Shakespeare in Ten Acts

Fantastic exhibition at the British Library to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare.

The show took the novel approach of focusing on ten performances which showed different aspects of the development of the performance and influence of the plays. As a prologue it had some amazing documents from the handwritten accusations against Christopher Marlowe, a First Folio and various editions of the plays published in his lifetime.

Two of the performances were from Shakespeare’s time, the first Hamlet at the Globe and the first play he wrote specifically for the Blackfriars indoor theatre, The Tempest. The Hamlet gave them the chance to look at different actor’s interpretation of the character. It also looked at the actors of the day and their stories. The Tempest section featured props from the Sam Wannamaker Theatre which I love.

Other sections used specific performances to investigate themes. One looked at the first Hamlet to be performed outside Europe, on an East India Company ship, to look at overseas performances and influence. A performance from 1660 of Othello which featured the first female actor in the play was used to highlight the role of women actors both in the early days and iconic performances since. It is such a shame that we don’t know the name of that first actress. The 1825 performance of Othello starring Ira Aldridge, a black actor, was used to investigate race in the plays and in particular how we have moved away from the idea of a white actor ‘blacking up’ to play the role of the Moor.

The show finished by looking at how Shakespeare is performed now. Taking the 2002 Globe version of Twelfth Night, where Mark Rylance played Olivia, they showed a trend experimenting with original style productions to learn more about the text. Then taking at 2013 production of Hamlet which incorporates film of the 1964 Broadway producing with Richard Burton to show a digital interpretation.

Closes on 6 September 2016.