Ildiko Solti is an actor-director, researcher and lecturer, former Shakespeare Research Fellow at Kingston University, London. She trained in Dramatic Arts at Macalester College, St Paul, MN, USA. Having returned to Hungary, she obtained her MA in Shakespeare Studies at Eotvos Lorand University and was Artistic Director of an English language theatre company, The Phoenix, in Budapest. In 1999 she moved to London where she has been teaching and conducting research and experiment in performance, focusing on Elizabethan/Jacobean working theatre reconstructions through the method of research through practice in performance (PaR). She holds a PhD in Performing Arts from Middlesex University, London. Ildiko is currently working on a book on the catalytic role of the Globe Theatre project in performance theory, acting and Shakespeare Studies.
Expect the Unexpected – shared light as framework in Shakespeare’s theatre
Dr Ildiko Solti
Many of the characteristics of the theatre of Shakespeare’s time made “the unexpected” its necessary component. The actors did not have access to the full play text but were working from “parts”; a different play was performed almost every day so there was no time for a lengthy rehearsal; there was no lighting or set or even a director to provide a pre-existing interpretative frame to the production. Given these conditions, it is difficult to imagine how the apparent lack of structure that all these aspects of performance-making provide ever made the unique works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries possible.
So how did they do it? In this talk, I will explore what tools Shakespeare and Company did have at their disposal to navigate “the unexpected”, from the rhythm of the iambic beat of the verse line through a sports-team-like awareness of the visible architectural playing space they inhabited with the audience, to the virtuosic physical skills they were famous for all over Europe. As I will show through an example from a contemporary play, the ultimate aim of performance is never to avoid but to confront, and even generate, “the Unexpected” of live action – ensuring its value as entertainment as well as evolutionary device. We will also look at some tools that you can use instantly, in your quest for “the Unexpected” that these plays keep surprising us with, yourself.