Clouds are the continuous companions of our days. We make meaning of our lives with them even when we are not fully aware of it. When attending a play in the open air, the ‘canopy’ or ‘gigantic cinema’ of the sky plays a role in the scene-setting, action and exposition. John Webster’s explanation for the failure of his play The White Devil in 1612 was that the ‘dull’ Winter weather impeded the ability of the audience to engage and ‘understand’ the play. Authors will blame anything for a flop, but this is not simply a facetious argument. Clouds are ubiquitous and incidental – perhaps more so in London than Orange County – but they also inform our understanding of the world at any given point. Playwrights producing work for open air venues in the 17th century were acutely aware of this--as performers working in open-air venues are today. Come learn with us about the theater of clouds at this lecture by visiting scholar Dr. Pen Woods.
Dr Pen Woods is an early modern historian specializing in the cultural and political histories of spectatorship and the role of the arts in society-making. She is working on a book, The Audience and the Globe, a comparison of theatre-making and its reception in London in the 17th and 21st centuries, building on collaborative research at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Other publications in African Theatre, Shakespeare Bulletin, and essay collections examine histories of audience community, subjectivity, intimacy and theatre in education. Dr Woods is a co-founder of the arts and reparative education organization Poetry Vs Colonialism and is a Research Programme Fellow of the Portrait of the Teaching of British Empire at the University of Oxford and University College London.
This event is free and open to the public.
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