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All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players
--As You Like It, Act II
We are Shakespeare lovers of varied backgrounds: actors and non-actors; teachers and baristas, retirees and programmers; people who read Shakespeare all the time and people who haven’t read him in many years. Some of us can do spot-on accents, some can sing, and some are very gifted performers; many of us just gamely read our lines as best we can, and with the best will in the world.
No acting experience is required; just a willingness to read aloud and appreciate Shakespeare’s language. Try it out—we're a friendly group! The beauty of the language, the insights into our human nature, the humor, compassion, anguish and scope of Shakespeare's work make it a treasure that we return to again and again, finding something new each time.
How to Get Started: RSVP to a particular meetup (and please keep your RSVP up to date; let us know if you can’t attend). Bring a copy of the play, if at all possible. To prepare, reading the play or watching a performance are ideal. Or you can read an introduction or a synopsis. Some of our readers practice at home, to get a feel for the language. Regardless of preparation, there will be some confusing lines, and we often have different editions; in that case, just wing it.
What to Expect from a Readthrough: We read the entire play; it takes most of the afternoon. We start by allocating roles. You can volunteer for a particular role that you want. There are usually twelve to twenty or more readers. The roles with the most lines are usually shared. We usually don't follow gender in determining who reads which role. However, at an event host’s discretion, there may be some occasions when gender is matched for a character. Weather permitting during July and August, we meet outside in Volunteer Park.
How This Meetup Group Is Run: The Seattle Shakespeare (Etc!) Readthrough meetup group has several organizers (Aidan, Scott, Harry, Mitch, Randi) plus individual event hosts. They take turns as “Event Hosts” for the read-throughs. The organizers select plays and library locations, and they update the website information.
How to Use This Web Site: Each meetup date has a place for posting comments about that meetup; these are usually appreciations, greetings, and tips on parking.
If you want to discuss a play or a performance in more depth, or if you want to discuss the group itself, click the “Discussions” menu near the top of the page, and then click “Message Board.”
If you want to find out more about a play (such as lists of characters and how many lines each has), click “More” near the top of the page and then click “Files.”
Yaklaşan etkinlikler (4)
Tümünü gör- Read Marlowe's Edward II - In PersonSeattle Public Library - Columbia Branch, Seattle, WA
The king of England is in love. Like any young man in love, he wants to give his sweetheart the moon, but, failing that, he’ll settle for what lies in a king’s gift: land, titles, riches, and protection against the envy of fellow courtiers. And there’s plenty of envy to go around. As far as Edward’s barons are concerned, civil war is preferable to having to smile and kneel to someone they consider unfit for the king’s company, let alone his bed: Piers Gaveston, a foreigner, a commoner…and another man.
Now, more than 400 years after its first performance, aspects of Christopher Marlowe’s ode to passion and political violence still feel strikingly modern. The most obvious of these is its portrayal of Edward’s sexuality. Marlowe—generally understood to have been queer himself—makes clear what Edward and Gaveston mean to each other, and the nobles who object to Gaveston are under no illusions, either. Edward himself, moreover, is a character who would not be out of place in the cast of Succession. Neither all villain nor all victim, by turns irritating, frightening, and heartbreaking, the 14th-century king speaks directly to our messy, flawed humanity. He’s terrible at his job, but then again, he doesn’t really want his job. What he wants is “some nook or corner…/To frolic with my dearest Gaveston”—a private life, a loving relationship between equals, the one thing that a king, by accident of birth, can never have.
Of course, Edward II is still a Marlowe play. There’s introspection and more naturalistic verse, sure, but fans of the Bard’s brasher, flashier high-camp contemporary will still find plenty to enjoy. Nobles squabble, armies clash. Heads are severed, fists are shaken, terrible vengeance is called down from the wrathful heavens, and that’s not even touching the infamous dénouement with the red-hot poker. But at the heart of the political capital-T Tragedy is a smaller, more personal tragedy, one that still resonates deeply with anyone who’s ever been told that the way they love is wrong.
So come out and celebrate* Pride month with Kit Marlowe, one of the brightest, boldest luminaries of late-Elizabethan England.
*for some value of “celebrate"
Logistics:
We will read the first half of the play, take a break for snacks and chat, then read the second half of the play. Afterwards we'll have a short discussion - you're welcome to stay for this if you'd like, or leave if you'd prefer. Lately a few of us have taken to going out to dinner after the reading, too, if you’d care to extend the conversation.
RSVPs will open one week before the event (Saturday, June 14). I've posted a list of the sixteen reader roles, so you can take a gander at them in advance.
After you RSVP, please send me (Adrian) a Meetup message listing your top three role choices. If you’re open to reading anything, please still send me a message letting me know that you have no preference. I’ll update the role sheets every couple of days to show which parts are left.
Our reading this month will be at the Columbia City branch of the Seattle Public Libraries. Parking in the neighborhood isn’t too dire, I’m told, but the library is about a 10m walk from the Columbia City light rail station, so parking at a Park and Ride along the 1 Line light rail route (e.g. Northgate) and taking the light rail the rest of the way would be a viable alternative.
Finally, a note about THE TEXT!
Edward II’s textual sources are more consistent than those of other Marlowe plays (looking at you, Faustus) but we don’t have the convenience of a single authoritative Folger edition this time.
There are a couple of free, downloadable online playtexts. I would recommend working from the “Theatre Script” version on elizabethandrama.org, which tidies up the speaker prefixes and line breaks. I’ve used the scene breakdowns in this edition as the basis for my role assignments.
Here’s the link: https://elizabethandrama.org/the-playwrights/christopher-marlowe/Edward-ii-by-christopher-marlowe/
For you purists who are willing to put up with awkward formatting and variable speaker names for a more authentic quarto-flavor experience, the Version 3.0 encoding on the Folger Digital Anthology of Early Modern English Drama is quite similar to the elizabethandrama text, give or take a few lines.
Here’s the Folger link: https://emed.folger.edu/ed2
