Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited - Deborah Harkness: A Discovery of Witches

Deborah Harkness: A Discovery of Witches

03/19/19 • 35 min

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

In 1994, Deborah Harkness was doing research at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library when she stumbled across the Book of Soyga, a long-lost manuscript treatise on magic that once belonged to Elizabethan scientist and occult philosopher John Dee. About fourteen years later, she had an idea for a story: a historian—who turns out to be a witch—discovers a lost and much-coveted manuscript that thrusts her into a world of vampires, demons, and magic. Harkness’s idea became A Discovery of Witches, the first book of her All Souls Trilogy. The novel is now a television series starring Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode. The show comes to AMC and BBC America on April 7. We asked Harkness to join us on Shakespeare Unlimited to talk about how her research influenced her fiction writing and to tell us about how witches, demons, and the supernatural were perceived in Shakespeare’s England. Dr. Deborah Harkness is a teaching professor of history at the University of Southern California. She is the author of John Dee’s Conversations with Angels and The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution, as well as the All Souls Trilogy, originally published by Viking Press for Penguin Books. Harkness is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published March 19, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Excellent Witchcraft” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Shawn Corey Campbell and Bianca Ramirez at KPCC Public Radio in Pasadena, California.

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Acting, Emotion, and Science on Shakespeare's Stage

How do actors do what they do? How do they stir up emotions, both in themselves and in us as we watch them? Joseph Roach’s 1985 book The Player’s Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting examined how the actor’s art has been understood through history: from Shakespeare’s 17th century, when spirits emitted by actors’ eyes took hold of audiences, to David Garrick’s 18th century, when pneumatic tubes transmitted emotion from the brain to the body. We talk with Joseph Roach about historical theories of acting. These theories—shared by doctors, scientists, actors, and audiences—affected the way some of our favorite playwrights wrote, and some of them even made their way into the most influential acting techniques of the 20th century. Joseph Roach was the long-time Sterling Professor of Theater at Yale University. The Player’s Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting, one of a number of books by Roach, was originally published by the University of Delaware Press in 1985 and was reissued by the University of Michigan Press in 1993. He recently joined us at the Folger Institute for a seminar titled “What Acting Is.” He is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published March 5, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Suit the Action to the Word, the Word to the Action,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Ryan McEvoy at the Yale University Broadcast Center.

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Harriet Walter

In 2012, London’s Donmar Warehouse opened an all-female production of Julius Caesar, starring Dame Harriet Walter as Brutus and directed by Tony Award-nominated director Phyllida Lloyd. The production was set in a women’s prison, and it was the first of a trilogy of all-female productions, all starring Walter, that The Guardian would call “one of the most important theatrical events of the past 20 years.” Julius Caesar was featured on PBS’s Great Performances on March 29, which made it the perfect time to call up Dame Harriet to discuss her decades-long career. We asked her about gender in Shakespeare, playing Ophelia, Portia, and Brutus, and her 2016 book, Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare’s Roles for Women. Harriet Walter is one of the most acclaimed performers on the British stage. She won the 1988 Olivier Award for Best Actress, the Evening Standard Award for her work as Elizabeth I in the 2005 London revival of Mary Stuart, and has starred in Twelfth Night, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra at the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published April 2, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Say to All the World ‘This Was a Man’” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Dan Sterling at The Sound Company in London.