When Shakespeare is a party and everyone feels welcome
Department: New Swan Shakespeare Center
Post Date: April 23, 2021News Details
What do you think when you think of Shakespeare? To most, he’s a key part of the Western canon. But what can the works of a 400-years-dead Englishman possibly have to do with modern social justice?
Well, it turns out that it’s a lot like planning a party.
On April 16, the New Swan Shakespeare Center hosted a book launch for The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Social Justice, edited by David Ruiter (UCSD). A group of scholars from the U.S. and the U. K. discussed this exact question. Many cited Shakespeare’s position in the Western canon as both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, Dr. Arthur Little from UCLA said that “Shakespeare is so often set in opposition to any kind of politics.” He is used to preserve culture as it is.
But can Shakespeare also be part of the fight for social justice? According to Chris Anthony (pictured here), who teaches theater at DePaul University, “Shakespeare is not actually the answer . . . Shakespeare is a tool that can be helpful in training people to change the world.”
It’s a tidy way to explain her idea of “Shakespeare as venue.” Shakespeare isn’t important for social justice because his work has some inherent tie to these modern movements. He’s important as a stage—a venue—to explore these complex issues in a space that’s familiar to people all over the world.
“There’s the Shakespeare text, right? . . . There’s the literal stage of Shakespeare,” Anthony said, “but also, there’s this idea of Shakespeare as the place where ideas get worked out.” For example, she and her students were discussing Romeo and Juliet soon after a thirteen-year-old had been shot by the police. One student suggested that Lord Capulet might have been so adamant to marry Juliet off because he wanted her safely away from the feud. While the text paints Lord Capulet as a controlling father, Anthony’s students used their own experiences to see something new in Capulet.
Shakespeare’s soft power—his place as a cultural icon—is a resource that Shakespeare organizations should leverage, according to the Globe’s Farah Karim-Cooper. “Deny it or don’t,” Karim-Cooper said, “he’s mired in whiteness.” It’s the role of organizations like the Globe to make Shakespeare a venue that can “liberate and account for the experiences of their artists of color, and of all backgrounds.”
This inclusive attitude is what makes social justice through Shakespeare a little like party planning. During the event’s workshop portion, Chris Anthony asked participants to plan a post-pandemic party together. People were asked who their guests were, what food they’d serve, what kind of music they wanted, and how they wanted their guests to feel.
The answers for the first three questions varied from person to person: some people wanted potlucks with live music. Some wanted a gumbo night. Some wanted to put on small plays. Some wanted karaoke. Some wanted a roving train of strangers going from location to location, and some just wanted a quiet night in with their friends.
Everyone agreed on one thing, though: they wanted their guests to feel welcomed, happy, and included.
“When we have this idea of ‘party’ . . . you have an opportunity, right? Let us know: how do we want people to feel? . . . To me,” Chris Anthony said, “this is all part of the anti-racist Shakespeare. This is all connected to Shakespeare and social justice, right? Because social justice has to happen on a lot of different levels.”
Like the parties that the participants threw, “we are told that Shakespeare is a feast . . . And yet, we don’t always welcome people in a way that makes people feel seen, and grateful, and loved, and appreciated, right?” Shakespeare’s works are a “feast” of characters, stories, and situations that can open up a cultural space where everyone feels welcome at this big party we should all be throwing together.
Chris Anthony will be returning to New Swan for Educator’s Day in July to talk about Romeo and Juliet and social justice. The event is open to teachers, student teachers, and life-long learners alike. More information available here.
View the launch party here. 90 people attended from at least five countries.
Interview with editor David Ruiter
This article was written by Megan Strand, an English major interning for the New Swan Shakespeare Center.