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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 30 2011, 1:38 AM EST (current) | JordanMorris | 1 word deleted |
| Jan 29 2011, 8:32 PM EST | JordanMorris | 27 words added, 16 words deleted |
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The following will appear in the pages of the program during the run of our show starting February 18, 2011 at The Palace Theatre in London, Ontario. In the movie ʻShakespeare In Loveʼ, John Webster is depicted as a pre-teen nasty who plays with rats and is a sneak and a snitch. Itʼs a clever device and more than a little amusing. Indeed, critics throughout the ages have had very disagreeable things to say about him and his work. I think they do not see him, read him or perform him without unflattering comparison to William Shakespeare. In my mind this is rather unfair as Shakespeareʼs verse seems to me to be organic and Websterʼs more manufactured and more external. By that I mean that Shakespeareʼs roots are firmly planted in Warwickshire where his youth was spent. When described in his text, a wood outside of Athens is clearly inspired by Warwickshire, A winterʼs night in Denmark clearly Warwickshire too. And as his Motherʼs maiden name was Arden, you see where 'As You Like Itʼs Forest of Arden comes from. Even his aunt, Sister Isabella lived her life in a convent just miles from his home and it is not hard to see where Sister Isabella of Vienna has at least her beginnings. Websterʼs early youth was in the fleshpots of the Metropolis (which Shakespeare in his manhood enjoyed to the full) and his verse is full of the images of decay, and things rotten and putrid. These images are the centre of his imagination and he uses them in verse that has the feeling similar to describing a fruit past itʼs prime that begins to bleed as maggots devour it. Webster is to theatre as Caravaggio is to painting. And for the grotesquery he is accused of, consider Shakespeareʼs Titus in which Lavinia has her hands and her tongue cut out so she cannot reveal the names of her rapists. In that same work the character Tamara is forced to eat the flesh of her sons baked in a pie. This seems to me to make the horror happenings in The Duchess Of Malfi rather tame by comparison, or is Malfi sometimes labeled as "the darkest play ever written" simply because it deals with incest? Certainly an abhorrent subject for most ages, but not for the ancients. I mean look to the mythology of Osiris and Isis -brother and sister. When Osiris was murdered Isis re-assembled the parts of his body and not finding his (private parts) fashioned them from wood and impregnated herself. Incest wasn't considered abhorrent by the late nineteenth century poets of England either, or the German Richard Wagner. Sieglinde and Seigmund are still celebrated in opera houses all over the world. Indeed in May of this year there will be in a cinema near you a live broadcast of that opera by the Metropolitan at Silver City and at Westmount. Believe me William Shakespeare is my God and I have been lucky enough to play one of his plays every year in my fifty years of life in the Theatre --- and I know he would not want to stand in John Websterʼs light. And speaking of Warwickshire...after the play Go to The Shire on Talbot for a drink. Who knows who you might meet? Bilbo Baggins perhaps, or even Shakespeare himself! | 
* Farhi Holdings and Collins Formal Wear are proud sponsors of the London Community Players production of The Duchess of Malfi  Our stage production is Executive Produced by the London Community Players and will run at their home venue, The Palace Theatre in February 2011 .  ![[Untitled]](http://image.wetpaint.com/image/2/BNNCtgKXY1Y7ErEj-drbYg22699/GW127H59 "[Untitled]") |
