Shakespeare and the Catholic network

Contemporary Review, April, 2005 by Ralph Berry

At all events, the affinities between Richard II and the base court at Haddon Hall are manifest. Has Haddon Hall ever been the mise-en-scene for a performance? These days, the interest in historic venues for Shakespearean performances is growing. The Middle Temple Hall, for example, saw in 2004 a performance of Twelfth Night on February 2nd, as it did on Candlemas 1602. That may well have been its first night. The Middle Temple setting feeds into the text itself, as Anthony Arlidge argues (Shakespeare and the Prince of Love). The Shakespeare Globe company put on Measure for Measure at Hampton Court last summer. I have witnessed a couple of productions of Hamlet at Kronborg Castle, Helsingor ('Elsinore'), which gained enormously from the authentic setting. Shakespeare undoubtedly had detailed information about Kronborg from his colleagues who had worked there in the summer of 1586. It seems to me plausible that he had a personal acquaintance with Haddon Hall, and that this entered into his imaginative conception of Richard II and its staging.

I have not been concerned here to make out the larger Catholic case for Shakespeare's religious affiliation. That case may not need to rest on what Peter Milward, S.J. called 'a convergence of probabilities'. The position taken by Roland Mushat Frye, that 'Shakespeare employed references to religious doctrine for his dramatic purposes', is to me convincing, as it is to Maurice Hunt in his new book Shakespeare's Religious Allusiveness: Its Play and Tolerance, published by Ashgate and reviewed in this periodical in January. He argues that Shakespeare integrates Protestant and Catholic motifs and systems of thought. My interest is narrower. For me, the Catholic connection offers a scenario that accounts for much of Shakespeare's early career. Accept it, and what has been in darkness yields its contours to the fitful probings of an imperfect searchlight.

The Shakeshafte link is destined to become ever more important as a generator of research. The Hoghton Park Shakespeare Centre, a large-scale complex development, is now being planned. Its academic sponsor is the University of Lancaster. Shakespeare's Lancashire Connection is set to grow.

Region, Religion and Patronage: Lancastrian Shakespeare. Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay and Richard Wilson, editors. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]16.99 p.b. xiii 258 pages. ISBN 0-7190-6369-8 and Theatre and Religion: Lancastrian Shakespeare. Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay and Richard Wilson, editors. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]47.50. xiii 267 pages. ISBN 0-7190-6362-0. Shakespeare's Religious Allusiveness: Its Play and Tolerance. Maurice Hunt. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]40.00. xv 148 pages. ISBN 0-7546-3954-1.