International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts
Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle
"All the World's a Stage": Theatre and the Collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
Janet Alexander Griffin
The Theatre and Theatre Collections / Le théâtre et les collections de documents
International
Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing
Arts
16th International Congress, London, 9-13 September 1985
Proceedings of the Congress
Société Internationale
des Bibliothèques et des Musées des arts du spectacle
16ème Congres Internationale, Londres, 9-13 september
1985
Procès-Verbal
London 1986, pp.95-97, [French abstract], p. 98
In 1932, Emily Jordan Folger and Henry Clay Folger founded a research library as a repository for the extensive Shakespeare collection they had gathered. They constructed near the U.S. Capitol a building which is reminiscent of the period of the collection, and within it a Great Hall to be used as an exhibition space and a theatre modelled on the innyard theatres used in Shakespeare's day. What has developed over the last fifteen years, since the Library embarked upon a program of live theatre for the public, is a professional theatre with a resident company presenting over 300 performances a year, along with related performing arts, educational programs, and exhibitions. Although the Library recently announced that the Folger Theatre, whose annual budget is now approximately one-third of the entire institution's budget, would become a separate entity, the theatre will remain in operation within the Library and in association with its parent institution. In this paper, I wish to discuss the ways in which the live theatre program at the Folger has been enhanced by its existence in an institution with a collection of resources significant to the theatre's purpose, while the theatre has made alive the scholarship and educational programs of the library.
The Folgers amassed one of the largest and finest collections of Shakespeare materials in the world. Emily Jordan Folger was a textual scholar who studied the variations among the many copies of the First Folio edition of Shakespeare which the Folgers collected. Today, hundreds of different editions of Shakespeare's work, along with numerous prompt copies of the plays, are available for those conducting research in the Library. Also available in the art collection are a large number of set and costume designs from 350 years of Shakespearean productions on stage, as well as an archive of Shakespeare performances and adaptations on film and video. Today a student of the theatre, a director, or actor can find at the Folger Library, not only contemporary productions of the plays on stage, but a rich history of outstanding productions of the past. The public will find Shakespeare performed in a theatre, not open air and certainly fitted out with all of modern day lighting and sound equipment, but recalling an Elizabethan structure.
The public will also find exhibitions, such as the exhibition currently on view at the Folger Library, "The Kemble Family: A Theatrical Dynasty." Items from the collection on display provide to audiences of modern productions a background of English theatrical history. In looking at the Kemble exhibition before the show or at intermission, one learns that Sarah Siddons was the first Lady Macbeth to play the sleep walking scene wearing long white robes - a costume which conveyed to the audience a clear indication of the character's madness. What is today a very common interpretation of Lady Macbeth's character was unknown before Mrs Siddons chose to adopt this costume. One also discovers in the Kemble exhibition that for over 100 years before John Philip Kemble's portrayal of Richard III, audiences had not heard the very famous lines at the opening of the play, "Now is the winter of our discontent/ Made glorious summer for this sun of York." Had not J.P. Kemble restored these lines which Colley Cibber had deleted, Sir Laurence Olivier's Richard perhaps would have begun his part quite differently. Many notes and drawings for Charles Kemble's Covent Garden productions testify to Mr Kemble's penchant for historical accuracy in costuming, an innovative approach for his time. In addition to temporary exhibitions on theatre history, the Great Hall of the Folger contains a permanent display of rare editions of Shakespeare. To the playgoer, the very sight of Shakespeare's First Folio or a quarto edition of the play in production lends a special, enriching dimension to the experience of seeing a performance.
Beyond enhancing the enjoyment of modern audience members by providing interesting insights into past performances, the collection may be used in researching modern productions. The Folger Consort, the early music ensemble also in residence at the Library, plans the production of a Jacobean masque in 1987. Under consideration is Ben Jonson's Oberon, the Fairy Prince, for which many of Inigo Jones' original set and costume designs are surviving, as well as Thomas Campion's musical scores. The production will be a recreation for the modern audience of what this elaborate form of period drama was like when Prince Henry went on the stage as Oberon, and King James, Queen Anne, and Princess Elizabeth looked on in 1611. By utilizing materials available in the collection, as well as the expertise of masque scholars working at the Library, we believe that this production will provide a unique combination of contemporary performing arts and scholarship, a collaboration which will produce a piece both entertaining for today's audiences and holding real historical significance for scholars.
Because the Folger Library is a research institution, there is often the opportunity for more spontaneous collaboration between current theatre productions and scholarship. The Shakespeare Quarterly, published at the Library, for instance, provide's a forum for comment by scholars on recent productions. Gary Jay Williams of Catholic University, in his review of the Folger's 1984 production of Henry V, wrote extensively on adjustments and omissions made in the text by the Folger Theatre, pointing to similar simplifications made by previous directors like Glen Byam Shaw (Old Vic, 1951). (Shakespeare Quarterly, Spring 1985, p.98.) Theatre historians of the stature of Charles Shattuck, author of Shakespeare on the American Stage and editor of the Kemble Promptbooks, are often in residence at the Library, leading seminars and delivering public lectures. It is rare for an institution of the Folger's size to afford the public an opportunity both to study famous past productions of Shakespeare and to witness current theatrical productions.
At times the collaboration is formalized into theatre performances and conferences, as was recently the case when Calderon's The Mayor of Zalamea was produced at the Folger and accompanied by a conference on this prolific Spanish Renaissance playwright. Patrons had the opportunity not only to see one of Calderon's finest plays on stage, but to hear scholars of international note speak on the significance of his work - and even to enjoy a luncheon of paella and other Spanish delicacies in between.
The film collection at the Folger is used by scholars of theatre and directors around the country. Lorne Buchman of the University of California - Berkeley spent some months at the Library viewing films, particularly those of Orson Welles and Grigori Kozintsev, as part of a study about Shakespeare on film and the practical use to film directors of such archival facilities. In preparing their roles, actors also make use of the archive. Many cast members of the recent Folger production of Hamlet viewed film versions in the collection, including Laurence Olivier's 1948 version, Richard Burton's Hamlet recorded live in 1964 at New York's Lunt-Fontaine Theatre, Kozintsev's Russian version of Hamlet (1964) translated by Boris Pasternak, and Franz Peter Wirth's German production (1960).
However, all of the educational programs at the Folger Library connected with theatre are not for adults. Our Shakespeare festivals for students from age nine involve young people in the staging and performance of plays, as well as the appreciation of professional drama. Each year over 500 small Macbeths, Cordelias, and Rosalinds come to the Folger stage to participate in a program which introduces students to Shakespeare through performance. In preparing teachers to utilize performance technique in teaching Shakespeare, the Folger administers a nation-wide summer institute for secondary school teachers which is funded by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities. Study at this summer institute is with resident and visiting scholars, master teachers, and actors and takes advantage both of the live theatre productions at the Folger and the rare collection. Participants, in the course of a day, might hear a lecture on "Hamlet and Revenge" in the morning, attend a group session to discuss the play in relationship with other contemporary plays like The Revenger's Tragedy and Tamburlaine, meet with master teachers and actors in the afternoon to develop curricula for presenting the play to students, and finish by seeing a live modern production of the play or a film. This month-long program, as well as other such programs which have been conducted for teachers on the university level, is truly the culmination of the collaboration at the Folger between live theatre and the documentary collection of the institution.
Through a diverse network of public programs the Folger Library reaches out to playgoers, actors and directors, teachers, and students, enriching for all of them their experience with Shakespeare's works. The success of the Folger's public programs - its theatre, exhibitions, and educational workshops - is made possible by the strength and breadth of the Library's collection which includes not only books and manuscripts, but also costume and set designs, promptbooks, films and videotapes. Although it is unlikely that the Library's founders envisioned such a role for the institution, it is likely that that they would be proud of the Folger's active involvement in serving a variety of constituencies through its theatre and related public programs.
"All the World's a Stage": Le Théâtre et la collection de la bibliothèque Folger Shakespearean à Washington, D.C.
Janet Alexander Griffin
En 1932, Emily Jordan Folger et Henry Clay Folger, fondèrent une bibliothèque de recherche comme depôt pour la vaste collection de Shakespeare qu'ils avaient recueillie. Près du Capitol des Etats-Unis, ils construisirent un bâtiment qui rappelle l'époque de la collection, et dedans, une grande salle qui serait utilisée pour les exposition aussi une théâtre modèle sur les "innyard theatre" de l'époque de Shakespeare. Ce qui s'est développé depuis les quinze dernière années lorsque la Bibliothèque s'est embarqué sur un programme de théâtre pour la publique, est un théâtre professionnel avec une troupe interne qui mont plus de trois cent spectacles par an, aussi que d'autres genres de spectacle, des programmes instructifs et des expositions. Bien que la Bibliothèque a récemment annoncé que le théâtre Folger, dont le budget est a peu près un tiers du celui de l'institution entière, deviendrait une société réparée, le théâtre, en fait, restera associe avec la Bibliothèque et l'institution fondatrice.
Le programme du théâtre
à la Folger a été mise en valeur par son existence
dans une institution qui tient une collection de
ressources importantes au but du théâtre, et en même
temps le théâtre a rendu vivant l'érudition et les
programme instructifs de la bibliothèque. Les metteurs
en scène et les étudiants de théâtre profitent ont
l'occasions d'étudier la collection de la Folger qui
comprend une des collections la plus large et la plus
rare du monde de matière sur Shakespeare. Les pièces de
Shakespeare en édition variées, y compris soixante-dix
neuf copies du "First Folio", des et nombreux
livres pour souffleurs utilisées par des célèbres comédiens
Shakespeareans et les anciens metteurs en scène, sont
disponibles pour la recherche. La collection d'art et les
archives du Film fournissent la matière pour les études
supplémentaire sur les montages, les scènes, les
costumes, et pour la publique, il y à l'occasion
d'apprendre tout l'histoire des pièces par moyen des
expositions comme l'exposition actuelle "La famille
Kemble: une dynaste théâtrale." A la Folger, il y
à l'occasion de recréer pour le spectateur contemporain
les amusement de l'époque, par exemple la production
proposée pour 1987, d'une masque "jacobéen"
dont la décor et les costumes seront basées sur les
dessins d'Inigo Jones et dont la musique sera de Thomas
Campion. La présence à la Folger des experts sur la
Renaissance facilitent la présentation des congrès, ce
qui complémente les pièces de théâtre. Un Congrès
académique, liée à la mise en scène de Le Maire de
Zalamea, à été récemment convoquée. Inclues dans
le Shakespeare Quarterly, publiée à la Folger,
sont des articles écrit par des experts sur les mises en
scène actuelles à la Bibliothèques et ailleurs.
Finalement, beaucoup de programme instructifs de la
Folger, dirigées vers les professeurs de Shakespeare et
des étudiants de tous niveaux - de l'école primaire et
secondaire aux études avancées - emploient un
enseignement, basé sur représentation. Ces programmes
sont renforcés par les pièces de théâtre monte a la
Bibliothèque Folger.
URL: http://www.theatrelibrary.org/sibmas/congresses/sibmas85/london85_18.html
Last updated: 27.11.2002
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