Critical Survey

This introduction maps the prospectus of the issue, introducing the concept of applied Shakespeare in terms of its roots in the applied, socially engaged and participatory performance practices that have developed in a wide variety of educational, theatrical and community settings in recent years. Operating in the nexus between this work and a body of canonical plays that serve as a resource to address the needs of diverse user constituencies, applied Shakespeare is represented in this issue by a series of case studies, which the introduction summarises.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the experience of the other world is a central theme, symbolised by the world of the fairies. The play traces a journey from the rigid laws of the court to the seeming chaos of the forest to a return to a place of compromises. It is within the forest that several characters experience ‘other worldliness’; indeed, the forest itself becomes the other world. In my fieldwork with the Senoi Temiar peoples in Malaysia, there is also a belief in other world journeys. In addition to the other world, there are issues addressed in terms of applying Shakespeare with children with special needs as well as troubled teenagers and adults. I describe my own learning from the tribe in terms of understanding child attachment and development. Finally, I suggest that Shakespeare's plays, in particular Dream, provide rites of healing. These are provided in other societies by their own culturally embedded rituals of healing.

Shakespeare in Yosemite, founded in 2017, consists of an annual outdoor production of Shakespeare in Yosemite National Park on the weekend closest to World Earth Day and Shakespeare's birthday. The productions are site-specific and heavily adapted for a general audience; admission is free. In this article, the co-founders describe the origins and aims of the festival within the contexts of applied theatre, eco-criticism and the American tradition of free outdoor Shakespeare. In describing the festival's inaugural show – a collage piece that counterpointed Shakespeare's words with those of early environmentalist John Muir – we make the case for leveraging Shakespeare's cultural currency to play a part (however small or unknowable) in encouraging environmental awareness and activism.

In November 2017, Ratko Mladic, a war-time leader and a commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, was sentenced by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal to life imprisonment for the genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the region the verdict was received with conflicting reactions, emphasising yet again how extensive the ethnic division is within the society. Through close analysis of the theatre project Shakespeare's Comedies performed by ethnically segregated youth in Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article aims to understand how Shakespeare's work functions as a vehicle to address the consequences of war and to support the complex process of reconciliation under circumstances in which the issues of war crimes cannot be tackled in a straightforward and direct manner. The study takes a cross-disciplinary approach to research, drawing from theory of reconciliation, applied theatre practice and comedy studies.

How can we use the spaces outside of formal education to foster a relationship with Shakespeare? Can this help us to find a relevance for Shakespeare at a time when uptake in English and the arts is decreasing? Using my own company, PurpleCoat, as a model for interrogation, I will examine how performance can be used as a guide for Shakespeare in education. Through this research, I aim to understand the impact of my company's work, and to better question how professional theatre, community theatre and classroom education can work together and learn from one another, to develop a more inclusive arts environment for those alienated by Shakespeare as a result of traditional systems.

Sheila T. Cavanagh and Steve Rowland link Shakespeare classrooms in distinctive venues: Cavanagh is a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, whose students are enrolled in undergraduate degree programmes; Rowland teaches at Monroe Correctional Facility in Washington State, under the auspices of University Beyond Bars. This article describes some of the practical and theoretical challenges emerging through this collaboration, many of which result from the instructors’ desires to construct their classes with pedagogic goals and assignments drawn from both cognitive and affective learning principles. Geography precludes the students meeting in person and they are not currently able to employ videoconferencing in this endeavour, but regular exchanges of essays and responses to each other's writing allows these disparate groups of Shakespeareans to expand their knowledge of the drama while sharpening their critical and writing skills and learning to develop their affective understandings of the subject.

Lefebvre describes how ‘space is lived not represented (or conceived)’ in the context of his spatial triad of perceived, conceived and lived spaces. This article focuses on the extent to which Shakespeare can enable those who feel imprisoned (whether literally or through social, mental, physical or economic constraints) to expand the space in which they exist. Drawing on the work of Lefebvre and Foucault in their consideration of spatial creation, manipulation and alteration by the social experiences within it, I develop on these theories to focus specifically on the use of Shakespeare's plays to evolve these, often constraining, spaces into somewhere that gives the participants the freedom and space to explore alternatives to their previous experiences of life. This article considers the impact of using Shakespeare as a method of creating space for a group of men in Leicester Prison as part of their 2017 Talent Unlocked Arts Festival.

Documentaries about the use of Shakespeare in applied theatre publicise and endorse the work of practitioners to scholars as well as the general public, and have influenced the growth of academic interest in what this article terms Social Shakespeare: practices in which Shakespeare and social work interact with each other to bring about change. However, in the quest for touching and uplifting individual stories, such media treatments risk ignoring the actual values and strategies governing the work in favour of narratives that normalise social differences through emphasis on the transformative power of Shakespearean theatre, viewed as a sanctified space. Documentaries about three different constituencies – prisoners, young people with learning disabilities, and combat veterans – are examined to determine how far they locate the need for change in society rather than in the individual.

Sitting Aside By Fabrice B. Poussin

The Betrothal of a Semi Compliant Therefore Semi Coherent, Narcissus By Colin James