Collaborations with the Past: Reshaping Shakespeare across Time and Media.
Abraham, Ruth
Collaborations with the Past: Reshaping Shakespeare across Time and
Media. By Diane E. Henderson. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2006. xi + 289 pp. 24.95 [pounds sterling]. isbn: 978-0-8014-4419-7.
'Books descend from books as families from families' (p.
104). This quotation from Virginia Woolf 's The Leaning Tower at
the beginning of Diana E. Henderson's second chapter provides a
premise with which to introduce her book Collaborations with the Past.
For each literary, theatrical and filmic production, there exists a
'prologue'- an influential source, often multiple, that has
come before--be it a play, a past production, or history itself. For
Henderson's purpose, the reoccurring past collaborator for all
artistic forms discussed is Shakespeare.
In Part 1, 'Novel Transformations', Henderson discusses
Walter Scott and Virginia Woolf in two consecutive chapters. Henderson
suggests that both Scott and Woolf 's collaboration with
Shakespeare do not involve direct replication of the Shakespearean
'urtext', but deal in a series of echoes, allowing for a
greater impact when the novelists' 'Shake-shifting'
inverts the natural trajectory of Shakespeare's classics. For
example, whilst Othello's Desdemona is led to the outskirts of
civilization to meet her demise, Scott's Kenilworth heroine Amy is
led from the marginal to the court: the threat is found 'at the
very core of "civilization"' (p. 53). For Henderson, this
shadow upon the English court ties to Scott's position as a Scot,
writing as an Englishman. Scott's own 'borderline'
politics infiltrates his novel, linking with his early modern
predecessor. Othello's racial aspects are replaced with the
emergence of the 'Celtic other', reflecting collaboration not
only with the text but with personal political policies.
Both chapters proceed to discuss the afterlife of Kenilworth and
Mrs Dalloway. Further collaborations, on the part of those involved with
the stage/screen production of these texts, are evident in the creation
of an 'Anglophilic' stage version of Kenilworth and in the
significance of the actors' professional past in the process of a
new production of Mrs Dalloway. These issues are taken further in the
second part of Henderson's text, 'Media Crossings', in
her discussion of The Taming of the Shrew and Henry V.
Whilst highlighting the nature of The Taming of the Shrew's
relationship with Shakespeare, history, and past productions,
Henderson's third chapter also directs the reader towards a
consideration of Shakespeare's collaboration with a modern
language. This is achieved through the discussion of Shakespearean
'spin offs' such as Kiss Me, Petrucio and 10 Things I Hate
About You, in which similar inversions, apparent in Scott and Woolf, are
demonstrated through the play's collaboration with the present.
The significance of modern 'reshaping' of the
Shakespearean play is particularly demonstrated in Henderson's
final chapter. Henry V's Welsh connection in Kenneth Branagh's
production is thoroughly examined, looking in particular at silent
historical narratives within the modern film. This emphasis is also
shown to speak to the present. Henderson points to Tony Blair's
limited relationship with the Welsh assembly, asserting that the
'Celtic Fringe' is once again 'a matter of the
moment', and therefore 'gives more weight to these choices of
representing Henry V' (p. 250).
Collaborations with the Past highlights the use of Shakespeare as
an 'urtext', but, as Henderson's argument unfolds, this
collaborative relationship with Shakespeare does not lie in the linking
of text with text alone, but also with Shakespeare's own
collaborative history, along with the impingement of the present. The
text is extremely informative and engaging, with enough information to
guide the reader effectively through Henderson's arguments. In the
introduction Henderson reiterates the claim that 'Every age creates
its own Shakespeare' (p. 3, citing Marjorie Garber).
Henderson's work not only supports this claim, but demonstrates the
truth of her title, that this 'Shakes-shifting' is not limited
to time, but that every 'media crossing' also creates its own
version of Shakespeare, based on collaborations with the past--and the
present.
Ruth Abraham
Queen's University Belfast
