Scenic Review
Scenic Review
Shadows and Substances: Additions to The Spanish Tragedy and Titus Andronicus
David Higbee Williams (@DavidHigbee) joins us to talk about metatheatre and madness in the painter scene and the fly killing scene from The Spanish Tragedy and Titus Andronicus. Transcript: https://leevineyard.wordpress.com/2021/03/03/shadows-and-substances-episode-5-transcript/
Notes: This episode contains two scenes instead of one, and there will be some differences in the formatting between the two. These scens also contain more explicit descriptions of violence than previoius episodes, and the discussion touches on suicide and early modern racism.
(Lee as) Hieronimo: See, who knock there.
(Lee as) Ped. It is a painter, sir.
Hier. Bid him come in, and paint some comfort.
For surely there's none lives but painted comfort,
Let him come in!—One knows not what may chance:
God's will that I should set this tree!—but even so
Masters ungrateful servants rear from nought.
And then they hate them that did bring them up.
Enter the Painter.
(DHW as) Paint. God bless you, sir.
Hier. Wherefore? why, thou scornful villain?
How, where, or by what means should I be bless'd?
(Lee as) Isab. What wouldst thou have, good fellow?
Paint. Justice, madam.
Hier. O ambitious beggar!
Wouldst thou have that that lives not in the world!
Why, all the undelv'd mines cannot buy
An ounce of justice!
'Tis a jewel so inestimable. I tell thee,
God hath engross'd all justice in his hands,
And there is none but what comes from him.
Paint. O, then I see
That God must right me for my murder'd son.
Hier. How, was thy son murder'd?
Paint. Ay, sir; no man did hold a son so dear.
Hier. What, not as thine? that's a lie,
As massy as the earth: I had a son.
Whose least unvalued hair did weigh
A thousand of thy sons: and he was murder'd.
Paint. Alas, sir, I had no more but he.
Hier. Nor I: but this same one of mine
Was worth a legion. But all is one.
Pedro, Jaques, go in a-doors; Isabella, go,
And this good fellow here and I
Will range this hideous orchard up and down,
Like to two lions reav'd of their young.
Go in a-doors, I say.
Come, let's talk wisely now.
Was thy son murder'd?
Paint. Ay, sir.
Hier. So was mine.
How dost take it? art thou not sometimes mad?
Is there no tricks that comes before thine eyes?
Paint. O Lord, yes, sir.
Hier. Art a painter? canst paint me a tear, or a wound, a groan, or a sigh? canst paint me such a tree as this?
Paint. Sir, I am sure you have heard of my painting: my name's Bazardo.
Hier. Bazardo! afore God, an excellent fellow. Look you, sir, do you see, I'd have you paint me for my gallery, in your oil-colours matted, and draw me five years younger than I am—do ye see, sir, let five years go; let them go like the marshal of Spain—my wife Isabella standing by me, with a speaking look to my son Horatio, which should intend to this or some such-like purpose: 'God bless thee my sweet son; and my hand leaning upon his head, thus sir; do you see?—may it be done?
Paint. Very well,sir.
Hier. Nay, I pray, mark me, sir: then, sir, would I have you 'paint me this tree this very tree. Canst paint a doleful cry?
Paint. Seemingly, sir.
Hier. Nay, it should cry; but all is one. Well, sir, paint me a youth run through and through with villains' swords, hanging upon this tree. Canst thou draw a murderer?
Paint. I'll warrant you, sir; I have the pattern of the most notorious villains that ever lived in all Spain.
Hier. O, let them be worse, worse: stretch thine art, and let their beards be of Judas his own colour; and let their eye-brows jutty over; in any case observe that. Then, sir, after some violent noise, bring me forth in my shirt, and my gown under mine arm, with my torch in my hand, and my sword reared up thus:—and with these words:
'What noise is this; who calls Hieronimo?'
May it be done?
Paint. Yea, sir.
Hier. Well, sir; then bring me forth, bring me through alley and alley, still with a distracted countenance going along, and let my hair heave up my night-cap. Let the clouds scowl, make the moon dark, the stars extinct, the winds blowing, the bells tolling. the owls shrieking, the toads croaking, the minutes jarring, and the clock striking twelve. And then at last, sir, starting, behold a man hanging, and tottering and tottering, as you know the wind will wave a man, and I with a trice to cut him down. And looking upon him by the advantage of my torch, find it to be my son Horatio. There you may show a passion, there you may show a passion! Draw me like old Priam of Troy, crying: 'The house is a-fire, the house is a-fire, as the torch over my head!' Make me curse, make me rave, make me cry, make me mad, make me well again, make me curse hell, invocate heaven, and in the end leave me in a trance—and so forth.
Paint. And is this the end?
Hier. O no, there is no end: the end is death and madness! As I am never better than when I am mad: then methinks I am a brave fellow; then I do wonders: but reason abuseth me, and there's the torment, there's the hell. At the last, sir, bring me to one of the murderers; were he as strong as Hector, thus would I tear and drag him up and down.
Sound of Hieronimo hitting the Painter, and then a bell as we switch to the next scene
(DHW as) TITUS ANDRONICUS
So, so; now sit: and look you eat no more
Than will preserve just so much strength in us
As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.
Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot:
Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,
And cannot passionate our tenfold grief
With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine
Is left to tyrannize upon my breast;
Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,
Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,
Then thus I thump it down.
Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!
When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,
Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.
Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;
Or get some little knife between thy teeth,
And just against thy heart make thou a hole;
That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall
May run into that sink, and soaking in
Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.
(Lee as) MARCUS ANDRONICUS
Fie, brother, fie! teach her not thus to lay
Such violent hands upon her tender life.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
How now! has sorrow made thee dote already?
Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.
What violent hands can she lay on her life?
Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands;
To bid AEneas tell the tale twice o'er,
How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?
O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,
Lest we remember still that we have none.
Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,
As if we should forget we had no hands,
If Marcus did not name the word of hands!
Come, let's fall to; and, gentle girl, eat this:
Here is no drink! Hark, Marcus, what she says;
I can interpret all her martyr'd signs;
She says she drinks no other drink but tears,
Brew'd with her sorrow, mesh'd upon her cheeks:
Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought;
In thy dumb action will I be as perfect
As begging hermits in their holy prayers:
Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,
Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,
But I of these will wrest an alphabet
And by still practise learn to know thy meaning.
(Lee as) Young LUCIUS
Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments:
Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS
Alas, the tender boy, in passion moved,
Doth weep to see his grandsire's heaviness.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears,
And tears will quickly melt thy life away.
MARCUS strikes the dish with a knife
What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?
MARCUS ANDRONICUS
At that that I have kill'd, my lord; a fly.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Out on thee, murderer! thou kill'st my heart;
Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny:
A deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus' brother: get thee gone:
I see thou art not for my company.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS
Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
But how, if that fly had a father and mother?
How would he hang his slender gilded wings,
And buzz lamenting doings in the air!
Poor harmless fly,
That, with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry! and thou hast
kill'd him.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS
Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favor'd fly,
Like to the empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
O, O, O,
Then pardon me for reprehending thee,
For thou hast done a charitable deed.
Give me thy knife, I will insult on him;
Flattering myself, as if it were the Moor
Come hither purposely to poison me.--
There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.
Ah, sirrah!
Yet, I think, we are not brought so low,
But that between us we can kill a fly
That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS
Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,
He takes false shadows for true substances.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me:
I'll to thy closet; and go read with thee
Sad stories chanced in the times of old.
Come, boy, and go with me: thy sight is young,
And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.
End scene music
Lee: Hello listeners, welcome to Scenic Review. That was the painter scene from The Spanish Tragedy and the fly killing scene from Titus Andronicus. My name is Lee Vineyard, you just heard me as Hieronimo and Marcus Andronicus. As well as a handful of one line roles: Isabella, Pedringano, Lucius. Joining us today is David Higbee Williams as the Painter and Titus Andronicus. David is a PhD student at the university of Michigan, where he focuses on early modern drama. Hello David, thank you for joining us.
DHW: Hello, it's my pleasure. It's good to be here .
Lee: So for this episode, unlike I think all episodes so far, we did two scenes instead of one. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about what the scenes have in common?
DHW: So these scenes are both kind of strange and interesting. Both of these scenes are believed to be later additions to these plays, and with both the scenes the authorship is... disputed, shall we say. Recently more and more people have come to believe that the painter scene from The Spanish Tragedy is likely by William Shakespeare, although for a while it was thought that maybe it could have been by Ben Johnson because there is evidence that he did right additions to The Spanish Tragedy. Just probably not these ones, people are agreeing now. And the fly killing scene in Titus Andronicus, for a while a long time people took it for granted that it was probably by Shakespeare. There wasn't much of a question of it, but recently some people have argued that it might be actually very late addition by Thomas Middleton.
It seems to me like both of these scenes seem to date from around the same time. I do think that these feel like they're doing kind of similar things, and I personally am convinced that they are by Shakespeare sometime in the mid 1590s.
Lee: And when we talk about additions to a play, this refers to scenes or segments that are added after the play has been completed and performed and out in the world. Would you say that's a good description?
DHW: Absolutely, yes, both of these plays were printed and published before these additions were probably even written. These additions seem to have been written for the purpose of drawing in audiences to plays they've seen before with the promise of some new stuff. And specifically stuff like what they enjoyed most of all from the play before.
LEE: So these are the special edition DVDs
DHW: That's exactly right, yeah. These aren't like deleted scenes, these are scenes for a re-issue. One of the reasons why I find these particular seems really interesting is because I think that as a result of that, they give pretty valuable insight into what it was about these plays that people really liked. Both of these plays are sort of notoriously popular, even though they're not among the most popular plays now. There is a moment in a play by Ben Johnson, I'm trying to remember which one it is, but what where somebody mentions alludes to the fact that even though it's 15 or 20 years after the these plays were written, Hieronimo and Titus Andronicus are still really popular. And Ben Johnson kind of makes fun of that.
But I mean it's testament to you know what made these to the enduring popularity of these plays in the period. Which was in large part bolstered by them being willing add to these plays, and give them-- And I mean, in these scenes I think we see some of the stuff that people really liked about these plays: the spectacles of madness and this pretty complex attention to what it means to depict something in art.
Lee: So these are the scenes were sort of slotted in later. Ehere where are they put in to the arcs of these plays?
DHW: So these scenes actually commit pretty similar parts of these plays. They each come about halfway through. Closer towards the middle in Titus Andronicus and sort of a little bit past the middle of The Spanish Tragedy. But they come at moments when the the main characters, the Revengers of these plays Hieronimo and Titus, currently don't have any idea of how they will get revenge. In these instances Hieronimo's son has been murdered, Lavinia has been raped and mutilated. And both of these characters know that they want to get revenge. They don't have a way to get revenge, and here they're looking--
Well, it's-- it's different. Different degrees to which the vengeance seems possible here. I mean from the beginning of the scene and Titus is saying that we will revenge you the bitter woes of ours where as for Huron and though it isn't clear to him what he can do in the in the scene after that where the scene probably comes in the Spanish tragedy he does talk about vengeance but in this particular party he seems to not have any confidence in revenge.
Lee: It actually didn't feel like you need a lot of context for the painter scene because he sort of does explain in the scene what is happened pretty well I think. At least I hope so. I guess you can tweet me if you didn't understand.
DHW: Right, if somebody were to to make a movie of The Spanish Tragedy, a really good trailer for the movie would just be this scene, I think. And you can tweet me if you disagree, and I'll argue with you (or I'll concede that maybe I just don't know much about what makes for a good movie trailer).
Lee: You've looked at these scenes before pretty extensively and in context of each other, yes?
DHW: That's right, for my undergraduate thesis I looked at the relationship between madness and metatheatre in these play. I look at how theatrical madness develops over the course of these plays and the additions to them. And one of the things that actually made me want to talk about this are these particular scenes, and how they seem to suggest a relationship between how madness was conceived of in the period and in particular how it is represented on stage and how people viewed the stage itself. One of the lines that I tried to make most of was "grief is so right on and he takes full shadows for true substances" from the fly killing scene, which I pointed to as an instance of the same metaphor-- false shadows and true substances-- working both to talk about Titus' madness but also about theatre itself, especially in the context of the little revenge play that he stages with the fly, casting it as Aaron.
Lee: Can you give us just a really quick definition of metatheatre for anyone who hasn't heard that term before?
DHW: Oh of course, yes. Metatheater-- well, people have argued about what it is and then kind of stopped talking about it, and then continue to use the word without really talking about what the word means. But metatheatre basically refers to when a play is in some way commenting upon theatre itself. Sometimes this is done very directly, such as through plays within a play. Sometimes it's done rather indirectly such as when a play is implicitly commenting on ideas relating to perception and representation that have significant implications for theatre as a medium.
Lee: Let's talk a little bit about how madness is portrayed in these two scenes. I think you're definitely right that there is similarity between these two madmen Hieronimo and Titus.
DHW: Yeah. Two of the main ways of it it seems like madness is often represented on stage is through language-- And the way that it's represented through language changes during this period. Prose becomes more of a signifier of madness than it is early on, but also just fragmented speech, non sequiturs, generally like disjointed language seems to offtentimes indicate madness, to the point when there are even plays like The Winter's Tale where people sort of debate whether not Leontes is mad. It's not clear that he is in the text, but his language does use a lot of the characteristics that had been used to depict madness, which I think feeds into people calling Leontes mad.
One other thing which oftentimes seems to represent madness on the stage is just, like, misplacing violence and just taking out violence on somebody else. Here at the end of the painter scene Hieronimo beats up the painter suggesting in this painting 'bring me to one of the murderers this is how I would beat him up' "thus would I tear and drag them up and down" and he beats up the painte,r which is not dissimilar to Titus creating an an image of revenge that he brings a little bit-- Takes a little bit too literally.
Lee: It's interesting to think about the ways that we portray madness, on stage and the way that people portray madness or mental illness on stage and on screen now.
DHW: Absolutely, and I know that some people shy away from saying 'madness' when talking about early modern plays for instance, and a lot of things but one of the reasons why I lean towards keeping the word when talking about these plays is just because. I feel kind of strange talking about these plays in terms of mental illness because I don't think that these plays in any way represent actual mental illness.
I think-- in fact I think that a great deal of harm has been done historically sort of accepting Shakespeare's mad characters as true to life. There's been some work done on how in the development of American psychiatry doctors were looking a lot to Shakespeare's representations of madness, especially in the mid 19th century I believe, and if you look to Shakespeare for representation of badness you just going to-- I think that that is done great harm to actually mentally ill people. And to our understanding of these plays, less importantly. But yeah, I'm hesitant to use the phrase mental illness when talking about early modern mad characters. I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done about how madness in this period does not represent reality but actually becomes a like dramatic phenomenon, an excuse to stage these wild scenes, and if we do take them as representations of reality that enables a great deal of harm to be done in the name of understanding mental illness.
Lee: I am there with you. You describe that the killing of the fly as like a little play which I think was apt, framing that as art. And obviously in the painter scene you have at Hieronimo looking to process his grief through art. And sort of some confusion about how the medium of art and the medium of reality interact, there. The idea that you can paint sound...
DHW: One reason why I find Hieronimo's description of what he wants, this painting, to be rather interesting is that he's describing in the play an image from the play that had already become very iconic by the time these additions were were written. The image of Hieronimo with the sword and a torch finding his son's body was one frequently referenced, even before this edition was made. And so this addition is responding to something in the original play which had become really popular. Although the woodcut was probably created after this addition was written, there's a very popular woodcut of Hieronimo with sword and torch seeing his son's body. Editions of this play were very frequently printed with this woodcut, which actually does have like a little speech bubble coming out of Hieronimo's mouth saying those words, which is A way to-- but presumably of course, this painting we're not actually have a speech bubble, he's asking for something that--
Lee: I mean, it could.
DHW: That's true, that's true. I'm afraid I've not seen Bizardo's other work.
Lee: Yeah, it kind of-- it does sound like he's asking for a comic book.
DHW (laughing): Yeah
Lee: All these different images that he wants sequentially, and he wants the sound.
DHW: Yeah, and one interesting thing about asking for this speaking picture is that Philip Sidney, before this he had compared poetry to a speaking picture. So here when Hieronimo asks for a speaking picture it seems to be in conversation with that early literary criticism. Sir Philip Sidney is one of the \ major Elizabethan writers on poetry, because of his Defense of Posey. He was also a brilliant poet himself who wrote a Defense of Posey seemingly in response to an anti theatrical writer dedicating a pamphlet to him thinking that he'd like it. And I mean, he was a poet. He didn't like it.
Lee: It's interesting to see what here on does when presented with another person in a similar situation to him.
DHW: Funny enough in this part of the play ,this scene might be replacing an earlier scene we're here on finds another old man whose son was murdered. (It's just a really common thing in this.) And there's some discussion about whether or not that scene was just replaced with this scene, which to me makes a lot of sense because it is kind of repetitive to have Hieronimo meet another old man soliciting him for justice for a murdered son. Especially because that old man is named Bazulto. And some people say that having these, you know, Bazardo and Bazulto scenes is worth doing. When I cut th play directed I did not keep-- I kept in the painter scene I cut most of the other scene. I did add in one of the speeches from that scene into the painter scene, just because I really like it. Hieronimo says:
"Aye, now I know thee, now thou namest thy son;
Thou art the lively image of my grief:
Within thy face my sorrows I may see;"
And that sort of making a connection, which is present in the Bizardo scene in a different way, rather explicit. Where in the previous scene Hieronimo sees the other old man as the image of his own grief, whereas with Bizardo he asks the other man to create this image of his grief. So that might be a good reason to keep both these scenes. Plus that bit has one of the best puns in the play:
"thou and I and she will sing a song,
Three parts in one, but all of discords fram'd,—
Talk not of cords!—but let us now be gone,—
For with a cord Horatio was slain"
Lee: Yes, a "mist is mystical" level joke .
DHW: It is, it is. It was that "the mist is mystical" line from Arden of Faversham that made me think that Kyd may have been, you know kind of won me over to the Kid side of that debate.
Lee: I believe it. There is a moment in the fly killing scene I think that there's a big, sort of, performance choice to make sort of near the beginning. Lavinia has had her tongue cut out and her hands cut off, so she's not able to speak or to write. Titus believes that he's able to interpret what she's conveying through her eyes, through her gestures. And I think it's kind of an important choice whether you think he is correct or not. What do you tend to think about that? Do you think he's actually interpreting her correctly ?
DHW: I lean towards thinking no, that he is not interpreting her correctly. Ao Julie Taymor is film Titus-- film of Titus Andronicus titled just Titus-- is, I think, an absolutely brilliant film, one of the the the greatest adaptations of a Shakespeare play on film that has ever existed. Certainly one of the best I've ever seen. The one decision that makes that I do you really disagree with is that it has Anthony Hopkins as Titus completely, like every, Lavinia really seems to be trying to say what Titus says she is. And she seems so relieved and nods when when he voices his interpretation, and to me that's very much not how I read the scene. It seems to be more of an instance of ventriloquizing saying what he wants her to be saying.
Lee: What do you think it adds to the the scene and the characters when that's the case?
DHW: In some ways the scene is is kind of easier to stomach when, you know, you don't have like any attempt of her to communicate going awry. But part of it, is just that what he describes it seems to be this hyper romanticized view of of her grief. And it seems to be so exaggerated in a way that doesn't feel in keeping with how Lavinia seems earlier in the play when she is able to speak before her tongue is cut out.
Also I think that it's really important that in the next scene, she is finally able to communicate certain things using a copy of Ovid's Metamophoses, and also by writing in the ground with a stick which she holds in her mouth. That moment when she's finally able to communicate is, I think, very important and it shows what she's really trying to communicate, which is not what Titus says here.
Lee: I know that we've talked before about the idea that Titus is projecting a certain view of madness, and specifically female madness, onto her actions here.
DHW: Yes, absolutely. Partly, there's a certain particular tendency for mad woman to commit suicide. And I mean in Shakespeare's plays, Ophelia...
Lee: Constance, arguably
DHW: Constance. Jailers daughter wants to but does not succeed. In the Spanish tragedy, well before the additions, Hieronimo's wife Isabella-- She goes mad, and unlike her husband who. I mean, he does eventually kill himself after he gets revenge, but Isabella killed herself well before then, after destroying the tree on which Horatio was hanged.
Lee: Was there anything else that you wanted to say about either or both of these scenes, separately or together?
DHW: I feel some obligation to talk a little bit about race in Titus Andronicus, because it's very present in the scene, but this also feels like not a particularly good scene in Titus with which to talk about it. But I feel like I kind of want to address that.
Lee: Yeah, it definitely feels like it should be addressed, even if there is not a lot to say about it in this context. These characters display racism and it would be inappropriate to leave it un-commented-upon, but there's not a lot of complexity in the way that they display it.
DHW: Yes. It might be worth saying that rest of this play, specifically where Aaron appears, does show a more complicated view of race. Aaron is is a really fascinating character. In the first scene of a play he's present but doesn't speak. He seems originally like he isn't necessarily going to become a really essential character, but then he absolutely becomes-- and he has, not that this is necessarily a very good sign of who the more important characters in the play are, but he is the second most lines after Titus.
And not just that, but the play becomes more about him as it goes along. It feels like Shakespeare's getting distracted from the story that he starts out telling by talking about Aaron, who is fascinating because he is in some ways. I mean he does represent a lot of deeply entrenched racist ideas of the period. I mean he is not just cruel and evil, but revels in his own cruelty more so than any other character in a play filled with cruel characters who are often content to revel in their cruelty. But it does feel like there is much more going on, especially as the play goes on. I think some of the most moving moments in this play occur after the baby-- Aaron and Tamara's child-- is born and Aaron is supposed to kill this child, but he will not and he kills the nurse instead. And some of the most moving moments in the play are about Aaron wanting to protect his child. He eventually, as the play goes on, more and more towards the end, a lot of the times later on when he voices his own unrepentant delight in killing and all sorts of other crimes, a lot of it feels like a performance where he's mobilizing various associations with blackness in order to fundamentally save the life of his child. Which becomes his motivation of the rest the play, and not to save his own life at all.
Lee: Good news listeners: if you're wondering, he does save the child
DHW: Yes, one of the few characters to survive this play. I think there are 14 deaths.
Lee: That feels right. I think I would be remiss if I didn't make you talk a little bit about the production of The Spanish Tragedy that you directed.
DHW: Yes, so I have directed a production of The Spanish Tragedy. Four years ago we were currently rehearsing this. So it was a student production at the University of Texas put on by the Broccoli Project there, and it was mostly with puppets. The characters who are not puppets are Andre and Revenge, the frame at the beginning of the play who comment on the action and watch it throughout. But other than them the characters are all these very much Muppet inspired puppets. A lot of highly stylized violence throughout. And then one of the things that we did with this production was. So at the end of this play Hieronimo, when he does get his revenge, he invites people who are responsible for his son's death the Lorenzo and Balthazar, and also Bel Imperia who's joining him in getting revenge, to participate in this play within a play where it's a tragedy. A lot of characters in the play within a play die, and Hieronimo just uses real knives and swords and kills his enemies in this play within a play.
So at that moment in in my production, rather than the puppet Hieronimo stabbing the other puppets, the actor controlling the puppet stabbed the other actors. And rather than, you know, using brightly colored red yarn and highly stylized gore as I done earlier, we just used a lot of fake blood spurting everywhere (there was this blood splash zone in the audience). Just as, you know, the moment when the boundary between play and play within the play were dissolving, as characters in the play within a play were dying that their characters, I decided to try to push that metatheatre a little bit further.
Lee: It was a very effective use of a wacky concept, both to make a comment on the text, also I think get the audience not expecting it to be like a production that makes a serious comment on the text.
DHW: It was a lot of fun, and we found a lot. That's, I think ,interesting if you're if you're interested in and puppets there are a lot of things that we learned about that that aren't so relevant to discussion of the play The Spanish Tragedy. But we found that puppet violence is always funny-- I don't know how to make puppet violence not funny, we tried we never succeeded. But puppet grief can be weirdly moving.
Lee: Yeah, definitely. Also a lot of like, puppet making skills.
DHW: Right. Lee helped make many of those puppets: all the arms, and the best puppets that were it that play.
Lee: And all in one 12 hour stretch of time.
DHW: Yes! Yes yes yes.
Lee: So if listeners want to go and find you out on the internet, where should they look?
DHW: They can go to my Twitter account at @DavidHigbee, and Higbee is H i g b e e (this makes less sense in transcript). And that's I guess the best way to find me. You can also, if for any reason you want to email me, you can email me at DHigbeeW@umich.edu.
Lee: And then, you know what comes next, yeah?
DHW: Yeah!
Lee: Okay.
Both, perfectly(-ish) simultaneously: Curtains!
Lee: Goodbye audience.