Two Elizabethan Plays

The Evergreen Forum

TWO ELIZABETHAN PLAYS OFF THE PAGE

This course will examine plays by two of the greatest playwrights of their time: Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. They were absolute contemporaries, both born in 1564.

We will look at Marlowe’s THE JEW OF MALTA and Shakespeare’s THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Marlowe’s play came first, and many critics feel that Shakespeare’s play was in a sense "a response" to Marlowe’s. In each play the character of a Jew is central or at least major. MERCHANT is well known and often produced: Marlowe’s JEW OF MALTA less so on both accounts. However, Marlowe’s play was very popular in his time. There is much disagreement among scholars concerning many aspects of MALTA: textual integrity (we have a text from 1633 long after Marlowe’s death), and especially concerning the tone of the play.

As always, our approach will be "off the page": that is,. readings and impromptu staging, so we have the pleasure of taking a text and seeing what it says to us. Untrammeled by critical commentary, we can decide for ourselves what is tragic, what comic; what "works" and what doesn’t. This will be particular fun, I think, with the Marlowe play where we have fewer expectations (read greater ignorance). We are looking at these two plays at a time when contemporary sensibilities concerning ethnicity are totally unlike those of the Elizabethans. Should we care? Should we try to recreate the 16^th Century? Why not just see what we can do with the plays to make them speak to us? This course’s approach is not literary, historical, nor sociological: it is theatrical. Our main concerns will be characterization, language, and action..

We will begin with the Marlowe play. Please bring it to the first class.

Texts:

William Shakespeare, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE .Folger Library, Washington Square Press

Christopher Marlowe, THE JEW OF MALTA Dover Thrift Edition

Both can be ordered online. Please do use the recommended texts; otherwise we won’t all be "on the same page", as it were.

Leader: Barbara Herzberg, who has an extensive theater background academically and professionally, has taught English and drama and directed plays for may years.

Thursday: 10 a.m. to noon, beginning September 27.; probably for 10 weeks.