Tabling: Twelfth Night Act I

Zoë Goslin, Claire Curtis-Ward, Samantha Blinn and Ariana Karp commence our text work on Act I of Twelfth Night.

Among many things we discuss:

• The importance of music, air and sound all expressed in Orsino’s opening speech
• The opening of the play as a surfeiting of the senses
• The imagined beloved versus the actual person
• Both Viola and Olivia are mourning their lost brothers (and deceased fathers)
• The importance of establishing specific relationships between each and every character
• Viola’s grace under pressure and comparisons to other Shakespearean heroines
• Shakespeare and symbols
• Who is Feste and where does he come from?
• Malvolio’s universe and the cost of his speech

Drawing of Olivia.

Tabling: Twelfth Night

Romeo and Juliet, The Duchess of Malfi, King Lear, The White Devil. It’s time for a comedy already! Zoë Goslin, Claire Curtis-Ward, Samantha Blinn, Will McKay and Ariana Karp dive into the warm waters of Illyria to immerse ourselves in Twelfth Night.

Ariana will be directing Twelfth Night for the International Shakespeare Center’s inaugural Repertory Season with Ducdame Ensemble. She is thrilled and honored to announce that the production will be performed in Meow Wolf’s extraordinary House of Eternal Return. Having done her book work, she wants to test out some ideas with a group of actors, some of whom are in her cast! As with all of our podcasts, this series will aim to explore the play, but uniquely, the discoveries we make in this podcast will directly feed into the initial rehearsal process. 

In addition to our participants sharing initial thoughts on the play and recounting their experiences, good and bad of the play, we discuss:

• “What is Love?” The central question of the play. Twelfth Night as a exploration of every permutation of love
• The human origin myth in Greek mythology -the essential human experience is the search for your ‘other half’
• Mirrors and Parallels-for both situations and characters
• Gender confusion and gender bending
• Character Participation versus Observation 

Twelfth Night in the First Folio.

Tabling: The White Devil Act V

Brittany Chandler, Mitchel Kawash, Samantha Blinn, Claire Curtis-Ward and Ariana Karp tackle the epic final act of The White Devil - our cold read ran around 55 minutes! 

We discuss a number of topics, including: 

• Flamineo’s changes in the final act, the realization of mortality
• Bracciano’s violent and public death
• Vittoria’s ascension to being a Duchess
• The significance of Francisco’s “moorish” disguise
• The ‘othering’ of different characters
• The Jacobean aesthetic of decay
• Marcello’s place as a sibling with Vittoria and Flamineo
• The play with traditional gender roles between Bracciano and Vittoria
• Revenge is a dish served very icily in this play
• Vittoria and Flamineo’s death “games” at the end of the play
• Does Flamineo at the very end, acknowledge his deep love for his sister?
• Who is “The White Devil”?

Tabling: The White Devil Act IV

In this penultimate act Brittany Chandler, Claire Curtis-Ward, Samantha Blinn, Mitchel Kawash and Ariana Karp explore:

• Francisco’s Imagery & the complexity of his plot
• The fizzure in the relationship between Francisco and Monticelso
• Francisco as a socio-path
• The actress’s choice about how far the relationship has gone between Vittoria and Bracchiano
• Why does Vittoria stop speaking in the prison scene?
• Flamineo and Vittoria’s relationship in the prison scene
• The strong undercurrent of anti-Catholicism in the play 

Tabling: The White Devil Act III

This week Brittany Chandler, Christopher Weihert, Mitchel Kawash, Claire Curtis-Ward, Samantha Blinn, Parker Denton & Ariana Karp delve into the iconic trial scene of Act III of John Webster’s The White Devil.

We discuss, among other things:

• Three siblings on trial for the same crime
• The overt misogyny and patronization of the court
• The role of the ambassadors in foreign judicial system
• The Pope and the global ecclesiastical power 
• The Elizabethan/Jacobean knack for setting controversial stories in Italy
• Vittoria as a proto-Protestant hero in that she demands that the proceedings are conducted in the language of the people as opposed to Latin
• Why does Bracchiano leave in the middle of the trail scene?
• The timeline for the discovery of Isabella’s death 
• Intention versus action 

Promotional image for the RSC's production of The White Devil

Tabling: The White Devil Act II

ACT II

We move on to Act II of The White Devil with Director Brittany Chandler, and participants Christopher Weihart, Mitchel Kawash, Claire Curtis-Ward, Samantha Blinn, Parker Denton & Ariana Karp.

We spend the first couple of minutes trying to make sense of the complicated family relationships between all the the new characters that are introduced at the top of Act 2. We then progress to other topics:

• The various pros and cons of powdered unicorn horn
• Political power dynamics of the aristocracy Bracciano vs Francisco and Montecelso
• Shared figurative language (Similes and Metaphors) 
• Flamineo’s reckless cynicism
• Jacobean verse vs prose
• Rapid escalation of aggression between Bracciano and Francisco broken only by Giovanni’s entrance
• Isabella as a parallel/double to Vittoria
• Specificity of complicated Jacobean murders
• Elizabethan/Jacobean dumb shows 
• Webster and stage directions

Tabling: The White Devil Act I

Brittany Chandler, Mitchel Kawash, Samantha Blinn, Parker Denton, and Ariana Karp discuss Act I of The White Devil. 

Topics of discussion include:

• Carriage humor
• Social Darwinism
• Vittoria and Bracciano’s sexuality within the language
• Flamineo’s power and agency coming from ‘playing’ the man, rejecting traditional female avenues of power
• Why do Jacobean brothers pimp out their sisters?
• Capitalism and Jacobean personal relationships
• Cuckolded husbands and their portrayal in Jacobean drama and comedy
• Disconnect between how Vittoria is described and how she appears
• Farcical elements of the second scene
• Flamineo, chaos and motivation
• Webster and Religion

Poster for National Theatre Production

Tabling: The White Devil Introduction

Brand new play with a few new voices! Join Brittany Chandler, Mitchel Kawash, Samantha Blinn, Parker Denton, and Ariana Karp as we dive into John Webster’s early tragedy, The White Devil. 

Director Brittany Chandler leads the discussion, introducing this Jacobean masterpiece through the lens of the character Flamineo, whom she played at LAMDA. Her concept is to examine the play with the given circumstance that Flamineo (a male character in the original play) is a woman. Brittany completed her master’s thesis on the subject! 

Among many topics we discuss:

• Our own experiences with the play
• Gender and gender fluidity in Elizabethan and Jacobean plays
• Family dynamics within the play
• How the Duchess of Malfi (also by John Webster) echoes The White Devil
• Historical reception
• Jacobean nostalgia for Elizabeth I and the chaste female ruler
• Siblings in Jacobean drama and the obsession with the sister’s sexuality

Webster's forward of The White Devil.

Tabling: King Lear Act V

Claire Curtis-Ward, Samantha Blinn, Ariana Karp conclude our discussion of King Lear with an examination of Act V. Topics include:

• Is there hope at the end of King Lear?
• Is there a moral or lesson?
• Re-connecting with Erasmus “In Praise of Folly” 
• “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.” The importance of “feeling” and experiencing things “feelingly”
• Degrees of sympathy towards Lear throughout the play
• Lear as an examination of the connection between loyalty and disobedience. 
• Parallels between Gloucester and Lear’s deaths
• 20th century ‘timeliness’
• Apocalyptic visions?
• “Pray you, undo this button, Thank you sir.” 

Colm Feore as King Lear, 2015. 

Tabling: King Lear Act IV

Claire Curtis-Ward, Rafe Terrizzi, Samantha Blinn & Ariana Karp discuss Act IV of King Lear. Discussion topics include:

• Edgar’s first philosophical monologue
• The mirroring and parallel situations/characters within King Lear 
• The textual differences between Quarto and the Folio
• The sexy messengers
• Goneril and her relationship to danger
• Cordelia and her imperative language as a leader
• King Lear and being filthy

Geoffrey Rush as King Lear

Tabling: King Lear Act III

This week Sam Gibbs, Samantha Blinn, Rafe Terrizzi, Ariana Karp examine Act III of King Lear. 

• “Articulate” madness
• Writing for actors—Will Kempe the buffooning clown vs. Robert Armin the intellectual fool 
• Meta-theatrical moment of the fool’s prophesy
• The horror and cost of prophecy and incantation 
• Demonic possession (both true and framed) in the Jacobean era
• Sam Harsnett and The Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures and the overlap with Edgar’s “Poor Tom” dialogue
• The significance of Edgar’s madness
• Difference between the Quarto and Folio versions of King Lear
• The relationship between Blindness the Fool and the Madman
• Words that have the prefix “un” and their psychological significance 

Frank Langella as King Lear in Act III

Tabling: King Lear Act II

Join Claire Curtis-Ward, Samantha Blinn, Sam Gibbs, Levi Morger, Rafe Terrizzi and Ariana Karp as we explore Act II of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

• The significance of setting-Gloucester’s Castle
• The two meanings of Nature
• The Fool’s silence during the "unnatural hags" scene
• The consequences of cruelty
• Who is the “everyman”?
• Feigned madness versus “true” madness
• The power of family love/hate
• The second circle of address and the relationship to the audience for each of the characters

Sir Ian McKellen as Lear

Tabling: King Lear Act I

Off we go! Claire Curtis-Ward, Levi Morger, Sam Gibbs and Ariana Karp delve into Act I of Shakespeare's nihilistic masterpiece! 

This week we discuss:

• The family dynamic of Gloucester, Edmund & Edgar
• Are the knights riotous? Whose report of them do we trust?
• Difference between Goneril and Regan?
• Kent and the 'perfect' disguise
• The tenuousness of identity 
• Dementia and Senility and their role from the beginning of the play
• The repetition of the word "nothing" within the 1st act! 
• The complicated switch of the child becoming the parent and the tensions within the father/daughter relationship

Laurence Olivier as Lear in the opening scene of the play

Tabling: Shakespeare

Happy One-Year Anniversary Tablers! 

We are very pleased to bring you this very special episode, recorded in February 2016 during the First Folio Festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico where this special extended conversation between The International Shakespeare Center (ISC), The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) & Tabling: The Podcast Producers (all of whom are LAMDA Alumni) took place. Join us as we delve into why we continue to read, study and perform Shakespeare 400 years later and what is the enduring potency of his work.

Joining us for this conversation are:

• From the ISC Board: Caryl Farkas (President), Kristin Bundesen (Vice President), Anna Farkas (Associate Artistic Director), 
• From LAMDA: Joanna Read (Principal),  Rodney Cottier (Head of Drama)
• From Tabling: The Podcast: Brittany Chandler (Producer), Emily Ota (Producer), Nicholas Koy Santillo (Producer),  & Ariana Karp (Producer).

Tabling: King Lear Introduction

Welcome to the sublime and terrible world of King Lear! This week join Claire Curtis-Ward, Levi Morger, Sam Gibbs and Ariana Karp as we commence our examination of Shakespeare's remarkable tragedy.

Here are a few reflections on King Lear from the Romantic poets to 20th century commentators:
"O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
   Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
   Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,
   Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
   Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
   Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When through the old oak forest I am gone,
   Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire." --John Keats

"Above all others, this is the Shakespeare play of our time." --Jan Kott
"King Lear…ultimately baffles commentary." --Harold Bloom

We then talk about our own initial thoughts about the play and our experiences with it. What is your experience of King Lear? Write in to TablingPodcast@gmail.com or post on our Facebook page! 

Drawing of the final scene of King Lear.

Tabling: The Duchess of Malfi Act V

Emily Ota, Ian Harkins, Brittany Chandler, Levi Morger, Rafe Terrizzi, Samantha Blinn & Ariana Karp conclude our discussion of the play in this episode, as we tackle questions about: 

• Most productions make massive cuts to this last act, why?
• The ultimate sin of despair in Elizabethan and Jacobean times
• The Duchess is the only character who is saved in the play
• Has the cultural attitude towards murder changed since the Elizabethan times with the rise of forensics?
• Who is the play really about?
• What is the biggest difference between Shakespeare and Webster?
• How the Julia wooing Bosola scene mirrors the Duchess wooing Antonio scene from the beginning?
• Staging questions about the multiple deaths in act 5 and the use of darkness.
• The importance of the soundscape in this play in our conception of the production

Production image from Cheek by Jowl's famous production. Julia & the Cardinal.

Tabling: The Duchess of Malfi Act IV

Emily Ota, Brittany Chandler, Levi Morger, Samantha Blinn, Claire Curtis-Ward & Ariana Karp are in a melancholy and disturbed state as we reflect on the murder of the Duchess, her children and Cariola. 

At the beginning, we talk quite a bit about our experiences and the acting challenges with the strangling scene. Puzzling away we also discuss: 

• Does Bosola kill the Duchess? Or do the Executioners?
• The psychology of killing-the ultimate act of intimacy for the executioners?
• Ritual nature of violence and brutality-spectacle of violence in Elizabethan & Jacobean culture
• Public vs. Private deaths 
• Ferdinand's lycanthropia
• What does Ferdinand want? Did he want Duchess to die?
• Science and mathematical language and imagery within the play and the significance of its use.

A Lycanthrope

Tabling: The Duchess of Malfi Act III

This week Emily Ota, Levi Morger, Brittany Chandler, Samantha Blinn, Claire Curtis-Ward & Ariana Karp discuss Act III of the Duchess of Malfi. Things are getting craaahzy…we spend quite a few minutes just trying to figure out everything that happens in this Act! 

Other discussion topics include:

• Ferdinand and the Cardinal find out that Antonio is the father of the Duchess's children! Escandoloso! What does this mean to them?
• Ritual and religion in the play
• The role of the dumbshow in classical theatre
• The relationship between Cariola and Duchess and generally the relationships between great ladies and their handmaidens
• The Duchess and Antonio's private farewell in public
• Why the Jacobean obsession with incestuous relationships?
• How danger creeps into the domestic sphere in the bedroom scene

• We end with Levi reading us a poem about a dagger by Jorge Luis Borges

By the way, Britt's computer is fine and King Arthur the pup is still as cute as ever! 

Medieval pilgrim 

Tabling: The Duchess of Malfi Act II

Join Brittany Chandler, Rafe Terrezzi, Ian Harkins, Levi Morger, Claire Curtis-Ward, Samantha Blinn, Emily Ota, Zoë Goslin & Ariana Karp as we tear through Act II of The Duchess of Malfi! As we had a lot of new participants, Ariana and Emily recap the Jacobean era, equivocation,  John Webster & Jacobean language.  We discuss our previous experience with the play which wonderfully ranged from some participants never having read or seen the play to one of our participants who has been in the full play twice, once as Bosola and once as Ferdinand (looking at you Levi)! 

Other discussion topics include:

• Why is it a "hot" or "sexy" play?
• The muscularity of the language
• The constant threat of death
• What does Bosola want? Could we call this play "Bosola's transformation?" 
• The abuse of the old woman. *Note to all: use "abortive hedgehog" as an insult at some point in your life. 
• The quick changes from verse (where there is a rhythm scheme) to prose in Bosola's speeches
• The Elizabethan significance of green apricocks with regards to pregnancy
• Relationships between each character and the audience-how do they change over the course of the play?

Elizabethan apricocks. 

Tabling: The Duchess of Malfi Act I

Welcome back to the Duchess of Malfi! 

Join Emily Ota, Samantha Blinn, Will McKay, Robyn Hoedemaker, Zoë Goslin, John MacCormick, Sam Jenkins-Shaw, Bathsheba Piepe, Sally O' Leary, Brittany Chandler & Ariana Karp as we discuss Act I of Webster's glorious play.

We discuss a plethora of topics from how one could reduce the cast to a sleek, small ensemble to the dramaturgical questions of how long a woman would be in mourning after her husband dies, the strange incestuous obsession that both Ferdinand and the Cardinal have with their sister's sexuality, the court culture of watching people and 'intelligencing,' and the humour within the beautiful wooing scene between the Duchess and Antonio. 

Also we can break down each of the main characters within the 4 Elizabethan Humours.

• The Duchess: Sanguine-Blood, Hot, Wet, Air, Spring
• Ferdinand: Choleric-Yellow Bile, Hot, Dry, Fire, Summer
• Cardinal: Phlegmatic-Phlegm, Cold, Wet, Water, Winter
• Bosola: Melancholic-Black Bile, Cold, Dry, Earth, Autumn

The Four Humours