During the early modern period (roughly the sixteenth to the eighteenth century), many texts were written in the form of dialogues. This is the case not only in the more obvious case of play texts but also in the case of texts intended for reading rather than theatrical performance, with a variety of purposes including education, entertainment, religious conversion, and moral improvement. While some of these texts consist simply of ideas put into the mouths of different voices without much personality, others are of considerable literary interest, containing more sophisticated narrative plots and realistic characterisation that anticipate the emergence of the novel.
This project, created in partnership with the Centre for Early Modern Studies and the Digital Humanities lab, and partfunded by Project Enhance aims not only to bring these dialogues to life through performance but to help them reach new audiences through the power of technology. By having these dialogues performed, alongside thematic imagery, we hope to immerse the viewer into the everyday life of the period as well as into some of the key ideas that were being discussed at the time.
Each dialogue, which can be selected from the catalogue at the top of the page, comes with two recordings: The primary dialogue performance, and an interview with both perfomers and audience which will seek to answer any questions the viewer may have. Also accompanying each video will be an academic piece written by our Project Lead, Dr David Parry, explaining the context, themes and significance of each dialogue.
Our hope is that Early Modern Dialogues in Performance will allow audiences to experience both the elements of this period that feel familiar and those that might feel strange to us, and to enter into our own dialogues with the past that can inform the present and the future.