Photograph and puppet sculpture by Gavin Younge

AFTER CARDENIO

It is 1650.
England is in the grip of a bloody Civil War, and theological dispute rampages across the countryside. In this context of radical upheaval, the new sciences are emerging. It is the year in which the philosopher Descartes dies in Sweden. In Oxford, a young woman, Anne Greene, is hanged for killing her infant. Her body is prepared for dissection for an Anatomy in the presence of several surgeons and scholars. This play is based upon the TRUE ACCOUNT of Anne Greene, as taken from the historical archive.

AFTER CARDENIO is a new work of experimental theatre. It is a combination of sculptural puppetry, live performance, sound and visual art.
The work is a meditation on the late works of William Shakespeare, whose play The History of Cardenio has disappeared with no extant copy of the original text. The so-called missing Shakespeare play was registered in 1653 (shortly after the episode with Anne Greene) by the publisher and bookseller, Humphrey Moseley, who declared that it was by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, Shakespeares collaborator on several of his late works. Moseleys credibility has been questioned, because of his commercial interest in the matter, but there is no question that a play titled The History of Cardenio was performed in London in 1613 by The Kings Men. Little is known about the play, except that it is presumed that the work is named after Cardenio, a character in Cervantes great novel, Don Quixote. AFTER CARDENIO is a tribute to the two giant figures, Shakespeare and Cervantes, who dominate the traditions of Western literature (both the theatre and the book.) It explores the imaginative worlds of these writers, and their perennial themes of heroism, brutality, sexual infidelity, political intrigue, and the fragile beauty of hope. The play also considers the situation of the women who are at the centre of the work of these two writers. Cervantes and Shakespeare, through a curious quirk of history, died on the same date, though not on the same day. Because Spain and England were on different calendars in 1616, Cervantes died some ten days before Shakespeare, but both men are recorded as having died on the same date, 23 April 1616. That extraordinary accident itself is memorialized in this new production. Scholar and literary critic Stephen Greenblatt from Harvard University has commissioned this work as one of several variations on The History of Cardenio.

WRITER/DIRECTOR: Jane Taylor CREATIVE COLLABORATOR: Aja Marneweck and the Paper Body Collective PUPPET SCULPTOR: Gavin Younge SOUND DESIGN and COMPOSITION: Julia Raynham ARTIST Penny Siopis as the Anatomy artist. CAST: Jemma Kahn as Anne Greene/Dorotea Dylan Esbach as Dr Petty and Cardenio Martin Kintu as primary puppeteer, and Printer, and Luscinda Rouxnet Brown as The Assistant Jeroen Kranenberg as Town Crier and Don Quixote The Production will be staged in the newly renovated ANATOMY THEATRE on the top floor of the Old Medical Building on Hiddingh campus, UCT. PERFORMANCE TIMES: PREVIEWS: 23, 24 August, 8 pm OPENING NIGHT: 25 August, 8 pm Fri and Sat 26 and 27 August: at 8 pm Tuesday to Friday 30 August to 2 September at 8 pm FROM 3rd September the show becomes part of the Out the Box Festival in Cape Town, It will be in the same venue, (The ANATOMY THEATRE) but the times will fit in with the schedule of the Festival. PLEASE NOTE the Festival performance times: SEPTEMBER 3 (Saturday) at 2 pm SEPTEMBER 4 (Sunday) at 2 pm SEPTEMBER 5 (Monday) at 9 pm BOOKING AT COMPUTICKET