A reincarnated Elizabeth I greets friendly audiences, even in Scotland
Actor and theater scholar Tamara Meneghini brings the long-ruling monarch to life in a solo performance that earned rave reviews at the recent Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Historical figures are so easily flattened into two dimensionsāall stiff pleats and inscrutable expressions rendered in oils.
The challenge for artists and scholars, then, is how to lift these figures from the canvasāto regard them in three dimensions, to allow them foibles and failings and humanity.
For Tamara Meneghini, that meant more than just donning a red wig and pounds of brocade as one of the most famous women in Western history. It meant studying the time in which Elizabeth I of England livedāresearching what influenced her behavior in her time period, how she interacted with people, what games she played, how she followed the rules and how she broke them.
Tamara Meneghini, an associate professor in the ²ŹĆń±¦µä Department of Theatre and Dance, performed to rave reviews as the titular monarch in "Elizabeth I: In Her Own Words" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
To become Elizabeth I onstage, Meneghini had to understand the monarch as a human woman and bring her to life for modern audiences who may believe thereās nothing new to understand about her.
So, audiences at Scotlandās in August were surprised and then delighted to rediscover the queen they thought they knew. Playing the not-so-popular-in-Scotland monarch in the one-woman performance āElizabeth I: In Her Own Words,ā Meneghini performed before full theaters and to glowing reviews.
āThe key to fringe festivals is audiences want you to connect,ā explains Meneghini, an associate professor in the ²ŹĆń±¦µä Department of Theatre and Dance. āYou have to connect. The audience canāt be just audience. The way our piece was set up, it worked really nicely that audience felt like A) they were in the presence of the queen and B) they could not leave, they were there with me in the moment, in this meta sort of space. I was interacting with them as the queen, but in a very specific circumstance we had created.ā
Becoming Elizabeth
Meneghiniās interest in Elizabeth I grew, in part, from her interest in styles and plays from different time periodsā"the ways in which we behave in those time periods, how changes in clothing, dances, culture, protocols can affect behavior,ā she explains.
While working at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, where she taught before joining the ²ŹĆń±¦µä faculty in 2008, Meneghini developed a concert of early Renaissance music that involved era-specific instruments such as sackbuts and crumhorns. However, she also wanted to bring in elements of theater and approached , a pre-eminent scholar of Elizabeth I and women in the Renaissance era.
āCarole was pivotal because what we created was a fictitious meeting between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots,ā Meneghini says. āPart of that was crafting this improvisation with students that was really cool. It ended up being a combination of theater and film and history, and it was just a blast.ā
Fast forward to 2016, when ²ŹĆń±¦µä was honored as a stop for the first-ever national touring exhibition of Shakespeareās First Folio.
Tamara Meneghini as Elizabeth I outside Edinburgh's Craigmillar Castle (left) and onstage (right) as the long-ruling monarch.
āWhen the Folio came through, I was doing a period styles class, and I was asked to create something for the Folio visit,ā she says. āI immediately thought of Elizabeth Iāthe idea of Elizabeth, the time period, Shakespeareās plays. I know they never met, but she certainly influenced his plays, so I started working on this thing based on Caroleās series of lectures that she did about Elizabeth.ā
The initial performance was a duet, with Meneghini playing Elizabeth in front of projected images from the time period to which Levin had access. Meneghini and her acting partnerāBernadette Sefic, a ²ŹĆń±¦µä BFA/acting graduate and recent MFA graduate of the Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Programāperformed at universities and sometimes in community theaters, and in costumes designed by theater colleague Markas Henry.
āAs the costume as story went on, Elizabeth is becoming more and more like a real person,ā Meneghini says. āThe portraiture that we have of her was largely staged by how her council and her parliament wanted her to look. We wanted this piece to be an opportunity to see Elizabeth as the woman, as the human, as someone audiences could relate to.
āMarkas and I talked a lot about this costume coming apart, and he made this thing thatās close to 30 poundsāthe costume is immenseāthat gradually sheds layers through the performance.ā
Fringe opportunities
Two years ago, ²ŹĆń±¦µä graduate Penny Cole, founder of , approached Meneghini about creating a solo show and put her in contact with a Scottish theater scholar who asked whether sheād be interested in performing at Edinburgh Fringe.
What: "Elizabeth I: In Her Own Words"
Who: Tamara Meneghini, associate professor in the ²ŹĆń±¦µä Department of Theatre and Dance
When: 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19
Where: Savoy Denver, 2700 Arapahoe St.
Meneghini sought Levinās expertise, as well as that of Denver-based theater guru Sabin Epstein, to craft a solo play from what began as lectures. The 55-minute play, for which Levin is credited as writer, is based on Elizabethās own writings. It eschews the projected images of the original duet performanceāa lot of which featured the men in Elizabethās lifeāto create an intimate space between Elizabeth and the audience, Meneghini says.
She performed āElizabeth I: In Her Own Wordsā several times in New York City before her 14 performances at Edinburgh Fringe, where it was a hit.
āPeople there are crazy about their royals,ā Meneghini says with a laugh. āElizabeth is not a popular monarch in Scotland; in fact, sheās almost an antagonist. So, when I first performed it in New York, people went nuts about it, but I didnāt think they were going to like it as much in Scotland, so that was a happy surprise.
āIn fact, I went to do this photo shoot at Craigmillar Castle, where Mary Queen of Scots convalesced and planned her husbandās murder, and people were coming up to meāI was in full regaliaāand saying, āOh, Queen Mary, Queen Mary.ā So, I had to say, āNo, Iām Elizabeth,ā and theyād run away.ā
Thanks to the playās reception at Edinburgh Fringe, Meneghini is now developing it into a full, 120-minute performance. She also will perform it Oct. 19 in the And still, she says, thereās always more to learn about Elizabeth.
āOne of my biggest takeaways (from performing at Edinburgh Fringe) was people came out of the show saying, āOh, my gosh, I have a totally different perspective of her as a person. She wasnāt this awful woman, she really struggled with these decisions that she made,āā Meneghini says. āWhat Iāve learned in my own research with her is that she was a complicated person like we all are, didnāt take any of the decisions that she had to make in her life lightly. When Iām doing the showāwhether itās here, when I was in EdinburghāIām constantly reading more about her, and every day is bringing something new.ā
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