Raves and Ravers

"Stamp, rave , and fret, that I may sing and dance." (3 Henry VI 1.4.92)

There are seven instances of the word "rave" in Alexander Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary, all meaning "to be delirious, to talk or act like a madman" (942). In the quotation above, Queen Margaret demands that York, who has been captured in battle and knows that his brother Rutland is dead, "rave" for her entertainment before his execution. Significantly (as least for our purposes), he does not. Rave culture developed out of music-based underground protest movements in England and the United States in the 1980s and 90s. In his seminar on Federico García Lorca's The Public (itself an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet), Mark McCutcheon notes that house music developed out of Chicago's gay underground in the early 80s.

The popularity of raves (and their perceived association with drugs like exctasy) has led to various attempts to control and legislate them in the late 1990s and early 2000s. (Please see the Toronto Dance Safety Commitee Protocol for the Operation of Safe Dance Events, adopted in December 1999.) It is noteworthy, then, that our three rave-inspired adaptations of Shakespeare: Romeo/Juliet Remixed (2002), by Laura Mullen and Chris Tolley; richardthesecond: a nightmare (1997), by Matthew MacFadzean; and Dr. Teeth's Public Address System (2001), by Mark McCutcheon, were produced during the period of increasing "ravewise" control over rave culture. Is the authority of Shakespeare used to legitimize raves so they can safely be brought from the underground into the public realm? Or are the interpretive techniques of deconstruction and defamiliarization evident in rave-based adaptations a form of protest against Shakespeare's ostensible cultural power (or his alignment and appropriation by the powerful) in Canada?

Please see the production websites for more images and information about Romeo/Juliet Remixed and richardthesecond: a nightmare.

Schmidt, Alexander. Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary. Vol 2. New York: Dover, 1971.

Romeo/Juliet Remixed (2002), Laura Mullen and Chris Tolley

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richardthesecond: a nightmare (1997), Matthew MacFadzean

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Dr. Teeth's Public Address System (2001), Mark McCutcheon