the early part of the sixteenthcentury, the Romanian Principality of Moldavia enjoyed a period of welfare, culturaldevelopment and political stability, which was, nonetheless, dearly paid for at theexpense of bloody wars against the invading Turks, coming from the south, and theraiding Polish troops of King John Albert I, who were ravaging the north. It is toPrince Stephen the Great (1457-1504), who ruled at this time, that the Romanians inMoldavia owed their sense of national identity and pride. Indeed, Europe as whole,arguably, owed a debt for the defence of Christian faith against the threateningconquest policy of the Turkish empire. It is true that many aspects of this Moldavianprince’s life have occasionally turned him into the subject of controversy – a goodcase in point would be his amorous life (he was known as ‘a man of many womenand of even more illegitimate children’) – but that did not prevent subsequentgenerations from looking upon him as being one of the greatest princes ever inRomanian history.

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A quick overview of Stephen the Great’s life and achievements would easily revealstriking similarities with Henry VIII’s. Their strong rule and ability to maintain thecentralized power of the state, their claims to absolute authority, based on divineright, over both church and state, their conflict with the Pope that eventuallyrequired radical action (the Reformation in Henry’s case, the compromise solution of a treaty with the Turks in Stephen’s), even their amorous lives, and the political chaosfollowing their deaths under the rule of their heirs to the throne – all have invitedsuch a parallel. Both Henry VIII’s and Stephen the Great’s heritages, though separatedin time and especially space, are undeniably related to the crisis of Christianity,opposing Catholicism to Protestantism, on the one hand, and to Orthodoxy, on theother, and to the emergence of a new sense of national identity that was to ensuresuccess and endurance in different political contexts.

This paper aims at sustaining the validity of the parallel drawn between these twofigures of absolute rulers not only by relying on historical facts, but also by makingreference to two pertinent plays, namely William Shakespeare’s Henry VIII (1623) andBarbu Stefanescu Delavrancea’s Apus de Soare (Sunset) (1909). Both works examinemoments of political crisis, attempts at undermining royal authority by treacherouscourtiers (Cardinal Wolsey, in particular, in Shakespeare’s play, and the boyars Ulea,Stavar and Dragan, in Delavrancea’s), as well as the issue of succession to the throne(through the reference to Elizabeth I’s birth and, respectively, the competition for thethrone between Stephen’s son, Bogdan, and his nephew, Stefanita). At the sametime, these plays equally point to the specificity of the political context in whichHenry VIII and Stephen the Great ruled, since the two writers – Shakespeare andDelavrancea – choose to foreground different thematics: the former takes moreinterest in the conflict with Rome, while the latter insists on Stephen’s contributionwithin the framework of Romanian national identity construction.

Coffee/Tea Break

Interview Event: 11.30-12.30

Interview between Mark Thornton Burnett, Queen’s University, Belfast, and Professor

Frank McGuinness (University College, Dublin), playwright. Frank McGuinness is

Ireland’s leading playwright. He has won numerous awards and international acclaim

for his powerful dramatizations of, among other periods, World War I, for his poetry

collections, screenplays and translations. Today, however, he will reflect in interview

upon his three Renaissance-based plays, Innocence (in which the treatment of

Caravaggio touches upon questions of sexuality, morality and belief), Mutabilitie

(here, the characterization of Spenser and Shakespeare enables a provocative

disquisition upon literary myth and historical reality) and Speaking Like Magpies

(an eloquent retelling of the Gunpowder Plot from modern perspectives).

Lunch: 12.30-2.00

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Film Event: 2.00-4.30(Screen 2, Queen’s Film Theatre, 20 University Square)

Chair: Ramona Wray, Queen’s University, Belfast

The Flight of the Earls: From the Annals to the ScreenAntaine Ó Donnaíle, BBC

Drawing from his experiences as writer and producer of the BBC documentary series,

The Flight of the Earls, Dr Antaine Ó Donnaíle discusses some of the challenges

which confront producers and directors working on historical documentaries for

television. While text-based academic work can test, tease out and explore

arguments in great detail, a television script needs to be clear, accessible to a wide

audience and confident of its position. The producer/director must try to distill quite

difficult issues, personalities and events into a coherent and compelling narrative

which also maintains accuracy and balance. The burden of responsibility is even

greater when there are conflicting versions of history. This paper also discusses how

the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries can present particular challenges

for those wishing to represent them visually.

This paper will be followed by an exclusive conference screening of

The Flight of the Earls in the Queen’s Film Theatre.

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Workshop: 4.30-6.00(Graduate Research Centre, 18 College Green)

Chair: Emma Rhatigan, Queen’s University, Belfast

‘The Winner Takes it All’: Conflict in the Visual PerspectiveRuth Abraham (Queen’s University, Belfast) and

Majella Devlin (Queen’s University, Belfast)

This workshop will investigate questions surrounding filmic and theatrical

constructions of crisis, conflict and nation in the Renaissance period. Is there an

argument that, in hindsight, war and conflict is generally visually presented from the

winners’ perspective? To what extent does the perspective of the performance speak

to political and cultural concerns of the era in which it is set as well as the moment in

which it is produced? What type of conflict is represented? Are the broader areas of

national war and internal religious conflict the only ones that receive attention?

Are minor conflicts, pertinent to the early modern period but inconsequential in the

modern era, generally overlooked? Do those minor events that are portrayed on

stage and screen warrant such attention or are they simply a means to an end?

To what extent are current concerns and anxieties projected onto the portrayal

of conflict in the past?

Speakers’ Dinner: 8.00 (Beatrice Kennedy’s Restaurant, 44 University Road)

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Sunday 21 September

Paper Session Two: 9.30-11.00 (Graduate Research Centre, 18 College Green)

Chair: Paul Frazer, Queen’s University, Belfast

Representing the Spanish Armada of 1588 in the Twenty-First Century: Or, Renaissance Romance and Tragedy in a Glass CaseWinifred Glover, Ulster Museum

The Spanish Armada of 1588 is one of the most memorable historical events and

is a story which resonates through the ages. The Armada exhibition for the newly-

refurbished Ulster Museum, which will open in mid-2009, weaves the story round

some two hundred objects and hundreds of gold and silver coins. While the treasures

recovered from the galleass Girona, which sank off the north Antrim coast on the

morning of 26 October 1588, illustrate many aspects of sixteenth-century century

life, the emotions they and their story arouse are very relevant to a twenty-first

century audience. This paper addresses the practicalities of representing these in

a museum setting.

British Identity, Historical Film and the Inequities of Old EnemiesJonathan Durrant, University of Glamorgan

Historical films set in the early modern period have been the focus of debates

about the rise of the heritage-film genre and the cultural presentation of late

twentieth-century British identity. These debates tend to highlight positive aspects

of that evolving identity as they have been reflected in the characters of heroes or

heroines (notably, Elizabeth I), the triumph of the Reformation, and, most recently,

victory over the Spanish Armada. Alongside these aspects, however, one can find a

series of neglected, negative stereotypes of former enemies: mincing, cross-dressing

Frenchmen, swarthy, Machiavellian Spaniards, and psychotic, over-ambitious home-

grown Catholics. Whilst these stereotypes are rooted in Elizabethan nationalist

propaganda, the very fact that they have remained relatively static whilst portrayals

of Elizabeth I have clearly evolved invites comment.

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This paper examines these negative stereotypes in the light of the debate about

historical film and identity and against a backdrop of imperial ambition, the Cold

War, Euro-skepticism, immigration and the war on terror. It will argue that they might

reflect an underlying Britishness which is exclusive to a narrow, mainly middle-class

audience ambivalent about the world beyond its Anglo-American purview, despite

the use of established foreign actors in, for example, Elizabeth and the lionizing of

its director, Shekhar Kapur.

Coffee/Tea Break

Paper Session Three: 11.30-1.00

Chair: Mary-Ellen Lynn, Queen’s University, Belfast

Tuckets, Tongs and Bones: A Consensus of Musical Authenticity within the Reconstructed Shakespeare’s Globe TheatreClaire Van Kampen,

Director of Theatre Music, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, 1996-2005

Sam Wanamaker’s reconstructed Shakespeare’s Globe theatre on Bankside has

allowed us to examine – and re-examine – both what we might mean by the term

‘authenticity’ and Shakespeare’s textual instructions for the performance of period

music and instrumentation within the Elizabethan wooden amphitheatre.

Over the course of ten years, the Globe’s mission to explore the original playing

practices of Shakespeare’s company created a unique theatrical form. Rigorous

attention to text, clothing, music, properties and music of Shakespeare’s period,

and the discovery of creating an egalitarian relationship with a standing audience,

without stage lighting or sets, produced an audience who by 2005 had arrived at

a consensus about period authenticity.

I will be sharing the discoveries made through performance in the Globe, and the

conclusions that the experiment so far has enabled us to draw in determining the

specificity and variety of the use of music with Shakespeare’s play-texts both in the

outdoor amphitheatre and in the Inns of Court (in particular, Middle Temple Hall)

in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

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‘Its Very VIOLENT (Death)’: Children, Performance, and Renaissance HistoryKate Chedgzoy, University of Newcastle

How do children learn about the Renaissance through performance? What happens

to what we think we know about Renaissance history and culture when it is

transformed into a mode of performance aimed at children, or staged to include their

participation? This paper explores what is at stake when the Renaissance is mediated

to children through performance, with reference to examples ranging from the

1990s’ TV series based on the nineteenth-century novel of the Civil War, The Children

of the New Forest, via ‘The Terrible Tudors’, the popular stage version of one of Terry

Deary’s ‘Horrible Histories’ books, to an abbreviated workshop production of

Macbeth recently staged by 10 and 11 year olds in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Lunch: 1.00-2.30 (Café Renoir, 95 Botanic Avenue)

Organizer: Professor Mark Thornton Burnett

Code for Graduate Centre: 57646#

Code for Queen’s Film Theatre: 16858#

Design: Rodney Miller Associates, Belfast

CDS N111281