Dido Queen of Carthage: Books in Rehearsal
Staff Director Caroline Steinbeis reveals the books that the cast and creative team have been using in rehearsal to create this new production of Marlowe's rarely performed play.
In preparation for rehearsals on Dido Queen of Carthage we focused on several angles to access the play. There is a huge wealth of literature on the text itself, on Marlowe as a writer and controversial figure of the Elizabethan age, and on the performance history of the play. More specifically, we were interested in the role of the Gods in ancient Greece and Rome, the war between Troy and Carthage over Helen, Aeneas's journey across the Mediterranean Sea and the prophecy of his descendants as rulers in Italy and the role of Dido in the story. On top of this, there was an enormous amount of knowledge to acquire over countless references to mythological characters, locations and events. As we rehearse, we uncover new sources of material, but here are the most useful texts.
Marlowe based Dido Queen of Carthage on book I, II and IV of Virgil's The Aeneid (Everyman's Library, 1992). He followed the narrative of these books in great detail. Some sections of the text have been taken verbatim from their source, but Marlowe also took creative license with the story, adding some new scenes between various characters to the play. We have found Virgil immensely useful in rehearsal, frequently referring to the book to help us paint a clearer picture of the world of the play.
We have also looked at sections of Homer's The Odyssey (Harvill, 1988) and The Iliad (Penguin, 2003) and Ovid's Heroides (Penguin, 2004), Metamorphoses (Penguin, 2004) and The Erotic Poems (Penguin, 1982) to give us context and further material on specific characters and events. Dr Anne Rogerson from the University of Cambridge visited rehearsals as a guest speaker to talk further about The Aeneid and to help us with some tricky Latin pronunciation.
Factual information on Christopher Marlowe is hard to come by. The only events in his life that we can be certain of can be found in police records. Marlowe was a hugely controversial figure, and remains so to this day; circumstances surrounding his death are deeply shrouded in mystery. The Reckoning by Charles Nicholl (Vintage, 2002) sheds some light on the man himself, as well as of life in Elizabethan times. The World of Christopher Marlowe by David Riggs (Faber and Faber 2004) also sets a useful context.
It is estimated that Dido Queen of Carthage was first performed between 1585 and 1588 by the children of the Chapel Royal; also known as the Children of the Queen's Revels and the Children of Blackfriars. This extraordinary group of boy performers were highly trained in diction, poise and gesture, and belonged to a trend of children's troupes that came into existence during the reign of Queen Elisabeth I. Michael Shapiro's book Children of the Revels; The Boy Companies of Shakespeare's time and their plays (Columbia University Press, 1977) gives background here. This book is available in the London Library.
For quick reference on Greek and Roman mythology, we consulted Classical Mythology by Edward Tripp (Collins, 1988) and Myths of Greece and Rome by Thomas Bulfinch (Penguin, 1979). These books also contain family trees of the Gods.
Dido Queen of Carthage is in repertoire in the Cottesloe from 17 March - 2 June.
The playtext is available from the NT Bookshop along with other plays by Marlowe and a range of books relating to the author and the play.
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