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Before Shakespeare and Engendering the Stage are delighted to announce our next performance workshop, focusing on combat as entertainment—in both Shakespeare’s time and today. Combat, acrobatics and feats of strength were everywhere in the early modern period: wrestling happened on the streets, in the countryside and in plays such as As You Like It. When he wasn’t doing terrible things to women and to God, Henry VIII, the most famous Tudor male, was also a renowned wrestler. Women, men and cross-dressed or non-binary people performed strength, sword and rope displays for public audiences. Animal combat, such as bear-baiting, was probably an even more popular cultural pursuit than theatre and was watched by all sectors of society across the country and in specially-designed London venues that were in direct competition with the playhouses. Although modern culture tends to sharply distinguish between theatre and combat as forms of entertainment, the playhouses of Shakespeare’s time were dedicated spaces for play and games of all kinds, and were as much fighting venues as theatres. Likewise, up until the twentieth century music halls and theatres also hosted boxing and wrestling matches, and employed boxers and wrestlers for sparring exhibitions or as actors in plays.
Craig Hamblyn and Kiel O'Shea demonstrate fencing at Before Shakespeare's Raising the Curtain event (July 2018)
Craig Hamblyn and Kiel O'Shea demonstrate fencing at Before Shakespeare's Raising the Curtain event (July 2018)
These historical matters have parallels with the contemporary UK wrestling scene. The history of theatre is one of deliberately broken traditions because the London playhouses were closed down in 1642, and boxing and wrestling venues have similarly been controversial spaces subject to control and suppression. In the late-nineteenth century legal changes sent some form of public combat underground, men’s wrestling was banned in London in the 1930s, women’s wrestling was similarly banned in London in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, and the decision to stop broadcasting wrestling on television in 1985 drastically affected its audience and popularity. But now the UK wrestling scene is so thriving and exciting that a current research project is actually called Wrestling Resurgence. Just as the work of our two projects has stressed the role of women and marginalised people in early modern performance, including combat and strength displays, so contemporary wrestling is thinking anew about gender, sexuality, race and disability in the ring and in its audiences.
Our hope is to use this event to bring these various ideas together, with a focus on using practice and performance as much as conversation to tease them out. Though we’ve swapped staff, methods, ideas and findings before, this will be the first time that Engendering the Stage and Before Shakespeare are in a room together exploring our ideas in performance. We will bring together combat and theatre historians, fight directors, professional wrestlers, actors, sports scholars and animal archaeologist for a conversation in which no one person is an expert, and look forward to generating new conversations and discoveries between our speakers and our audience. For anyone interested in street performance, popular play, combat as a form of entertainment or the links between theatre, circus and sport, we’d be excited to have you join us.
confirmed participants:
Sarah Elizabeth Cox (@spookyjulie / @wrestling1880s) is the press officer for Goldsmiths, University of London by day, a postgraduate history student by night, and a trainee pro-wrestler with the London School of Lucha Libre during the hours in-between. Through her research project Grappling With History she is piecing together the biographies of long-forgotten British and Caribbean boxers and wrestlers based in east and south east London in the 1880s and ’90s, focusing on ‘The Most Popular Man in New Cross’, heavyweight champion Jack Wannop. Images of Sarah, Hezekiah Moscow and late nineteenth-century grappling are below.
Broderick Chow is Reader and Deputy Director of Learning and Teaching at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. His research examines the intersections of theatre, performance, sport, and physical culture, and he has published widely on contemporary and historical wrestling, bodybuilding, weightlifting, and strongmen. He is a competitive weightlifter and coach.
Oisin Delaney started training in Knucklelocks School of Wrestling in 2016 under Darrell Allen and Eddie Dennis. He is part of a tag team called The NIC with Charlie Carter and has wrestled for promotions such as Progress, Revolution Pro, Battle Pro, Pro Wrestling Soul and a host of others. The NIC are known for their classic, brawling style.
Hannah O’Regan is an archaeologist with expertise in skeletons. She’s been examining the role of bears in human society, and has become intrigued by the relative lack of research interest in early modern animal baiting and combat – a crucial part of entertainment at the time. She’ll be bringing Bernard the bear with her.
Katrina Marchant is a material and cultural historian, sword fancier and lover of pugilism. She has an extensive performance background in musical theatre, theatre, compering, improvised and stand-up comedy, works as a costumed historical interpreter and educator at various heritage sites and wrote a PhD on trash, trifles and Protestant identity in the early modern period.
Duellorum are Craig Hamblyn and Kiel O’Shea – fight directors, stage combat teachers, and martial arts historians, combining academic research and practical experimentation. They specialise in the adaptation of historic martial arts for performance and spend a great deal of time very carefully and thoughtfully hitting one another.
Sam West is a Doctoral Researcher at Loughborough University, based in the Storytelling Academy. Sam’s research is focused on applied storytelling in independent professional wrestling. In 2017 Sam was co-founder of the theatre-led, independent wrestling company Wrestling Resurgence, which has grown out from publicly funded free events, into a fully-fledged, commercially viable, independent wrestling company. The project is led by Claire Warden, and you can see more about the research project here.
Claire Heafford is a cabaret artist and professional wrestler. She has spent the past 5 years traveling the UK with top British wrestlers to learn about the history and politics of the British Wrestling scene. She wrestles for Lucha Britannia, a Lucha Libre freestyle wrestling promotion based in Bethnal Green and performs apache pieces with feminist cabaret troupe I Need to Cher.
Prior to researching and performing Professional Wrestling she worked for 10 years in the publicly funded arts sector at London cultural institutions including the V&A, Museum of London, Battersea Arts Center, the Crafts Council, Pump House Gallery & University of the Arts London. She graduated with an M.A in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths College in 2005 & B.A Fine Art Sculpture from Chelsea College of Art & Design in 2004. From 1991-95 she was a member of the national gymnasts squad. Claire currently lives in Bethnal Green with her baby Luna and partner, professional wrestler Cara Noir. She teaches gymnastics & tumbling to professional wrestlers and stunt men through their company Reset LAB.
Mercedez Blaze is a professional wrestler, personal trainer and gym instructor.
Gillian Woods is a Senior Lecturer in Renaissance literature and theatre at Birkbeck, University of London. She’s currently working on a book about the things Renaissance actors did on stage: speaking, dancing, miming, jigging and fighting.
Emily Joh Miller is a theatre-maker and member of the women’s wrestling collective Burning Hearts Fighting Entertainment, where she co-produces shows and performs as the villainous Monica Rapture. She spends a lot of time thinking about how to bridge the worlds of wrestling and theatre, as well as thinking about how to address the systemic obstacles queer and disabled people face in both.
SL Grange is a theatre-maker, doctoral researcher (University of Brighton) and student of t’ai chi chuan. She is researching ways to meet Mary Frith, the Roaring Girl, via improvisatory performance practices, and learning how to wield a sword with ruthless efficacy.
Josef Kafka, The Man Stallion, 80kg, Plymouth, Devon, is a tenacious grappler with a submission-based methodology that references the fighting styles of large jungle cats, amateur wrestling, Brazilian jujitsu and badgers. In 2019 he launched the Kafka Kup: the world’s first year-long, international, inter-promotional, interspecies wrestling tournament. It was an unparalleled success.
Location and accessibility
For a map to the theatre, see here. For full Access information, see here. The map below highlights the easier way to get to the George Wood Theatre via step-free doors to the building and theatre, as well as step-free access to two gender-neutral toilets (room 165), one of which is fully accessible.
[…] Fencing matches are recorded at the Theatre, Curtain, Bel Savage, Bull, and other locations, which are also playhouses for dramatic performance. Explore the stage on which such performances took place; use the images linked here to think about the visual dimensions of an amphitheatre playhouse (the fully interactive site for the model is currently down). Then consider a space like inn-style playhouses of the Bel Savage (known for having a perilously high stage!) and Bull or in coaching inns like The George.Q1) What might it mean for actors, fencers, and other performers, as well as audiences, that these stages and buildings can vary so much? […]