Theatre History

This post also appears on The National Archives blog.  

On the 18th February, Before Shakespeare and The Dolphin's Back will return Elizabethan drama to the site of the First (and Second) Blackfriars Playhouse(s).

I was fortunate to be able to attend some of the superb Before Shakespeare conference at Roehampton last week. I came away with a range of thoughts and ideas, some of which I hope to pursue in one form or another.

The Before Shakespeare conference is over. But while the Before Shakespeare project continues, those of us who gathered together in sunny Roehampton at the end of August for four days of presentations and performances are left to contemplate life after Before Shakespeare.

The conference’s special panel on Christopher Marlowe offered a range of approaches to Marlowe’s plays, but all three highlighted themes of subjugation and violence, perhaps hinting at factors that made Marlowe’s plays so shocking and influential when first performed.

Disclaimer: this post will be a grossly incomplete summary of a tremendously rich and engaging panel "Metre and Repertory", which was so full of fascinating facts and questions that I cannot do them justice here.