“Look with thine ears”: The Challenges and Rewards of Audio Shakespeare, Part Two

Part One of this article (71.2) established that Shakespeare performance historians have shamefully neglected audio productions. Attention was eventually paid by a few scholars, but there is still much to do. Any performance history of a Shakespeare play that neglects audio neglects some very notable productions. This two-part article gives scholars the tools needed to understand audio performances, both the challenges of performing Shakespeare in a non-visual medium and its considerable rewards. Part One corrected some misconceptions, outlined the history of audio Shakespeare, and examined various challenges and the solutions audio directors use to meet those challenges. Part Two looks at two especially problematic scenes—Macbeth 3.4, a scene only solved by altering the text, and Love’s Labour’s Lost 5.2, which no audio director has produced effectively—then ends with a look at what audio has achieved, and that is quite a lot.

Macbeth 3.4

The banquet scene in Macbeth defeats many audio producers for the ghost has no lines and is unnamed even when Macbeth speaks of and to him. Listeners cannot see Macbeth look at the ghost or the banquet guests look past him, as they do on stage.

The story is only a little help. Banquo’s murder in the previous scene and the confirmation of his death early in 3.4 may suggest to an informed listener that any apparition is likely to be Banquo, but how is a listener to know an apparition enters when nobody says, “Behold, a ghost”? The only unambiguous indication of the ghost’s presence are…