A Stalled Reckoning and a seventeenth-century Courtroom
It was marvelous to catch up with Naomi Coleman recently.
Naomi is a director who possesses a rare gift for weaving narrative into the fabric of historic settings.
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Soulton Hall. (Pop Up Theatre Arts, 2020)
Many of you will remember her as a vital part of the Pop Up Theatre Arts team that brought a beloved production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Soulton in 2020. She also works closely with our friends at Harvington Hall, and it is wonderful to see those creative threads continuing to intertwine as she leads Aethelflaed Theatre Company.
Our discussions have turned toward a candlelight production of Hamlet, specifically envisioned for the Moot Hall.
Jacob Chandler’s AS YOU LIKE IT dancers in the Moot Hall, Soulton Hall
This space is our seventeenth-century court room, a place carrying the distinct history of regional trials. Crucially, it stands on the site of Old Sir Rowland’s great hall, a location steeped in the humanist values and intellectual courage of the Renaissance.
There is an undeniable power in this setting. A profound resonance exists when hearing Hamlet’s reflections on the “whips and scorns of time” within the very walls where judgment was once dispensed.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes….
In this room, built for the weighing of truths, the Prince’s struggle is not with the law itself, but with the way the gears of justice can be stalled by those who find profit in the wait.
Unlocking A Seven-Year Cycle
There is a lovely sense of completion in revisiting these themes now.
Two Gentlemen of Verona (British Touring Shakespeare, 2020)
Soulton Hall has been on quite a journey; over a seven-year (seven-age, if that is As You Like It) period, we will have platformed:
- Macbeth twice,
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream twice,
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona,
- As You Like It twice,
- The Merry Wives of Windsor,
- Twelfth Night, and
- Romeo and Juliet twice.
‘Animal Farm’ by the National Youth Theatre at Soulton Hall
As we conclude this seven-year chapter, Shakespeare’s technical observations on the legal process feel remarkably sharp. He understood that the law is a noble instrument, yet one that can be rendered a “tedious brief” when met with a refusal to meet a Mutual obligation.
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but ’tis not so above:
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell’d,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
To hear a protagonist wrestle with the “quiddities,” the “tricks,” and the “shuffling” that occurs when an institution prefers the process to the resolution is a powerful reminder.
Why may not that be the
skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his
quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why
does he suffer this mad knave now to knock him
about the sconce with a dirty shovel and will not tell
him of his action of battery?
It suggests that the frustration of a stalled reckoning is an ancient weight, often carried by those waiting for an entity to simply do what is right.
Proving through these seven years that all the world is indeed a stage, we would be delighted to unlock this particular tragedy and add it to the Soulton canon.
Hamlet at Shrewsbury Castle (Lord Chamberlain’s Men, 2024)
Staging Hamlet under candlelight in a room designed for the pursuit of justice would be a striking way to explore these universal tensions. We are excited to see if this vision comes to life for Shakespeare Summer 2026, bringing the echoes of the seventeenth century into conversation with the persistent challenges of our own time.
