Going into this film, I knew I wasn’t likely to be offended by any of Taymor’s choices. I don’t really like this play, so it isn’t holy and untouchable to me. It’s not a great play. I have a theory that its reputation arose solely based on the incorrect identification of it as Shakespeare’s last play. His farewell to the stage. We know now, of course, that he worked on plays after The Tempest. I think if we had always known that, The Tempest would never had reached the status as one of his great works. Because it’s just not that good. So that’s my prejudice going into this work.
The movie opens with a shot of a sandcastle. It begins to rain and the sandcastle is washed away. As it deteriorates, the camera pulls back and we see that the sandcastle is in the hands of Miranda (Felicity Jones). The rain is coming from a maelstrom at sea that we can see devouring a ship. Miranda begins to run.
Miranda runs until she finds her mother, Prospera (yes, that would be Prospero in Shakespeare’s original text). Prospera (Helen Mirren) is standing on a cliff, arms raised, staff outstretched, screaming. She is controlling the storm. Shakespeare’s text is a bit ambiguous on how much power Prospero has versus how much Ariel has to do for him. Taymor’s version clearly shows Prospera as a sorceress. She even spells Miranda to sleep with a very pointed “I know thou canst not choose” rather than simply remarking on Miranda’s weariness.
Making Prospero a woman is not a new choice. It’s been done before. It works well with the coexisting malevolence and softness that Shakespeare has written into the character. Making her a mother gives a tender feeling to the way Prospera brings Miranda and Ferdinand together. But making the character a woman also adds to her unpleasantness. For when Prospera threatens Ariel by recounting how she rescued him from the evil witch Sycorax, you can’t help but feel that Prospera is a little like Sycorax herself. Consider the description of the witch: “This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child, / And here was left by the sailors.” Sound like anyone else we know?
Prospero has been a woman before. It’s a choice that has worked before. So I’m not really sure why Taymor feels the need to invent text to explain the choice. Instead of just sticking with the story and changing pronouns, Taymor writes a new monologue for Prospera – one that explains that she was married to the Duke and it was when he died that all her problems began. This is the issue where the Shakespeare purist in me comes out. It seems weird then that her brother can take over the dukedom, since if she married the Duke, her brother is of no blood relation. Is Taymor suggesting the usurping has more to do with the fact that they didn’t want a woman in charge than it does with Antonio being power-hungry? If so, she doesn’t make this clear.
The second choice to talk about is the casting of black actor Djimon Hounsou as Caliban. Again, not a new choice, but one that absolutely is in line with the text and connects the character to a modern audience. Embracing a post-colonial interpretation drives the point in the text home. Prospera has taken the land from Caliban, usurped his place, just as her brother usurped hers. It makes us uncomfortable to hear the white Prospera refer to Caliban as “slave;” so too does the accusation that the black Caliban has attempted to rape the white Mirada. And it should make us uncomfortable. Prospero/a should not be a character of straightforward likeability and goodness. S/he should have lost part of his/her humanity while on that island. The casting of a black actor, or, say, an American Indian actor, helps make this clear to us given our history of oppressing. Plenty has already been written about post-colonialism and The Tempest, so I'll just leave it at that.
For the most part the acting is very strong. There’s an absolutely lovely moment between Ariel and Propera when she says “I shall miss you; But yet you shall have freedom.” The beauty of Shakespeare’s text manages a couple times to rise above the rest of the film. This happens, as it should, with Miranda’s “O wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That has such people in't.” And at the end, when Mirren gravely states, “And thence retire me to my Milan, where / Every third thought shall be my grave.” … “Every third thought shall be my grave,” For as much as I don’t like this play, that’s a damn good line.
I have no strong opinions on Russell Brand, but then it’s no secret that I never like clown characters. Some people are praising him, some people hate him, some people say, “he’s not playing Trinculo, he’s just being himself!” Well I had never heard of Russell Brand before this movie, so I wouldn’t know. It’s hard to go wrong with Helen Mirren and Alan Cumming. And Felicity Jones is the most delightful Miranda I have ever seen. Not that that’s saying much. Let’s be blunt, Miranda and Ferdinand are crap parts. They are boring, wispy children that spend the entire play sighing. Jones demonstrates how to make the part come to life with considerable charm and believability. Her counterpart, Reeve Carter as Ferdinand, does not. His lack of talent, skill, and presence is the most offending part of this movie. He spends the entire movie with one expression on his face. He seems unable to portray any emotion. And don’t even get me started on his poor enunciation or complete inability to speak Shakespearean verse properly. It’s embarrassing.
I can’t help but feel very sorry for Ben Whishaw, a young British actor of considerable talent. I was very excited to hear about this casting, glad that he would be getting some recognition. But his performance is buried in Taymor’s attempt to make Ariel more spirit-like. I heard Taymor claim in interview that they used as little CGI as possible. Well, she should have used even less. A lighter hand would have yielded a more powerful result. As I watched Ariel zip around the movie screen I couldn’t help but wish that she had taken the same approach toward Ariel that Peter Jackson took towards Legolas. There was no question Legolas was otherworldly and light, but he didn’t have to be see-through and float around the screen to prove it.
And this is the real shocker of the movie: Taymor, know for her acuity with visuals, completely fails at using special effects. They destroy any magic or malevolence this story might have. They are cheesy (Ariel flicking the boat to pieces) and inexplicable (Ariel’s here-today-gone-tomorrow breasts). It is astonishing that Shakespeare’s most visual text, one that includes sea storms, spell casting, air spirits, and monsters, has been performed on stage successfully for over 400 years, yet when someone makes a film, and has all the resources to make those images come to life, the play falls apart and the magic is lost. I can think of no stronger argument for the importance and endurance of theatre than that very fact.
Other bloggers’ thoughts on this film:
http://blog.shakespearegeek.com/2010/12/review-julie-taymor-tempest.html
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/12/julie-taymorrsquos-tempest
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
On Playing Beatrice
During August and September I was playing Beatrice in an outdoor production of Much Ado About Nothing with The Shakespeare Factory, an original practices troupe. I meant to be a better blogger through the process, but the road to hell yada yada yada. Still there were several thoughts and topics swarming around in my head as we rehearsed and performed that I knew I wanted to write about.
First of all, it is of course a great privilege to play the role. There’s a reason all Shakespeare actresses want to add this role to their resumes. I was excited to have the opportunity because it was this year that I really felt ready for the role. Or ready for my first stab at the role. I’m sure I’ll play her again, and I’m sure I’ll play her better, but I felt emotionally and mentally prepared to take a crack at the role for the first time.
Beatrice is glorious. It’s clear from reading the play, or seeing the play, that she is a great character. But when you play her, you can’t help being in love with her. I am also incredibly envious of her. She is everything I want to be. She is all my best parts, with none of my faults. The woman is smart, smarter than anyone else around her, including Benedick. This is a very frustrating position to hold – when no one seems able to keep up. Add to this the fact that she is in a world where her power and autonomy are limited. Where she can resist the traditional roles of male and female only to a certain degree. She has been hurt and disappointed in love and yet she never gives way to the kind of bitterness and negatively that I feel. Sure, it would be possible for an actress to take all of Beatrice’s witty comments and give them a bitter edge, but I think to do this too much is to miss part of the character – for I think many of her lines feel very light and I have to believe Leonato when he says, “she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then.” Sure, she is accused of being curst, but Don Pedro also says she has a “merry heart.”
Her heart is so open and so generous and so loyal. Beatrice never doubts Hero’s fidelity and she puts everything on the line to save her cousin. I think she is fully aware of the fact that she could lose Benedick’s affection forever when she asks him to kill Claudio.
People may want to accuse Beatrice of the fault of pride. Hero certainly does in the duping scene. But Hero is playing a trick on Beatrice, so how much she really means what she says is open to interpretation. Beatrice may be scared of relationships, scared of marriage, scared of losing power to a husband, scared of being hurt again by Benedick, but when she hears that he loves her, she conquers her fears and commits fully. She delivers a soliloquy, one of the few times in the play that she speaks in verse, and the only time she refers to Benedick with the more intimate “thee/thy/thou.”
What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell; and maiden pride, adieu;
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And Benedick, love on, I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.
If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
To bind our loves up in a holy band.
For others say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.
This actually brings me to the first of three topics that I wanted to address. This moment was to me the most difficult moment in the show, and preceded by the most difficult scene. And I think many people have difficulty with the Beatrice Duped scene. Shakespeare’s not doing the female characters any favors. The Benedick Duped scene comes first and it’s funnier. All we are doing is repeating a joke that has already been made. The scene is redundant. And for an actor such as myself, the scene has additional difficulties. I don’t believe in the actor being funny. I believe in the writer being funny and the actor playing the scene. But in this (comic) scene, where I was supposed to be funny, I had no lines. And then I had to end the scene with ten lines where Beatrice does a complete 180. She hears criticisms about herself and decides to change immediately. How many people can do something like that? Her courage is astounding.
So just think about everything an actress has to pull together in this moment:
1. Speaking verse – a change for Beatrice
2. Direct audience contact
3. The extreme pain of hearing someone you love say terrible things about you
4. The immediate decision to change behaviors
5. The extreme joy of hearing that Benedick loves her
6. Talking to Benedick who isn’t there
7. A final line that sounds awkward to modern ears
Then you have to take all that and still strike the right tone and level of levity considering the fact that you are in the middle of a comedy, and the end of a comic scene, and the heavy stuff comes later. Conversely, it’s also really possibly to underplay this speech. So basically I was never satisfied with how I played this speech. In the end, I had to just trust the vision of the director, who wanted to keep this moment on the lighter side. But there’s a lot to explore there, and I don’t think I got it all.
The difficulty of that moment did not surprise me. It’s a speech that has always given me pause whenever seeing the play or reading it. But the second topic I wanted to talk about was what did surprise me about Beatrice. The play is a delightful comedy, but when I was playing Beatrice I did not feel like I was in a comedy. The wedding scene, where you have nothing to say, followed by the Kill Claudio scene, where emotions and rage and words pour out of you, is incredibly taxing. After this she has a short scene with Benedick and then the final, wrap up scene where love finally wins. It all ends happily, but in terms of time, it happens very quickly after those raw emotional scenes. I found myself as worn out and drained by Beatrice and I was by Isabella in Measure for Measure. Isabella is practically raped and led to believe that her brother is dead. It’s a rough character journey to go through, and Beatrice’s journey was as much a rollercoaster, and as exhausting. And that really surprised me. Of course the side-by-side existence of witty comedy and terrible tragedy is what makes Much Ado About Nothing so brilliant.
Thirdly, I want to address one specific moment. at the end of the play “Peace, I will stop your mouth.” This line is famous amongst Shakespeare scholars. Every time you see this play, Benedick says this line. The only version of this play we have is the Quarto from 1600. In this text, this line is marked as Leonato’s. It was a later editor (Theobald) that assigned the line to Benedick, and most editions after have followed suit. The Arden edition notes the line as Leonato’s. The Folger gives it to Benedick, despite its insistence on following Quarto notes in other locations, such as claiming that Leonato has two brothers and not one.
I was quite excited to learn on the first day of rehearsal that we were following the Quarto and giving the line to Leonato. After all, I had never seen it performed this way. And naturally, as a Shakespeare scholar, one has to be interested in how choices like this change a play or scene.
The Arden buys into Leonato saying this line because it “is in keeping with his characteristic attempts to stage-manage this scene, and his role as Beatrice’s guardian; it also provides for a more egalitarian accommodation between the lovers than would Benedick’s own declaration of intent to silence Beatrice” (emphasis mine). And it was really for that second reason that our director liked the choice, and it is also the reason I was interested in it. After all, when Leonato delivers the line it can be said to both Benedick and Beatrice, instead of just to Beatrice.
In the course of my research I consulted the RSC edition of this play. If you have not seen this series, which is relatively new, I highly recommend it. The editions include interviews with RSC actors and directors that are quite enlightening and thought-provoking. When asked about this moment, director Nicholas Hynter said, “There are all sorts of reasons to give the line to Leonato that look good in the study. … But in the theater, it’s blindingly obvious that the line is Benedick’s.”
I immediately rejected Hynter’s statement because he seemed to be concretely denying the viability of the choice to give the line to Leonato. Nonsense, I thought, surely it can be made to work. You can’t just categorically deny that.
Hynter was right; I was wrong. When you are living the play and the characters it just has to be Benedick’s line. This was something else that really surprised me – that something with clear possibilities intellectually turned out to be so obviously wrong theatrically. Harriet Walter says in the RSC edition exactly what I discovered in my rehearsal process: “I am convinced that it is better to give the line to Benedick, and I don’t find it is a sinister suffocation at all. Rather, it seems to be a restoration of their usual banter but with love behind it now.”
I discovered that it actually felt more suffocating, more sexist, to have Leonato say the line, especially having lived through what Beatrice lived through. She saw her uncle immediately side with the men against Hero, and react in an incredibly vitriolic way. He is horrible to Hero in the wedding scene. This man then arranges to have Hero marry Claudio despite what he has done. Then to have that man tell you to get married and then control how it happens – it does not feel good.
And it turns out not to be a suffocation when Benedick says it. Beatrice is smarter than Benedick. Every encounter they have, she wins. Like Berowne, Benedick always has to duck out of the witty banter when he finds himself at a loss for a response. If he says, “Peace, I will stop your mouth” it is simply a continuation of this relationship, full of love and deference to her wit.
My production kept the line as Leonato’s since that was the choice that had been made. And I think the difficulty of the moment was diffused due to the fact that Leonato was played by a female actor (still as a male role though). But I still appreciated the fact that we were exploring and discussing the moment. We all talked about it in a conversation close to opening and the director agreed that is probably was always meant to be Benedick’s line. But it was certainly fascinating to get to discover that fact for myself.
Oh, I lied. There is a fourth topic I want to discuss. And that is the magic of original practices. In an original practices production, the goal is to involve the audience, and we as actors work to let them know that they are allowed to respond however they see fit. During Much Ado About Nothing we had a couple of audiences that were with us at every moment, and they let us know it. It was thrilling. When Beatrice and Benedick are face to face for the first time after the duping scene and they final admit their love, the audiences loved it. I would say, “I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protect” and then run into his arms and we would kiss for the first time. As we were kissing, audiences would cheer. It was magical. It was exhilarating. An experience like that reminds you just how rewarding acting can be.
(Photos 1 and 2 by Kelly Dowling. Photos 3 and 4 by Kevin Hollenbeck)
First of all, it is of course a great privilege to play the role. There’s a reason all Shakespeare actresses want to add this role to their resumes. I was excited to have the opportunity because it was this year that I really felt ready for the role. Or ready for my first stab at the role. I’m sure I’ll play her again, and I’m sure I’ll play her better, but I felt emotionally and mentally prepared to take a crack at the role for the first time.
Beatrice is glorious. It’s clear from reading the play, or seeing the play, that she is a great character. But when you play her, you can’t help being in love with her. I am also incredibly envious of her. She is everything I want to be. She is all my best parts, with none of my faults. The woman is smart, smarter than anyone else around her, including Benedick. This is a very frustrating position to hold – when no one seems able to keep up. Add to this the fact that she is in a world where her power and autonomy are limited. Where she can resist the traditional roles of male and female only to a certain degree. She has been hurt and disappointed in love and yet she never gives way to the kind of bitterness and negatively that I feel. Sure, it would be possible for an actress to take all of Beatrice’s witty comments and give them a bitter edge, but I think to do this too much is to miss part of the character – for I think many of her lines feel very light and I have to believe Leonato when he says, “she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then.” Sure, she is accused of being curst, but Don Pedro also says she has a “merry heart.”
Her heart is so open and so generous and so loyal. Beatrice never doubts Hero’s fidelity and she puts everything on the line to save her cousin. I think she is fully aware of the fact that she could lose Benedick’s affection forever when she asks him to kill Claudio.
People may want to accuse Beatrice of the fault of pride. Hero certainly does in the duping scene. But Hero is playing a trick on Beatrice, so how much she really means what she says is open to interpretation. Beatrice may be scared of relationships, scared of marriage, scared of losing power to a husband, scared of being hurt again by Benedick, but when she hears that he loves her, she conquers her fears and commits fully. She delivers a soliloquy, one of the few times in the play that she speaks in verse, and the only time she refers to Benedick with the more intimate “thee/thy/thou.”
What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell; and maiden pride, adieu;
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And Benedick, love on, I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.
If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
To bind our loves up in a holy band.
For others say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.
This actually brings me to the first of three topics that I wanted to address. This moment was to me the most difficult moment in the show, and preceded by the most difficult scene. And I think many people have difficulty with the Beatrice Duped scene. Shakespeare’s not doing the female characters any favors. The Benedick Duped scene comes first and it’s funnier. All we are doing is repeating a joke that has already been made. The scene is redundant. And for an actor such as myself, the scene has additional difficulties. I don’t believe in the actor being funny. I believe in the writer being funny and the actor playing the scene. But in this (comic) scene, where I was supposed to be funny, I had no lines. And then I had to end the scene with ten lines where Beatrice does a complete 180. She hears criticisms about herself and decides to change immediately. How many people can do something like that? Her courage is astounding.
So just think about everything an actress has to pull together in this moment:
1. Speaking verse – a change for Beatrice
2. Direct audience contact
3. The extreme pain of hearing someone you love say terrible things about you
4. The immediate decision to change behaviors
5. The extreme joy of hearing that Benedick loves her
6. Talking to Benedick who isn’t there
7. A final line that sounds awkward to modern ears
Then you have to take all that and still strike the right tone and level of levity considering the fact that you are in the middle of a comedy, and the end of a comic scene, and the heavy stuff comes later. Conversely, it’s also really possibly to underplay this speech. So basically I was never satisfied with how I played this speech. In the end, I had to just trust the vision of the director, who wanted to keep this moment on the lighter side. But there’s a lot to explore there, and I don’t think I got it all.
The difficulty of that moment did not surprise me. It’s a speech that has always given me pause whenever seeing the play or reading it. But the second topic I wanted to talk about was what did surprise me about Beatrice. The play is a delightful comedy, but when I was playing Beatrice I did not feel like I was in a comedy. The wedding scene, where you have nothing to say, followed by the Kill Claudio scene, where emotions and rage and words pour out of you, is incredibly taxing. After this she has a short scene with Benedick and then the final, wrap up scene where love finally wins. It all ends happily, but in terms of time, it happens very quickly after those raw emotional scenes. I found myself as worn out and drained by Beatrice and I was by Isabella in Measure for Measure. Isabella is practically raped and led to believe that her brother is dead. It’s a rough character journey to go through, and Beatrice’s journey was as much a rollercoaster, and as exhausting. And that really surprised me. Of course the side-by-side existence of witty comedy and terrible tragedy is what makes Much Ado About Nothing so brilliant.
Thirdly, I want to address one specific moment. at the end of the play “Peace, I will stop your mouth.” This line is famous amongst Shakespeare scholars. Every time you see this play, Benedick says this line. The only version of this play we have is the Quarto from 1600. In this text, this line is marked as Leonato’s. It was a later editor (Theobald) that assigned the line to Benedick, and most editions after have followed suit. The Arden edition notes the line as Leonato’s. The Folger gives it to Benedick, despite its insistence on following Quarto notes in other locations, such as claiming that Leonato has two brothers and not one.
I was quite excited to learn on the first day of rehearsal that we were following the Quarto and giving the line to Leonato. After all, I had never seen it performed this way. And naturally, as a Shakespeare scholar, one has to be interested in how choices like this change a play or scene.
The Arden buys into Leonato saying this line because it “is in keeping with his characteristic attempts to stage-manage this scene, and his role as Beatrice’s guardian; it also provides for a more egalitarian accommodation between the lovers than would Benedick’s own declaration of intent to silence Beatrice” (emphasis mine). And it was really for that second reason that our director liked the choice, and it is also the reason I was interested in it. After all, when Leonato delivers the line it can be said to both Benedick and Beatrice, instead of just to Beatrice.
In the course of my research I consulted the RSC edition of this play. If you have not seen this series, which is relatively new, I highly recommend it. The editions include interviews with RSC actors and directors that are quite enlightening and thought-provoking. When asked about this moment, director Nicholas Hynter said, “There are all sorts of reasons to give the line to Leonato that look good in the study. … But in the theater, it’s blindingly obvious that the line is Benedick’s.”
I immediately rejected Hynter’s statement because he seemed to be concretely denying the viability of the choice to give the line to Leonato. Nonsense, I thought, surely it can be made to work. You can’t just categorically deny that.
Hynter was right; I was wrong. When you are living the play and the characters it just has to be Benedick’s line. This was something else that really surprised me – that something with clear possibilities intellectually turned out to be so obviously wrong theatrically. Harriet Walter says in the RSC edition exactly what I discovered in my rehearsal process: “I am convinced that it is better to give the line to Benedick, and I don’t find it is a sinister suffocation at all. Rather, it seems to be a restoration of their usual banter but with love behind it now.”
I discovered that it actually felt more suffocating, more sexist, to have Leonato say the line, especially having lived through what Beatrice lived through. She saw her uncle immediately side with the men against Hero, and react in an incredibly vitriolic way. He is horrible to Hero in the wedding scene. This man then arranges to have Hero marry Claudio despite what he has done. Then to have that man tell you to get married and then control how it happens – it does not feel good.
And it turns out not to be a suffocation when Benedick says it. Beatrice is smarter than Benedick. Every encounter they have, she wins. Like Berowne, Benedick always has to duck out of the witty banter when he finds himself at a loss for a response. If he says, “Peace, I will stop your mouth” it is simply a continuation of this relationship, full of love and deference to her wit.
My production kept the line as Leonato’s since that was the choice that had been made. And I think the difficulty of the moment was diffused due to the fact that Leonato was played by a female actor (still as a male role though). But I still appreciated the fact that we were exploring and discussing the moment. We all talked about it in a conversation close to opening and the director agreed that is probably was always meant to be Benedick’s line. But it was certainly fascinating to get to discover that fact for myself.
Oh, I lied. There is a fourth topic I want to discuss. And that is the magic of original practices. In an original practices production, the goal is to involve the audience, and we as actors work to let them know that they are allowed to respond however they see fit. During Much Ado About Nothing we had a couple of audiences that were with us at every moment, and they let us know it. It was thrilling. When Beatrice and Benedick are face to face for the first time after the duping scene and they final admit their love, the audiences loved it. I would say, “I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protect” and then run into his arms and we would kiss for the first time. As we were kissing, audiences would cheer. It was magical. It was exhilarating. An experience like that reminds you just how rewarding acting can be.
(Photos 1 and 2 by Kelly Dowling. Photos 3 and 4 by Kevin Hollenbeck)
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Becoming an Actor/Scholar
I'm currently in the process of applying to graduate schools -- I'm looking to get my MFA in Acting. This weekend I'm being the work on all those essays and personal statements that I have to write. One of them wants me to write about a defining life moment that has nothing to do with theatre. Um... I get that they want me to be well-rounded, but I don't think I have any life-defining moments that have nothing to do with theatre. Well, maybe the ones that have to do with religion, but I'm not sure I really want to be that personal. I've had people tell me that they don't know anyone that is as into theatre as I am, and so everything in my life I'm pretty sure I can relate to theatre in some way. My brother's fiancee joked that I could write about the moment I met her, but the night we met we watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch!
Anyway in order to prepare for writing these essays I have been digging up old pieces of writing and I've discovered a blog that I wrote and then never posted. It's sort of the companion piece to the posting after SAA 2010. I was supposed to post this one first, but I guess I never did. Here it is:
So that was how the journey began. And it's a journey that is frustrating in regards to grad school. Because there isn't one program that will give me Actor/Scholar. I basically have to chose one for now and hit the other one later. There are two MFA programs that are really appealing to the scholar side of me: the MFA in Staging Shakespeare at the University of Exeter and the Master of Letters/Master of Fine Arts in Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin. I start think I should apply there (especially given how much I love the ASC), but then I remember that I really do want to get strong actor training in voice, movement, and all that jazz. Sure the two programs have acting components, but something has to go. So I'm trying to look at acting MFAs that seem interested in analysis and Shakespeare, and preferably with an abroad component. It's all very overwhelming.
Anyway in order to prepare for writing these essays I have been digging up old pieces of writing and I've discovered a blog that I wrote and then never posted. It's sort of the companion piece to the posting after SAA 2010. I was supposed to post this one first, but I guess I never did. Here it is:
Today’s blog will give you a little bit of history: how and why I decided to change my career designation from Actor to Actor/Scholar.
I have always been interested in knowledge. I do inordinate amounts of research when I am in a play; the amount of research is only limited by how much free time I have. When I do a production of a Shakespeare play I always pick up the Arden edition and read all the notes; I also seek out other editions of and essays about that play to read.
Last year the Shakespeare Association of America moved their headquarters to Washington, DC which is also where they were holding their annual conference. I decided to attend the 2009 conference as an observer, since I wouldn’t have to pay for travel and room. I figured three days surrounded by lovers of Shakespeare could not go wrong. And I was right. The event was life-changing, and as such was both exhilarating and depressing. Exhilarating because I felt like I found a part of myself that was missing. Depressing because bridging the two worlds of actor and scholar will be a difficult task.
I attended the sessions and seminars that were somehow related to performance, but even with the scholars participating in those discussions, there was a sense of here are scholars and there are theatre artists and never the twain shall meet. In fact, the performance aspect of Shakespeare has been sadly neglected by most Shakespearean scholarship. I felt hope however, as this appears to be something that is changing. First, with the rising interest in original practices that has occurred in the last decade. Second, with the younger generation of Shakespearean scholars. The wonderful women my age that I met at the conference have a great love of performance, to the point where all of them at some point have staged readings of obscure early modern dramas.
But it is not just in the realm of scholarship where performance has been ignored. In the realm of performance, scholarship has been ignored. One scholar noted in her panel in 2009 that she will go to Q and A's and ask the actors if they read scholarly articles or academic reviews and she always gets the answer no. I spoke to her after to let her know that I do. She said, "Well, you are the first one I've met." And I had to be honest with her, I didn’t know anyone else who did either. And at that conference I only ran into two other full time practitioners, and actually one of them I only knew of as an actor, but in speaking with him it turned out he was actually an English professor who had just recently gotten back onstage. The other was a director, and indeed the scholars who also work in performance tended to be directors as opposed to actors. (This is not to downplay any of these people, their work, or their contributions, merely to point out that the task of being an actor/scholar was overwhelming when faced with the reality that there didn’t seem to be anyone else with my identical perspective or situation.)
So I came home from the 2009 conference with a determination to be a part of the new conversation of performance and scholarship, but not really sure how to go about that. I did know that one step I could take was to attend the 2010 conference as a participant instead of merely an observer. I’ll continue this later, but just to let you know 2010 was even better than 2009 and I left even more hopeful at the progress of the conversation between performance and scholarship.
So that was how the journey began. And it's a journey that is frustrating in regards to grad school. Because there isn't one program that will give me Actor/Scholar. I basically have to chose one for now and hit the other one later. There are two MFA programs that are really appealing to the scholar side of me: the MFA in Staging Shakespeare at the University of Exeter and the Master of Letters/Master of Fine Arts in Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin. I start think I should apply there (especially given how much I love the ASC), but then I remember that I really do want to get strong actor training in voice, movement, and all that jazz. Sure the two programs have acting components, but something has to go. So I'm trying to look at acting MFAs that seem interested in analysis and Shakespeare, and preferably with an abroad component. It's all very overwhelming.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Fourth Wall
I’ve had several topics that I’ve been meaning to blog about. For instance I still have yet to write about my experience playing Beatrice. But that and other such topics must be put aside, for I find I have to respond to a disturbing trend. Last year I posted links on my facebook page to a couple blog postings from theatre critics bemoaning performers breaking the fourth wall. One came from Christine Dolen of the Miami Herald. This opinions in her post were seconded by Elizabeth Maupin of the Orlando Sentinel. Dolen says that interactive theatre makes her “uncomfortable.” Maupin agrees that she wants to stay on the “safe” side of the fourth wall. Both of them write as though this whole audience interaction is a new, scary idea rising up against the established convention of a fourth wall.
My pretentious side wanted to dismiss these opinions as merely coming from unenlightened arts writers in Florida, but just today Peter Marks posted a blog in the Washington Post putting forth the exact same opinion.
Marks says that breaking the fourth wall is “one of the most annoying trends in modern theater.” Sigh. Audience interaction is not a modern theatre trend. The fourth wall is a modern theatre trend coming from the advent of realism, spreading during the 19th and 20th centuries. Prior to that were centuries of theatre without the fourth wall. And you don’t have to know very much about theatre history to know this – the most famous playwright of all time wrote for a theatre that interacted directly with its audience. (That would be Shakespeare, if you hadn’t figured it out).
First of all, I am troubled that these critics, who are set up as experts on the theatre, only seem interested in one very specific type of theatrical experience (and clearly a middle-class, western one at that). How can we trust theatre critics who deny the great majority of theatre history? But it troubles me much, much more that these critics seem to be against the very quality that makes theatre special. Isn’t the very reason we go to theatre for that live human connection? If we aren’t looking for that very alive and present exchange between an actor and an audience, why see a play? Dolin says, “Just sitting there in the dark, listening and reacting and thinking, is fine by me.” Marks writes about wanting to be "left alone." If that’s all you want, sit in a movie theatre, or in front of your television.
What is the point of theatre that is “safe”? Don’t we want our theatre to be alive? To challenge and surprise us?
Sure, there is a right way and a wrong way to interact with an audience. And it is a fine line that not every actor can figure out. Or every director. I had a director who told the cast that if an audience member seemed uncomfortable or wasn’t responding when we talked to them, to keep going back to that same person and force them to respond. I really don't think that's the way to go about it.
I am well aware that there are plays where audience interaction is entirely inappropriate. I understand that different productions have different styles. I once for a Shakespeare play and was not cast and had another cast member ask me how I would have dealt with doing the show since I would have disagreed with the decision not to talk to the audience. I told him I would do exactly what I did in the last play we did together (which was fully of the school of naturalism) and ignored the director’s wishes and talked to the audience anyway. He was confused and said, “I don’t remember you doing that,” clearly not being able to pick up on my sarcasm.
Not every play needs the actors to look into an audience member’s eyes and speak directly to them. But even without that element, a play is still interactive. It has to be. The audience is there, the actors are there, and each group affects the other. Therefore ALL theatre is interactive. That’s what makes it theatre. If theatre doesn’t make a connection, it’s either badly written or badly performed, or both.
I can absolutely accept that some people do not like audience interaction, especially the more extreme versions of it. But these people probably shouldn’t be the ones writing about theatre. Sure, there are audience members that just want to sit back, laugh at a show, then go home and forget all about it. Fine - there are certainly plays that will allow those audience members to do so. But it’s not the kind of theatre I want to see. It’s not the kind of theatre I want to do. And it’s not the kind of theatre that matters. It’s not the kind of theatre that lasts. And theatre that matters, theatre that lasts, theatre that makes an impact – isn’t that the type of theatre that should interest our critics?
My pretentious side wanted to dismiss these opinions as merely coming from unenlightened arts writers in Florida, but just today Peter Marks posted a blog in the Washington Post putting forth the exact same opinion.
Marks says that breaking the fourth wall is “one of the most annoying trends in modern theater.” Sigh. Audience interaction is not a modern theatre trend. The fourth wall is a modern theatre trend coming from the advent of realism, spreading during the 19th and 20th centuries. Prior to that were centuries of theatre without the fourth wall. And you don’t have to know very much about theatre history to know this – the most famous playwright of all time wrote for a theatre that interacted directly with its audience. (That would be Shakespeare, if you hadn’t figured it out).
First of all, I am troubled that these critics, who are set up as experts on the theatre, only seem interested in one very specific type of theatrical experience (and clearly a middle-class, western one at that). How can we trust theatre critics who deny the great majority of theatre history? But it troubles me much, much more that these critics seem to be against the very quality that makes theatre special. Isn’t the very reason we go to theatre for that live human connection? If we aren’t looking for that very alive and present exchange between an actor and an audience, why see a play? Dolin says, “Just sitting there in the dark, listening and reacting and thinking, is fine by me.” Marks writes about wanting to be "left alone." If that’s all you want, sit in a movie theatre, or in front of your television.
What is the point of theatre that is “safe”? Don’t we want our theatre to be alive? To challenge and surprise us?
Sure, there is a right way and a wrong way to interact with an audience. And it is a fine line that not every actor can figure out. Or every director. I had a director who told the cast that if an audience member seemed uncomfortable or wasn’t responding when we talked to them, to keep going back to that same person and force them to respond. I really don't think that's the way to go about it.
I am well aware that there are plays where audience interaction is entirely inappropriate. I understand that different productions have different styles. I once for a Shakespeare play and was not cast and had another cast member ask me how I would have dealt with doing the show since I would have disagreed with the decision not to talk to the audience. I told him I would do exactly what I did in the last play we did together (which was fully of the school of naturalism) and ignored the director’s wishes and talked to the audience anyway. He was confused and said, “I don’t remember you doing that,” clearly not being able to pick up on my sarcasm.
Not every play needs the actors to look into an audience member’s eyes and speak directly to them. But even without that element, a play is still interactive. It has to be. The audience is there, the actors are there, and each group affects the other. Therefore ALL theatre is interactive. That’s what makes it theatre. If theatre doesn’t make a connection, it’s either badly written or badly performed, or both.
I can absolutely accept that some people do not like audience interaction, especially the more extreme versions of it. But these people probably shouldn’t be the ones writing about theatre. Sure, there are audience members that just want to sit back, laugh at a show, then go home and forget all about it. Fine - there are certainly plays that will allow those audience members to do so. But it’s not the kind of theatre I want to see. It’s not the kind of theatre I want to do. And it’s not the kind of theatre that matters. It’s not the kind of theatre that lasts. And theatre that matters, theatre that lasts, theatre that makes an impact – isn’t that the type of theatre that should interest our critics?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Fringe - Not Quite Over
This is the final week of Fringe, but it's still not too late to see BOTH of my shows.
A Thing for Redheads has two final performances:
Friday July 23 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 24 @ 3:30pm
DC Theatre Scene just posted a four star review of this show. Reviewer Caitlin DeMerlis calls the play "witty, quirky, entertaining." Demerlis praises all four actors, and writes, "With a touch of Miley Cyrus and a dash of Britney Spears, Charlene V. Smith as pop star Jessie Morgan is poppin’ and lockin’ it ... Smith adds a terrifyingly realistic embodiment of the vapid stars that currently grace the covers of entertainment rags."
Macbeth sold out four of our five performances at the Capital Fringe Festival. Many people had to be turned away. Bummed because you missed this awesome production? Never fear, we are remounting it for two weekends in August at 1st Stage in Tyson's Corner.
The remount will run on the following dates:
Friday, August 6, at 8pm
Saturday, August 7, at 8pm
Sunday, August 8, at 7pm
Friday, August 13, at 8pm
Saturday, August 14, at 8pm
Sunday, August 15, at 7pm
Don't miss out, get your tickets now at Brown Paper Tickets.
A Thing for Redheads has two final performances:
Friday July 23 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 24 @ 3:30pm
DC Theatre Scene just posted a four star review of this show. Reviewer Caitlin DeMerlis calls the play "witty, quirky, entertaining." Demerlis praises all four actors, and writes, "With a touch of Miley Cyrus and a dash of Britney Spears, Charlene V. Smith as pop star Jessie Morgan is poppin’ and lockin’ it ... Smith adds a terrifyingly realistic embodiment of the vapid stars that currently grace the covers of entertainment rags."
Macbeth sold out four of our five performances at the Capital Fringe Festival. Many people had to be turned away. Bummed because you missed this awesome production? Never fear, we are remounting it for two weekends in August at 1st Stage in Tyson's Corner.
The remount will run on the following dates:
Friday, August 6, at 8pm
Saturday, August 7, at 8pm
Sunday, August 8, at 7pm
Friday, August 13, at 8pm
Saturday, August 14, at 8pm
Sunday, August 15, at 7pm
Don't miss out, get your tickets now at Brown Paper Tickets.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Good Press for Macbeth
Macbeth is getting lots of buzz at the Capital Fringe Festival:
--We received a five-star "Pick of the Fringe" rating from DC Theatre Scene. Reviewer Kate Mattingly singled out the three witches, calling us "creepy and conniving."
--We are an Editor's Pick on the Washington Post's Going Out Guide. Critic Rebecca J. Ritzel described the production as "clever, lightning-quick and all about taking risks."
--Finally, the Washington City Paper reports on what happened opening night. A patron was so determined to see our show, he ripped the door off of its hinges.
Only three performances left!
Redrum @ Fort Fringe, 612 L Street, NW
Thursday July 15 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 17 @ 7pm
Sunday July 18 @ 9:30pm
--We received a five-star "Pick of the Fringe" rating from DC Theatre Scene. Reviewer Kate Mattingly singled out the three witches, calling us "creepy and conniving."
--We are an Editor's Pick on the Washington Post's Going Out Guide. Critic Rebecca J. Ritzel described the production as "clever, lightning-quick and all about taking risks."
--Finally, the Washington City Paper reports on what happened opening night. A patron was so determined to see our show, he ripped the door off of its hinges.
Only three performances left!
Redrum @ Fort Fringe, 612 L Street, NW
Thursday July 15 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 17 @ 7pm
Sunday July 18 @ 9:30pm
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Macbeth Opens Tonight!
Macbeth opens tonight at the Capital Fringe Festival. The show is at 8pm.
The Redrum at Fort Fringe: 612 L Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
Closest metro stations: Mt. Vernon Square - Convention Center (Green/Yellow) or Chinatown - Gallery Place (Red).
Here's a sneak peak:
The Redrum at Fort Fringe: 612 L Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
Closest metro stations: Mt. Vernon Square - Convention Center (Green/Yellow) or Chinatown - Gallery Place (Red).
Here's a sneak peak:
photos by Lee Liebeskind
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The Actor's Ego
I was thrilled to see that the RSC had posted a link on their facebook page to an interview on the Guardian with Michael Boyd. Frankly, I'll read anything and everything about Michael Boyd. That man reached theatre god status when I saw the Histories cycle in 2008 which he directed. Plus he's brought the ensemble back to the RSC.
The interview is short, but telling. My favorite moment?
What is the biggest myth about theatre?
That it is more populated by egotists than any other profession.
Thank you Mr. Boyd! This has been a thought that's been rattling around in my head recently for a couple reasons. Mostly because I've recently watched the second season of Canadian TV show Slings and Arrows. The second season is the season in which the New Burbage Festival is performing Macbeth. So I could watch in the name of research. ;-) Anyway theatre people are dictated to love this show because it is about theatre people. Every theatre person has told another theatre person, "Oh, you must see Slings and Arrows!" But I began to feel a little annoyed with the show and its over-reliance on negative actor stereotypes. According to this show, people in the arts are all flaky, pleasure-driven egotists with no understanding of the real world. The second season is when Ellen finds herself undergoing a tax audit. Her constant insistence that "I'm just a poor actor! How can you expect me to understand taxes?!" gets a little grating.
If we are being fair, who really understands taxes anyway? And they are increasingly difficult and convoluted when you are an independent contractor. But the actors I know don't whine about them anymore than anyone else in the world, and we have to work harder to understand all the rules and regulations and how they apply to us. (On this note, I have a few friends that insist we can deduct makeup and costumes. We can't. One even says her tax preparer told her she could. He's wrong.)
But Slings and Arrows does get it right when they take on the magic of theatre, the wonder, what draws us all to it. “The theater is an empty box, and it is our task to fill it with fury, and ecstasy, and with revolution."
Are there egos in theatre? Absolutely. Divas? Yes. Difficult actors? Sure. But actors are also practical, selfless, hardworking, courageous, brave, generous, empathetic, smart, and curious. I had a guy on Facebook tell me that being an actor was my choice and since I chose that profession I didn't deserve health insurance. He was clearly under the false impression, as so many are, that actors are lazy leeches. I would challenge him to find a single day in his life where he has worked as hard as all my fellow actors in Macbeth have for the last month. This cast has thrown themselves into the challenges of this production, learning a bevy of new, demanding skills, without complaint. Capoeira, acrobatics, stage combat, physical theatre, etc. Wait until you see what we do with bamboo!
Uta Hagen wanted us to have respect for acting, and America certainly needs more of that. But how about a little respect for actors while we're at it?
The interview is short, but telling. My favorite moment?
What is the biggest myth about theatre?
That it is more populated by egotists than any other profession.
Thank you Mr. Boyd! This has been a thought that's been rattling around in my head recently for a couple reasons. Mostly because I've recently watched the second season of Canadian TV show Slings and Arrows. The second season is the season in which the New Burbage Festival is performing Macbeth. So I could watch in the name of research. ;-) Anyway theatre people are dictated to love this show because it is about theatre people. Every theatre person has told another theatre person, "Oh, you must see Slings and Arrows!" But I began to feel a little annoyed with the show and its over-reliance on negative actor stereotypes. According to this show, people in the arts are all flaky, pleasure-driven egotists with no understanding of the real world. The second season is when Ellen finds herself undergoing a tax audit. Her constant insistence that "I'm just a poor actor! How can you expect me to understand taxes?!" gets a little grating.
If we are being fair, who really understands taxes anyway? And they are increasingly difficult and convoluted when you are an independent contractor. But the actors I know don't whine about them anymore than anyone else in the world, and we have to work harder to understand all the rules and regulations and how they apply to us. (On this note, I have a few friends that insist we can deduct makeup and costumes. We can't. One even says her tax preparer told her she could. He's wrong.)
But Slings and Arrows does get it right when they take on the magic of theatre, the wonder, what draws us all to it. “The theater is an empty box, and it is our task to fill it with fury, and ecstasy, and with revolution."
Are there egos in theatre? Absolutely. Divas? Yes. Difficult actors? Sure. But actors are also practical, selfless, hardworking, courageous, brave, generous, empathetic, smart, and curious. I had a guy on Facebook tell me that being an actor was my choice and since I chose that profession I didn't deserve health insurance. He was clearly under the false impression, as so many are, that actors are lazy leeches. I would challenge him to find a single day in his life where he has worked as hard as all my fellow actors in Macbeth have for the last month. This cast has thrown themselves into the challenges of this production, learning a bevy of new, demanding skills, without complaint. Capoeira, acrobatics, stage combat, physical theatre, etc. Wait until you see what we do with bamboo!
Uta Hagen wanted us to have respect for acting, and America certainly needs more of that. But how about a little respect for actors while we're at it?
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Fringe Marketing
We are a week and a half away from the opening of the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival. So posters and postcards have appeared for my two shows. I thought I would share the images with you.
And here are some publicity photos from A Thing For Redheads, photographer Paul Oberle.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Macbeth
This past week we've delved into rehearsals for my second Fringe project, a production of Macbeth. It is the inaugural production of PushPull Theatre Company and directed by Jessica Aimone. I cannot express how excited I am to be working on this project. First of all the director is bright, open, and has an infectious enthusiasm about the project. And what a project. This isn't your granddaddy's Macbeth! Though Macbeth is a short text (Shakespeare's shortest tragedy), our production is still substantially cut in order to fit into the time confines of a Fringe production. Furthermore this isn't just Macbeth -- it's Capoeira Macbeth!
Capoeira is a Brazilian art form that seems to be very "in" right now. It mixes dance, martial arts, and music. We are using it as our stage combat and also to inform a musical score. The idea is that we are doing theatre and we are being up front about it so why not use the more theatrical kind of fighting, capoeira, which is much more of a dance, or a game, than a fight. I've been taking classes for a couple of weeks now, and I love it. Don't get me wrong, I'm terrible at it. It's probably the hardest physical activity I've ever done. It's exhausting and it works every muscle you can think of. But it's great. And watching people who know what they are doing, well, stunning is the only word for it.
I described Jessica as being an open director. She truly is interested in what the actor thinks and wants us to be as involved as possible. She has many moments where she wants some sort of musicalization or a certain effect but has nothing set in stone. So those of us not working a scene she sends off into another room to figure it out on our own. We've only just started this process, but working this way gives us all, even those of us in smaller roles, a true sense of community and ownership of the piece. I am personally very thankful for this. I am playing the first witch, but haven't done any scene work yet because our third witch is out of town until the middle of the week. But because of Jessica's method, I still get to feel like I am contributing and doing things as rehearsal.
The cast of Macbeth includes Jeremy Brown, Courtney Weber, Sallie Willows, David Winkler, Anna Brungardt, Ryan Tumulty, Katy Carkuff, Lee Liebeskind, Tony Strowd, Austin Johnson, Carl Long, Ty Hallmark, Vince Eisenson, JB Tadena, Charlene V. Smith, Kristen Garaffo, Alex Mandell, Christina Frank, Michelle Polera. Tickets go on sale June 21.
Macbeth will be performed at Fort Fringe, 612 L Street NW, on the following dates:
Saturday July 10 @ 8pm
Sunday July 11 @ 4pm
Thursday July 15 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 17 @ 7pm
Sunday July 18 @ 9:30pm
Capoeira is a Brazilian art form that seems to be very "in" right now. It mixes dance, martial arts, and music. We are using it as our stage combat and also to inform a musical score. The idea is that we are doing theatre and we are being up front about it so why not use the more theatrical kind of fighting, capoeira, which is much more of a dance, or a game, than a fight. I've been taking classes for a couple of weeks now, and I love it. Don't get me wrong, I'm terrible at it. It's probably the hardest physical activity I've ever done. It's exhausting and it works every muscle you can think of. But it's great. And watching people who know what they are doing, well, stunning is the only word for it.
I described Jessica as being an open director. She truly is interested in what the actor thinks and wants us to be as involved as possible. She has many moments where she wants some sort of musicalization or a certain effect but has nothing set in stone. So those of us not working a scene she sends off into another room to figure it out on our own. We've only just started this process, but working this way gives us all, even those of us in smaller roles, a true sense of community and ownership of the piece. I am personally very thankful for this. I am playing the first witch, but haven't done any scene work yet because our third witch is out of town until the middle of the week. But because of Jessica's method, I still get to feel like I am contributing and doing things as rehearsal.
The cast of Macbeth includes Jeremy Brown, Courtney Weber, Sallie Willows, David Winkler, Anna Brungardt, Ryan Tumulty, Katy Carkuff, Lee Liebeskind, Tony Strowd, Austin Johnson, Carl Long, Ty Hallmark, Vince Eisenson, JB Tadena, Charlene V. Smith, Kristen Garaffo, Alex Mandell, Christina Frank, Michelle Polera. Tickets go on sale June 21.
Macbeth will be performed at Fort Fringe, 612 L Street NW, on the following dates:
Saturday July 10 @ 8pm
Sunday July 11 @ 4pm
Thursday July 15 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 17 @ 7pm
Sunday July 18 @ 9:30pm
Saturday, May 29, 2010
A Thing For Redheads
I will be quite busy this summer, performing in two shows at the Capital Fringe Festival. The first one is a dark, brooding comedy called A Thing for Redheads (how did I get cast, right?). It is by local playwright John Morogiello, author of last year's fringe hits Jack the Ticket Ripper and Irish Authors Held Hostage. John also recently enjoyed great success with his off-Broadway debut of Engaging Shaw at the Abingdon Theatre. The New York Times called Shaw "a charming romantic comedy featuring four razor-sharp tongues."
Last summer I was part of the cast of Jack the Ticket Ripper and had a wonderful experience with cast, script, and director. It's a thrill to be able to work on another Morogiello script, especially since this cast reunites many of us from Jack the Ticket Ripper. In A Thing for Redheads are Jim Gagne, who was the eponymous Jack, and Ian Blackwell Rogers, who played the Playwright. The cast is rounded out by Lori Boyd, who is no stranger to Morogiello, having been in Irish Authors Held Hostage last summer, and also wrote the tune for the song I sang in Jack.
We've been rehearsing for a couple weeks now, led by our director Juliana Avery, who also happens to be a redhead. Since we have all worked together before or at least know each other, it's been a lot of fun so far, and I am looking forward to continuing the work.
I'm also enjoying the process because the part is not within my comfort zone. I'm playing a 19-year-old pop star sensation. I love being able to play someone so different from me, but it can also be a challenge. I'm doing my best to do lots of research, but there are only so many Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift music videos I can watch before my head threatens to explode. My lack of pop culture knowledge has become a running joke with the cast already, which is even funnier because Jim Gagne, though he doesn't look it, is a pop culture guru. Someone will mention a song, and I will have no idea what it is, and he will be able to sing it on the spot. With dance moves and everything.
Jack the Ticket Ripper and Irish Authors Held Hostage both sold out quickly, so I have to encourage you to buy tickets ahead of time for A Thing for Redheads. Tickets will go on sale June 21.
A Thing for Redheads will be playing at the Warehouse Theatre, 1019 7th Street NW, on the following dates:
Sunday July 11 @ 11am
Sunday July 18 @ 4:15pm
Wednesday July 21 @ 8pm
Friday July 23 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 24 @ 3:30pm
Last summer I was part of the cast of Jack the Ticket Ripper and had a wonderful experience with cast, script, and director. It's a thrill to be able to work on another Morogiello script, especially since this cast reunites many of us from Jack the Ticket Ripper. In A Thing for Redheads are Jim Gagne, who was the eponymous Jack, and Ian Blackwell Rogers, who played the Playwright. The cast is rounded out by Lori Boyd, who is no stranger to Morogiello, having been in Irish Authors Held Hostage last summer, and also wrote the tune for the song I sang in Jack.
We've been rehearsing for a couple weeks now, led by our director Juliana Avery, who also happens to be a redhead. Since we have all worked together before or at least know each other, it's been a lot of fun so far, and I am looking forward to continuing the work.
I'm also enjoying the process because the part is not within my comfort zone. I'm playing a 19-year-old pop star sensation. I love being able to play someone so different from me, but it can also be a challenge. I'm doing my best to do lots of research, but there are only so many Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift music videos I can watch before my head threatens to explode. My lack of pop culture knowledge has become a running joke with the cast already, which is even funnier because Jim Gagne, though he doesn't look it, is a pop culture guru. Someone will mention a song, and I will have no idea what it is, and he will be able to sing it on the spot. With dance moves and everything.
Jack the Ticket Ripper and Irish Authors Held Hostage both sold out quickly, so I have to encourage you to buy tickets ahead of time for A Thing for Redheads. Tickets will go on sale June 21.
A Thing for Redheads will be playing at the Warehouse Theatre, 1019 7th Street NW, on the following dates:
Sunday July 11 @ 11am
Sunday July 18 @ 4:15pm
Wednesday July 21 @ 8pm
Friday July 23 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 24 @ 3:30pm
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Gregory Doran's Hamlet
This weekend I got around to watching the new movie of Hamlet, starring David Tennant. (Thank goodness for pbs.org's video player. Love!) I watched it in two sittings, since it was three hours long. It was a very good version. Probably one of the best Hamlets I've ever seen. Why? So often Hamlet is done for the lead actor, and often he'll be quite good and the rest of the cast doesn't live up to him. Not so with this production. Without a doubt it's the finest supporting cast I've even seen in a Hamlet.
Here are my thoughts that I jotted down as I was watching:
In general I'm a fan of modern Shakespeare, and I like how this one has done that but without losing the flavor of the world of Shakespeare. They haven’t tried to make it straight realism, because Shakespeare wasn’t. So I appreciate the fact that we’ve got soliloquies to the camera.
Ophelia pulling condoms out of Laertes luggage – finally! I’m sure this is not a new choice, but I’ve never seen a production do it, and I’ve always wanted to. I saw one once where she pulled a porno mag out, but condoms fits so much better with the text.
I like how Ophelia and Laertes speak part of the borrower and lender speech, as though this is a lesson Polonius has often drilled into them. Speaking of Polonius, I really liked his performance. I hate when Polonius is played as the bumbling comic relief (I mean, he is this, but the actor shouldn't play that). This Polonius (Oliver Ford Davies) was a man past his prime, painfully aware of the fact that others did not need him, and trying to hold to where he was needed - as a father to his children.
What's great about Shakespeare in general is how every time you see a play, some new line will strike you. Patrick Stewart as the Ghost of Old Hamlet:
But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand an end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.
Tennant is visibly shaken right after encountering the ghost – mentally shaken. His manner is noticeably changed, and I think this choice works very well. He is frantic, mind whirling, and it’s beautifully contrasting with the control of the final moment of the scene, when clarity comes and he sadly realizes what this all entails “O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right.”
Cameras – I was wondering how they were going to make use of these – are they Claudius’s eye, watchful on his kingdom and castle? But that wouldn’t work because then he would have seen the craziness that happened when the ghost appeared. So at first I wasn’t sure what the point of showing the scenes through the security cameras were. But then I realized that it was to establish a norm – because when Claudius was watching, the cameras would move. This was used during Hamlet’s encounter with Ophelia, and his scene with the players. It worked really well to have Hamlet to the camera moving, disconnect it and then say “Now I am alone.” The security cameras also worked really well with Claudius’s line “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.” But then the conceit sort of dropped out. It seemed to be an idea that work great in a couple places, but wasn't as all-encompassing of the play as it might have been.
Text changes. The most frequently used text is the Second Quarto text from 1604. Doran moves the "To be or not to be" speech early, the location where it is in the Q1 Hamlet and the Folio. Tennant chooses to use the version of the line "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy" rather than "your philosophy." This follows the Folio reading. They've also changed the line "He's fat and scant of breath" to "He's hot and scant of breath" which is what most scholars agree it means anyway.
The Gertrude/Hamlet scene was awesome. I think Penny Downie is a fantastic Gertrude. But as much as I like Patrick Stewart as an actor, I’m not feeling his Claudius. I’m just not getting a grip on what he’s trying to do with the character.
Mariah Gale was a great Ophelia. I hate this character. Shakespeare has made her terribly underwritten. She makes no sense, and so it is virtually impossible for an actress to succeed in the role, not to mention the fact, oh yeah, there's a crazy scene. But here was the best mad scene I’ve ever seen. I’m thankful that she wasn’t dippy crazy and that she didn’t hump anything. She seemed truly unbalanced, and in a dangerous way, which is something I haven’t seen before. I like that there was anger and that Ophelia got to be strong for a moment, even if it is only because she had lost her wits. I like that this Ophelia seemed to have a reason for being there rather than just off in la la land. Ophelia’s are often naked or in nightgowns, but this is the first one where, when the clothes came off, it made sense and didn’t just feel awkward.
My main complaint with this version - the shattered mirror. Obvious. Way to obvious.
Osric was great.
Okay: the ending. I'll have to watch it again and see if what I thought was going on changes; how did you all interpret it? Did Gertrude figure out that the cup was poisons and choose to drink it anyway? Wouldn’t she then try to drink it all so none was left for Hamlet, because there seemed to be a lot left for Claudius to drink. Speaking of which… yeah, that was weird. I had accidentally read a spoiler that said something about Claudius choosing to drink the poisoned cup. So I though he was going to do exactly what he had done with the character of Macbeth – he realized how terrible he was, what a monster he had become, and chose to die. But that’s not what he did with Claudius at all. Claudius shrugs and then drinks, as if it doesn’t matter. His Claudius wasn’t nefarious, but absolutely amoral. Or at least, that’s what I got from it. As weird as this choice was in the moment, it did actually help me make more sense of the entire character. ... I think...
Here are my thoughts that I jotted down as I was watching:
In general I'm a fan of modern Shakespeare, and I like how this one has done that but without losing the flavor of the world of Shakespeare. They haven’t tried to make it straight realism, because Shakespeare wasn’t. So I appreciate the fact that we’ve got soliloquies to the camera.
Ophelia pulling condoms out of Laertes luggage – finally! I’m sure this is not a new choice, but I’ve never seen a production do it, and I’ve always wanted to. I saw one once where she pulled a porno mag out, but condoms fits so much better with the text.
I like how Ophelia and Laertes speak part of the borrower and lender speech, as though this is a lesson Polonius has often drilled into them. Speaking of Polonius, I really liked his performance. I hate when Polonius is played as the bumbling comic relief (I mean, he is this, but the actor shouldn't play that). This Polonius (Oliver Ford Davies) was a man past his prime, painfully aware of the fact that others did not need him, and trying to hold to where he was needed - as a father to his children.
What's great about Shakespeare in general is how every time you see a play, some new line will strike you. Patrick Stewart as the Ghost of Old Hamlet:
But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand an end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.
Tennant is visibly shaken right after encountering the ghost – mentally shaken. His manner is noticeably changed, and I think this choice works very well. He is frantic, mind whirling, and it’s beautifully contrasting with the control of the final moment of the scene, when clarity comes and he sadly realizes what this all entails “O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right.”
Cameras – I was wondering how they were going to make use of these – are they Claudius’s eye, watchful on his kingdom and castle? But that wouldn’t work because then he would have seen the craziness that happened when the ghost appeared. So at first I wasn’t sure what the point of showing the scenes through the security cameras were. But then I realized that it was to establish a norm – because when Claudius was watching, the cameras would move. This was used during Hamlet’s encounter with Ophelia, and his scene with the players. It worked really well to have Hamlet to the camera moving, disconnect it and then say “Now I am alone.” The security cameras also worked really well with Claudius’s line “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.” But then the conceit sort of dropped out. It seemed to be an idea that work great in a couple places, but wasn't as all-encompassing of the play as it might have been.
Text changes. The most frequently used text is the Second Quarto text from 1604. Doran moves the "To be or not to be" speech early, the location where it is in the Q1 Hamlet and the Folio. Tennant chooses to use the version of the line "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy" rather than "your philosophy." This follows the Folio reading. They've also changed the line "He's fat and scant of breath" to "He's hot and scant of breath" which is what most scholars agree it means anyway.
The Gertrude/Hamlet scene was awesome. I think Penny Downie is a fantastic Gertrude. But as much as I like Patrick Stewart as an actor, I’m not feeling his Claudius. I’m just not getting a grip on what he’s trying to do with the character.
Mariah Gale was a great Ophelia. I hate this character. Shakespeare has made her terribly underwritten. She makes no sense, and so it is virtually impossible for an actress to succeed in the role, not to mention the fact, oh yeah, there's a crazy scene. But here was the best mad scene I’ve ever seen. I’m thankful that she wasn’t dippy crazy and that she didn’t hump anything. She seemed truly unbalanced, and in a dangerous way, which is something I haven’t seen before. I like that there was anger and that Ophelia got to be strong for a moment, even if it is only because she had lost her wits. I like that this Ophelia seemed to have a reason for being there rather than just off in la la land. Ophelia’s are often naked or in nightgowns, but this is the first one where, when the clothes came off, it made sense and didn’t just feel awkward.
My main complaint with this version - the shattered mirror. Obvious. Way to obvious.
Osric was great.
Okay: the ending. I'll have to watch it again and see if what I thought was going on changes; how did you all interpret it? Did Gertrude figure out that the cup was poisons and choose to drink it anyway? Wouldn’t she then try to drink it all so none was left for Hamlet, because there seemed to be a lot left for Claudius to drink. Speaking of which… yeah, that was weird. I had accidentally read a spoiler that said something about Claudius choosing to drink the poisoned cup. So I though he was going to do exactly what he had done with the character of Macbeth – he realized how terrible he was, what a monster he had become, and chose to die. But that’s not what he did with Claudius at all. Claudius shrugs and then drinks, as if it doesn’t matter. His Claudius wasn’t nefarious, but absolutely amoral. Or at least, that’s what I got from it. As weird as this choice was in the moment, it did actually help me make more sense of the entire character. ... I think...
Friday, April 23, 2010
Happy Birthday Shakespeare!
WHAT needs my Shakespeare, for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in pilèd stones?
Or that his hollowed relics should be hid
Under a stary-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thyself a livelong monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble, with too much conceiving;
And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
-- On Shakespeare, by John Milton
The labour of an age in pilèd stones?
Or that his hollowed relics should be hid
Under a stary-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thyself a livelong monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble, with too much conceiving;
And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
-- On Shakespeare, by John Milton
Monday, April 19, 2010
"A man may write of love, and not be in love"
There have been many thoughts rattling around in my brain since SAA (Shakespeare Association of America) 2010. Some of them finally coalesced into something perhaps coherent after attending James Shapiro’s lecture at the Folger this past Friday. Shapiro was lecturing on his new book, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? I was already part way through the book, as I was able to pick up an advanced reader copy at SAA.
Despite the second part of the title, Shapiro isn’t actually interested in who. He’s interested in why and when. Why people believe in different authorship theories, and when it came to be that people started to believe that Shakespeare didn’t write the plays ascribed to him, as this wasn’t questioned until after 1850. So it’s a more recent phenomenon.
Shapiro points out that every non-Stratfordian argument is based on an autobiographical reading of the plays and poems. So and so had this happen in his life which is just like what happens in that play, etc. This frustrates Shapiro because it a specifically modern notion of authorship – literature as self-exploration. Early modern writing was not autobiographical, and therefore it is ridiculous to try and find clues about who Shakespeare was in his plays.
Shapiro made me and the rest of the audience laugh when he said that this view always made him think about an Elizabethan School of Writing. Kit Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Thomas Kyd are sitting in a classroom. The teacher asks, “What have you got for us this week, Kit?” Marlowe responds, “Oh it’s this play called Tamburlaine about this Scythian shepherd who conquers the world.” “Hmm,” says the teacher, “Are you from Scythia? Ever been there? Know any shepherds?” Shapiro’s point is that literature does not have to be “Write What You Know.”
Shapiro quoted the 1593 poem Licia to illustrate this point: "A man may write of love, and not be in love, as well as of husbandry, and not go to plough, or of witches and be none."
One other point I found interested was Shapiro characterizing Shakespeare as a man of “unparalleled imagination.” He said that even though he wrote his thesis on Marlowe, he got bored pretty quickly. And yet, after teaching Shakespeare for years, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get bored with Shakespeare.
I was left thinking a lot about acting. How? Well there seemed to be a question coming up in a lot of the seminars I attended at SAA this year. Sometimes this question was asked outright, but sometimes it just seemed to be underlying what was said. It seemed to have a part in three seminars. Two that I observed: "Shakespeare and Theatrical Reconstructions" (much about the Globe and the Blackfriars Playhouse) and "Emotional Realism on the Stage", and of course the one I participated in: "Shakespeare and Systems of Rehearsal". In my seminar in fact, I was actually asked this question, and I’m not sure at that point I gave a very clear answer, because I didn’t have one until now. The question was How does studying Shakespeare and the early modern theatrical conditions help an actor today? Or even, does it at all? Is there a point to learning about this history? My answer was yes it helps, but I didn’t really have a complete answer to how it helps. But now I have two thoughts about it. The first is more something to throw out there, and a thought that I wished had been fully formulated during the conference so I could have brought it up during the Emotional Realism seminar:
A lot of the criticism and talk seems to have a Shakespeare vs. Stanislavsky feel, and I don’t think the two are incompatible or diametrically opposed. In fact, I’m curious about ways they connect. Is there a link between Patrick Tucker’s work with the Original Shakespeare Company and emotional realism/emotional memory? Tucker, in his book Secrets of Acting Shakespeare, argues that Shakespeare would put the actor in the same situation as the character in order to give the actor a shorthand for performance. This was necessary due to the lack of rehearsal, and the fact that actors were not given the full script to study (just cue scripts with only their lines on it). One specific example Tucker gives is Isabella in Measure for Measure. The actor playing Isabella would have had a script that ended with her (his) last line, so the actor would not know that the Duke was going to propose marriage. So when the Duke did propose marriage this actor would have been surprised and confused, and therefore, according to Tucker, Isabella was supposed to be surprised and confused. Presumably, this would only really work the first time an actor encountered a text. So the next time, the actor would use the memory of that first time and know how to play the scene? If Tucker’s theory is correct, is this not a sort of early modern version of emotional memory? Or is Tucker’s theory flawed because he is looking at it from a modern conception of acting?
My second thought was a more specific answer to the question of How does studying Shakespeare’s theatre help a modern actor? and it came to me while listening to Shapiro speak. Just like modern writers are taught to “write what you know”, so to are modern actors taught to use themselves in performance. I remember one actor friend telling me the motto of a prominent American acting school was “you are enough.” It seems to me that for writers to learn that writing was not always a self-exploration only opens the door for more possibilities, just as it would for actors to learn that there was performance before and beyond Stanisklavsky’s (or Strasberg's) methods. Shakespeare was a writer of “unparalleled imagination” and other writers can learn from that. So to can it help actors to learn that acting wasn’t always about looking on the inside, that they can also strive to be performers of “unparalleled imagination.” If a man may write of love, and not be in love, so too should a man be able to act in love, without ever having been in love. In one of the seminars someone quoted someone else, "Acting doesn't get better, it gets different." Learning about former/other notions of acting and personality can only give a modern actor more ideas, approaches, tools.
This also ties into a paper session I attended, "Shakespeare and the Extended Mind". There were three papers and they had to do with changing notions of cognition and how that is dramatized. Today we understand cognition neurologically. In the early modern period they thought that cognition was humoral. This obviously affects the way playwright wrote then versus how they wrote now. Then emotions were felt, expressed through the whole body. Today we understand them as occurring in the brain. An actor absolutely needs to understand conditions like this in order to understand how to approach an early modern text and an early modern character.
Despite the second part of the title, Shapiro isn’t actually interested in who. He’s interested in why and when. Why people believe in different authorship theories, and when it came to be that people started to believe that Shakespeare didn’t write the plays ascribed to him, as this wasn’t questioned until after 1850. So it’s a more recent phenomenon.
Shapiro points out that every non-Stratfordian argument is based on an autobiographical reading of the plays and poems. So and so had this happen in his life which is just like what happens in that play, etc. This frustrates Shapiro because it a specifically modern notion of authorship – literature as self-exploration. Early modern writing was not autobiographical, and therefore it is ridiculous to try and find clues about who Shakespeare was in his plays.
Shapiro made me and the rest of the audience laugh when he said that this view always made him think about an Elizabethan School of Writing. Kit Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Thomas Kyd are sitting in a classroom. The teacher asks, “What have you got for us this week, Kit?” Marlowe responds, “Oh it’s this play called Tamburlaine about this Scythian shepherd who conquers the world.” “Hmm,” says the teacher, “Are you from Scythia? Ever been there? Know any shepherds?” Shapiro’s point is that literature does not have to be “Write What You Know.”
Shapiro quoted the 1593 poem Licia to illustrate this point: "A man may write of love, and not be in love, as well as of husbandry, and not go to plough, or of witches and be none."
One other point I found interested was Shapiro characterizing Shakespeare as a man of “unparalleled imagination.” He said that even though he wrote his thesis on Marlowe, he got bored pretty quickly. And yet, after teaching Shakespeare for years, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get bored with Shakespeare.
I was left thinking a lot about acting. How? Well there seemed to be a question coming up in a lot of the seminars I attended at SAA this year. Sometimes this question was asked outright, but sometimes it just seemed to be underlying what was said. It seemed to have a part in three seminars. Two that I observed: "Shakespeare and Theatrical Reconstructions" (much about the Globe and the Blackfriars Playhouse) and "Emotional Realism on the Stage", and of course the one I participated in: "Shakespeare and Systems of Rehearsal". In my seminar in fact, I was actually asked this question, and I’m not sure at that point I gave a very clear answer, because I didn’t have one until now. The question was How does studying Shakespeare and the early modern theatrical conditions help an actor today? Or even, does it at all? Is there a point to learning about this history? My answer was yes it helps, but I didn’t really have a complete answer to how it helps. But now I have two thoughts about it. The first is more something to throw out there, and a thought that I wished had been fully formulated during the conference so I could have brought it up during the Emotional Realism seminar:
A lot of the criticism and talk seems to have a Shakespeare vs. Stanislavsky feel, and I don’t think the two are incompatible or diametrically opposed. In fact, I’m curious about ways they connect. Is there a link between Patrick Tucker’s work with the Original Shakespeare Company and emotional realism/emotional memory? Tucker, in his book Secrets of Acting Shakespeare, argues that Shakespeare would put the actor in the same situation as the character in order to give the actor a shorthand for performance. This was necessary due to the lack of rehearsal, and the fact that actors were not given the full script to study (just cue scripts with only their lines on it). One specific example Tucker gives is Isabella in Measure for Measure. The actor playing Isabella would have had a script that ended with her (his) last line, so the actor would not know that the Duke was going to propose marriage. So when the Duke did propose marriage this actor would have been surprised and confused, and therefore, according to Tucker, Isabella was supposed to be surprised and confused. Presumably, this would only really work the first time an actor encountered a text. So the next time, the actor would use the memory of that first time and know how to play the scene? If Tucker’s theory is correct, is this not a sort of early modern version of emotional memory? Or is Tucker’s theory flawed because he is looking at it from a modern conception of acting?
My second thought was a more specific answer to the question of How does studying Shakespeare’s theatre help a modern actor? and it came to me while listening to Shapiro speak. Just like modern writers are taught to “write what you know”, so to are modern actors taught to use themselves in performance. I remember one actor friend telling me the motto of a prominent American acting school was “you are enough.” It seems to me that for writers to learn that writing was not always a self-exploration only opens the door for more possibilities, just as it would for actors to learn that there was performance before and beyond Stanisklavsky’s (or Strasberg's) methods. Shakespeare was a writer of “unparalleled imagination” and other writers can learn from that. So to can it help actors to learn that acting wasn’t always about looking on the inside, that they can also strive to be performers of “unparalleled imagination.” If a man may write of love, and not be in love, so too should a man be able to act in love, without ever having been in love. In one of the seminars someone quoted someone else, "Acting doesn't get better, it gets different." Learning about former/other notions of acting and personality can only give a modern actor more ideas, approaches, tools.
This also ties into a paper session I attended, "Shakespeare and the Extended Mind". There were three papers and they had to do with changing notions of cognition and how that is dramatized. Today we understand cognition neurologically. In the early modern period they thought that cognition was humoral. This obviously affects the way playwright wrote then versus how they wrote now. Then emotions were felt, expressed through the whole body. Today we understand them as occurring in the brain. An actor absolutely needs to understand conditions like this in order to understand how to approach an early modern text and an early modern character.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
39:38 Edward III
Day 39 of 38:38
BONUS DAY!
Edward III
So after completing the 38 plays of Shakespeare in 38 days, I have fallen behind on the bonus days. Well, that's life, I suppose. I might move on to one of these a week. More probable to be one of these whenever I have time. And thanks to SAA, I've got a brand new copy of Thomas Middleton's Collected Works to work my way through as well. But, one play at a time.
Surprisingly, I actually have both read and seen Edward III before. Chesapeake Shakespeare in MD did a reading of it for one of their Pub Night events, and then about a year after that I saw a fine production of the play at Washington Shakespeare Company. In performance, it's a viable play, and one that depends on the main actor to carry it off. WSC's lead was quite good and fittingly charismatic.
Prevailing opinion is that Shakespeare had a hand in writing Edward III, but that it was a collaboration. I think the notion of collaboration is obvious from the two completely separate actions of the play. The first half of the play is taken up with Edward's wooing of the Countess of Salisbury. But this story line is completely forgotten in the second half of the play, which deals entirely with war with France, a war in which the English are strong and victorious.
As for whether Shakespeare had a hand in it? Well, thou the verse is at times mundane, there were several echoes for me. First the play starts off like a poor man's Henry V. There is a conversation about whether the English monarch has a right to rule in France, even though he makes that claim through a woman. Then a snarky French ambassador enters, and the English King is defiant.
Countess and will your sacred self
Commit high treason against the King of heaven,
To stamp his Image in forbidden metal,
Forgetting your allegiance and your oath?
remember Measure for Measure?
Angelo It were as good
To pardon him that hath from nature stolen
A man already made, as to remit
Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image
In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made
As to put metal in restrained means
To make a false one.
King John For what's this Edward but a belly god,
A tender and lascivious wantoness,
That t'other day was almost dead for love?
This scene and it's rah! rah! speeches remind me of Richard's and Richmond's speeches to their troops in Richard III.
Richmond For what is he they follow? truly, gentlemen,
A bloody tyrant and a homicide.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Countess
Favorite Male Character:
The Scots, David and Douglass are quite fun.
Laugh out loud:
Douglas Jemmy, my man, saddle my black horse.
King David Meanst thou to fight, Douglas? We are too weak.
Douglass I know it well, my liege, and therefore fly.
"That's what she said!":
Douglass Why then, my liege, let me enjoy her jewels.
How insulting:
King John those ever-bibbing Epicures,
Those frothy Dutch men, puft with double beer
Shakey loves his meta:
Countess No, let me die, if his too boistrous will
Will have it so, before I will consent
To be an actor in his graceless lust.
(we should note that 'will' is slang for 'penis,' and whether the Countess intends this double entendre or not is up to interpretation.)
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Edward Ignoble David! hast thou none to grieve
But silly ladies with thy threatening arms?
Favorite Moment/Line:
BONUS DAY!
Edward III
So after completing the 38 plays of Shakespeare in 38 days, I have fallen behind on the bonus days. Well, that's life, I suppose. I might move on to one of these a week. More probable to be one of these whenever I have time. And thanks to SAA, I've got a brand new copy of Thomas Middleton's Collected Works to work my way through as well. But, one play at a time.
Surprisingly, I actually have both read and seen Edward III before. Chesapeake Shakespeare in MD did a reading of it for one of their Pub Night events, and then about a year after that I saw a fine production of the play at Washington Shakespeare Company. In performance, it's a viable play, and one that depends on the main actor to carry it off. WSC's lead was quite good and fittingly charismatic.
Prevailing opinion is that Shakespeare had a hand in writing Edward III, but that it was a collaboration. I think the notion of collaboration is obvious from the two completely separate actions of the play. The first half of the play is taken up with Edward's wooing of the Countess of Salisbury. But this story line is completely forgotten in the second half of the play, which deals entirely with war with France, a war in which the English are strong and victorious.
As for whether Shakespeare had a hand in it? Well, thou the verse is at times mundane, there were several echoes for me. First the play starts off like a poor man's Henry V. There is a conversation about whether the English monarch has a right to rule in France, even though he makes that claim through a woman. Then a snarky French ambassador enters, and the English King is defiant.
Countess and will your sacred self
Commit high treason against the King of heaven,
To stamp his Image in forbidden metal,
Forgetting your allegiance and your oath?
remember Measure for Measure?
Angelo It were as good
To pardon him that hath from nature stolen
A man already made, as to remit
Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image
In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made
As to put metal in restrained means
To make a false one.
King John For what's this Edward but a belly god,
A tender and lascivious wantoness,
That t'other day was almost dead for love?
This scene and it's rah! rah! speeches remind me of Richard's and Richmond's speeches to their troops in Richard III.
Richmond For what is he they follow? truly, gentlemen,
A bloody tyrant and a homicide.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Countess
Favorite Male Character:
The Scots, David and Douglass are quite fun.
Laugh out loud:
Douglas Jemmy, my man, saddle my black horse.
King David Meanst thou to fight, Douglas? We are too weak.
Douglass I know it well, my liege, and therefore fly.
"That's what she said!":
Douglass Why then, my liege, let me enjoy her jewels.
How insulting:
King John those ever-bibbing Epicures,
Those frothy Dutch men, puft with double beer
Shakey loves his meta:
Countess No, let me die, if his too boistrous will
Will have it so, before I will consent
To be an actor in his graceless lust.
(we should note that 'will' is slang for 'penis,' and whether the Countess intends this double entendre or not is up to interpretation.)
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Edward Ignoble David! hast thou none to grieve
But silly ladies with thy threatening arms?
Favorite Moment/Line:
Monday, April 12, 2010
Two Staged Readings with Charlene
Posting about 38:38 has taken up all my time lately, to the detriment of other subjects. I still need to blog about SAA last weekend, and I had a great trip to New York this weekend, but first I need to announce my current projects!
At the end of the month I will be appearing in two staged readings, and I'm quite excited about both of them.
ABSOLUTE AMY
Saturday, April 24
1:00pm
Jackie's Restaurant
8081 Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20910
I will be playing Amy in a staged reading of John Morogiello's Absolute Amy. The reading is being presented as part of Amnesty International's Human Rights Arts Festival. It is about a young woman who, on the eve of her wedding, discovers that her fiance was a black site torturer. Catherine Aselford directs. The cast also includes Rebecca Herron, Nick Greek, Jeremy Brown, and John Morogiello. Morogiello's play Engaging Shaw is currently in production off-off-Broadway at the Abingdon Theatre!
THE TROJAN WOMEN
Thursday, April 29
7:30pm
Howard County Center for the Arts
8510 High Ridge Road
Ellicott City, Maryland 21043
I'll be playing Kassandra in a new adaptation of The Trojan Women by Patricia Montley. Cast also includes Sarah Levin, Melissa O'Brien, Alex Hewett, Ty Hallmark, and James Jager.
Artists are subject to change.
At the end of the month I will be appearing in two staged readings, and I'm quite excited about both of them.
ABSOLUTE AMY
Saturday, April 24
1:00pm
Jackie's Restaurant
8081 Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20910
I will be playing Amy in a staged reading of John Morogiello's Absolute Amy. The reading is being presented as part of Amnesty International's Human Rights Arts Festival. It is about a young woman who, on the eve of her wedding, discovers that her fiance was a black site torturer. Catherine Aselford directs. The cast also includes Rebecca Herron, Nick Greek, Jeremy Brown, and John Morogiello. Morogiello's play Engaging Shaw is currently in production off-off-Broadway at the Abingdon Theatre!
THE TROJAN WOMEN
Thursday, April 29
7:30pm
Howard County Center for the Arts
8510 High Ridge Road
Ellicott City, Maryland 21043
I'll be playing Kassandra in a new adaptation of The Trojan Women by Patricia Montley. Cast also includes Sarah Levin, Melissa O'Brien, Alex Hewett, Ty Hallmark, and James Jager.
Artists are subject to change.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
38:38 The Two Noble Kinsmen
Day 38 of 38:38
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Will I make it by midnight??? Yes, play finished at 11:39 PM. Two Noble Kinsmen felt similar to me with the other plays we have been reading recently. There is a sort of randomness and almost ridiculousness to the plot that we also see in Winter's Tale and Cymbeline and Pericles. But I did like Two Noble Kinsmen better than Henry VIII or The Tempest.
The one thing that really reveals to me the fact that this is a collaboration (and same with Henry) is the sudden appearance of massive amounts of stage directions. I mean, it's certainly not Shavian, but compared to the dearth of stage directions Shakespeare normally uses, it certainly sticks out.
I wonder how much Shakespeare was hearkening back to Midsummer as he was working on this play (presumably with Fletcher). We've got Theseus and Hippolyta, but I don't think we are supposed to think of them as the same characters. But we do have this silly men fighting over women plot, which echoes both Midsummer and Two Gents. The difference being that in this play someone actually dies.
So there it is. I made it through the challenge. 38 Shakespeare plays in 38 days. I'm going to extend this challenge for myself and over the next couple of days read Edward III, Sir Thomas Moore, and Double Falsehood (though for the record, let me state that I think the advertising of Double Falsehood as by William Shakespeare is more than a little questionable). I feel like I should have some deep over-arching thoughts, but I will save those for another post.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Jailer's Daughter (at least until she goes all Ophelia on us)
Favorite Male Character:
Palamon (simply for the "I saw her first!" line)
Laugh out loud:
Jailer's Daughter I can tell your fortune.
You are a fool.
Famous Last Words
Palamon I do not think it possible our friendship
Should ever leave us.
"That's what she said!":
Jailer's Daughter My Palamon, I hope, will grow too, finely,
Now he's at liberty. Alas, poor chicken,
He was kept down with hard meat and ill lodging,
But I'll kiss him up again.
How insulting:
Shakey loves his meta:
There is a prologue and epilogue directly stating that the audience is about to see a play
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Emilia Men are mad things.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Palamon Were I at liberty I would do things
Of such virtuous greatness that this lady,
This blushing virgin, should take manhood to her
And seek to ravish me.
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Will I make it by midnight??? Yes, play finished at 11:39 PM. Two Noble Kinsmen felt similar to me with the other plays we have been reading recently. There is a sort of randomness and almost ridiculousness to the plot that we also see in Winter's Tale and Cymbeline and Pericles. But I did like Two Noble Kinsmen better than Henry VIII or The Tempest.
The one thing that really reveals to me the fact that this is a collaboration (and same with Henry) is the sudden appearance of massive amounts of stage directions. I mean, it's certainly not Shavian, but compared to the dearth of stage directions Shakespeare normally uses, it certainly sticks out.
I wonder how much Shakespeare was hearkening back to Midsummer as he was working on this play (presumably with Fletcher). We've got Theseus and Hippolyta, but I don't think we are supposed to think of them as the same characters. But we do have this silly men fighting over women plot, which echoes both Midsummer and Two Gents. The difference being that in this play someone actually dies.
So there it is. I made it through the challenge. 38 Shakespeare plays in 38 days. I'm going to extend this challenge for myself and over the next couple of days read Edward III, Sir Thomas Moore, and Double Falsehood (though for the record, let me state that I think the advertising of Double Falsehood as by William Shakespeare is more than a little questionable). I feel like I should have some deep over-arching thoughts, but I will save those for another post.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Jailer's Daughter (at least until she goes all Ophelia on us)
Favorite Male Character:
Palamon (simply for the "I saw her first!" line)
Laugh out loud:
Jailer's Daughter I can tell your fortune.
You are a fool.
Famous Last Words
Palamon I do not think it possible our friendship
Should ever leave us.
"That's what she said!":
Jailer's Daughter My Palamon, I hope, will grow too, finely,
Now he's at liberty. Alas, poor chicken,
He was kept down with hard meat and ill lodging,
But I'll kiss him up again.
How insulting:
Shakey loves his meta:
There is a prologue and epilogue directly stating that the audience is about to see a play
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Emilia Men are mad things.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Palamon Were I at liberty I would do things
Of such virtuous greatness that this lady,
This blushing virgin, should take manhood to her
And seek to ravish me.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
37:38 Henry VIII
Day 37 of 38:38
Henry VIII
Okay, I have a confession to make. You all know how much I love, adore, and worship Shakespeare. That being said, this is a bad play. Shakespeare et al. have taken a story which has inflamed the imagination of multitudes of writers and made it completely boring. There's no sex, no intrigue, no flirting, no backstabbing. These fascinating and devilish characters are completely flattened in this story.
And yes, I can tell why. Clearly no one wants to piss off Queen Elizabeth. Even Anne Boleyn, a notoriously hated woman, is relatively noble in this play, simply because she was Elizabeth's mother and therefore has to be. But seriously, Shakespeare, did you really need money that badly? You must have. I mean check out this repeated white-washing of Anne
Suffolk She is a gallant creature, and complete
In mind and feature: I persuade me, from her
Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall
In it be memorized.
Cause no, that's not obvious at all...
And then Cardinal Wosley, though clearly against the King marrying Anne, still says "What though I know her virtuous / And well deserving?"
Lovell She's a good creature, and, sweet lady, does
Deserve our better wishes.
And I'm not saying that I think Anne Boleyn was the spawn of Satan brought about on this Earth to destroy England. But I will say that in this play she is worse, that is, she is boring. Even Cardinal Wolsey, as much the villain of the piece as anyone else, is a pussy.
Anyone want to try and argue anything positive about this play?
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Queen Katharine
Favorite Male Character:
Cardinal Wolsey
Laugh out loud:
Lord Chamberlain It seems the marriage with his brother's wife
Has crept too near his conscience.
Suffolk No; his conscience
Has crept too near another lady.
"That's what she said!":
Lovell O that your lordship were but now confessor
To one or two of these!
Lord Sandys I would I were;
They should find easy penance.
Lovell Faith, how easy?
Lord Sandys As easy as a down-bed would afford it.
How insulting:
Cardinal Wolsey You have as little honesty as honor
Shakey loves his meta:
Surveyor I would have played
The part my father meant to act upon
The usurper Richard.
Oh, misogyny:
Wolsey thou hast forced me
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
Let's dry our eyes.
Boys are silly:
Favorite Moment/Line:
Henry VIII
Okay, I have a confession to make. You all know how much I love, adore, and worship Shakespeare. That being said, this is a bad play. Shakespeare et al. have taken a story which has inflamed the imagination of multitudes of writers and made it completely boring. There's no sex, no intrigue, no flirting, no backstabbing. These fascinating and devilish characters are completely flattened in this story.
And yes, I can tell why. Clearly no one wants to piss off Queen Elizabeth. Even Anne Boleyn, a notoriously hated woman, is relatively noble in this play, simply because she was Elizabeth's mother and therefore has to be. But seriously, Shakespeare, did you really need money that badly? You must have. I mean check out this repeated white-washing of Anne
Suffolk She is a gallant creature, and complete
In mind and feature: I persuade me, from her
Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall
In it be memorized.
Cause no, that's not obvious at all...
And then Cardinal Wosley, though clearly against the King marrying Anne, still says "What though I know her virtuous / And well deserving?"
Lovell She's a good creature, and, sweet lady, does
Deserve our better wishes.
And I'm not saying that I think Anne Boleyn was the spawn of Satan brought about on this Earth to destroy England. But I will say that in this play she is worse, that is, she is boring. Even Cardinal Wolsey, as much the villain of the piece as anyone else, is a pussy.
Anyone want to try and argue anything positive about this play?
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Queen Katharine
Favorite Male Character:
Cardinal Wolsey
Laugh out loud:
Lord Chamberlain It seems the marriage with his brother's wife
Has crept too near his conscience.
Suffolk No; his conscience
Has crept too near another lady.
"That's what she said!":
Lovell O that your lordship were but now confessor
To one or two of these!
Lord Sandys I would I were;
They should find easy penance.
Lovell Faith, how easy?
Lord Sandys As easy as a down-bed would afford it.
How insulting:
Cardinal Wolsey You have as little honesty as honor
Shakey loves his meta:
Surveyor I would have played
The part my father meant to act upon
The usurper Richard.
Oh, misogyny:
Wolsey thou hast forced me
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
Let's dry our eyes.
Boys are silly:
Favorite Moment/Line:
36:38 The Tempest
Day 36 of 38:38
The Tempest
After working my way through Coriolanus, Cymbeline, and Winter's Tale, I have to admit, it's a bit of a relief to see how short The Tempest is. Not that I object to longer plays, but since I was in Chicago for four days for SAA, I'm working hard to get caught up on this project. Getting caught up is easier when the play is 90 pages instead of 130.
Sometimes we notice certain word repetitions more than others. While reading The Tempest, I couldn't help but notice the repeated use of the word "brave". Whether brave appears more than other words, I cannot say, for I know that I am attuned to that catching that word, since I know the phrase "brave new world" comes from this play and was waiting for it to come up. And while I was waiting to read "brave new world" many other things were characterized as "brave".
Miranda O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,
Dash'd all to pieces
Prospero My brave spirit!
Miranda Believe me, sir,
It carries a brave form.
Ferdinand the Duke of Milan
And his brave son being twain.
Gonzalo You are gentlemen of brave metal
Caliban That's a brave god and bears celestial liquor.
I will kneel to him.
Stephano O brave monster!
Trinculo Where should they be set else? he were a brave
monster indeed, if they were set in his tail.
Caliban He has brave utensils
Stephano Is it so brave a lass?
Caliban Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant.
And bring thee forth brave brood.
Stephano This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall
have my music for nothing.
Caliban these be brave spirits indeed!
And, of course,
Miranda O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
My Shakespeare Lexicon gives the following meanings for brave:
valiant
becoming
fine, splendid, beautiful
to display bravery
to defy, to oppose, to bully
to make fine and splended
a display of valor, defiance, or threatening
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Miranda, by default
Favorite Male Character:
Prospero
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
Stephano Yet a tailor might scratch her wherere she did itch.
How insulting:
Sebastian A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!
Shakey loves his meta:
Antonio And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Ariel they were red hot with drinking
So full of valor that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces, beat the ground
For kissing of their feet
Favorite Moment/Line:
Miranda O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't.
Prospero 'Tis new to thee.
I love the juxtaposition of optimism and cynicism, youth and age, the flowery poetry of Miranda and the simple statement of Prospero that undercuts her sentiment so efficiently.
The Tempest
After working my way through Coriolanus, Cymbeline, and Winter's Tale, I have to admit, it's a bit of a relief to see how short The Tempest is. Not that I object to longer plays, but since I was in Chicago for four days for SAA, I'm working hard to get caught up on this project. Getting caught up is easier when the play is 90 pages instead of 130.
Sometimes we notice certain word repetitions more than others. While reading The Tempest, I couldn't help but notice the repeated use of the word "brave". Whether brave appears more than other words, I cannot say, for I know that I am attuned to that catching that word, since I know the phrase "brave new world" comes from this play and was waiting for it to come up. And while I was waiting to read "brave new world" many other things were characterized as "brave".
Miranda O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,
Dash'd all to pieces
Prospero My brave spirit!
Miranda Believe me, sir,
It carries a brave form.
Ferdinand the Duke of Milan
And his brave son being twain.
Gonzalo You are gentlemen of brave metal
Caliban That's a brave god and bears celestial liquor.
I will kneel to him.
Stephano O brave monster!
Trinculo Where should they be set else? he were a brave
monster indeed, if they were set in his tail.
Caliban He has brave utensils
Stephano Is it so brave a lass?
Caliban Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant.
And bring thee forth brave brood.
Stephano This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall
have my music for nothing.
Caliban these be brave spirits indeed!
And, of course,
Miranda O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
My Shakespeare Lexicon gives the following meanings for brave:
valiant
becoming
fine, splendid, beautiful
to display bravery
to defy, to oppose, to bully
to make fine and splended
a display of valor, defiance, or threatening
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Miranda, by default
Favorite Male Character:
Prospero
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
Stephano Yet a tailor might scratch her wherere she did itch.
How insulting:
Sebastian A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!
Shakey loves his meta:
Antonio And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Ariel they were red hot with drinking
So full of valor that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces, beat the ground
For kissing of their feet
Favorite Moment/Line:
Miranda O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't.
Prospero 'Tis new to thee.
I love the juxtaposition of optimism and cynicism, youth and age, the flowery poetry of Miranda and the simple statement of Prospero that undercuts her sentiment so efficiently.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
34:38 The Winter's Tale
Day 34 of 38:38
The Winter's Tale
So here's what I want to know: How come The Winter's Tale and Cymbeline start with the exact same scene?
Oracles are notoriously ambiguous. You have to be extremely careful in interpreting them the wrong way. They are riddles. Therefore, I love how this play gives us the most straightforward oracle message ever known to man:
"Hermione is chaste; Polixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent babe truly begotten."
It doesn't get any clearer than that.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Paulina
Favorite Male Character:
Leontes
Laugh out loud:
Autolycus Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
"That's what she said!":
Servant with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump her'
How insulting:
Leontes A gross hag!
Shakey loves his meta:
Perdita I see the play so lies
That I must bear a part.
Oh, misogyny:
Leontes women say so
That will say anything
Boys are silly:
Hermione a lady's 'verily' 's
As potent as a lord's
Favorite Moment/Line:
Paulina I say, I come
From your good queen.
Leontes Good queen!
Paulina Good queen, my lord, good queen; I say, good queen.
The Winter's Tale
So here's what I want to know: How come The Winter's Tale and Cymbeline start with the exact same scene?
Oracles are notoriously ambiguous. You have to be extremely careful in interpreting them the wrong way. They are riddles. Therefore, I love how this play gives us the most straightforward oracle message ever known to man:
"Hermione is chaste; Polixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent babe truly begotten."
It doesn't get any clearer than that.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Paulina
Favorite Male Character:
Leontes
Laugh out loud:
Autolycus Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
"That's what she said!":
Servant with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump her'
How insulting:
Leontes A gross hag!
Shakey loves his meta:
Perdita I see the play so lies
That I must bear a part.
Oh, misogyny:
Leontes women say so
That will say anything
Boys are silly:
Hermione a lady's 'verily' 's
As potent as a lord's
Favorite Moment/Line:
Paulina I say, I come
From your good queen.
Leontes Good queen!
Paulina Good queen, my lord, good queen; I say, good queen.
35:38 Cymbeline
Day 35 of 38:38
Cymbeline
Shakespeare seems to be doing a lot with redemption and jealousy in these late plays. (Redemption also figures into The Tempest.) But you can especially see links between The Winter's Tale and Cymbeline. Both have irrationally jealous husbands who lose their faithful wives, only to regret their anger, and be reunited at the end of the play. But the different is, the end of Cymbeline feels much more hopeful to me. I think this is because Hermione is far more silent at the end of the play than Imogen is.
What I love about Cymbeline is its sheer randomness. Though I was correct when I supposed after Pericles this play would seem much more coherent. It does. But I hate it when I see a production and the director has cut Jove descending from the skies. The play is wacky, just go with it!
As far as redemption goes, I also find Cymbeline easier to be swallowed than Pericles. Both of them are plays where a lot of bad things happen and then the ending is joyful. But in Cymbeline the bad things are results of the silly actions of the characters, where as in Pericles they are just random acts. The characters in Cymbeline realize how stupid they've been and I suppose for me that makes the ending more believably enjoyable. Also, Shakespeare gives us hints of the redemption to come. The end of 4.2, Lucius "Some falls are means the happier to arise." The end of 4.3, Pisanio "Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered."
What I don't love about Cymbeline is its clunky exposition. Oy, that first scene. And then again, when we meet Belarius and the boys and he has that long soliloquy telling the audience exactly who they all are. A little too obvious.
PS. My single edition calls this play "The Tragedy of Cymbeline." To me, this is just further proof that we should banish all genre categories when it comes to the plays of Shakespeare. I guess if you are going off the definition of in comedy no one dies and in tragedy people die, sure, Cymbeline is a tragedy and Measure for Measure is a comedy. But I think this definition is inane. Plus, no one we care about in Cymbeline dies. Generally in tragedies we expect the hero to die. Not so with this play. (This whole question of genre has been floating around in my head since SAA. I had a brief discussion there about whether any one still thinks of the "problem plays" as "problem plays" or whether this designation has gone out of style. If not, it should. And frankly, thinking about it since then, I think all the designations are pointless. Think about today -- if you buy a complete or volume of collected works for any current playwright, they are never categorized into any sort of genre classification. Anyway, I have a lot more thoughts on this subject, but that's another posting -- or an article.)
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Imogen
Favorite Male Character:
Iachimo
Laugh out loud:
Posthumus The stone's too hard to come by.
Iachimo Not a whit,
Your lady being so easy.
"That's what she said!":
Cloten If you can penetrate her with your fingering, so; we'll try with tongue too.
How insulting:
Imogen His meanest garment
That ever hath but clipped his body, is dearer
In my respect than all the hairs above thee,
Were they all made such men.
Shakey loves his meta:
Posthumus Shall's have a play of this? Thou scornful page,
There lies thy part.
Oh, misogyny:
Posthumus Could I find out
The woman's part in me! For there's no motion
That tends to vice in man but I affirm
It is the woman's part; be it lying, not it,
The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;
Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;
Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,
Nice longings, slanders, mutability,
All faults that may be named, nay, that hell knows,
Why, hers, in part, or all; but rather, all;
For even to vice
They are not constant, but are changing still
One vice but of a minute old for one
Not half so old as that.
Boys are silly:
2nd Lord That such a crafty devil as is his mother
Should yield the world this ass! a woman that
Bears all down with her brain, and this her son
Cannot take two from twenty for his heart
And leave eighteen.
Imogen Men's vows are women's traitors!
Favorite Moment/Line:
In performance especially, I love the moment when Iachimo pops out of the trunk.
Cymbeline
Shakespeare seems to be doing a lot with redemption and jealousy in these late plays. (Redemption also figures into The Tempest.) But you can especially see links between The Winter's Tale and Cymbeline. Both have irrationally jealous husbands who lose their faithful wives, only to regret their anger, and be reunited at the end of the play. But the different is, the end of Cymbeline feels much more hopeful to me. I think this is because Hermione is far more silent at the end of the play than Imogen is.
What I love about Cymbeline is its sheer randomness. Though I was correct when I supposed after Pericles this play would seem much more coherent. It does. But I hate it when I see a production and the director has cut Jove descending from the skies. The play is wacky, just go with it!
As far as redemption goes, I also find Cymbeline easier to be swallowed than Pericles. Both of them are plays where a lot of bad things happen and then the ending is joyful. But in Cymbeline the bad things are results of the silly actions of the characters, where as in Pericles they are just random acts. The characters in Cymbeline realize how stupid they've been and I suppose for me that makes the ending more believably enjoyable. Also, Shakespeare gives us hints of the redemption to come. The end of 4.2, Lucius "Some falls are means the happier to arise." The end of 4.3, Pisanio "Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered."
What I don't love about Cymbeline is its clunky exposition. Oy, that first scene. And then again, when we meet Belarius and the boys and he has that long soliloquy telling the audience exactly who they all are. A little too obvious.
PS. My single edition calls this play "The Tragedy of Cymbeline." To me, this is just further proof that we should banish all genre categories when it comes to the plays of Shakespeare. I guess if you are going off the definition of in comedy no one dies and in tragedy people die, sure, Cymbeline is a tragedy and Measure for Measure is a comedy. But I think this definition is inane. Plus, no one we care about in Cymbeline dies. Generally in tragedies we expect the hero to die. Not so with this play. (This whole question of genre has been floating around in my head since SAA. I had a brief discussion there about whether any one still thinks of the "problem plays" as "problem plays" or whether this designation has gone out of style. If not, it should. And frankly, thinking about it since then, I think all the designations are pointless. Think about today -- if you buy a complete or volume of collected works for any current playwright, they are never categorized into any sort of genre classification. Anyway, I have a lot more thoughts on this subject, but that's another posting -- or an article.)
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Imogen
Favorite Male Character:
Iachimo
Laugh out loud:
Posthumus The stone's too hard to come by.
Iachimo Not a whit,
Your lady being so easy.
"That's what she said!":
Cloten If you can penetrate her with your fingering, so; we'll try with tongue too.
How insulting:
Imogen His meanest garment
That ever hath but clipped his body, is dearer
In my respect than all the hairs above thee,
Were they all made such men.
Shakey loves his meta:
Posthumus Shall's have a play of this? Thou scornful page,
There lies thy part.
Oh, misogyny:
Posthumus Could I find out
The woman's part in me! For there's no motion
That tends to vice in man but I affirm
It is the woman's part; be it lying, not it,
The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;
Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;
Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,
Nice longings, slanders, mutability,
All faults that may be named, nay, that hell knows,
Why, hers, in part, or all; but rather, all;
For even to vice
They are not constant, but are changing still
One vice but of a minute old for one
Not half so old as that.
Boys are silly:
2nd Lord That such a crafty devil as is his mother
Should yield the world this ass! a woman that
Bears all down with her brain, and this her son
Cannot take two from twenty for his heart
And leave eighteen.
Imogen Men's vows are women's traitors!
Favorite Moment/Line:
In performance especially, I love the moment when Iachimo pops out of the trunk.
33:38 Coriolanus
Day 33 of 38:38
Coriolanus
So I understand why theatres sometimes do Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra in rep. I mean, obviously, it is more or less a continuation of the same story. But I think it would work really well to do Julius Caesar and Coriolanus in rep. They seem to link really well thematically. Politics. Easily swayed mobs. People voting against their self-interests. Sounds like today, doesn't it? Even more so when you consider that the Tribunes gets the people to turn against Coriolanus by claiming that he will turn into a tyrant, that is take over the government and their freedom.
Brutus In this point charge him home, that he affects
Tyrannical power
Sicinius We charge you, that you have contrived to take
From Rome all seasoned office, and to wind
Yourself into a power tyrannical
Some things never change, I guess.
For me, in performance, it's much easier for Coriolanus to come off as a jerk. But on the page, I felt totally with him. The people are ridiculous, and he basically gets screwed. Then he does the nice thing and doesn't kill them all, and what happens? Another man throws and hissy fit and kills Coriolanus in a jealous rage. Seriously, Aufidius so clearly has a thing for Coriolanus. I really think this play has the most obvious homo-eroticism in all of Shakespeare's works.
Another thing about Coriolanus -- I think it would be easy to play him simply as a brute, a man of action, but he seems quite shrewd in moments. He sees right through those two nasty tribunes. When Brutus points out that the people have turned against Coriolanus because of the incident with the corn, he responds:
Coriolanus Why, this was known before.
Brutus Not to them all.
Coriolanus Have you informed them sithence?
Finally, I love this line of Volumnia's which reveals how important text work is. It is only by scanning properly that you will know the right way of delivering the line
thou barrest us
Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
That all but we enjoy; for HOW can we,
Alas! how CAN we for our country pray,
Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,
Whereto we are bound?
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Volumnia
Favorite Male Character:
Sicinius and Brutus sure are bastards, aren't they?
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
How insulting:
Coriolanus for I do hate thee
Worse than a promise-breaker
Shakey loves his meta:
Coriolanus Like a dull actor now,
I have forgot my part
Oh, misogyny:
Cominius in that day's feats
When he might act the woman in the scene,
He proved best man in the field
Boys are silly:
Cominius And manhood is called foolery when it stands
Against a falling fabric.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Aufidius Know thou first,
I loved the maid I married; never man
Sighed truer breath; but that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress aw
Bestride my threshold.
Coriolanus
So I understand why theatres sometimes do Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra in rep. I mean, obviously, it is more or less a continuation of the same story. But I think it would work really well to do Julius Caesar and Coriolanus in rep. They seem to link really well thematically. Politics. Easily swayed mobs. People voting against their self-interests. Sounds like today, doesn't it? Even more so when you consider that the Tribunes gets the people to turn against Coriolanus by claiming that he will turn into a tyrant, that is take over the government and their freedom.
Brutus In this point charge him home, that he affects
Tyrannical power
Sicinius We charge you, that you have contrived to take
From Rome all seasoned office, and to wind
Yourself into a power tyrannical
Some things never change, I guess.
For me, in performance, it's much easier for Coriolanus to come off as a jerk. But on the page, I felt totally with him. The people are ridiculous, and he basically gets screwed. Then he does the nice thing and doesn't kill them all, and what happens? Another man throws and hissy fit and kills Coriolanus in a jealous rage. Seriously, Aufidius so clearly has a thing for Coriolanus. I really think this play has the most obvious homo-eroticism in all of Shakespeare's works.
Another thing about Coriolanus -- I think it would be easy to play him simply as a brute, a man of action, but he seems quite shrewd in moments. He sees right through those two nasty tribunes. When Brutus points out that the people have turned against Coriolanus because of the incident with the corn, he responds:
Coriolanus Why, this was known before.
Brutus Not to them all.
Coriolanus Have you informed them sithence?
Finally, I love this line of Volumnia's which reveals how important text work is. It is only by scanning properly that you will know the right way of delivering the line
thou barrest us
Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
That all but we enjoy; for HOW can we,
Alas! how CAN we for our country pray,
Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,
Whereto we are bound?
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Volumnia
Favorite Male Character:
Sicinius and Brutus sure are bastards, aren't they?
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
How insulting:
Coriolanus for I do hate thee
Worse than a promise-breaker
Shakey loves his meta:
Coriolanus Like a dull actor now,
I have forgot my part
Oh, misogyny:
Cominius in that day's feats
When he might act the woman in the scene,
He proved best man in the field
Boys are silly:
Cominius And manhood is called foolery when it stands
Against a falling fabric.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Aufidius Know thou first,
I loved the maid I married; never man
Sighed truer breath; but that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress aw
Bestride my threshold.
Monday, April 5, 2010
32:38 Pericles
Day 32 of 38:38
Pericles
What an interesting play. I feel like next to Pericles, Cymbeline isn't going to feel random at all. This was another one on the short list that I had not read before. I also haven't seen this one yet. In these later plays, Shakespeare seems increasingly episodic. Thinking about Pericles and Cymbeline and Antony and Cleopatra, there feel like there are more shorter scenes, and scenes that jump around in place and time. He also seems to be seeing just how much he can get away with in terms of plot. Pericles and Winter's Tale seem to be a sort of opposite of Troilus and Cressida. In that play, we are specifically told that we will only see one small section of a vast story. In Pericles and Winter's Tale, Shakespeare is trying to cram the epic story entirely in to one play.
For those of you that have seen Pericles performed, how does it play? Is the ending overwhelmingly joyous after the unrelenting line of tragic events? Or do you find yourself unable to trust the ending, unable to trust the idea that everything will be okay in the end, that, if you will, alls well that ends well?
Also the fact that Antiochus's daughter spends her entire life being raped by her father and doesn't get rescued by Pericles, or anyone else, infuriated me. She has no name in the text, further depriving her of agency. The fact that she is identified only as Antiochus's Daughter, defines her solely by her relationship to her father, her incestuous relationship.
I also wanted to point out how Isabella could have used some of Marina's persuasive power.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Dionyza (we get to have a bit of villainy)
Favorite Male Character:
Simonides (I think the scene where he pretends to bully his daughter is fun)
Laugh out loud:
Pericles Why, are all your beggars whipped, then?
Second Fisherman O, not all, my friend, not all; for if all your beggars were whipped, I would wish no better office than to be beadle.
"That's what she said!":
Simonides It pleaseth me so well, that I will see you wed;
And then with what haste you can get you to bed.
How insulting:
Shakey loves his meta:
Gower In your imagination hold
This stage the ship, upon whose deck
The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak.
Oh, misogyny:
Gower With whom the father liking took,
And her to incest did provoke.
Bad child, worse father!
Boys are silly: (Stick it to the patriarchy)
Simonides They are well dispatch'd; now to my daughter's letter:
She tells me here, she'd wed the stranger knight,
Or never more to view nor day nor light.
'Tis well, mistress; your choice agrees with mine;
I like that well: nay, how absolute she's in't,
Not minding whether I dislike or no!
Favorite Moment/Line:
Pericles O Helicanus! Strike me, honored sir,
Give me a gash, put me to present pain,
Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me
Oerbear the shores of my mortality,
And drown me with their sweetness.
Pericles
What an interesting play. I feel like next to Pericles, Cymbeline isn't going to feel random at all. This was another one on the short list that I had not read before. I also haven't seen this one yet. In these later plays, Shakespeare seems increasingly episodic. Thinking about Pericles and Cymbeline and Antony and Cleopatra, there feel like there are more shorter scenes, and scenes that jump around in place and time. He also seems to be seeing just how much he can get away with in terms of plot. Pericles and Winter's Tale seem to be a sort of opposite of Troilus and Cressida. In that play, we are specifically told that we will only see one small section of a vast story. In Pericles and Winter's Tale, Shakespeare is trying to cram the epic story entirely in to one play.
For those of you that have seen Pericles performed, how does it play? Is the ending overwhelmingly joyous after the unrelenting line of tragic events? Or do you find yourself unable to trust the ending, unable to trust the idea that everything will be okay in the end, that, if you will, alls well that ends well?
Also the fact that Antiochus's daughter spends her entire life being raped by her father and doesn't get rescued by Pericles, or anyone else, infuriated me. She has no name in the text, further depriving her of agency. The fact that she is identified only as Antiochus's Daughter, defines her solely by her relationship to her father, her incestuous relationship.
I also wanted to point out how Isabella could have used some of Marina's persuasive power.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Dionyza (we get to have a bit of villainy)
Favorite Male Character:
Simonides (I think the scene where he pretends to bully his daughter is fun)
Laugh out loud:
Pericles Why, are all your beggars whipped, then?
Second Fisherman O, not all, my friend, not all; for if all your beggars were whipped, I would wish no better office than to be beadle.
"That's what she said!":
Simonides It pleaseth me so well, that I will see you wed;
And then with what haste you can get you to bed.
How insulting:
Shakey loves his meta:
Gower In your imagination hold
This stage the ship, upon whose deck
The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak.
Oh, misogyny:
Gower With whom the father liking took,
And her to incest did provoke.
Bad child, worse father!
Boys are silly: (Stick it to the patriarchy)
Simonides They are well dispatch'd; now to my daughter's letter:
She tells me here, she'd wed the stranger knight,
Or never more to view nor day nor light.
'Tis well, mistress; your choice agrees with mine;
I like that well: nay, how absolute she's in't,
Not minding whether I dislike or no!
Favorite Moment/Line:
Pericles O Helicanus! Strike me, honored sir,
Give me a gash, put me to present pain,
Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me
Oerbear the shores of my mortality,
And drown me with their sweetness.
31:38 Alls Well that Ends Well
Day 31 of 38:38
Alls Well that Ends Well
Helena is such an interesting character, so it bothers me whenever I see the play and she is boring, or weak seeming. Not only is she passionate, smart, and willful, but she is capable of holding her own against the sexual references of Parolles. Her only mistake is loving a stupid boy, of whom it is hard to gather much sympathy. I think the play works best when Bertram is played as extremely young. This is the only thing that helps make his behavior understandable.
I really enjoyed the NT Live production of this that I saw. I loved the fairy tale motif, I loved the fact that Bertram was portrayed as quite young, the Parolles was delightful, and I loved the big celebratory ending, with the "Oh Shit, what now" look from both Helena and Bertram.
I'm not sure if a lot of people pick up on this, but I've always felt that Parolles is key to the plot because the revealing of his true character parallels the revealing of Bertram's true character. Just as Parolles is caught in cowardice and lies before a crowd of soldiers and friends, Bertram is caught before the crowd of court. I think the play is best when both characters have moments of self-recognition, though I'm not convinced that even with that things end "happily ever after" and I don't think Shakespeare meant us to be. To me, the title is ironically trite.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Helena
Favorite Male Character:
Lafeu
Laugh out loud:
Countess Well, sir.
Clown No, madam, ’tis not so well that I am poor, though many of the rich are damned.
"That's what she said!":
Helena Unfold to us some war-like resistance.
Parolles There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you and blow you up.
How insulting:
Countess Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?
Shakey loves his meta:
Lafeu A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Lafeu These boys are boys of ice, they’ll none have her: sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne’er got ’em.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Alls Well that Ends Well
Helena is such an interesting character, so it bothers me whenever I see the play and she is boring, or weak seeming. Not only is she passionate, smart, and willful, but she is capable of holding her own against the sexual references of Parolles. Her only mistake is loving a stupid boy, of whom it is hard to gather much sympathy. I think the play works best when Bertram is played as extremely young. This is the only thing that helps make his behavior understandable.
I really enjoyed the NT Live production of this that I saw. I loved the fairy tale motif, I loved the fact that Bertram was portrayed as quite young, the Parolles was delightful, and I loved the big celebratory ending, with the "Oh Shit, what now" look from both Helena and Bertram.
I'm not sure if a lot of people pick up on this, but I've always felt that Parolles is key to the plot because the revealing of his true character parallels the revealing of Bertram's true character. Just as Parolles is caught in cowardice and lies before a crowd of soldiers and friends, Bertram is caught before the crowd of court. I think the play is best when both characters have moments of self-recognition, though I'm not convinced that even with that things end "happily ever after" and I don't think Shakespeare meant us to be. To me, the title is ironically trite.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Helena
Favorite Male Character:
Lafeu
Laugh out loud:
Countess Well, sir.
Clown No, madam, ’tis not so well that I am poor, though many of the rich are damned.
"That's what she said!":
Helena Unfold to us some war-like resistance.
Parolles There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you and blow you up.
How insulting:
Countess Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?
Shakey loves his meta:
Lafeu A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Lafeu These boys are boys of ice, they’ll none have her: sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne’er got ’em.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Sunday, April 4, 2010
30:38 Antony and Cleopatra
Day 30 of 38:38
Antony and Cleopatra
I learned a lot about this play back in 2008 when the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC did the Roman Repertory: Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra with the same cast. As part of the festivities, they held an all day symposium where they had scholars come to the theatre and talk about the plays. One of the speakers I particularly remember was Sara Munson Deats. Incidentally, Deats was at SAA this year, in a session on Shakespeare and Marlowe, but I couldn't audit that one due to not being able to not attend the Theatrical Reconstructions session. Anyway, back in 2008 Deats spoke on the Private Sphere vs. the Public sphere in Elizabethan England. Deats talked about how in Elizabethan England the nuclear family replaced the extended family. The public sphere of business was the job of the husband and the private sphere of home and hearth, the wife's. Elizabethans had to reconcile this with the fact that they had a woman monarch. This public/private theme comes into play in Antony and Cleopatra, which can be seen as setting Roman virtues in opposition with Egyptian virtues, and the characters being torn between the two. (Roman: public, honor, duty, martial prowess, political power, reason, pragmatism, stoicism, coldness, masculine; Egyptian: private, love, sensuality, pleasure, passion, hedonism, warmth, feminine.) Deats argued that only in their deaths were Antony and Cleopatra able to find a balance between the two - by dying in high Roman fashion, by their own hands, but dying for love.
In my mind, I like to fancy that I am just like Cleopatra. But I know in reality that I am so ridiculously low maintenance in relationships that I will never come near her. ;-)
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Cleopatra
Favorite Male Character:
Enobarbus
Laugh out loud:
Enobarbus Or, if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again.
"That's what she said!":
Charmian Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?
Iras Not in my husband’s nose.
How insulting:
Antony Triple-turned whore
Shakey loves his meta:
Cleopatra and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I'th' posture of a whore.
Oh, misogyny:
Enobarbus But there is never a fair woman has a true face.
Boys are silly:
Octavius From Alexandria
This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike
Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy
More womanly than he
Favorite Moment/Line:
Enobarbus Age cannot wither her, not custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
Antony and Cleopatra
I learned a lot about this play back in 2008 when the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC did the Roman Repertory: Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra with the same cast. As part of the festivities, they held an all day symposium where they had scholars come to the theatre and talk about the plays. One of the speakers I particularly remember was Sara Munson Deats. Incidentally, Deats was at SAA this year, in a session on Shakespeare and Marlowe, but I couldn't audit that one due to not being able to not attend the Theatrical Reconstructions session. Anyway, back in 2008 Deats spoke on the Private Sphere vs. the Public sphere in Elizabethan England. Deats talked about how in Elizabethan England the nuclear family replaced the extended family. The public sphere of business was the job of the husband and the private sphere of home and hearth, the wife's. Elizabethans had to reconcile this with the fact that they had a woman monarch. This public/private theme comes into play in Antony and Cleopatra, which can be seen as setting Roman virtues in opposition with Egyptian virtues, and the characters being torn between the two. (Roman: public, honor, duty, martial prowess, political power, reason, pragmatism, stoicism, coldness, masculine; Egyptian: private, love, sensuality, pleasure, passion, hedonism, warmth, feminine.) Deats argued that only in their deaths were Antony and Cleopatra able to find a balance between the two - by dying in high Roman fashion, by their own hands, but dying for love.
In my mind, I like to fancy that I am just like Cleopatra. But I know in reality that I am so ridiculously low maintenance in relationships that I will never come near her. ;-)
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Cleopatra
Favorite Male Character:
Enobarbus
Laugh out loud:
Enobarbus Or, if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again.
"That's what she said!":
Charmian Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?
Iras Not in my husband’s nose.
How insulting:
Antony Triple-turned whore
Shakey loves his meta:
Cleopatra and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I'th' posture of a whore.
Oh, misogyny:
Enobarbus But there is never a fair woman has a true face.
Boys are silly:
Octavius From Alexandria
This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike
Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy
More womanly than he
Favorite Moment/Line:
Enobarbus Age cannot wither her, not custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)