Abstract
This paper examines how eco-performance can dismantle hierarchies and function as an eco-creative process of horizontal and asymmetrical gathering. Drawing on the early modern fascination with collection and Shakespeare’s multihued ecological references, it considers how rereading the plays through the lens of ecological assemblies can inform new performance modes for greater ecological impact. Discussion begins with the urgent need to take immediate and radical action towards multiple converging ecological crises stemming from ‘grand scale gathering’ of excessive resource consumption and extractive processes. It examines early modern concordances, botanic gardens and cabinets of curiosities and their relationship to colonisation and control. The paper then proposes a process of slow reading Shakespeare’s plays to unpick narratives, turning literary thematic collections inside out as a process of dispersal. Having unsettled categorical distinctions, the text’s numerous references to plants, animals, elements, minerals and ecological processes may be reassembled for revised ecodramaturgical interpretations and ecoscenographic designs. Drawing on an original design framework based on wider research into enhancing place-based connection and eco-empathy, the paper proposes an eco-assemblage mode of reading and performing Shakespeare’s plays for environmental renewal.