Table Of ContentPlayfulness in Shakespearean
Adaptations
Four hundred years after William Shakespeare’s death, his works continue to
not only fill playhouses around the world, but also be adapted in various forms
for consumption in popular culture, including in film, television, comics and
graphic novels, and digital media. Drawing on theories of play and adaptation,
Playfulness in Shakespearean Adaptations demonstrates how the practices of
Shakespearean adaptations are frequently products of playful, and sometimes ir-
reverent, engagements that allow new ‘Shakespeares’ to emerge, revealing Shake-
speare’s ongoing impact in popular culture. Significantly, this collection explores
the role of play in the construction of meaning in Shakespearean adaptations—
adaptations of both the works of Shakespeare, and of Shakespeare the man—
and contributes to the growing scholarly interest in playfulness both past and
present. The chapters in Playfulness in Shakespearean Adaptations engage with
the diverse ways that play is used in Shakespearean adaptations on stage, screen,
and page, examining how these adaptations draw out existing humour in Shake-
speare’s works, the ways that play is used as a pedagogical aid to help explain
complex language, themes, and emotions found in Shakespeare’s works, and
more generally how play and playfulness can make Shakespeare ‘relatable,’ ‘rele-
vant,’ and entertaining for successive generations of audiences and readers.
Marina Gerzic works for the ARC Centre for Excellence for the History of
Emotions, the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early
Modern Studies Inc., and Medieval and Early Modern Studies at The University
of Western Australia in both research and administration roles, and is the edito-
rial assistant for the academic journals Parergon and Shakespeare Bulletin. She
is the editor, with Aidan Norrie, of From Medievalism to Early-Modernism:
Adapting the English Past (Routledge), and has published articles on film and
adaptation theory, Shakespeare, pedagogy, cinematic music, cultural studies,
science fiction, comics and graphic novels, and children’s literature.
Aidan Norrie is a historian of monarchy, and a Chancellor’s International
Scholar in the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at The University of
Warwick. Aidan is the editor, with Marina Gerzic, of From Medievalism to
Early- Modernism: Adapting the English Past (Routledge); with Lisa Hopkins,
of Women on the Edge in Early Modern Europe (Amsterdam University Press);
and, with Mark Houlahan, of New Directions in Early Modern English Drama:
Edges, Spaces, Intersections (Medieval Institute Publications). Aidan is currently
working on a monograph, Elizabeth I and the Old Testament: Biblical Analo-
gies and Providential Rule, which is forthcoming from Arc Humanities Press.
Routledge Studies in Shakespeare
33 Shakespeare and Indian Cinemas
‘Local Habitations’
Edited by Poonam Trivedi and Paromita Chakravarti
34 Shakespeare and Asia
Edited by Jonathan Locke Hart
35 Francis Bacon’s Contribution to Shakespeare
A New Attribution Method
Barry R. Clarke
36 Shakespeare’s Props
Memory and Cognition
Sophie Duncan
37 Limited Shakespeare
The Reason of Finitude
Julián Jiménez Heffernan
38 Spectrums of Shakespearean Crossdressing
The Art of Performing Women
Courtney Bailey Parker
39 The Art of Picturing in Early Modern English Literature
Edited by Camilla Caporicci and Armelle Sabatier
40 Shakespeare and Girls’ Studies
Ariane M. Balizet
41 Playfulness in Shakespearean Adaptations
Edited by Marina Gerzic and Aidan Norrie
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com
Playfulness in Shakespearean
Adaptations
Edited by
Marina Gerzic and
Aidan Norrie
First published 2020
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Marina Gerzic and
Aidan Norrie; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Marina Gerzic and Aidan Norrie 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.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-25646-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-28880-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
For Maria Varljen, whose love, playfulness, humour, and
quick wit I will never forget.
There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord:
she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad
then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often
dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing.
(Much Ado About Nothing, 2.1.261–264)
—M.G.
For Rebecca, who first introduced me to Shakespeare, and
for John and Nurida, without whom I would not be here to
write this.
I did, I saw him dead,
Breathless and bleeding on the ground. Art thou alive?
Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight?
I prithee speak; we will not trust our eyes
Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem’st.
(1 Henry IV, 5.4.127–131)
—A.N.
Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Group
http://taylorandfrancis.com
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Contributors xi
Acknowledgements xv
1 “Did Shakespeare Really Write This Racy Stuff?”:
Playfulness in Shakespearean Adaptations 1
MARINA GERZIC AND AIDAN NORRIE
SECTION I
Page to Stage/Stage to Page 17
MARINA GERZIC AND AIDAN NORRIE
2 “This Great Stage of Fools”: Anachronisms and Mockery
in Three Victorian Burlesques of King Lear 21
ROBERTA GRANDI
3 “Covering the Main Points”: Playing with The Tempest
in Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed 39
MIRANDA FAY THOMAS
4 “I Wish the Bastards Dead”: Adapting Richard III
in Children’s Literature 56
MARINA GERZIC
5 Playing with Genre and Form: The ‘Magic Art’ of
Graphic Novel Adaptation in Shakespeare 75
CHELSEA L. HORNE
6 When Fictions Collide: Shakespearean Inspiration and
Adaptation in Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters 93
SOPHIE SHORLAND
viii Contents
SECTION II
Practising Shakespeare On Stage and Screen 111
MARINA GERZIC AND AIDAN NORRIE
7 Byte-Size Shakespeare: The Irreverent Play of
Shakespeare Republic 113
SALLY MCLEAN
8 An Irreverent richard III redux: [Re]cripping the Crip 133
KAITE O’REILLY AND PHILLIP ZARRILLI
SECTION III
Adapting the Man 157
MARINA GERZIC AND AIDAN NORRIE
9 Bill Begins: The Rise of the Contemporary Shakespeare
‘Origin Story’ 160
RONAN HATFULL
10 William Shakespeare and Elizabeth I: The Special
Relationship? 178
AIDAN NORRIE
SECTION IV
Adapting the Plays 201
MARINA GERZIC AND AIDAN NORRIE
11 Hamlet 2, Shakespeare, and Cruel Optimism 203
JENNIFER CLEMENT
12 Sport, Meritocracy, and Shakespeare 215
CHRISTIAN B. LONG
13 “What’s in a Gnome?”: Gender, Intertextuality, and
Irreverence in Gnomeo and Juliet 231
SONJA KLEIJ
Index 249
Figures
5.1 A scene from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman Issue 19,
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Image courtesy of
DC Comics 85
7.1 Shakespeare Republic Season One Cast (L–R): Ben
Steel, Michala Banas, Alan Fletcher, Rowena Hutson,
Sally McLean, and Billy Smedley. Photo by Yanni
Dellaportas. Copyright © Incognita Enterprises 2016 116
7.2 Michala Banas as “Phebe” in Season One of
Shakespeare Republic. Photo by James Dene.
Copyright © Incognita Enterprises 2016 119
7.3 Nadine Garner as “Viola” in Season Two of
Shakespeare Republic. Photo by Shaun Herbertson.
Copyright © Incognita Enterprises 2016 122
7.4 Christopher Kirby as “Sir Thomas More” in Season
Two of Shakespeare Republic. Photo by Shaun
Herbertson. Copyright © Incognita Enterprises 2016 125
7.5 Billy Smedley as “Henry V” in Season Two of
Shakespeare Republic. Photo by Shaun Herbertson.
Copyright © Incognita Enterprises 2016 126
7.6 Speaking Daggers cast: Jaron Natoli, Christopher
Kirby, Nadine Garner, Sally McLean, Scott Major,
Faran Martin, Billy Smedley, and Michala Banas.
Photo by Christoph Ziegenhardt. Copyright ©
Incognita Enterprises 2016 128
8.1 Suit of armour at the Battle of Bosworth
re-enactment, August 2017. Photo: Kaite O’Reilly 135
8.2 Sara Beer in richard III redux, on location at Cilgerran
Castle near Cardigan (West Wales) for the atmospheric
video shoot (with Paul Whittaker, videographer) that
opens the performance. Photo: Kaite O’Reilly 140
8.3 Sara Beer as the ‘National Treasure’ researching ‘her’
R/richard as a six-foot four non-disabled rugby player 149
8.4 Sara Beer… unable to ‘disappear’ into a role 151
