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RSC Insights
RSC Roundtables
Keynote Speech
Salman Rushdie
RSC Study and Book Clubs
Exhibits
Public Lectures and Discussions
Film
Community Receptions
Winter 2003 Course Offerings
RSC Roundtables
The RSC Roundtables are opportunities for the general public to engage
in stimulating intellectual discourse with regional experts and academics
on the themes featured in the RSC productions of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus
and Merry Wives of Windsor, and the stage adaptation of Salman
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.
CORIOLANUS ROUNDTABLE
“A World Elsewhere: Coriolanus and Cultural Exile”
Tuesday, March 4, 2:00pm
Power Center, 121 Fletcher St.
Immediately preceding the RSC Coriolanus “Insight” session,
this interdepartmental panel is moderated by Linda Gregerson (U-M Department
of English Language and Literature). Participants include Kate Mendeloff
(U-M Residential College Drama Concentration), Steven Mullaney (U-M English
Language and Literature), Cindy Sowers (U-M Residential College Arts and
Ideas Concentration), Markus Nornes (U-M Asian Languages and Cultures),
and members of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
What becomes of the man who is bred for war and forced to adapt to the
politics of peace? What becomes of the state whose military and civic
cultures profoundly diverge? Whose heroes lead their lives as strangers
to home and homeland? Director David Farr has chosen to highlight these
cultural schisms by staging Shakespeare’s play in the idiom of Samurai
Japan. Join this roundtable discussion to consider these questions and
others.
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ROUNDTABLE
“An Early Modern Sitcom: Love in Windsor 1602-2003”
Wednesday, March 5, 2:00pm
Power Center, 121 Fletcher St.
Immediately preceding the RSC Merry Wives of Windsor “Insight“
session, this interdepartmental panel will be moderated by Barbara Hodgdon
(U-M Residential College Drama Concentration). Participants include Frances
Dolan (English Language and Literature, Miami University of Ohio), Michael
Schoenfeldt (U-M English Language and Literature), John Neville Andrews
(U-M Theater and Drama), Naomi Andre (U-M School of Music), and members
of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
This roundtable discussion moves between the way “we” were—in
Elizabeth I’s age and in a post-war moment verging on the reign of
a second Elizabeth. This panel will explore the cultural and theatrical
contexts for Merry Wives, paying particular attention to the meanings
of community, class, and consumer (or material) culture. It will also
expand upon their theatrical recreations in a complex play that anticipates
London’s citizen comedy but is located in a provincial English town
populated by residents and visitors from the court, among them Shakespeare’s
most famous comic creation, Falstaff. More specific questions include:
What is good housewifery? What is a civilized household? What do love—and
money—have to do with it? How does the community manage and monitor
itself to maintain the social order?
A UMS collaboration with the U-M Medieval and Early Modern Studies, History
Department.
MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN ROUNDTABLE
“All The World and The Stage: The Theatre and
a Global Audience”
Tuesday, March 11, 4:00pm
Rackham Auditorium, 915 E. Washington St.
Immediately preceding the Salman Rushdie public interview with Ashutosh
Varshney, this interdepartmental panel will be moderated by Ralph Williams
(U-M Department of English Language and Literature). The panel discussion
will deal with the themes shared by all three RSC plays, namely issues
of class and the appropriation of culture. Participants include Simon
Gikandi (U-M English Language and Literature), David Potter (U-M Classical
Studies), Glenda Dickersen (U-M World Performance Studies), Steven Mullaney
(U-M English Language and Literature), Martin Walsh (U-M Residential College Drama Concentration), Sadia Abbas (U-M English Language
and Literature), and members of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Two of the three plays of the RSC residency this season move radically
across cultural divides, either in their own nature or in production.
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children presents in English the
crossings of Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Indian, British, and European cultures;
and director David Farr sets his Roman Coriolanus in Samurai Japan. The
third play sets the decora of Elizabethan England against the England
of the period immediately after WWII. The question: to what extent can
the values of one culture and era be translated into another cultural
context, with other decora, and retain their power, authenticity, and
pertinence? Can there be “global theater”? The discussion will
be of interest to anyone who wishes to consider the terms of our engagement
with cultures other than our own immediate and local one(s) and should
illuminate the achievements of these productions.
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