Prof. Robert Fothergill is a Canadian critic, theatre historian and a playwright. He works as a professor at the Department of Theatre in Canadian University of York. He obtained his BA from Cambridge in the UK. After that, he was awarded his PhD from the University of Toronto in Canada. He taught in the Department of English Literature at the University of York till 1994. Then he moved to the Department of Theatre at the said university. He chaired the Department of Theatre since 1994 up to 1999. He published lots of studies in theatre criticism and the history of the English and Canadian theatre. In addition, he wrote lots of plays; some of them were nominated for international artistic awards. It is worth mentioning that prof. Fothergill visited Iraq in 1963 when he taught in the English Department at the University of Baghdad.
In this session, Dr. Fothergill talks to third-year students of the departments of English and Translation at the College of Arts about Julius Caesar play written by Shakespeare. He is of the idea that there is no mono reading for a given play. He showed that he, out of his experience in teaching in the department of Theatre, shifted his interest from probing into the meaning of the paly into the manner by which the theatre text can produce meaning in a particular way according to certain options worked upon. These can direct the text meaning towards what the stage director desires. Among the examples given by him, the attempt of directing the play of Macbeth in the department of English at the University of Baghdad in which the same lecturer himself took part in 1963.
Because the play talks about the Scottish General Macbeth who decided to kill the king to seize the throne, its presenting under the government of Abdul Kareem Qasim was considered as a big risk. Thus one can connect between the play actions and the current state of affairs at that time and making the character of Macbeth representing Abdul Kareem Qasim who led the coup resulting in the murder of the king Faisal II and Qasim's taking over.
But the play was shown in April in the same year after the coup that overthrew Abdul Kareem Qasim. At this resulting situation, the play conveys different meanings. Thus the speaker points out that the play Julius Caesar gives different meanings in different contexts. In this respect, he referred to a drama show in New York in 2017 when he tried to connect between the character of Julius Caesar and the American ex-president Donald Trump. The session included lots of the students' questions. The speaker finalized his session by advising the students to think not only of the writer's intended meaning but also, and more emphatically, in the way by which the play can be presented in different contexts.
This session was run by Dr Samer Talib, head of the English Department, and Nour Mohammed Baqir of the Translation Department.
