Table Of ContentNOTELETS OF FILTH
This collection of short, accessible essays serves as a supplementary text to Mor-
gan Lloyd Malcolm’s play, Emilia.
Critically acclaimed and beloved by audiences, this innovative and
ground-breaking show is a speculative history, an imaginative (re)telling of the
life of English Renaissance poet Aemilia Bassano Lanyer. This book features
essays by theatre practitioners, activists, and scholars and informed by intersec-
tional feminist, critical race, queer, and postcolonial analyses will enable students
and their teachers across secondary school and higher education to consider the
play’s major themes from a wide variety of theoretical and interdisciplinary per-
spectives. This volume explores the current events and cultural contexts that
informed the writing and performing of Emilia between 2017 and 2019, various
aspects of the professional London productions, critical and audience responses,
and best practices for teaching the play to university and secondary school stu-
dents. It includes a foreword by Emilia playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre, arts
activism, feminist literature, and theory.
Laura Kressly (she/her) is a theatre critic, dramaturg, and director. She is
co-founder of the Network of Independent Critics. She is currently working on
her PhD at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where she is also a
visiting lecturer.
Aida Patient (she/her) teaches women’s writing in the Department of English,
Languages, and Cultures at Mount Royal University in Canada.
Kimberly A. Williams (she/her) is a teacher, scholar, and activist. She directs
the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Mount Royal University in Canada.
Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies
This series is our home for cutting-edge, upper-level scholarly studies and edited
collections. Considering theatre and performance alongside topics such as reli-
gion, politics, gender, race, ecology, and the avant-garde, titles are character-
ized by dynamic interventions into established subjects and innovative studies
on emerging topics.
Rechoreographing Learning
Dance As a Way to Bridge the Mind-Body Divide in Education
Sandra Cerny Minton
Politics as Public Art
The Aesthetics of Political Organizing and Social Movements
Martin Zebracki and Zane McNeill
Lessons for Today from Shakespeare’s Classroom
The Learning Benefits of Drama and Rhetoric in Schools
Robin Lithgow
Notelets of Filth
A Companion Reader to Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s Emilia
Edited by Laura Kressly, Aida Patient, and Kimberly A. Williams
Transcultural Theater
Günther Heeg
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Advances-in-Theatre-Performance-Studies/book-series/RATPS
NOTELETS OF FILTH
A Companion Reader to
Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s Emilia
Edited by
Laura Kressly, Aida Patient, and
Kimberly A. Williams
Foreword by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Laura Kressly, Aida Patient, and
Kimberly A. Williams; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Laura Kressly, Aida Patient, and Kimberly A. Williams to
be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Kressly, Laura, editor. | Patient, Aida, editor. | Williams, Kimberly A.
(Kimberly Ann), 1975– editor. | Malcolm, Morgan Lloyd, writer of foreword.
Title: Notelets of filth : a Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s Emilia companion reader /
[edited by] Laura Kressly, Aida Patient, and Kimberly A. Williams ; foreword
by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Includes
bibliographical references. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022036749 (print) | LCCN 2022036750 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367470982 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367498290 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003033387 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Malcolm, Morgan Lloyd. Emilia. | Lanyer, Aemilia—In
literature. | English drama—21st century—History and criticism. | Feminism
in literature.
Classification: LCC PR6113.A43 E45366 2023 (print) | LCC PR6113.A43
(ebook) | DDC 822/.92—dc23/eng/20221125
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036749
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036750
ISBN: 9780367470982 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780367498290 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003033387 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003033387
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
CONTENTS
List of Figures ix
List of Boxes xi
List of Contributors xiii
Foreword xvii
Morgan Lloyd Malcolm
Introduction 1
Laura Kressly, Aida Patient, and Kimberly A. Williams
SECTION I
Current Events and Cultural Contexts 17
1 Women ‘think round it’! Writing and Publication in Emilia 19
Jennifer Young
2 ‘Burn the Whole F*cking House Down!’: Black Feminist
Lessons for Joyful Rage 31
Kimberly A. Williams
3 Frenzy’s Weaponry: The Mythic Dimension of Emilia 47
David Bullen
4 ‘This is My Gaff’: Safe Spaces, Cultural Property, and
Shakespeare 57
Peter Kirwan
vi Contents
5 Towards Emilia: Black and South Asian Women in the
Performance of Shakespeare 68
Sita Thomas
SECTION II
Emilia in Practice 81
6 ‘There’s a Woman on the Stage!’: Emilia and the Politics of
Bodies in Space at Shakespeare’s Globe 83
Sara Reimers
7 Embodying Emilia: A Conversation about Movement Creation 92
Christina Fulcher and Anna Morrissey, with Laura Kressly
8 History, Her Story, or Our Story? Navigating the Tensions
of Historically-Responsive Storytelling in Emilia 105
Eleanor Chadwick
9 ‘For Eve. For Every Eve.’ An Intersectional Feminist
Investigation of Men’s Violence Against Women in Emilia 118
Erica Navickas
10 We are Emilia: Emilia as Witness, Witnessing Emilia 130
Catherine Quirk
11 #IAmEmilia: When Marketing Creates a Movement 139
Gemma Kate Allred
SECTION III
Critics and Audiences Respond 149
12 ‘There’s Only So Much Work Our Imaginations Can Do’:
Emilia and London’s Privileged Theatre Critics 151
Laura Kressly
13 #EmiliaFamilia: Representation Matters 163
Heather Marshall
14 The #EmiliaFamilia: Feminist Fandom on Twitter 170
Emma Bentley
Contents vii
15 Feeling Collectives: Emotions, Feminist Solidarity, and
Difference in Emilia 181
Isabel Stuart
SECTION IV
Teaching Emilia 195
16 Teaching Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s Emilia in a
University Classroom 197
Aida Patient
17 On Teaching Emilia as Intersectional Feminist Praxis 201
Kimberly A. Williams
18 ‘What’s past is prologue’: Teaching Women, Race, and
Emilia in the Twenty-first Century 207
Rebecca Steinberger
19 Opening Up New Worlds: Emilia at a London Girls’ School 215
Kathryn Martin
Appendix A: A Brief Chronology of the Life and Times of Aemilia
Bassano Lanyer 224
Aida Patient
Appendix B: Biographies of Historical Figures in Emilia 227
Janet Bartholomew
Appendix C: Nationality, Racial, and Education Demographics of
Emilia Critics 231
Laura Kressly
Appendix D: Semester research project 235
Kimberly A. Williams
FIGURES
2.1 Unknown, Women’s March on Versailles, 1789. Bibliothèque
Nationale de France. Digital version by SteveStrummer, CC 4.0 35
2.2 The author’s office whiteboard in February 2019. Photograph
by the author 38
7.1 This map by Christina Fulcher demonstrates the vast amount
of people involved with creating new writing and the exciting
journey of the process of creating Emilia 94
7.2 L-R: Eva Fontaine, Christina Fulcher, Amanda Wilkin, Tanika
Yearwood, Sophie Stone, Anna Morrissey, and Cora Kirk.
Photograph by Helen Murray 95
7.3 L-R: Christina Bloom, Sophie Stone, Amanda Wilkin, and
Christina Fulcher (back), and BSL interpreter Sula Gleeson.
Photograph by Helen Murray 96
7.4 T he full Emilia cast, Anna Morrissey, Christina Fulcher,
stage manager Carol Pestridge, and BSL interpreter Jo Ross.
Photograph by Helen Murray 97
7.5 The cast of Emilia. Drawing by Carly Sponzo. 98
7.6 The Emilia West End creatives and actors shared powerful
lessons learnt in interviews with Christina Fulcher conducted
via voice notes, email and Zoom conversations. Their messages
hopefully inspire and spark your creativity, process and practice
to create your own Emilia 100
13.1 Screenshot by the author of her text exchange with Sandy
Thomson of Scotland’s Poorboy Theatre 166
14.1 Screenshot by the author of a Tweet from May 2019 by
London-based actor Lucy May Barker 170
