One thought on “Tree’s Tempest

  1. This is marvelous. The idea of printing the whole text in a souvenir program is new to me (by which I mean: not that it was rare, but that I clearly knew nothing about theatrical customs of the time, if this was done).

    I love seeing acting editions of historical productions, and I know some survive (some of Ellen Terry's, for example, though I know of them only at second hand; and the one for the Olivier/Leigh Macbeth was published). But this is my first chance to see something from this period.

    The home page isn't kidding about earlier versions being remote indeed from Shakespeare; it was common to add a male parallel to Miranda (a man who had never seen a woman), and other such adornments.

    As an amateur follower of scenic design, I smiled in recognition that each scene was identified with the name of its painter, as was de rigeur. Decor for Shakespeare was imagined in terms of "painting a scene" rather than dramatic design in the sense we understand it, and various painters shared the scenes among them.

    Likewise composers. As a music historian, I'm thrilled to see the list of music used — the usual hodgepodge of its time. An overture "arranged" no doubt from Beethoven etc. An old setting of one of the songs (Arne, the 18th-c. composer of "Rule Brittania"), and new music by current composers known for such things, Edward German and Arthur Sullivan (of "Gilbert and"). Sullivan's music for this has been collected as a suite; I have a recording of it. But I never knew it was for a Tree production.

    Unfortunately this does not seem to be one of the Shakespeare productions that Shaw wrote about.

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