ASADelhiPaper.docx

“Will Shakespeare has a play. I have a theatre”: Market, Production and Circumstance in Shakespeare in LoveIn his milestone book Shakespearean Negotiations (1988), Stephen Greenblatt hopes to provide “insight into the half-hidden cultural transactions through which great works of art are empowered”,and the “circulation of social energy” in the production of a literary text. John Madden’s 1998 film Shakespeare in Love premises itself on this position by denying that “originary moment” to a play, in its envisaging of the creation and production of Romeo and Juliet. The movie constantly negotiates borders; whether between originality and borrowing, stage and audience, or between text and life, in the last instance giving rise to moments of self-reflexivity.The movie further presents the ‘play’ – not just this one but any play, given these conditions - as being continually produced, evolving both across porous borders and perfected with improvisations over time. Material conditions of production, social convention, the law, keen rivalry, and serendipity are among the forces at work to birth Romeo and Juliet in this version of its prehistory. My paper will focus on some of the exchanges that Shakespeare in Love sees as integral in the production of the play. Some questions, in particular, that the paper will raise include the role of ‘subversion and containment’ in the movie’s envisioning of dramatic production; the uses of formula, revisions and replications in the execution of a work of art, and the contribution of Christopher Marlowe to Shakespeare’s reputation as the greatest playwright for all time.