Timothy N.

Evers – Cultural Landscapes Portfolio

It is not uncommon for Shakespeare’s works or words to be re-contextualized to

fit popular or unpopular events in the contemporary world. When we formed our Cultural
Landscape Pitch group, it was asked by a fellow member, what cultural event would we
like to collectively respond to? We uniformly agreed on the European migrant issue, as
it has inexplicably become a part of our daily consciousness. Reminded of the National
Theatre’s 2012 production of Timon of Athens, set in contemporary London, with hints
of the Occupy movement, I suggested a staging of The Tempest, as, in many ways, it is
a tale about displacement, outsiders and strangers, seeking to understand where they
came from and how to adapt to their new surroundings. This idea then expanded into
our final pitch, ShakeUp, which sought to re-contextualize a number of Shakespeare’s
works, in response to the migrant issue, to be read by a number of British celebrities. It
fell upon me to research which texts might speak to the current situation of migrants
coming to Europe.
It was advantageous that a video of Sir Ian McKellen performing a speech from
Sir Thomas More, a play written in collaboration by A. Munday and H. Chettle, but later
revised by Shakespeare, was making the rounds on social media. The speech is the
only existent copy of playscript in Shakespeare’s handwriting. It is a speech by More,
demanding humanity, spoken to a riot (later known as the Evil May Day Riot), which
demands that recent Dutch migrants be kicked out of England. England at that time was
experiencing…

what historians describe as a ‘‘floodtide of immigration’’, unique to England, ‘‘an

influx that dwarfed the immigration of all previous eras’’, when the foreign
population of London rose from about 3,000 in the 1550s to over 10,000…in
1600… The majority of arrivals were Protestant exiles fleeing persecution in the
Spanish Netherlands and France, especially after the Bartholomew’s Day
Massacre. (Wilson; 22-23)

The opening of More’s speech contains these lines:

‘Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,

Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,

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Timothy N. Evers – Cultural Landscapes Portfolio

And you in ruff of your opinions clothed…’

- Thomas More, Sir Thomas More (2.4:67-71)

And it was not hard to imagine the above excerpt combined with the following photo,
taken by David Levene for the Guardian, 2015:

With this combination in mind, I found an urgency to discover more excerpts that spoke
to the issues of migration.
Though I am American, I have lived in London on and off for the past six years
and have been educated in two of the UK’s finest institutions. I have become my own
cultural landscape– much like Richard II, when in prison, ‘hammering out’ his thoughts,
which play many parts. I cannot help but to be influenced by the news from back home,
which has begun to use the migrant issue in Europe (and many other forms of migration
and immigration), as an elusive boogeyman come to take over America as well. At the
time of our pitch, I imagined the likes of Nigel Farage speaking the following words of
Richard III, but now I feel retroactively justified that they
be spoken by Donald Trump, who we heard this past
week demand all Muslims barred from entering the US.

‘‘Remember whom you are to cope withal,

A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,
A scum […] and base lackey peasants,
Whom their o'er-cloyèd country vomits forth
To desperate ventures and assured destruction.

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Timothy N. Evers – Cultural Landscapes Portfolio

You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;

You having lands and blessed with beauteous wives,
They would restrain the one, distain the other.’
- Richard III, Richard III (5.3:3831-3838)

It seems to me, then, that re-contextualizing Shakespeare is no hard exercise.

There is an inherent universality to his works, which defy space and time. Dominic
Dromgoole, writing for the Guardian in 2005, says, ‘Each age re-imagines Shakespeare
to suit the pressure of its own moment. He suits now as well as ever.’ And later:

He celebrated all the world, not the section he favoured. We keep going back to
him - now more than ever - because we know that his spirit of inclusion, his love
for everything, is our last best hope. (Dromgoole, 2005)

Is this not, then, the secret to Shakespeare’s writing – the reason why it is possible to
re-contextualize his work – his underlining humanity, which inspires us, as artists, to
frame his words to suit the problems in a contemporary world? I certainly think so. And I
feel the point brought home, by returning to Sir Thomas More, in the same speech by
Shakespeare, when More suggests that the citizens of London put themselves into the
shoes of the ‘strangers’:

‘…Would you be pleased

To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But chartered unto them, what would you think
To be thus used? This is the strangers’ case;
And this your mountanish inhumanity.’
- Thomas More, Sir Thomas More (2.4:122-133)

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Timothy N. Evers – Cultural Landscapes Portfolio

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Referenced:

Dromgoole, D. (2005) ‘The glut of Shakespeare stagings’, The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/jul/13/rsc.theatre (accessed 12/10/2015)

Wilson, R (2005) ‘Making Men of Monsters: Shakespeare in the Company of Strangers’,

Shakespeare, Vol. 1, No. 1: 8-28.
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?sid=f1182a30-1441-474f-bf62-
ba1228c40935%40sessionmgr4003&vid=20&hid=4105&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpd
mU%3d#AN=17588669&db=ibh (accessed 12/10/2015)

Consulted:

Bate, J. and Rasmussen, E. (2013) ‘Immigration riots and the hand of Shakespeare’,
theartsdesk.com http://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/immigration-riots-and-hand-
shakespeare (accessed 12/10/2015)

Gentleman, A. (2015) ‘The horror of the Calais refugee camp), The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/03/refugees-horror-calais-jungle-refugee-
camp-feel-like-dying-slowly (accessed 12/10/2015)

Elgot, J. (2015) ‘Benedict Cumberbatch stuns theatregoers with anti-government

speech’, The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/30/benedict-
cumberbatch-stuns-theatregoers-anti-government-speech-refugees (accessed
12/10/2015)

Broomhall, S. (2014) ‘The asylum seekers who frightened Elizabethan England’, The
Conversation http://theconversation.com/the-asylum-seekers-who-frightened-
elizabethan-england-21743 (accessed 12/10/2015)

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