Chapter Three BOND'S CULTURAL OTHERNESS: RE-WRITING...
Transcript of Chapter Three BOND'S CULTURAL OTHERNESS: RE-WRITING...
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Chapter Three
BOND'S CULTURAL OTHERNESS: RE-WRITING SHAKESPEARE
Bond not only wrote plays about 'internal colonisation' of the marginalised class of
Britain by thteir upper-class brethren but also set out to re-create Shakespeare in three
major plays: Lear (1971), The Sea (1973) and Bingo (1973). Bond's Shakespeare re
creations are neither a mere concession to contemporary fashion of intertextual re-writing
of Shakespeare nor are they dramatic venture with a mercenary motive behind it. He sets
out to re-create Shakespeare to explore the class politics which is often ignored in the
study of the relation between Shakespeare the artist and Shakespeare the man. By
questioning the iconic status of Shakespeare and his significant characters, Bond almost
challenges the cultural superiority enjoyed by Shakespeare in post-war Britain.
Incidentally, commercial considerations of the post-seventies British theatre led to the
frequent staging of Shakespeare's Festive re-creations. The middle class audience,
swayed by the festive plays, gradually took their social problems lightly. Jim McGuigan
in Cultural Analysis (2010) rightly notes that by the middle of the twentieth century"[ ... ]
masses were becoming amused consumers, indifferent to the great issues of their day and
preoccupied with their own everyday lives" (9).Though this view fails to appreciate
popular cultural subversion of hierarchical relations, it nonetheless emphasises the nexus
between culture and commerce with regards to Shakespeare re-creations in Britain of the
seventies. With a mission of re-structuring the society, Bond embarks on a voyage to re
create Shakespeare but decides to swim against the tide. He not merely refuses to be a
part of the tmcritical admiration of Shakespeare propagated by the dominant class but
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also drifts away from the leftist tendency to use the Bard as a tool to counter right-wing
ideologies. In Bond's re-creations, Shakespeare-centered culture is not allowed to
dominate over other cultures but is posited in a harmonious relationship with other
cultures. This Bondian way of giving importance to the existence of other cultures or
alternative perspectives is an attempt at social re-construction through mutual
understanding and interaction, for Bond's re-creations, mostly considered as political
discourses s:tress the need for cultural exchange. Acknowledgment of cultural diversity
helps to redress social imbalance, leading to social integration. Bond's re-creations,
therefore, look ahead to construct a common civic culture based on freedom, liberty and
of human rights. Hence the "counter-culture" which Bond envisions through his plays is a
social space that would encourage interaction of different cultures without attempting to
prioritize one over the other or assimilate others in one.
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Bond wrote at a time when the festive plays were mostly favoured by the middle
class audience. Apparently speaking, the festive comedies were re-created keeping an eye
on the box-office so that the escalating financial crisis could be met. Interestingly
enough, these festive comedies - for instance, Trevor Nunn's The Comedy of Errors
(1976) and As You Like It (1977) - were staged in the main auditorium of the Royal
Shakespeare Company, one of the pioneer institutions for Shakespeare re-creations in
post-fifties Britain, while experimental plays were staged before a smaller audience at
The Other Place1, Royal Shakespeare Company's studio theatre. Apart from the
commercial tilt of the theatre, the bifurcation might have been caused due to the Rightist
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swing in British politics. In 1971, as Britain moved politically from Left to the Right with
the Conservative victory in the general election, the demand for comic, escapist plays
increased. This craze reflected the attitude of the bourgeois society, their inert acceptance
of a middle··brow political thought which was going to be completely encapsulated by
Thatcher and Regan. Michael Scott in Shakespeare and the Modern Dramatists ( 1989),
rightly opines that in such a society a "tamed Shakespeare and its attendant processed
culture (sic) is the reflection of the dominant ideology [ ... ]" (130). The escapist plays
staged in the~ main auditorium of Royal Shakespeare Company were tailor-made for the
unquestioning middle class. Shakespeare, appropriated for class interest, was thus
exploited for subject formation. James H. Kavanagh in "Shakespeare in ideology" affirms
that in a class-divided society:
ideological practices seek to offer a 'lived relation to the real' in which a
conflicted social order, appropriate to particular class interests, has the
force of a necessary, unified, natural structure in which subjects find their
rightful place, and conflicts resolve, disappear, or are 'produced' as
ratifying a given set of social relations. (Alternative Shakespeare 150)
In the Britain of the seventies, Shakespeare thus operated as the culturally dominant
"ldeology"2 marketed by contemporary capitalist society. In this sense Shakespeare came
to represent the "culture industry"3 of Britain in the seventies. Shakespeare's festive
plays, like any consumer goods became a saleable product, for people flocked to the
theater house to consume (emphasis mine) the festive plays. Since the "culture industry"
does not want the consumer to think but merely to consume, the demand for the escapist
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plays reflected the transformation of individual from a reflective and discerning person
into an unthinking consumer, consuming uncritically the festive plays. Thus the middle
class audience became, what Adorno in his essay "Culture Industry Reconsidered" (1991)
calls, an "appendage of the machinery" (99). In other words, the audience became
unthinking mass of people, accepting commodified sentiments and entertainments as
normal. Raymond Williams in The Long Revolution (1961) anticipated this inertia among
the spectators .. He opined that most of the British cultural institutions "are in the hands of
speculators, interested not in the health and growth of the society, but in the quick profits
that can be made by exploiting inexperience" (366).
However, in The Other Place, codified sentiments were challenged by the radical
plays of the left-wing dramatists. Their radical plays continued to disturb the
complacency of contemporary audience. In his book mentioned above Michael Scott
laments: "It ils a pity that if the RSC and the NT are to produce the radical theatre of
Bond, Wesker, Brenton and Griffiths that they can rarely do so in the main auditoria"
(130). However, apart from the Fringe, The Other Place continued to stage experimental
plays. Most of the plays were written to attack the conservatives who according to Harold
Wilson freeze initiative and petrify imagination. In his book The New Britain: Labour's
Plan (1964), Wilson urged the "[ ... ] the youth of Britain to storm the new frontiers of
knowledge, to bring back to Britain that surging adventurous self-confidence and sturdy
self-respect which the Tories have almost submerged by their apathy and cynicism" (9-
1 0). Inspired by him, in the seventies, the left-wing dramatists exploited Shakespeare as a
leftist tool to counter the right-wing ideologies. Actually these playwrights - Arnold
W esker, David Hare, David Edgar, Howard Brenton etc - mostly born in the 1940s, were
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weaned on the ideals of a post-war Labour government. So, writing in the Conservative
70s, they lashed out at the "social, sexual and cultural corruption beneath a Conservative
veneer of peace and prosperity" (Cohn 49). They often adopted Shakespeare, as Ruby
Cohn in her article "Shakespeare Left" (1988) says, as a "strategy to display the
inadequacy of England's genteel cultural heritage" (49). David Hare's Slag (1970), which
suitably adopts some of the situations from Love's Labour's Lost, is a prime example of
Shakespearean re-creations at the Fringe. In 1973, David Edgar collaborated with
Howard Brenton for A Fart for Europe using "King Lear to oppose Britain's entrance
into the European Economic Community" (Cohn 51). Brenton, whose Revenge (1969)
exposes the demoralisation of British society, draws a parallel between the Duke and the
Conservative Harold MacMillan in Measure for Measure (1972). Thus these plays help
to split the consciousness of the audience. In The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on
Mass Culture (2006) Adorno warns against any general assumption of cultural product.
He argues, instead, that the consciousness of the consumer is split between "the
prescribed fun" offered by culture industry and a "doubt about its blessings" (103). The
plays of the },eft-wing dramatists systematically worked to raise doubts in the minds of the
consumers.
Edward Bond, the eldest among all, however, should not be bracketed with these
dramatists as he refuses to use Shakespeare simply as a leftist tool for political
propaganda. True, Bond's leftist leanings4 helped him to identify how the capitalist
society enthralled the mind of the middle class audience by promoting Shakespeare's
festive plays. But as one who is genuinely contesting for a "counter-culture", Bond
rejects the radical approach to utilize the iconic status of the Bard for political power-
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games. Unlike the left-wing dramatists who waded so far in their political tug-of-war that
their artistic creations almost became propagandist in nature, Bond's Shakespeare re
creations have other intention. Since Shakespeare's plays deal with important issues in
relation to people and their society, Bond rightly discerns in "The Rational Theatre" that
they "still work for those who live in this later time of revolution, the twentieth century"
(Plays: Two xi). Alarmed by the hegemonic trend of Shakespeare re-creators in a crassly
materialistic era - either to commodify or to politicise Shakespeare - Bond in his re
creations sheds light on the needs of the dominant culture to share space with other
cultures. They resist the dominance of the main stream culture and its hegemonic role.
Bond, who would always vote for cultural pluralism, acknowledges in his plays the social
contradictions unleashed by the corruptive regime of dominant culture. Thus contact and
resultant clash of distinct cultures in Bond's re-creations pave the way for a social
reconstruction where mutual understanding and respect signal a new social formation.
It should be pointed out that Bond became aware of Shakespeare's potentialities
at a very early age. Shakespeare's Macbeth5 struck Bond as a text which mirrored his
world, bridging the chasm between art and life. In a letter to John Hind, Bond notes that
by the time he came to read Macbeth he "knew all about witches flying in the night and
about murder" (Edward Bond Letters 4 8). As a child Bond was perceptive enough to
realise the similarities between a distant age and his torrid time. In this context he further
writes: "I was first tutored in Macbeth by German airmen trying to kill me in the blitz"
(Edward Bond Letters 4 8). Yet as he matured he felt that Jonson's words that
Shakespeare was not of an age but for all time or Jan Kott's claim in his book
Shakespeare Our Contemporary (1964) that Shakespeare is timeless, must be taken with
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a grain of s:alt. In post-war Britain technological proliferation has immensely altered the
nature of relationship between man and his society, making the societal problems
increasingly complex. As a socially conscious playwright Bond is not blind to the
disastrous effects of technology as borne out by Hiroshima holocaust. Cultural theorist
Hughie Mackay in the article "Technological reality: cultured ·technology and
technologized culture", enlisted in the book Theorizing Culture: An interdisciplinary
critique after Postmodernism (1995), notes that now "[ ... ] technology is seen as the
problem rather than the solution, to be avoided rather than embraced. The growth of
concern for environmental issues has contributed substantially to a loss of support for the
notion ofteehnology as the progressive human mastery over nature" (237). In "Author's
Preface" to Lear Bond expresses his disgust with what he calls "technological culture"
(Lviii). Neither the dominant nor the other can escape from its disastrous effect. In order
to save mankind from the reckless use of technology, the social situation needs must be
altered by the construction of a "counter-culture". Post-war Britain beaming with the
success of its technological achievement was a society totally unconscious of its
imminent destruction. The solutions suggested by Shakespeare's plays, as Bond says,
were hardly adequate for the complex problems of post-war Britain6. While Shakespeare
was intimateily mired in his class-divided society, Bond creates space for other cultures.
They resist their subversions and earn their inherent right to freedom and dignity.
Bond''s re-creations thus address the problems of the other cultures and promote
their cause. Overlooking the class-division in Shakespeare's society, Alfred Herbage, in
Shakespeare's Audience (1941 ), views Elizabethan theatre as "a democratic institution in
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an intensely undemocratic age" (11). Since a section of Shakespeare's audience
comprised the working-class, he argues, the theatre prices were designed for them. But as
John Drakakis in the "Introduction" to Alternative Shakespeare (1985) rightly points out
that Herbage could not synthesize between the commercial aspect of the theatre and the
intellectual nature of Shakespeare's plays. In his "Introduction" to Alternative
Shakespeare,. Drakakis contends that the intellectual nature of Shakespeare's plays "could
only be fully understood by an intelligentsia" (13) while the working-class was ignorant
of their intellectual subjugation. Judged on the basis of class character of the audience,
Elizabethan playhouses were no doubt democratic enough. But in reality they fail to
express the spirit of democracy. Eminent theatre critic, author and academic, Richard
Wilson, in a conversation with notable critics and dramatists at a conference celebrating
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Jan Kott's Shakespeare Our
Contemporary in the next year, 1986, rightly says that "the Warwickshire land-owner and
textile speculator" voiced the "world view of an enlightened, but none the less
determined, middleclass [ ... ] that has ruled England by keeping 'democracy
subservient"' (qtd. in Elsom 151). However, it should be pointed out that Shakespeare's
work, even though it remained quiet on the question of democracy, appealed to all
classes. This is because Shakespeare could balance well between the demands of the
mass and the class. Pramod K. Nayar aptly says that Shakespeare had the genius of a
"marketer" who was "able to sell his product to both the royalty and the masses" (126).
In fact, Shakespeare was practical enough not to quarrel with the authority and so never
strongly demanded the dissolution of the social hierarchy. The Russian critic, Alexander
Anikst, however relates this mass appeal of Shakespeare's plays to the absence of the
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idea of democracy and says that "Shakespeare could mock at the simple folk, at the pit,
and nobody would take offence, because the idea of democracy had not risen in society"
(qtd. in Elsom 160). Naturally therefore, while feeling sympathetic for the poor and the
naked, he lacked any agenda of promoting their cause in his plays. Undoubtedly,
Shakespeare had insights but he lacked the ideological orientation to complement his
vision.
Since Bond focuses on this ideological gap and the consequent flaws in
Shakespeare's treatment, in his Shakespeare re-creations other cultures are seen to rise
into prominence. This is done by highlighting the limitation of the power structure.
Detection of the conflicts and contradictions of the power structure is termed as
"faultlines" by Alan Sinfield in his book Faultlines (1992). It is through this faultlines
that the alternative identities, values and dissident perspectives are unearthed to create
space for other culture whose striving for inherent rights and dignity ends the domination
of the dominant culture. However, it should be noted that Shakespearean characters or
Shakespeare himself, as representative of the dominant culture in Bond, also undergoes a
process of se:lf-transformation. Thus contact of two or more distinct cultural sensibilities
finally promises a better society based on interaction of different cultures where neither
loses its cultural distinctiveness. This is how Bond's Shakespeare becomes a culturally
dynamic presence, creating a common civic culture for the present generation.
II
While re-writing Shakespeare's King Lear (1665) as Lear, Bond mainly objects to
the passivity of the King and questions the central message about passive resignation to a
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situation which is beyond redressal: "[ ... ] Men must endure I Their going hence even as
their coming hither. I Ripeness is all" (King Lear 363). Charles Marowitz rightly
identifies the fact that despite "an avowed admiration for his Ur-text, Bond attacks what
he takes to be Shakespeare's spirit of resignation and acceptance" (197). The formulaic
solution - what cannot be cured must be endured - might be applicable to the
Renaissance social set up. But in a technological era, resigned approach to human cruelty
is an escape from social responsibility. Post-war British theatre, Bond says m an
interview with K. H. Stoll, is directed to this end for it endorses the King as "a sort of
archetypal culture-figure who lays down certain standards for civilized perception - the
way civilized people ought to think and feel [ ... ] " ( 412). That thinking otherwise
becomes virtually impossible is reflected in the attitude of the audience who, Bond
thinks, undergo a "marvellous art:istic experience" (Gambit 24) while seeing the play and
feel a great cultural uplift. Objecting "to the worshipping of that play by the academic
theatre" (Gambit 24), Bond says that King Lear has been used in the "wrong way"
(Gambit 24). So for Bond an uncritical acceptance of the message about passive
resignation is a "totally dishonest experience" (Gambit 24). Similarly in The Sea, a play
structurally influenced by The Tempest (1611), Bond faults the escaping and excusing
mindset of the post-war audience. Bond selected The Tempest (1611) for re-creation
probably because it relies heavily on the power of magic to bring about imaginary
solution for social problems, thus excluding human involvement. Bond argues that in the
technological society, there can be no "supernatural answers to natural problems" (Plays:
Two x). If it had been so, then, Bond argues, Prospera would have been able to save
himself from his political enemies by the power of magic which he could not. The Sea,
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therefore, is a rejoinder to those who in the post-war era still mythicise social problems as
too mysterious for human beings to solve. What binds the two distinct plays together is
the resistance to the authoritative rule of King Lear and Mrs. Rafi by the marginalised of
the plays. The breakdown of the authoritative rule in the former and its negation in the
latter adumbrate a new social order, expectantly free from the vices ofthe one it replaces.
The plays initially highlight the arbitrary rule of the dominant which results in the
creation of a monocultural social situation literally stultifying to the other. Staged at the
Royal Court on 29 September, 1971, Lear begins with the ruthless exploitation of the
Monarch. When we first encounter Lear, we also see a dead body of a worker and
instantly realise the anarchic state of affairs within his empire. Distinct from
Shakespeare's Lear who was bent on fragmenting his kingdom, Bond's Lear is initially
seen obsessed with cementing it by constructing a walL In this sense, the wall functions
as a trope of an existence protected from Lear's enemies, Dukes of Cornwall and North:
"My people will live behind this wall when I'm dead. You may be governed by fools but
you'll always live in peace" (Lear 3).This protection is in fact the justification of
domination and one unmistakably understands the autocratic power structure of Lear's
kingdom. The disturbing social state is further stressed as Lear, mercilessly shoots one of
his workers in order to speed up the construction of the wall. Lear, therefore,
unflinchingly uses the "Repressive State Apparatuses" and controls by application of
force. His arbitrary use of power has caused "Wall death" (Lear 25) but he seems not to
care. One doubts his so called role of a Messiah as one hears the Gravedigger's Boy
Bond's version of Shakespeare's Fool - speaking of the inhuman misery of the wall
workers. Though the Boy has been fortunate enough to have escaped the torture, he
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grieves for the hapless state of the workers: "They'd worked with their hands all their
lives but when they started on the wall their hands bled for a week" (Lear 25). Their
lives, as it were, like "Living in a grave" (Lear 25).
Like the King, Mrs. Rafi in The Sea - staged at the Royal Court theatre in May,
1973 - exploits and dominates her entire community. Bond here jostles with the time
frames- re--situating Shakespeare's The Tempest in Edwardian England- but keeps the
theme of colonisation intact in order to focus on the exploitation of the other. With her
English snobbery, Mrs. Rafi, for instance, refuses to even check whether Indian Dhurries,
Turkish carpets and Japanese nainsooks are worth buying, demanding instead
Birmingham's Utrecht velvet. Her colonial mindset is evident from her allergy to non
British items: "I'm not interested in this new-fangled craze to support the trading efforts
ofthe Empire by getting the east coast into native dress" (Plays: Two 107-8). But in order
to highligh1t the conflicts and contradiction within the power structure Bond
problematises the concept of colonisation by showing the 'internal colonisation' of the
poor and hellpless British subjects by their own economically privileged brethren. Like
Shakespeare''s Prospero, Mrs. Rafi presides over a class-divided society. The poor,
marginalised inhabitants, represented by the draper Hatch and his friends, are bullied and
tortured by her. Hatch is the Caliban-figure whose gradual "mental deformity" (Cohn 58)
counters the "physical deformity of Shakespeare's figure" (Cohn 58). Mrs. Rafi's
capricious shopping habits of ordering costly items and not buying them testifies to her
economic exploitation. Hatch's life remains dependent on her whims and fancies. While
taking an order Hatch thus ruminates whether she will change her mind or not: "Last time
she ordered cushions she wouldn't even look at them. Now I have to send cash with
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every order, and they'll only take back against bona fide complaints" (Plays: Two 113).
Tony Coult in The Plays of Edward Bond: A Study (1977) aptly says: "The main class
conflict in The Sea is between Mrs. Rafi and Hatch, and what brings it to a head is the
corrosive influence of commerce on human relations" ( 44). Hatch pathetically
communicates to Mrs. Rafi the precarious position of a small businessman like him who
is "on the black list" and has to "pay for all this before they sent it" (Plays: Two 136) but
in vain. Apart from economic exploitation, she also physically assaults Thompson, one of
the inhabitants of the island, who is appointed as the gardener in her house. Titanically
powerful, she not merely takes "hold of Thompson's ear" (Plays: Two 138), but also
holds the town doctor, vicar and constable in thrall. Any form of disregard is met with
threats. For instance, she is influential enough to see that no one in the town ever uses
"any shop of' (Plays: Two 139; original emphasis) Hatch. When Hatch's friend,
Hollarcut, disobeys her, he is strictly told to work in her garden rigorously or she will
"take up this matter with the local magistrates" (Plays: Two 160).True she is not the
Queen as Lear is a King; but she seems to believe in the concept of divine rights of the
King. Hence she justifies her domination: "People expect my class to shout at them.
Bully them. They're disappointed if you don't" (Plays: Two 160). Like Lear who
suffocates his subjects in the garb of protecting them, Mrs. Rafi feels that she is a
lighthouse who provides security to the community when in reality she chokes them to
death . The dismal social states in both the plays are created by their oppressors whose
hegemonic rule creates a flawed power structure.
Since Bond's Shakespearean re-creations plead for cultural pluralism, the
dominant culture in the play is not allowed to exercise authority for long. In other words,
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the limitation of the power structure is dramatised along with the depiction of the
autocratic rule. The rebellion of the local farmers who are against the construction of the
wall in Lear bears out the point. Lear's officer reports to him that they are unable to stop
them: "We can't catch them, they scuttle back home so fast" (Lear 3). Though this is not
an open revolt but through this rebellion of the oppressed other, the potential of the
marginal to strike back is hinted. The limitation of the power-structure gets manifested in
the failure of Lear's officers to stop the local farmers from digging up the wall. Hence
contradictions and conflicts create necessary gap for the uprising of the marginal in
Lear's kingdom. Writing in The Times, Irving Wardle, theatre critic, thus points out
Bond's originality, negating any "anxiety of influence": "The play [ ... ] starts with civil
war, and whatever Shakespearian plot material it contains is shortly disposed of' ( qtd. in
Roberts 23; original emphasis). Like The Tempest, The Sea also begins with a storm but
unlike that in The Tempest the storm in The Sea is not raised by the Prospero figure. It
rather is a real storm which drowns Colin Bentham, engaged to Mrs. Raft's niece, Rose.
Though Willy Carson, Colin's friend, tries to save him from drowning, he fails to do so
since Hatch refuses to help Willy. Evans, the drunkard was not in his sense to provide
any assistance. Expressing his helplessness Willy later tells to Rose: "One was drunk and
the other stood and shouted at me" (Plays: Two 131). Evidently one understands that
Hatch out of his grudge against Mrs. Rafi refuses to help her class. Both the farmer and
Hatch therefore resist the rule.
The vulnerability of the hegemonic centre is further evident when it is internally
opposed by ilts own members. This has been dramatised by Lear's evil daughters -
Bodice and Fontanelle - ousting their father, taking up the helm of the kingdom and
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putting the father on trial. This hunger for power, ironically enough, is what they have
imbibed from their father. They are doubly cruel as manifest in their vindictive torture of
their father's lieutenant, Warrington. They order and witness the inhuman torture of
Warrington: his tongue is tom, teeth uprooted, eyes blinded and his ear poked with a
needle. Bodice and Fontanelle sadistically rejoice in the torture and this testifies to the
barbaric nature of their cruelty. Their soldiers are mimic men, throbbing with ferocity. As
the soldiers ransack the Gravedigger Boy's house in search of the King, they kill the Boy
and rape his pregnant wife, Cordelia. The murder of the Boy, living in an idyllic
landscape, suggests that nature has no palliative effect on this cruelty. Socially and
politically privileged, Lear's daughters are monsters who in the name of maintaining law
and order put their father on trial, hire spies to keep a watch on their husbands and pay no
heed to the sacrifice of young lives at the war. More fissure within this new power
structure is noticed when they conspire against each other, thus inadvertently creating
space, like their father, for the marginal to strike back. There are cracks within the power
structure also in The Sea. Though Mrs. Rafi is not ousted by any of her genteel ladies as
happens in the case of the King, her rule is certainly resented by them. Her offensive
behaviour towards her friends antagonises them. Mrs. Jessie Tilehouse is openly ignored:
"Jessie, please don't try to hustle me into a purchase" (Plays: Two 109). She is also told
to walk back home as Mrs. Rafi's pony cannot take extra weight. During the rehearsals of
Orpheus & Eurydice Mrs. Rafi does not give any role to Jessie and reigns over her co
artists. She tells Mafanwy to play a dog. When Mafanwy expresses her desire to be one
of the "floral maids-of-honour" (Plays: Two 124), she is reminded of favours done to
her: "You collect for your Save the Animals Fund every year and your never go away till
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we've given twice as much as we can afford. Now you have the chance to earn some
more gratitude from your little friends" (Plays: Two 124). Mrs. Rafi is challenged by her
friend Mrs. Tilehouse when the latter denies her of the highest honour of spilling the
ashes out of the urn at the funeral of Colin. Her fussy search for smelling salts during
Mrs. Rafi 's dramatic declamation is her attempt to upset her dominating friend.
Admittedly as Mrs. Rafi is alienated from the members of her own class, those on the
periphery of the power structure can challenge her authority without resistance.
Intere:stingly enough, both Lear and Mrs. Rafi are unconscious of the damage
consequent upon their tyrannous rule. In his hiding Lear refuses to act responsibly, for he
rhapsodised over the frre and blood around him. Such social unconsciousness is
dangerous and destructive to social health. No wonder Bond says that he feigns madness:
"I think that iln his first madness, there is an element of almost pretence [ ... ] he is saying I
have been a great king, now I'm going to be a great madman[ ... ] so that in a way he acts
his madness [ ... ]" (qtd. in Hay and Roberts 123). Lear's pretence however, is his
unconsciousness about his despotism and the ill effect of his regimentary rule. Naturally
therefore, when he is put on trial, he sees not himself in the mirror, given by Bodice
during the trial, but animal in a cage. Due to his autocracy, Lear has, in fact, deteriorated
to the level of beast. Richard Scharine in The Plays of Edward Bond (1976) rightly says
that "The animal is Lear himself and [ ... ] all the members of the society that he created.
Society is the cage and the restrictions of social institutions are the bars" (204). Ironically
enough, Lear does not realise that he is the architect of the prison and feels "My
daughters have been murdered and these monsters have taken their. place!" (Lear 35).
Unaware of her corruptive effect, Mrs. Rafi, like Lear, foolishly accuses Hatch of
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murdering Colin: "You let an innocent man drown" (Plays: Two 136). Not only this but
she also refuses to buy the velvet which she ordered out of vengeance. This attitude
points to her inability to realise the beast within her. Thus the blind autocracy of the
dominant comes to the fore.
These conflicts and contradictions within the power structure are highlighted to
create space for the other or alternative identities to emerge. However, in between
autocracy and alternative identity, Bond creates space for pseudo alternative identity
represented by characters who challenge the misrule with a promise for good governance
but consistent with their class character they in the long run proved to be the other side of
the coin. Bodice-Fontanelle regime stands threatened when the soldiers in Lear refuse to
mimic their rulers anymore and join the new emerging force headed by Cordelia and the
Carpenter. ·while Fontanelle is murdered by Bodice's men, Bodice is shot by Cordelia
and the Carpenter. Tagged as the agitators and malcontents, who are gearing up for an
"upcoming civil war" (Lear 36), Cordelia and Carpenter now take the charge of running
the State. Initially they seem to represent hope of a new era. Herself wronged, Cordelia
gears up to end the autocratic rule. But she becomes hardened and harsh through the
exercise of power. Her method of governance comes under severe criticism when she
agrees to take Soldier I under her fold on condition that he must hate the existing
monarch like herself and the Carpenter: "To fight like us you must hate, we can't trust a
man unless he hates. Otherwise he has no use" (Lear 44). Moreover, as Bodice confides
to Carpenter, Cordelia has accepted Bodice's offer to run a coalition government. One
understands that this would mean a continuation of the evil regime all over again. The
despotism of Cordelia, her insistence on continuing the construction of the wall, is a
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repetition of Lear's military rule. The poor peasants are dispossessed of their land. No
wonder the Farmer's Wife, lamenting Cordelia's repressive rule, says "An' now they're
buildin' the wall again, count a the govermin's changed" (Lear 65). Cordelia becomes
equally autocratic and is bent on routing her opposition. When Lear becomes the "guru",
ideologically indoctrinating the innocent rural village folk, Cordelia decides to put him
on trial. : "I knew you wouldn't co-operate, but I wanted to come and tell you this before
we put you on trial" (Lear 85). Cordelier's revolt against the despotism of Bodice and
Fontanelle, therefore, is futile as she does nothing to improve the health of the society.
Rather she repeats the victimisation of the people. She thus emerges as a pseudo-marginal
who inches forward to match up with the cruelty of the existing centre.
In The Sea Hatch is Cordelia's counterpart who secretly plans to overthrow the
oppressive mle. Aware of the fact that this struggle might lead to loss of some innocent
men, Hatch declares that the battle must go on. In his anger, Hatch explicitly strikes back
at Mrs. Rafi when she refuses to buy the velvet which she ordered: "liars, swindlers,
frauds, bankrupts" (Plays: Two 142). During the funereal of Colin, he even physically
attacks Mrs. Rafi and upsets the whole ceremony. But Hatch also misguides his
associates. Far from having a definite strategy to counter their hapless state, he vainly
calculates to overpower an unidentified force which, he believes, is bent on destroying
them: "They come from space. Beyond our world. Their world's threatened by disaster
[ .... ] They'll take our jobs and our homes. Everything. We'll be slaves working all our
lives to make goods for sale on other planets" (Plays: Two 114). This speech neatly
divides "us" from "they" and points to Hatch's blind acceptance of class-division. As one
who is supremely unconscious of the root of social malady, Hatch constructs a false
99
notion about extra-terrestrial beings waiting to wipe out their existence. This fear of the
aliens is a constructed fear of something that does not exist and for this misjudgement -
his failure to trace the malady of the social causes - he fails to address the problem
correctly. As Cordelia's revolution does not reform rather fragment the society, Hatch's
secret plan fails to set right the wrong that prevails in society. Thus it is not the substitute
that Bond re:commends as both Cordelia and Hatch are caught up in the rhetoric of
violence as much as their rulers and fail to create a healthy atmosphere. True change can
be brought upon only by overhauling the society not by changing the pilot at the helm.
Lear rightly says: "Then nothing's changed! A revolution must at least reform!" (Lear
84).
Social overhauling, as Bond envisages it, can be achieved through cultural
exchange which gives shape to alternative identity. However, it is the "technological
culture" which obstructs rather than facilitates the social overhauling that can bring about
meaningful change in the power structure. Interestingly both the dominant and the
pseudo-marginal suffer due to the perpetration of the "technological culture". In Lear, the
dominant King is extremely casual about the use of weapons. His controlling instruments
are guns, pistols, rifles etc. Lear's merciless shootings point to his inhuman fixation with
the use of technology to control. The «technological culture>> which he ushers has far
reaching effect for it spoils his family and corrupts his daughters. True Lear's daughters
are equally venomous as Shakespeare's Goneril and Regan. But what is interestingly
shown is that: they inhabit a society that thrives on repression and violence. Bond holds
that as long the society continues to remain violent and aggressive, it will produce
children of violence. Their names, carefully chosen by Bond, point to their innocent
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origin. In a letter to Fay McNamara Bond explains the significance of naming the
daughters: "Fontanelle is the name for the gap in the skulls of little babies which isn't
(sic) quite closed when they're born[ .... ] The gap closes as the child grows[ ... ] Bodice is
the item of girl's clothing that covers the breast- again an image of care and nurture"
(Edward Bond Letters 4 178). Thus their developments into vicious creatures are a result
of the corruptive effect of the 1echnological culturtf. Bond in the same letter rightly points
out that "it's our culture's misunderstanding of our situation, its misuse of power and the
environment [ ... ] that corrupts human behaviour" (Edward Bond Letters 4 179). So not
only Bodice and Fontanelle ,but Cordelia too could not escape the corruption. Unlike
Shakespeare's Cordelia who was goodness personified in a fiercely autocratic condition,
and hence unreal, Bond's Cordelia is arguably the most real character who also could not
escape the damaging influence of a technologically crazy society. Though Cordelia in
Bond is not Lear's daughter; it is her social corruption that makes her a close cousin of
the brutish royal sisters.
The over-arching effect of technological era eats into every nook and comer of
the society. Lear is unable to control both his daughters and later on Cordelia. From the
beginning there is no understanding between the father and the daughters. In fact the
father's unconsciousness of being an evil-monger accelerates the daughters'
deterioration. Bodice and Fontanelle attempt to bridge the gap between their father and
their suitors by marrying them: "We've brought them into your family and you can pull
this absurd wall down" (Lear 5). But the power blind Lear arbitrarily disowns them: "I
have no daughters" (Lear 6) and accuses them of betraying their father. This clearly
points out the communication gap between the father and his daughters. The conflict
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within the family, in this sense, is metaphorised in the image of the wall - Lear has built a
wall between himself and his daughters. Disobedience enrages the father who
unhesitatingly equates his daughters with his enemies: "I built my wall against you as
well as my other enemies" (Lear 7; original emphasis). One understands why Bond tells
Glenn Loney that there is "no real understanding between Lear and his daughters" ( 41 ).
So their betrayal- by marrying their father's enemies- is prompted by their father's rigid
stance. In "Drama and the Dialectics of Violence", Bond says to A. Arnold that he
wanted Lear to recognise his role in the corruption of his daughters: "[ ... ] they were his
daughters - they had been formed by his activity, they were children of his state, and he
was totally responsible for them" (8; original emphasis). The corrupted sisters are
programmed to be unsympathetic. No wonder Bodice insensitively reacts on hearing how
one of their lieutenants was killed by a shell. When Cornwall says that Crag died when
"the first shell fell between them and blew their heads off' (Lear 12), Bodice says to
herself "One can't allow for everything" (Lear 12). Naturally, therefore, she loads her
men with rifles and a saga of massacre follows. Improper use of technology thus
threatens the extinction of human lives. In this techno-crazy state, men rot and bullets are
valued above human lives. The lack of mutual understanding and respect between the
dominant and the other affects social integration. The corruptive impact of "technological
culture" may also be traced to The Sea. Hatch fails to analyse the social dialectics
rationally but dreams of an alien invasion because his imagination is stuffed with ideas
like extra-terrestrial beings which are a gift of "technological culture". For instance,
without realizing his role in Colin's death Hatch justifies it by saying that he was
murdered to resist from marrying Rose since his marriage would increase the "numbers
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of gentry" (Plays: Two 133) which "they don't want", for fewer they are 'the easier we're
overcome" (Plays: Two 133). Hatch could not identify the problem since he lives in a
dreamy world, believing in a fantasy of invasion from the outer world. His madness is
symbolic of his detachment from reality. Like Hatch, Mrs. Raft is no less detached from
reality, for somewhat like Nero she is "playing lutes to the sound of gunfire" (Plays: Two
130). Again, both Hatch and Mrs. Raft are averse to the sea. While Hatch resents his duty
as the night coastal guard despite his economically impoverished condition, Mrs. Raft
draws the curtains of her drawing room to avoid looking at the sea and remains immersed
in her theatricals. Like ignorant armies clashing in the dark, Hatch instigates his friend
against the haughty Mrs. Raft, and the latter leaves no stone untumed to disrupt the lives
of the wretched. This dismal social picture arises due to the lack of cultural exchange
which is a pre-requisite for social overhauling. Evans, however, best expresses the
dreading social state when he says: "They'll transplant the essential things into a better
container. An unbreakable glass bottle on steel stilts. Men will look at each other's
viscera as they pass in the street" (Plays: Two 168). Fierce commercial competition in a
techno-crazed society creates economic injustice and results in widening the social
division. Since human beings are not technocratic by nature, desire to adapt to such a
society leads to emotional imbalance. In other words, madness and destruction are an
outcome of e:conomic and social injustices. Economic and social justices are not only
essential for creating conditions for happiness, but also of human sanity. Lack of socio
economic justice results in Hatch's madness. Mrs. Raft, deserted by family and friends, is
condemned to be alone. Like them Evans also cannot construct a "counter-culture", for
he is a "wreck rotting on the beach" (Plays: Two 168). Thus there is no mutual
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understanding, knowledge and respect between cultures and it is this absence that is
mainly responsible for social disintegration outlined in the play.
But the endings of both the plays open a new chapter of social re-integration.
While the n~presentative of the dominant cultures realise the futility of domination in
Lear, the other in The Sea leave the fragmented society with the desire of sinking hopeful
roots into difficult soil. The realisation of the damage he has caused to his family and
society transforms Lear. He becomes aware that the obsession with the wall is an
expression of his desire to maintain social division. It should be pointed out that this
realisation comes when the King becomes physically blind. Before that he was detached
from reality. For instance when he was in prison, the ghost of the Gravedigger's Boy tries
to soothe the troubled heart of Lear by conjuring up the blissfully uncorrupted childhood
of his daughters. But this is just a vision of the past and not reality. Bond says to Stoll:
"And if you try and live in the past, then that becomes a very destructive thing. And the
ghost does live in the past, and he does belong to a stage of society that I think one can't
go back to. I don't believe in returning to the past" (420). What Bond means is that if one
wants to address the problems of one's own time, one must keep the present in focus.
Bond is also sceptical about miraculous solutions of social problems, for in a letter to Fay
McNamara he writes that the ghost avoids "the tensions created by an unjust society and
the human need for justice" (Edward Bond Letters 4 179). Unlike Shakespeare's King
who longed to see what stuff his daughters were made of to gauge their intensity of
cruelty, Bond's King is shown the autopsy of Fontanelle to realise that the real cause of
corruption lies elsewhere. During the autopsy Lear is aghast to see the inner beauty of his
daughter: "The things are so beautiful. I am astonished. I have never seen anything so
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beautiful. If I had known she was so beautiful [ .... ] If I had known this beauty and
patience and care, how I would have loved her" (Lear 59). Lear's shocking encounter
with the real nature ofF ontanelle finally drives Lear to understand what he has done. He
accepts his role in her ruin and resolves to tum things round: "I must walk through my
life, step after step, I must walk in weariness and bitterness[ ... ] I must open my eyes and
see!" (Lear 60). Ironically enough Lear sees the reality only when he is physically
blinded. Blindness, for Bond, as for Shakespeare, is a metaphor for insight, and that is
why he feells Gloucester, Oedipus and Tiresius were all blind. It is only after Lear
becomes blind that he realises that "Men destroy themselves" (Lear 67) in a corrupt
environment. He decides to stop Cordelia from doing what he did: "Cordelia doesn't
know what she's doing!" (Lear 67) and she must be stopped. Meeting her he expresses
the need of an alternative administration, distinct from her autocratic rule. He tells her
that the world is made by the people, who should take responsibilities for either good or
bad: "( ... ] we made the world - out of our smallness and weakness. Our lives are
awkward and fragile and we have only one thing to keep us sane: pity, and the man
without pity is mad" (Lear 84). This is the dominant voting for a common civic culture
where man's inherent right to freedom and dignity would not be violated. Lear's society
was unsympathetic; it killed to maintain power and now Cordelia is doing the same. Her
government also fails to protect ordinary people. There is always a wall between the ruler
and the people. The wall thus actually divides; so Bond makes the aged Lear, despite his
frailty, rectify his mistakes. Though he is shot dead in the process, the attempt is really
the starting point of re-framing the society without the walls, that is, making allowances
for cultural exchange. The optimism of Ben, Thomas and Susan, who represent the real
105
other not the pseudo marginal in the play, that they would reclaim their land when the
wall will h~ down is Bond's way of communicating the message that an integrated
society can be built when the others become assertive and a space is created for them
through intercommunication. As everyone makes his exist, leaving Lear's dead body on
the stage, one of the workers looks back. This is significant enough. What Bond suggests
is possibly that Lear's dead body is an object lesson to the representatives of alternative
identity about the ruinous effect of power monopolisation and the exclusion of other
stake-holders from the power-structure.
The young couple in The Sea may be described as architects of alternative
identity. Though Rose was initially numb with pain, she gathers courage to face the
reality of Colin's death. In contrast to Hatch who insanely attacks with knives the dead
body of Colin, washed ashore, and Mrs. Rafi who refuses to buy the velvet for that will
remind her of the tragic loss of Colin, Rose and Willy realise that the dead cannot be
called back to life: "The dead don't matter" (Plays: Two 163). Unlike the genteel lot who
will eventually crawl towards death- as "old, ugly, whimpering, dirty, pushed about on
wheels and threatened" (Plays: Two 161)- Rose and Willy show sheer determination and
courage to move ahead of the chaos and insanity of the community. They thus reject a
society that privileges the dominant class. Their departure testifies to their ability to risk
themselves, to try other possibilities open to them. They have learned, from Evans, the
greedy nature of the techno crazy society where fierce competition encourages
individuals to fight with each other. But still there remains a lot to uncover, for Evans
"never knows enough" (Plays: Two 168). Actually Evans fails to direct his personal
virtuousness to political actions; so his virtuousness is inefficacious.· Bond rightly says
106
that Evans "indulges in the luxury of admitting this without doing anything about it" ( qtd.
in Hay and Roberts 57). The last sentence uttered by Willy is purposefully left
incomplete. What Bond suggests is that the young couple is ready to march ahead for a
"counter-culture" not by turning away from but by listening to the howls of the flame and
looking into the fire.
III
Distinct from Lear and The Sea where Bond re-writes Shakespearean plays, in
Bingo- staged at the Northcott Theatre, Exeter, on 14th November 1973- he re-creates
Shakespeare, the man. Cashing in on Shakespeare's intellectual and moral passivity in the
Welcombe enclosure, Bond compels him to make penance for a deplorable lapse of his
life. Incidentally speaking, Bingo is based on a historical incidene. In 1602 Shakespeare
brought 107 acres of arable land from William and John Combe. In 1614, Shakespeare's
decisive step to defend his own interest against the peasants' rendered farmers jobless.
The enclosur,e, meant to convert plough land into sheep pastures, inevitably increased the
price of grain and threw men out of work. One of the notable Shakespeare's biographers,
Peter Levi in The Life and Times of William Shakespeare (1988), observes that "in the
case of the "VII elcombe enclosures one ambiguous phrase in the record throws weight on
the question of Shakespeare's attitude to landowners who were his neighbours and to the
dispossessed"' (331 ). Actually, in his retired life, a large part of his income came from the
rents paid on the common fields at Welcombe, near Stratford. Some landowners wanted
to enclose the lands and there was a chance that Shakespeare's revenue might get
reduced. He was left with two options - either to side with the landowners and secure
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himself or to do something for the poor who would lose their land and livelihood if the
fields are enclosed. Levi informs us that Shakespeare entered into an agreement with
William Replingham that he "should be indemnified for any loss of tithe value in the
fields 'by reason of any enclosure or decay of tillage there meant and intended"' (332).
He therefore chose to secure himself and his heirs and signed a deed that would guarantee
against any loss. As A. L. Rowse in his biography of Shakespeare, William Shakespeare:
A Biography (1962), writes: "Combe's agent agreed with Shakespeare to compensate him
for any loss to his tithes. He apparently did not think the enclosure would be proceeded
with, but he: was protected anyway" ( 448-9). He also agreed not to help any people
fighting against the enclosures. Jenny Spencer in Dramatic Strategies in the Plays of
Edward Bond (1992) also notes that "the town's resistance to enclosure was not formally
endorsed by Shakespeare" ( 44). This is historically correct as Rowse confirms this fact.
In spite of the opposition of the corporation and the local people, William
Combe went forward with his plans.The town clerk noted in his diary, 'I
also writ of myself to my cousin Shakespeare the copies of all our oaths
made then, also a note of the inconveniences would grow by the
enclosure'. Unfortunately his answer, if there were one, is missing. Combe
defied the corporation and proceeded with hedging and ditching his
intended enclosure. When some of the tenants set about filling in the
ditches his men threw them to the ground, while Combe 'sat laughing on
his horseback and said they were good football players'. (450)
108
Thus Shakespeare sided with the landowners and there is no document of any opposition
from him. He sat at home with his guarantee while others resisted against such
enclosures. No wonder Bond in the "Introduction" to the play notes that as a property
owner Shakespeare was closer to Goneril than Lear: "He supported and benefited from
the Goneril-society - with its prisons, workhouses, whipping, starvation, mutilation,
pulpit-hysteria and all the rest of it" (Bingo ix). His stature as the greatest English artist of
all times cannot excuse him from this indifference to social causes. In an interview with
K. H. Stoll, Bond says: "If you are an unjust person it doesn't matter how cultured you
are, how civilized you are, how capable you are of producing wonderful sayings,
wonderful characters, wonderful jokes, you will still destroy yourself' ( 418).
Focussing on the gap between what Shakespeare preached and what he practised,
Bond relates the contradictions of Shakespeare's society to his own. The purpose is to
stress the fact that the conclusions could be the same provided the society is changed for
the better. In Bond's technological society, as Bond states in the "Introduction" to Bingo,
fierce competition has made the citizen "avaricious, ostentatious, gluttonous, envious,
wasteful, selfish and inhuman" (Bingo x). Money, in this society, is not used to perform
any socially useful function but is employed to create and satisfy artificial needs for those
who can afford and thus act in widening social divide. Like Shakespeare in the
seventeenth century secured himself while endangering others, consumerist Britain,
throbbing with a competitive attitude, seems to follow the same path. So if Shakespeare
had been a '"corrupt seer' [ ... ] we are a 'barbarous civilization"' (qtd. in Bingo xiii). Thus
when the characters interact in the play one notices an image of a society, which though
distant, appears to be a close cousin of post-war techno-crazy Britain. Bond's objection to
109
the "technological culture" is pertinent enough for both the dominant and the other fall
prey to such culture which ultimately leads to social disintegration. So focussing on the
gap, Bingo actually stresses on the horrible effect of the marginalisation of the other
cultures by the dominant culture in the "technological culture". So Shakespeare's
realization of his mistakes in Bond's play and the efforts taken to undo what has been
done are his attempt at social re-construction by taking into consideration the
perspectives of the other. Hence Bingo impresses one as a text that supports cultural
pluralism where the rights and dignity of the other cultures along with the dominant are
protected.
As the play opens one unmistakably notes a fragmented society void of any
understanding between the dominant and the other. Socio-economically privileged
Shakespeare remains immersed in his cloistered self and pays no heed to anything that
happens in the external world. The initial pages of the text are often punctuated with
Bond's stage directions about Shakespeare's indifferent attitude: "silence" (Bingo 1),
"doesn't react" (Bingo 3). The miseries of the other increase as the dominant are
indifferent to the pmblems of the other. Social integration is never possible when there is
absence of mutucil understanding and knowledge. As Shakespeare is completely
engrossed in himself, he cares little for the well being of the other. So when an old man,
Shakespeare's gardener, sexually exploits a young woman, Shakespeare remains passive.
This picture of a morally degraded society, one understands, is a microcosmic
representation of the macrocosmic fragmented social space. Social fragmentation is
further caused by the gluttonous nature of the dominant culture. This becomes evident
when Combe, representative of the dominant culture, comes to his cultural cousin,
110
Shakespeare, to sign a deal that would further de-stabilise the society. Combe's plan to
shun the others - p'loughers, sowers, harvesters, threshers, carters - by converting plough
lands into sheep pastures is a typical instance of the marginalisation of the other by the
dominant. Combe unflinchingly claims: "But there's a difference between us and the
beast" (Bingo 6). The de-humanisation of the other by Combe and Shakespeare's
protection of his own interest by signing the deal are opposite sides of the same coin. No
wonder the flawed power structure creates a cruel, tension-ridden society where the
others would inevitably suffer. Resultantly, a poor, young woman is easily charged of
begging and whipped as part of punishment. What shocks one is the passivity of a
cultured dominant, Shakespeare, who, instead of doing anything, ironically enough,
complains of social unrest: "I didn't sleep last night. So many people on the streets. All
that shouting. And the sky-like day" (Bingo12). As one goes inside the heart of the
matter, one surprisingly notes that Shakespeare is too immersed in his own easeful
idleness to care even for his daughter, Judith, and his sick wife. Judith's piercing question
- "D'you know why mother's ill? D'you care?'' (Bingo 18) - bears out the point. No
wonder Shakespea]}e's family is seen to be tearing itself into bits while he sits in his
garden. Judith repeatedly reminds him: "You must learn that people have feelings. They
suffer. Life almost breaks them" (Bingo 18) but in vain. What Bond suggests is that self
interest ultimately gets narrowed down to one's own self in relation to which everyone
including one's family becomes other.
In Scene '".Chree Shakespeare leaves his home and steps into the external world.
But he is still reluctant to participate in the real world, for he turns back upon the
gibbeted woman. Shockingly enough Shakespeare describes the body of the gibbeted
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woman as "still perfect. Still beautiful" (Bingo 28). This suggests that the culture he
represents is not holistic in nature. Instead of tackling the social storm that breaks outside,
Shakespeare remembers a visit to a river where he saw a white swan. The white swan,
symbolic of his cloistered artist-self, contrasts the "dark water" (Bingo 28) of reality that
surrounds him. Shakespeare's recollection of the white swan - "I could still hear its
wings" (Bingo 28) - amidst murder and chaos points to his socially evasive existence.
Thus the "faultlines" of the power structure in the play becomes evident.
The conflicts and contradictions within the power structure are further stressed in
Shakespeare-Jonson debate at the pub, the Golden Cross. Shakespeare is mocked and
taunted by Ben Jonson, for overlooking the "noisy comers" for "something spiritual" in
his last series of plays. While Shakespeare is nestling in "peace and quiet" (Bingo 30),
Jonson ventures out for Scotland. Shakespeare and Ben Jonson express two different
approaches to life: the former marked by self-obsession, the latter by a continuous
struggle for socio-cultural change. In contrast to Shakespeare, who is intimidated by the
"dark waters" that surround him, Jonson feels at home in it. Jonson who has had
experience of the seamy sides of life taunts Shakespeare for.his well guarded cleanliness:
"Life doesn't seem to touch you, I mean soil you. You walk by on clean pavement [ .... ]
You are serene" (Bingo 32). But the protected and apparently secure state of the
dominant is really vulnerable as evident from Jonson's remark: "you can't ignore an
elephant when it waves at you with its trunk, can you" (Bingo 33). Shakespeare fails to
see that the power structure to which he belongs is fragile and hence bound to crumble
because it is exclusivist in nature.
112
The "faultlines" of the power structure create space for the other to emerge. The
other in the play - Son, Jerome and Wally - gear up to end the domination of the
hegemonic centre. These young revolutionary labourers resist the enclosures and protest
against social segregation. Their protest is against the design of the dominant to rule their
lives, denying them, therefore, the right to exist in the same social space with the
dominant. The group is headed by Son who unlike Shakespeare does not romanticise
death but detects blood tickling "down the comer" (Bingo 23) of the gibbeted woman's
mouth. They are not idealized spectators but are engaged in continuous subversive
measures to get back their land. Sometimes they fill the ditches and break down the fence
while at times they fight with Combe's men and trample his crop. They exhibit courage
and strength to make a room of their own. Jerome, for instance, in order to feed his wife
and children thinks of extreme opposition. His decision to break Combe's neck for
robbing him of his land is the aggression "of the weak against the strong, the hungry
against the over-fed" (Bingo xi). Since the strong are unjust, the weak try to get
elementary rights aggressively. Such a situation arises when there is an absence of
harmonious co-existence of the dominant and the other. Lack of exchange and dialogues
compel the other te> take extreme measures against their oppressors. Hitting hard at the
dominant- "Rich thieves plunderin' the earth" (Bingo 34) - Son, therefore, questions the
futility of such enclosures which would perpetuate conflicts and clashes: "Whose
interest's that protectin'? Public or youm?" (Bingo 36). Men like Combe are not
concerned with social integration and therefore look upon the fight against the enclosure
as unjust: "You live in a world of dreams" (Bingo 36), thus disallowing any space for the
other. What Bond implies is that acknowledgement of cultural diversity in a pluricultural
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society can help formation of alternative identity and, thereby, lead to the mitigation of
social tension.
In contrast to Combe, Bond's Shakespeare redeems himself by gradually realizing
the importance of acknowledging the rights and demands of the other. He, therefore,
decides to help the revolution of the other, fighting against the enclosure, since it would
save the society from further fragmentation. He accepts his mistake of social segregation,
of filling the hearts with hate and anger. His desire to live in a world of private fantasies,
he realises, has resulted in social fragmentation. When Judith comes to report that her
mother is crying, Shakespeare confesses to his evasion of familial responsibility and its
resultant effect: "I treated you so badly. I made you vulgar and ugly and cheap. I
corrupted you" (Bingo 41 ). In Lear Lear admits his share in corrupting Bodice and
Fontanelle; here Shakespeare realises how much of evil his daughter owes to him. His
poignant self questioning- "Was anything done" (Bingo 43)- drives home the truth that
nothing was done or rather everything was undone by his self-centeredness. We see a
drunken Shakespeare, driven to despair, and has to be escorted home by the old woman.
It is surprising to note that what a peasant woman could predict - "I told yo' long ago in
the garden: that'll cause trouble. Yo' yon't listen. Sign a piece of piper[ ... ]" (Bingo 44)
Shakespeare could not foresee. His lamentation, "I could have done so much" (Bingo 48),
therefore, is his penitent realisation of being the "hangman's assistant, a gaoler's errand
boy" (Bingo 48). In order to make penance, he decides to help the revolutionaries and the
uprising. So he refuses to divulge to Combe that he has seen Son when a shootout took
place in the snow. By saving Son, Shakespeare also grants Son a chance to create a space
where he can exist freely. Like Bond's Lear, who realises that he can still make his mark
114
by destroying the wall, and like the young couple in The Sea, who leave the island to
create a better world, Bond's Shakespeare grants "Liberty" to Son and thereby saves him
from falling prey to Combe's manipulation of the legal system. Shakespeare could not do
anything to save the young woman from hanging by men like Combe; his attempt to save
Son is a part of his penance for living a cocooned life. Thus the gap between
Shakespeare's art and life is bridged by his social reformative act in Bond. Son rejects to
live in this society since his freedom and liberty are threatened here; he, therefore, tells
Shakespeare that he will go away to a place where he can be free. The death of his father
in a gunshot had made him aware of the ingrained aggression and violence that lurks
under the veneer of a prosperous social order. His departure is a refusal to be engulfed by
the culture promoted by men like Combe.
As the curtain comes down, Judith frantically searches for his father's Will or
money while Shak;espeare whimpering and shivering commits suicide. Bond suggests
that Shakespeare's daughter will be as cruel as her father, for she too belongs to the
hegemonic class. Shakespeare's suicide, as Bond tells Stoll, is the outcome of his non
reactive existence: one cannot "cheat in life" (421), for one has "to bear the consequences
of the life" ( 421) one leads. Moreover Bond tells Howard Davies, the director of Bingo,
that Shakespeare commits suicide simply because "he had no reason to live" ( qtd. in
Roberts 33). Art thrives on life and if it gets divorced from life, it becomes emptied of
substance. But Shakespeare's suicide is not to put an end to the Art versus Life debate.
The action actually signals the possibility of the end of domination o( the dominant
culture. Shakespeare here might appear as an escapist because unable to find any way of
dealing with the cultural clashes in his society, he succumbs. Moreover, though he helps
115
Son to escape, he lacks any definite strategy to counter Combe and other dominant
landowners. But OI;J.e should take into consideration that through his suicide he tries to do
his bit by paying with his life. This is because he now understands the requirement of
harmoniously existing in a pluricultural society. Shakespeare-Son conversation before
Shakespeare's suicide indicates that Shakespeare from his experience of life came to
realise the importance of cultural diversity lacking in his society. Thus Shakespeare's
suicide although escapist in nature is a rejection of a society that maintains walls among
communities and impedes the construction of a common civic culture. It is the lack of
cultural exchange, based on mutual understanding and knowledge that creates the chaotic
social space in Bond's plays. Things do fall apart and it is beyond the power of the
dominant to hold. The message of the plays seems to be that the social space is to be
shared while retaining the cultural distinctiveness.
IV
The imaginative re-writing of Shakespeare's life in the light of the Welcombe
enclosure may strike one as New Historicist in nature. But while New Historicism is an
interpretation of literary texts in the light of a non-canonical historical document, Bond's
Bingo is an imaginative re-creation and therefore a different kind of interpretation of
Shakespeare's life. Besides while in New Historicist reading a "parallel reading of
literary and non-literary texts, usually of the same historical period" (Barry 172; original
emphasis) is done, in Bingo Bond keeps an early seventeenth century historical episode in
focus of his play but situates it in his own time. One may rather find a parallelism
between Bond and the Cultural Materialists of the 1980s who emphasise the political
116
function of literary texts in the present to critique the "ways in which literature is often
appropriated in conservative political discourses to shore up notions of national heritage
or cultural superiority" (Brannigan 135). Bond's employment with Shakespeare in the
plays described in the chapter should not be mistaken as "anxiety of influence". Harold
Bloom in his book The Anxiety of Influence (1973) notes that strong poets suffer from
"belatedness" which in the ephebe culminates in a deliberate misreading of the
precursors. Wrestling with a strong precursor is actually an attempt to "clear imaginative
space" (Bloom 5) and assert one's distinct identity. Bloom notes in the "Preface" that
those who resent canonical literature are "nothing more or less than deniers of
Shakespeare. They are not social revolutionaries or even cultural rebels. They are
sufferers of the anxieties of Shakespeare's influence" (Bloom xix). Jean Marsden in The
Appropriation of Shakespeare (2006) echoes Bloom in his claims that "each new
generation attempts to redefine Shakespeare's genius in contemporary terms, projecting
its desires and amdeties onto his work" (1). But Bond's projection of Shakespeare
without his aura is no anxiety of influence, for in Bond's time Shakespeare has become a
part of the tradition from which one may borrow without being accused of anxiety.
Moreover whatever thematic and verbal similarity one may come across is deliberate and
intended to deconstruct Shakespeare in order to highlight what in Shakespeare is still
relevant to our time.
Bond's dismantling the authoritative power structure by highlighting the
"faultlines" and wresting power in the hands of the oppressed other might tempt one to
equate his project with that of the post-colonial writers who are consistently engaged in
questioning and contesting the imperial assumptions in Shakespearean texts and thereby
117
re-defining the Shakespearean canon. This is because, as Julie Sanders claims,
"Shakespeare was undoubtedly deployed as a tool of empire, taught in schools across the
world as a means of promoting the English language and the British imperial agenda"
(52). Helen Tiffin in "Post-colonial literatures and counter-discourse" terms this project
of the postcolonial writers as "canonical counter-discourse" (22). This project involves a
process by which the postcolonial writers unveil and dismantle "the basic assumptions of
a specific canonical text by developing a 'counter' text that preserves many of the
identifying signifiers of the original while altering, often allegorically, its structures of
ppwer" (Gilbert and Tompkins 16). Bond's approach is different from that of the post
colonial writers. This is because Bond not only refuses to resort to allegory for creating
"counter-culture" but also keeps the structure of power intact. He attacks the domination
of the power structure by unmasking its ideological biases and urges upon the need to
create a space for the other so that the social space becomes culturally heterogeneous.
The difference also lies in the fact that while the post-colonial writers assert their local
histories and culture that has been almost annihilated by the imperial practices, Bond, a
British himself, critiques the cultural blindness of his own society. Thus Bond refuses to
doodle in the margin as a parasite to the profound originator.
118
Notes
1. The Other Place: It is the studio theatre of Royal Shakespeare Company which was
founded in 1973 by Trevor Nunn and Buzz Goodbody. It staged experimental, intimate
and low budget Shakespearean and contemporary plays. It can be contended that the
Royal Shakespeare Company's best works throughout 1970s and early 1980s were staged
in this auditorium. Prominent instances are Goodbody's Hamlet (1975), Nunn's Macbeth
(1976), Ron Daniel's Pericles (1979) and Timon of Athens (1980) and Adrian Noble's
Antony and Cleopatra (1982).
2. Ideology: According to Louis Althusser "Ideology" refers to an imaginary, compelling
sense of reality in which crucial condition of the self and society appear resolved. In
Lenin and Philosophy (1971) Althusser defines "Ideology" as "a representation of the
imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence" (153). It
interpellates individuals and constitutes them as subjects who accept their role within the
system of production relations.
3. Culture Industry: German theorists Max W. Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno in
Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) opine that culture is not an abstract thing but can be
produced and sold like any other consumer good. The term is used to define culture as a
product of social and economic conditions in any society. The term also refers to the
political function of culture. In other words, it includes the utility factor or use-value
derived from the commodity by the consumer and how that use-value is marketed by the
capitalist society.
119
4. Leftist leanings of Bond: Bond's anti-capitalist mindset is most prominently reflected
in his "Nott:s on Post Modernism" where he says: "capitalism uses problems to belittle
us. Spectacle becomes vicious excitement that appeals to biological resonances which
capitalism wrongly supposes to be free of cognition; with best intentions it trivializes
spectators" (Plays: 5 31).
5. Bond and Macbeth: While studying at Crouch End Secondary Modem School, he went
to see a performance of Donald Wolfit' s Macbeth at the Bedford theatre, Camden. The
impact was tremendous: "for the first time in my life- I remembered this quite distinctly
- I met somebody who was actually talking about my problems, about the life I'd been
living, the political society around me" ( qtd. in Hay and Roberts 15).
6. While post-modem Britain celebrates cultural pluralism, the new bourgeoisie system
of the early seventeenth century endorsed the rigid class-divisions. Shakespeare, as the
representative of that system, as Bond writes in "The Rational Theatre", was rooted in his
time; he approved the "class government administering class justice" (Plays : Two ix).
His 'History' plays, ending with Henry V, mark the establishment of such a government
under a "king who had both wisdom and vitality" (Plays: Two ix). But the individuals of
his Tragedies could not fit themselves into the society of the 'good government' of his
History plays: "Lear dies old, Hamlet dies young, Othello is deceived, Macbeth runs
amok, goodness struggles and there is no good government, no order to protect ordinary
men" (Plays: Two x). Shakespeare's Romantic Comedies that lack any rational
understanding of the society are, according to Bond, the "supreme literature of the
bourgeoisie"' (Plays: Two x). In his late comedies the same problem persisted. Questions
120
concerning society's problems remained unanswered, at times dealt with in a grotesque
way. Yet Shakespeare impressed Bond because with his intellectual honesty and
encompassing experience Shakespeare anticipated the 'decadence' of the new
bourgeoisie system. Bond held that it would be wrong to conclude that Shakespeare did
not ponder over the nature of his social problems, for the resolutions of Shakespeare's
plays are not sloppy and stale. But as one who was "too much a part of his own time"
(Plays: Two ix) to work for the rational solutions of the problems in his plays,
Shakespean~ learned to bear them "with stoical dignity" (Plays: Two x). But Shakespeare
was fully aware that "the peace, the reconciliation that he created on the stage would not
last an hour on the street" (Plays: Two x). While writing for the post-war society, Bond
dramatises this contradiction and its resultant effect. Shakespeare's solutions cannot solve
the social problems of the twentieth century. Thus Bond's re-writings hammers on the
abolition of the irrational social structures that fosters class divisions.
7. Historical Fallacy: It has been alleged that Bond has been historically inaccurate in his
portrayal of Shakespeare's retired life. In the "Introduction" to Bingo Bond notes that
"Combe represents several men, and the undertaking signed in the Sec-ond Scene by
Combe and Shakespeare was in fact between Shakespeare and a representative of the
enclosures called Replingham [ .... ] Shakespeare's last binge was with Jonson and
Drayton. Only Jonson is shown in the play" (vi). Apart from these alterations certain
dates are also altered. The deletions and additions are made, as Bond says in the
"Introduction" to Bingo, for "dramatic convenience" (Bingo vi). As Bond envisions it,
Bingo is based on the "material historical facts so far as they're known," (Bingo vii). But
the play's "psychological truth" is based on Bond's perceptions. Defending the
121
conclusion of his play, he argues, that the consequences in the play follow from the
"facts, they're not polemical inventions" (Bingo vii). He, of course, admits that the
description of Shakespeare's death that happens at the end of the play is not based on any
fact: "[ ... ] I admit that I'm not really interested in Shakespeare's true biography in the
way a historian might be" (Bingo vii). Bond, in his own words, is a creative artist who
"looks down from a bridge at the place where an accident has happened. The road is wet,
there's a skid mark, the car's wrecked, and a dead man lies by the road in a pool of
blood" (Bingo vii). Exercising his imaginative faculties coupled with his perception,
Bond can "only put the various things together and say what probably happened" (Bingo
vii). Faultilng the attitudes of Shakespeare's defenders, Bond says that they might
consider Shakespeare to be an excellent driver who can never have an accident.
Anticipating such petty criticism, Bond says that he is not a historian but an artist: "Part
of the play is about the relationship between any writer and his society" (Bingo vii). The
main purpos:e of Bond, as he says, is not to be "historically accurate" but, one feels, is to
stress on the dynamics between man and his socio-cultural environment. Re-writing
Shakespeare in the 1970s, it is natural for Bond to be less concerned with historical.
accuracy than with translating his vision of a "counter-culture". His play, therefore,
brings down the dominant cultural icon, Shakespeare, to the same level with the other,
creating in the process a socially integrated space based on mutual understanding,
knowledge and respect.
122
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