FOOD AS METAPHOR IN SHAKESPEARE

SHAKESPEARE & VOLUNTEER COMPANY –THE STARS OF THE SHOW!

As we return to in-person performances both indoors and outdoors this summer, Shakespeare & Company is taking time to celebrate its volunteers – a group Artistic Director Allyn Burrows calls “the lifeblood of the Company.” “There’s a reason the gardens look the way they do,” he said. “There’s a reason we hear from our patrons how wonderful the ushers are, and there’s a reason our actors feel so welcome here.” Shakespeare & Company has recently renewed its list of opportunities and benefits, including vouchers for free tickets to plays and special programs. “Our volunteers have the unique opportunity to learn about the inner workings of one of the largest Shakespeare companies in the country right here in the Berkshires, assisting with ushering, show promotion, gift shop sales, maintaining the gardens on campus, tours of the grounds, and Company events,” said Henry Baker, president of Shakespeare & Volunteer Company. “Plus, there are also opportunities to participate in activities outside of performing arts.” Baker noted Shakespeare & Company’s interpretive garden program centered on the grounds as one such offering, as well as its Oral History and Archive Project team, which works to preserve the Shakespeare & Company story through the creation of a digital archive and online database. Volunteers also often take the lead in offering Company Artists' hospitality during the summer months – an opportunity Baker said is enriched by many diverse talents. “Our volunteers have taken on baking goods such as coffee cakes, muffins, or other treats, occasional hosting for visiting artists or guests, redecorating housing for artists staying on campus, and many other perks that help personalize the Shakespeare & Company experience,” he said, noting that volunteers can also take advantage of community service credits for honors programs, college applications, and resumes. ■

Those interested in learning more about volunteering at Shakespeare & Company are encouraged to e-mail the Volunteer Office at volunteers@shakespeare.org or to fill out a Volunteer Application at the administration office.

CIVIL AS AN ORANGE: FOOD AS METAPHOR IN SHAKESPEARE

by Rebecca Selman

As well as using food and meals to create character and add dramatic impact, Shakespeare litters his plays with food references used metaphorically. Perhaps that is no surprise given Shakespeare’s interest in playing with the English language and finding ever more inventive ways to express ideas and thought. Whether it be Falstaff’s derogatory description of the cowardly men he has pressed to fight for him as “toasts-andbutter” (Henry IV Part One, Act IV, sc. 2, 20), or Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream using the image of a “double cherry” (III, 2, 209) to describe her former intimacy with Hermia, such images add poetry and resonance to Shakespeare’s language. Much Ado About Nothing, a comedy of warring couples and foolish misunderstandings, is also steeped in food metaphors, but to an entirely different end. Beatrice and Benedick, the play’s central couple who, at the start, delight in hating one another and share a mutual antipathy to love and marriage, but who through trickery are persuaded to fall in love, use references to food and eating as part of their self-proclaimed “merry war” against one another (I, i, 57). When they meet up at the beginning of the play, after Benedick has been away fighting, Benedick declares his surprise that Beatrice – whom he dubs “Lady Disdain” is still alive. She retorts: “Is it possible disdain should die while she hath / such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?” (I, i, 112-113) Later on, after a bruising encounter with Beatrice at a masked party, Benedick declares to his superior, Don Pedro, that he will not hang around in Beatrice’s presence: “O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not; I cannot / endure my Lady Tongue.” (II, i, 251-52)

Cast of the 1993 film adaptatioin of Much Ado About Nothing.

Ann Berman, a member of

Shakespeare & Volunteer

Company, tried her hand at Rebecca Selman’s Civil

Orange Cake recipe, with amazing results! Find the recipe on the following page; if you find yourself feeling ‘civil as an orange,’ share your results with us at news@shakespeare.org!

As well as these general images of food and feeding, Shakespeare makes use of the image of an orange at two points in the play. When the young soldier Claudio is sulking because he thinks Don Pedro has courted Beatrice’s meek cousin, Hero, for himself, rather than for Claudio as he had promised, Beatrice notes of him:

The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. (II, i, 269-271) Here the Seville orange metaphor encapsulates Beatrice’s sharp wit and tart satire, as well as the rather unattractive sulky jealousy that characterizes the easily gulled Claudio. But the image of an orange will be used later in the play for far more cruel ends. Persuaded to believe (wrongly) that Hero has been unfaithful to him, Claudio rejects her on their wedding day, comparing her to a “rotten orange” (IV, i, 30) which looks virtuous and honorable on the outside but is decayed and corrupt within. Fortunately, since Much Ado is a comedy, Claudio is led to see the error of his ways and to realize that Hero is as chaste and pure within as she appears on the outside. In honor of the fact that Beatrice uses her orange metaphor appropriately – unlike the foolish Claudio – I also responded metaphorically to these metaphorical references and devised the Seville / Civil Orange cake.

This article and recipe are abridged from their original, first published by Rebecca Selman at frompagetoplate.com. Read the full article at: tinyurl.com/CivilOrangeCake.

BEATRICE’S CIVIL ORANGE CAKE

(makes approximately 8 slices)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup soft butter 1 cup golden caster sugar* 2 large eggs ½ cup plain flour 2 tablespoons Seville marmalade 1 1/8 cups ground almonds

Grated zest and juice of 1 orange 6 tablespoons (approx.) icing sugar

METHOD

Line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper or baking parchment. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Gently beat in the eggs one at a time, adding some of the flour between each addition to stop the mixture from curdling. Then fold in the marmalade, orange zest (not the juice), and ground almonds. Spoon the mixture into the lined cake tin, lightly smoothing the top, and bake for 45-60 minutes at 350 degrees, until a skewer leaves the cake without any mixture stuck to it. Leave the cake to cool in its tin. When the cake is cold remove it from the tin. Make icing by mixing the sieved icing sugar with sufficient orange juice to make a thin, smooth paste. Drizzle this over the top of the cake and leave it to set.

*To make your own caster sugar:

1. For every one cup of caster sugar that your recipe calls for, add one cup plus two teaspoons of granulated sugar to a clean coffee or spice grinder, food processor, or blender. 2. Grind the sugar for just a few seconds until the sugar is fine, but not so fine that a powder starts to clump together. 3. For added precision run your homemade caster sugar through a fine strainer before adding it to your recipe.