Shakespeare Globe

Read Not Dead

Globe Education began its series of stage readings of plays in 1994. Since then audiences have been able to see and hear over 150 plays written between 1567 and 1642 by Shakespeare's contemporaries. These 'performances with scripts' are staged by professional actors and directors in the Globe Education Theatre in Bear Gardens.

Venue: Globe Education Centre Theatre, 58 Park Street, SE1
Tickets: £8 (£5 FoSG/concs/students)

Love's Metamorphosis

by John Lyly (c. 1590)
Sunday 18 May 3pm-c6pm

Three shepherds love three nymphs, but the young women scorn them; a tyrannical ruler commits a horrific act of violence against a helpless victim; his daughter attempts to ensure her own safety and romantic success. What will happen when the gods intervene, and in how many ways might love be metamorphosised? Lyly's witty pastoral romance is perhaps the ultimate expression of Elizabethan comedy's preoccupation with changeability and transformation. 'Inconstancy', as one of the nymphs declares, 'is a vice which I will not swap for all the vertues'.

Gorboduc

by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville (1562)
Sunday 22 June 3pm-c6pm

The aging King Gorboduc decides to resign his crown and to divide his kingdom between his two sons, Ferrex and Porrex, in order that 'they may both learn to rule,/ And I may joy to see their ruling well'. The division of one's kingdom, as Shakespeare's King Lear also reminds us, is usually a mistake. Originally performed before Elizabeth I by members of the Inner Temple, Norton and Sackville's stark and powerful political tragedy illustrates the consequences of a ruler's mismanagement of his succession, and his kingdom's subsequent descent into civil war.

The Merry Wives of Windsor (Q1)

by William Shakespeare (1602)
Sunday 24 August 3pm-c6pm

In 1602 a book entitled 'A Most pleasant and excellent conceited Comedie, of Syr Iohn Falstaffe, and the merrie Wiues of Windsor. Entermixed with sundrie variable and pleasing humors, of Syr Hugh the Welch Knight, Iustice Shallow, and his wise Cousin M. Slender. With the swaggering vaine of Auncient Pistoll, and Corporall Nym' appeared on book stalls. This first quarto edition of The Merry Wives of Windsor differs radically from the version that was later printed in the First Folio, and it has been the basis for some hugely influential theories about the transmission of Shakespeare's plays in print. A rare opportunity to see (and hear) just how different it is.

The History of Timon of Athens: The Man-hater

by Thomas Shadwell (1677)
Sunday 21 September 3pm-c6pm

Timon of Athens is one of Shakespeare's least popular plays. This is because, as most scholars agree, there are scenes missing from the text as well as scenes written by someone other than Shakespeare. The result is that Timon of Athens is seldom produced on the stage today. Nevertheless, Timon of Athens was one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays during the Restoration and 18th Century. Why? Because it was produced in an adaptation by Thomas Shadwell.
Over 20 of Shakespeare's plays were re-written during the Restoration. Of these, Shadwell's Timon of Athens is certainly the best. Thomas Shadwell was a successful and prolific Restoration playwright, and as he was adapting Timon of Athens, he set out to correct the problems in Shakespeare's play. While retaining much of Shakespeare's dialogue, Shadwell addressed the lack of women in Shakespeare's Timon by giving the title character two mistresses. He added scenes for Alcibiades, whose sudden appearance in Shakespeare's play is always confusing; and he added needed scenes at the end, to bring the play to a more satisfactory conclusion.
The result was an enormously successful adaptation which was popular on the London stage for more than 75 years. Shadwell knew what he was doing as he modestly wrote in his dedication, Timon of Athens "has the inimitable hand of Shakespeare in it…but I have made it a play."

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