Lecture Theatre: Encounters with Slapstick and Sympathy
Judith E Wilson
Drama Studio
Faculty of English
West Road, CB3 9DP
These lectures will examine the means by which dramatists test the bodies of others for variously comic, tragic, traumatic and/or traumatising effects. In concert with the performer Meg Lewis, Ian Burrows examines in detail some forms of dramatic coercion as practised inside and outside the theatre.
Lecture-Theatre I: Falling Down
(Wednesday 19 November, 5.30-7pm)
The relationship between actor’s and character’s body; compulsive and convulsive actions; defining and policing the real world. Featuring: Shakespeare’s King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra; Sophocles’ Philoctetes; Samuel Beckett’s Act Without Words; others.
Lecture-Theatre II: Slosh
(Thursday 20 November, 5.30-7pm)
Simulated and real and ‘real’ violence; comic violence and violent comedy; power dynamics; credulity and incredulity. Featuring: Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Sarah Kane’s Blasted; Alice Sebold’s Lucky; various opinion columns; others.
All are welcome. It is not necessary to attend both lectures. No prior knowledge of the texts discussed and tested will be assumed. Both lectures will allow time for discussion and response at their conclusion.
Meg Lewis is an OFFIE nominated actor and writer working across theatre, TV and film. They graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, where they were awarded the Raymond Edwards Prize for their contribution to the arts in Wales. Their short play A Disappointing Birthday Party won Theatr Clwyd’s Daniel Owens Writing Competition. Meg is currently working towards their British Sign Language Level 3 Certificate.
Theatre includes: Peak Stuff (ThickSkin), Tiger (Omnibus Theatre), PITCH (Pleasance/November Theatre), String (Omnibus Theatre), The Blue House (Helikon Theatre Company), VISITS (Clean Break/Papertrail), The Lion’s Den (Camden People’s Theatre), Moon Licks (Paines Plough), A Doll’s House (Sherman Theatre)
Film & TV includes: Achievement (Tree Tops Films), What We Doing (London Film School), GALWAD (Sky/National Theatre Wales), Grey Mare (Solent), I Do Harm (Newport Film School).
Ian Burrows is a Fellow in English at Clare College, and he is the author of Shakespeare for Snowflakes: On Slapstick and Sympathy. His work centres most often on literature from the early modern period: he has recently contributed a new introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics Comedy of Errors, and he is completing a monograph on printing hiccups and the printing of hiccups, Punctuation and Personality in Early Modern Literature. He has fifteen years’ experience teaching English at a range of higher education institutions, including Cambridge, Anglia Ruskin, and Bristol; while at Bristol he co-directed the English Literature and Community Engagement part-time degree programme. His writing has been performed at the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone (In Flagrante, Rough for Opera) and Shunt (The Favoured One).
The drama studio is located in the basement of the Faculty of English and is accessible via the Faculty lift or a stairwell.
Please do not attend if experiencing cold-like symptoms.