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Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Drama

Vanessa Redgrave

5 - 10 February 2012
University of Oxford

Vanessa Redgrave is an internationally-renowned actress with over 50 years of experience in cinema and theatre, and was appointed the second Humanitas Visiting Professor in Drama for 2011-12.

As part of a series entitled ‘Theatre and Politics Today’ , Vanessa Redgrave delivered two lectures, one on King Lear and one on Anthony and Cleopatra; hosted a Q&A on the film The Fever with the film’s director, Carlo Nero; and took part in a related symposium. She spoke with deep feeling and great thoughtfulness on human rights, poverty, law and the ownership of land, and their relevance to Shakespeare’s plays. Her extraordinary familiarity with the detail, stage dynamics and performance history of Shakespeare’s plays made her insights into how they should be performed, their potential resonance, and her own personal connection with the texts particularly compelling. Her lectures took on a wide variety of themes which stemmed from her chosen Shakespearian texts and were all peppered with some wonderful family anecdotes. 

The symposium entitled ‘Theatre and Politics’, where Vanessa Redgrave was joined by actor and director Ralph Fiennes, theatre critic Michael Billington and playwright Simon Stephens, brought in an audience of more than four hundred.  The combination of generational views, and the perspectives variously from actors, writer and critic, meshed and interacted wonderfully, throwing up productive contradictions, contrasts and agreements. The symposium made two hours of wonderful theatre in itself, as the four voices contrasted and combined, their alternative views producing humorous conflicts, moments of illumination, and a sense of the dynamic wealth and multiplicity of contemporary theatre.

To view films of Vanessa Redgrave's other lectures, please click here.

To view photos, visit ISD's Flickr page

Please click here to view the series poster and here to view the series flyer.