Tags
asidenotes, Canterbury, christopher marlowe, play-reading groups, The Jew of Malta, The Paper Stage
I guess much depends on exactly which sort of magic you seek when it comes to theatre – because there are so many.
But if you love the words, and all the imagining the words can spark off, then a play-reading group might be your thing. It might be mine: much as I have been increasingly busying myself with such production aspects as stage direction and lighting, I’m a playwright first. And, words being my stuff, I would love to be part of a project like The Paper Stage: people gathering at the Gulbenkian Cafè, in Canterbury, to read Elizabethan plays aloud.
No experience needed, and, from what I gather, no rehearsals: one just lets the group know, turns up, and… reads. And the play takes on a life of its own, judging by last month’s Romeo and Juliet. Oh, to be in England, now that such a brilliant idea is here…
As researcher and blogger Eoin Price says in his asidenotes, this means a chance to hear – if not to see – performed plays that are seldom staged, and to explore the varied richness of Elizabethan theatre in much more depth than it is usual.
Wish I could be in Canterbury next Monday, for the second Paper Stage event, a reading of Marlowe’s Jew of Malta. And because obviously I can’t, I’m already wondering: can I think up a Paper Stage-like group around here?
Related articles
- Forerunners of Elizabethan Tragedy: Thomas Kyd (reginajeffers.wordpress.com)
- Marlowe at Canterbury (asidenotes.wordpress.com)
- Elizabethan Rose theatre set to bloom again (guardian.co.uk)
Scribblings 
Now this is so simple and so intelligent that my reaction is “yes! let’s do it, right now!” – and then my enthusiasm crashes against the stolid mentality of my fellow citizens… would’n it be better to organize a nice dinner withtypical cousine?
Fill their bellies, not their brains – and God forbid trying to do both at the same time!
Ah, I feel cynical…
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Well well well, I’m thinking. Thinking furiously… I have some people in mind that I might involve. Theatre folks, of course, to begin with… but you know, you know – in spite of the typical cuisine – I think it could actually be done.
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It can certainly be done – and it’s so easy, and so hassle-free, that can certainly have quite some success.
And you can do it in a pub in winter, and in the park in the summer.
But I’m living in a place where the major library in the area does not have space enough to seat five persons at the same time, and when you go and propose something they say “You should explain your idea to [insert name of local big shot], I’m sure if he thinks it’s good enough he will do it!”
(yes, tonight I’m a little cynical)
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