Comus: UCB Shakespeare Program (1994)

The UCB performance of this masque was given the customary apt audience-bearing of such works by redeploying the script as a graduation exercise, with the Lady as a coed captive of local Beats from whom she was rescued by campus TAs. The attempted seduction matches that of Lady Anne by Richard of Gloucester in Richard III, or his later attempt against Queen Elizabeth in that play – and all derive from the temptation of Eve in the medieval biblical cycles. We brought a mock campus Chancellor in to make a climactic speech about good teaching citing Milton's own pamphlet "Of Education." See video clips on this site also for extracts of this performance.

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Year: 

1994

Director: 

Hugh Richmond

Photographer: 

Velma Bourgeois Richmond

Permissions: 

UCB Shakespeare Program Collection