Site Specific Shakespeare: A Conversation with Benjamin Blyth

Philip Rowe (0:09)

Welcome to the History Of European Theatre podcast, and thanks for joining me on this journey through millennia of theatrical history. Episode 237, Site Specific Shakespeare, a conversation with Benjamin Blyth.

Last time, The Winter's Tale gave us Shakespeare in later life, pondering the passing of time and the nature of forgiveness and redemption. By that time, he was creating his plays with two very different performance spaces in mind, The Globe and The Blackfriars. But probably also with a mind to the portability of plays for when they were taken to the court or into the country on tour. Performing Shakespeare in spaces not specifically designed for the theatre experience has, ever since then, been a maintained tradition not just in the UK but in worldwide locations. In his book, Site Specific Shakespeare, author Benjamin Blyth examines case studies of different types of performance spaces and how they affect the performances and are used by the practitioners involved. Ben's study is rooted in his own practical experience of theatre making and offers a fascinating insight into the diversity, challenges and benefits of working with Shakespeare in different spaces.

Benjamin Blyth is a lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at St. Mary's University and the University of Calgary. A scholar-practitioner with ten years' experience directing Shakespeare around the world, Ben specialises in site-specific productions and practice as research. His work has appeared in critical articles for Early Theatre, Shakespeare Bulletin and Miranda, and his book, Site-Specific Shakespeare, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2026 Ben's doctrinal monograph, Shakespeare in Shoreditch, will be published by Arden Bloomsbury in January 2027 I spoke to Ben from his writing retreat in the North of Scotland.

In your book, you examine how productions of Shakespeare respond to and are influenced by the performance areas that they're using. I think your interest in the subject really comes from your experience as a director for a company that uses a very specific space. So perhaps we could start with a word about your work with Malachite Theatre.

Benjamin Blyth (2:27)

Oh, yeah, sure. Thank you. Thank you, Phil. Thanks for having me on the podcast. It's great to be here. So yeah, my work with Malachite started in 2013

I just come back from a tour of Italy playing a witch in Macbeth. I had a brilliant time. It was one of those tours where you do school shows and really enthusiastic Italian teenagers.

But first witch was one of a few roles that I played, but definitely my favorite. I was just looking for some more Shakespeare to do, and I'd known for a while about the connection between Shakespeare and Shoreditch, and was just having a poke around to see if anything was going on there, which led me to St. Leonard's Church. And I got talking to the Reverend there at the time, Paul Turp, about the possibility of staging a show in the church. It's the same church. I don't know if you've ever seen the series Rev.

Philip Rowe (3:28)

Yes.

Benjamin Blyth (3:29)

Yeah, with Tom Hollander. So Rev was filmed there, and I sort of knew the church from there, and I thought, well, it's so cool that there's a kind of Shakespeare connection. And so Paul showed me around and took me up to this sort of secret spot right at the top of the church that no one can really, you've got to go on a tour to get there, and there's a plaque memorializing Shakespeare and all of the early modern theatre players and theatre makers that are sort of buried there, all were parishioners of the church. The Burbage family, William Sly, Gabriel Spencer's buried there, among others Tarleton and Sommers back from Henry VIII. So the historical connections with the period and the church were just amazing. I thought, all right, well, this is perfect. They'll never let me do a play there.

They sort of seemed keen and I said, well, what about Titus Andronicus?

Philip Rowe (4:31)

Great for the church.

Benjamin Blyth (4:33)

Thank you. Possibly. Surely this will be a bit beyond the pale for the Church of England. But no, you love the idea. We went on to stage Titus at the church and following the success of that, a couple of others, Richard II, Othello. That really got me thinking about the way in which Shakespeare connects to its sites of performance but also connects with those sites beyond just the act of performance itself. That began really 10 years of me nosing around Shoreditch and finding all of the other spots that had connections to Shakespeare. Newinyard and the area around the theater. What was down Hewitt Street where the site of the curtain was discovered? I started thinking, okay, well, wouldn't it be great to stage more productions and parties and events and flash mobs and things around drawing attention to this connection between Shakespeare and Shoreditch? So that's where the work began really.