Day 28 of 38:38
Macbeth
What amazing timing. The day of this play happened to be the day I had an audition for this play, so I needed to re-read it anyway. This is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and I found it exciting to read. Shakespeare really had hold of dramatic tension here; you can't help but get swept up in the build to "Macduff was from his mother's womb / Untimely ripped." Even when you know that's coming, it's still exciting.
I noticed reading the script that the only time Lady Macbeth speaks in prose is in the "Out, damned spot" scene. Everywhere else (except reading the letter -- not her words) she speaks in verse. This is very suggested of her as being a poised, intelligent, woman, knowing how to handle herself in court and public situations. She has truly gone mad, and we are seeing into her very soul in her final scene. There is no artifice left, she is simple herself, and as so, speaks in prose.
The one problem I generally have with this play when I see it in performance, is that productions tend to not do enough with Fleance, Banquo's son. Often when I see Macbeth performed, the audience is allowed to forget by the end of the play that the Weird Sisters promised Banquo that his children would be kings (But that myself should be the root and father / Of many kings). It is absolutely imperative for productions to not let us forget this -- after all, peace has been restored, Macbeth has been defeated, and the crown of Scotland is given to Malcolm. All is perfect in the world. Except not, because if we've been paying attention, we know this isn't the end of the story and somehow Fleance becomes king.
Finally, I found this passage of Macbeth's quite striking
Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, not poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further!
It's a slight variation on the typical "It's not so great to be king" speeches we find in Shakespeare.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Lady Macbeth
Favorite Male Character:
Macbeth
Laugh out loud:
Macbeth O! yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
(okay, this isn't a comic line, per se, but it still makes me laugh)
"That's what she said!":
Malcolm I am yet
Unknown to woman
How insulting:
Macduff Not in the legions
Of horrid Hell can come a devil more damned
In evils, than Macbeth.
Shakey loves his meta:
Macbeth Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
Oh, misogyny:
Macduff O! I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue.
Boys are silly:
Lady Macbeth When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Macbeth My dearest love,
Duncan comes here to-night.
Lady Macbeth And when goes hence?
Macbeth To-morrow, as he purposes.
Lady Macbeth O! never
Shall sun that morrow see.
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under ’t. He that’s coming
Must be provided for; and you shall put
This night’s great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
27:38 Timon of Athens
Day 27 of 38:38
Timon of Athens
Here's another new one for me! And this one, unlike Troilus and Cressida and King John, I've never read any part of it before. I don't even know what this play is about, so here we go...
Wow. Who knew that Shakespeare wrote a play about economics and greed? You know how plays of Shakespeare's go in cycles? All of a sudden several productions of one play will happen in one year? Or how the lesser known works go through periods of time where they are popular? Well, I'm surprised that isn't happening right now with Timon. I found it very easy to read, perhaps because the issues of hypocrisy and greed are ones that have affected every culture in every time.
Luculius Thou knowest well enough, although thou comest to me, that this is no time to lend money, especially upon bare friendship, without security.
But why does Timon constantly have bad things to say about women, when it is his male friends that have brought about his downfall? When Posthumous rails against women, it's one thing. But Timon has no reason. It comes completely out of nowhere.
Maybe this play doesn't get pulled out because even though it could resonate strongly today, it is quite obviously a weaker work. I mean, the play's not very subtle. During act one I pretty much knew where it was going. It's also quite repetitive, in the things the characters say and the actions they take. Cutting could take care of that, but it's already a short play. Also, this play is quite depressing. I find it even more depressing than a lot of the tragedies. I mean, this play pretty much has nothing good to say about humanity.
I mentioned in my post on King Lear that a lot of plays we are reading right now have to do with madness. Little did I know that Timon would be a further example. But here is another aspect in which this play isn't quite as good -- Timon's descent from sanity is not as artfully demonstrated as Lear's or Macbeth's.
I also think we are going to notice a lot of resonating elements when we read Coriolanus next week.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
There are only about five lines in this entire play given to female characters. Thanks a lot, Shakey.
Favorite Male Character:
Apemantus
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
Timon An thou shouldst, thou'dst anger ladies.
Apemantus O, they eat lords; so they come by great bellies.
How insulting:
Timon Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,
Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,
You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time's flies,
Cap-and-knee slaves, vapors, and minute-jacks!
Shakey loves his meta:
Timon Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth
That thou art even natural in thine art.
Oh, misogyny:
Apemantus What things in the world canst thou nearest compare to thy flatters?
Timon Women nearest.
(That's not very nice, Timon, considering it is entirely the male gender that is false to you.)
Boys are silly:
Apemantus I wonder that men dare trust themselves with men
Favorite Moment/Line:
Timon I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath...
I have a tree, which grows here in my close,
That mine own use invites me to cut down,
And shortly must I fell it: tell my friends,
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree,
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
To stop afflication, let him take his haste,
Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himself.
Timon of Athens
Here's another new one for me! And this one, unlike Troilus and Cressida and King John, I've never read any part of it before. I don't even know what this play is about, so here we go...
Wow. Who knew that Shakespeare wrote a play about economics and greed? You know how plays of Shakespeare's go in cycles? All of a sudden several productions of one play will happen in one year? Or how the lesser known works go through periods of time where they are popular? Well, I'm surprised that isn't happening right now with Timon. I found it very easy to read, perhaps because the issues of hypocrisy and greed are ones that have affected every culture in every time.
Luculius Thou knowest well enough, although thou comest to me, that this is no time to lend money, especially upon bare friendship, without security.
But why does Timon constantly have bad things to say about women, when it is his male friends that have brought about his downfall? When Posthumous rails against women, it's one thing. But Timon has no reason. It comes completely out of nowhere.
Maybe this play doesn't get pulled out because even though it could resonate strongly today, it is quite obviously a weaker work. I mean, the play's not very subtle. During act one I pretty much knew where it was going. It's also quite repetitive, in the things the characters say and the actions they take. Cutting could take care of that, but it's already a short play. Also, this play is quite depressing. I find it even more depressing than a lot of the tragedies. I mean, this play pretty much has nothing good to say about humanity.
I mentioned in my post on King Lear that a lot of plays we are reading right now have to do with madness. Little did I know that Timon would be a further example. But here is another aspect in which this play isn't quite as good -- Timon's descent from sanity is not as artfully demonstrated as Lear's or Macbeth's.
I also think we are going to notice a lot of resonating elements when we read Coriolanus next week.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
There are only about five lines in this entire play given to female characters. Thanks a lot, Shakey.
Favorite Male Character:
Apemantus
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
Timon An thou shouldst, thou'dst anger ladies.
Apemantus O, they eat lords; so they come by great bellies.
How insulting:
Timon Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,
Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,
You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time's flies,
Cap-and-knee slaves, vapors, and minute-jacks!
Shakey loves his meta:
Timon Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth
That thou art even natural in thine art.
Oh, misogyny:
Apemantus What things in the world canst thou nearest compare to thy flatters?
Timon Women nearest.
(That's not very nice, Timon, considering it is entirely the male gender that is false to you.)
Boys are silly:
Apemantus I wonder that men dare trust themselves with men
Favorite Moment/Line:
Timon I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath...
I have a tree, which grows here in my close,
That mine own use invites me to cut down,
And shortly must I fell it: tell my friends,
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree,
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
To stop afflication, let him take his haste,
Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himself.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
26:38 King Lear
Day 26 of 38:38
King Lear
I know this is somewhat blasphemous, but Lear's never been one of my favorites. I always find myself far more interested in the subplot -- Goneril, Regan, Edmund, the gouging of Gloucester, than with King Lear running around on the heath and the fool saying nonsensical things. But I don't think it's because the play isn't well written, or because Lear isn't an amazing character -- I just think it points to the difficulty of the play and the role. I've seen it produced several times, and so far Ian McKellan has been the only actor who managed to make me care about Lear. That production, directed by Trevor Nunn, was superb. It was long, long, long, but I was not once bored. The cast was nearly perfect. With the exception of Cordelia, every actor on that stage was remarkable.
Reading this plays in the ?order? they were written reveals that Shakespeare later in his career kept returning to the theme of madness. What could a person endure before he or she broke? We see this question explored in Hamlet, here in Lear, on day 28 with Macbeth, and a variation with the madness of jealousy with Othello and, coming up, Winter's Tale. Shakespeare humanizes madness, which seems quite remarkable in an era when mental illness was simply not understood or treated well.
As I was reading Lear this time around, a speech of Edgar's struck me as being somewhat similar to Richard II in the deposition scene. Through this speech, Edgar literally erases his identity and remakes himself:
While I may ’scape
I will preserve myself; and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast; my face I’ll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots,
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
...
That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.
In a way, Richard does the exact same thing:
Now mark me how I will undo myself:
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous rites:
...
What more remains?
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Goneril
Favorite Male Character:
Edmund
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
Regan But have you never found my brother's way
To the forefended place?
How insulting:
Kent You base football player.
Kent A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave; a whoreson, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave.
Shakey loves his meta:
Lear When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.
Oh, misogyny:
Fool For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.
Boys are silly:
Regan I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Edmund Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who in the lusty stealth of nature take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got ’tween asleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate. Fine word, ‘legitimate!’
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate:—I grow, I prosper;
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
King Lear
I know this is somewhat blasphemous, but Lear's never been one of my favorites. I always find myself far more interested in the subplot -- Goneril, Regan, Edmund, the gouging of Gloucester, than with King Lear running around on the heath and the fool saying nonsensical things. But I don't think it's because the play isn't well written, or because Lear isn't an amazing character -- I just think it points to the difficulty of the play and the role. I've seen it produced several times, and so far Ian McKellan has been the only actor who managed to make me care about Lear. That production, directed by Trevor Nunn, was superb. It was long, long, long, but I was not once bored. The cast was nearly perfect. With the exception of Cordelia, every actor on that stage was remarkable.
Reading this plays in the ?order? they were written reveals that Shakespeare later in his career kept returning to the theme of madness. What could a person endure before he or she broke? We see this question explored in Hamlet, here in Lear, on day 28 with Macbeth, and a variation with the madness of jealousy with Othello and, coming up, Winter's Tale. Shakespeare humanizes madness, which seems quite remarkable in an era when mental illness was simply not understood or treated well.
As I was reading Lear this time around, a speech of Edgar's struck me as being somewhat similar to Richard II in the deposition scene. Through this speech, Edgar literally erases his identity and remakes himself:
While I may ’scape
I will preserve myself; and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast; my face I’ll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots,
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
...
That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.
In a way, Richard does the exact same thing:
Now mark me how I will undo myself:
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous rites:
...
What more remains?
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Goneril
Favorite Male Character:
Edmund
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
Regan But have you never found my brother's way
To the forefended place?
How insulting:
Kent You base football player.
Kent A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave; a whoreson, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave.
Shakey loves his meta:
Lear When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.
Oh, misogyny:
Fool For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.
Boys are silly:
Regan I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Edmund Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who in the lusty stealth of nature take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got ’tween asleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate. Fine word, ‘legitimate!’
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate:—I grow, I prosper;
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Friday, March 26, 2010
25:38 Othello
Day 25 of 38:38
Othello
Why does everyone always talk about Iago having no motive for what he does to Othello? It seems to me that he suffers from the fault that he is determined to give Othello. Iago is obsessed with sex. I remember three instances where he mentions someone else sleeping with his wife. That's quite frequent. He is beaten in jealously only by Master Ford! This play has a lot of talk about sex, which is so interested seeing we are reading it shortly after Measure for Measure.
Iago is, without a doubt, the consummate actor in all of Shakespeare. Even Richard III doesn't come close. R3 might brag about how he can change his face and fool and trick people, and he does to a certain degree, but many people know the entire time just how awful he is. Nobody knows this about Iago. Everyone loves him. He's called honest and good. No one even has a clue. He's got them all fooled, and not just the thick characters, but the smart ones too.
Emilia is quite fascinating in that respect. She seems brilliant and sassy and like she doesn't take crap in some of her lines, but then she is completely oblivious to the actual nature of her husband. I've not yet seen Othello on the stage but something tells me there are a lot of possibilities for playing Emilia and Iago's relationship. I find it very interesting that he's so concerned with her fidelity. And she, before she has that liberating speech about how women can act just like men do, says "Who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should venture purgatory for it." This seems to undercut the liberation, as she is saying she would cheat on Iago if it would prove profitable to Iago. And then no one seems more surprised than Emilia about what Iago has done. When she puts two and two together she repeats the question "My husband?" four times. She is literally in shock (granted, some of that shock is due to the fact that she had an unknowing hand in the scheme).
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Emilia
Favorite Male Character:
Iago
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
Iago Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
How insulting:
Emilia I will be hanged if some eternal villain
Some busy and insinuating rogue
Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office
Have not devised this slander.
Shakey loves his meta:
Oh, misogyny:
Well, the word whore occurs 12 times, and the word strumpet 10 times.
Boys are silly:
Emilia 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man.
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food.
They eat us hungerly, and when they are full
They belch us.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Emilia But I do think it is their husbands’ faults
If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or, say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them; they see and smell,
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is; and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth; is ’t frailty that thus errs?
It is so too; and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then, let them use us well; else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
Othello
Why does everyone always talk about Iago having no motive for what he does to Othello? It seems to me that he suffers from the fault that he is determined to give Othello. Iago is obsessed with sex. I remember three instances where he mentions someone else sleeping with his wife. That's quite frequent. He is beaten in jealously only by Master Ford! This play has a lot of talk about sex, which is so interested seeing we are reading it shortly after Measure for Measure.
Iago is, without a doubt, the consummate actor in all of Shakespeare. Even Richard III doesn't come close. R3 might brag about how he can change his face and fool and trick people, and he does to a certain degree, but many people know the entire time just how awful he is. Nobody knows this about Iago. Everyone loves him. He's called honest and good. No one even has a clue. He's got them all fooled, and not just the thick characters, but the smart ones too.
Emilia is quite fascinating in that respect. She seems brilliant and sassy and like she doesn't take crap in some of her lines, but then she is completely oblivious to the actual nature of her husband. I've not yet seen Othello on the stage but something tells me there are a lot of possibilities for playing Emilia and Iago's relationship. I find it very interesting that he's so concerned with her fidelity. And she, before she has that liberating speech about how women can act just like men do, says "Who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should venture purgatory for it." This seems to undercut the liberation, as she is saying she would cheat on Iago if it would prove profitable to Iago. And then no one seems more surprised than Emilia about what Iago has done. When she puts two and two together she repeats the question "My husband?" four times. She is literally in shock (granted, some of that shock is due to the fact that she had an unknowing hand in the scheme).
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Emilia
Favorite Male Character:
Iago
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
Iago Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
How insulting:
Emilia I will be hanged if some eternal villain
Some busy and insinuating rogue
Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office
Have not devised this slander.
Shakey loves his meta:
Oh, misogyny:
Well, the word whore occurs 12 times, and the word strumpet 10 times.
Boys are silly:
Emilia 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man.
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food.
They eat us hungerly, and when they are full
They belch us.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Emilia But I do think it is their husbands’ faults
If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or, say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them; they see and smell,
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is; and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth; is ’t frailty that thus errs?
It is so too; and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then, let them use us well; else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
24:38 Measure for Measure
Day 24 of 38:38
Measure for Measure
I've been waiting for this day since we started this project. I love this play. It's my favorite work in the canon. It would not be a stretch to say I'm obsessed with it. So there are a million different topics I could tackle in this blog posting, because I can talk forever about this play. I've performed scenes from the play in an education setting twice. I've performed scenes in a performance setting twice. I've done the play once. I hope to do it several more times. I read scholarly articles about it FOR FUN. I told you I was obsessed.
The topic I am choosing for this blog posting, since it does have relevance to Shakespeare's other works, is Shakespeare and his sources. Shakespeare's genius did not lie in coming up with stories. In nearly every play he wrote, the story was pre-existing, and often in multiple forms. But Shakespeare never just took the most common version of the story and presented it straight. He changed details, deleted characters, combined other plots, etc. And what Shakespeare chooses to keep and what he chooses to change is often a fascinating window into what he was trying to accomplish, particularly with Measure for Measure.
Shakespeare makes two major changes to the traditional story behind Measure for Measure. Two major, striking changes. But before we get into that, let's visit that traditional story. It's known as the story of the bad magistrate. There are many variations, but basically the story goes that there is a man who is awaiting execution due to a crime he committed (originally murder). A female relative of his (usually his wife, but sometimes his sister) pleads to the judge for mercy. The judge says he will free the man if she sleeps with him. The woman does, but the judge still has the man executed. The woman complains to the ruler of the land. The judge's punishment is two-fold: first he has to marry the woman, second, he is executed.
The first major change Shakespeare makes to this story is that Isabella does not sleep with Angelo. I'm pretty sure that in every other version of the story I've been able to read the woman gives up her honor in order to save the man's life. This is, we can all agree, a terrible choice to have to make, and Shakespeare heightens the stakes even more by making Isabella an almost nun (and therefore virgin). Unlike all the other heroines, Isabella says no and sticks to that.
Secondly, Shakespeare changes Angelo's punishment. It's pretty horrifying to imagine that a raped woman would then be forced to marry her attacker. In the versions of the story where he is immediately put to death, this is somewhat more bearable. But there are versions (Cinthio's novella Hecatommithi is one) where the woman, after being married to the corrupt magistrate, then pleads for mercy for him, and he is spared. This plot point seems absolutely ludicrous. Shakespeare changes the nature of this entirely by adding the character Mariana. Isabella says no, but someone still sleeps with Angelo. Angelo is still forced to marry the woman he slept with (but not the woman he wanted to rape), death is threatened, Angelo's wife begs for mercy, and Angelo is pardoned.
By making these changes, Shakespeare also ensures the play's ambiguity (the very characteristic for which I love it). If we had this play today, and Isabella slept with Angelo and then was forced to marry him, I doubt any one would produce it with anything but a dark ending. But Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is produced and interpreted with a wide variety of tones. Add to this the fact that the woman of the tale still is confronted with marriage. But here Isabella is asked by the Disguised Ruler, further complicating our response to this play. Isabella is not forced into marriage to the Bad Magistrate; instead she is forced into marriage with the Disguised Ruler; or is she? Her chosen state of virginity first comes under assault from Angelo, and then again at the end of the play, albeit in a very different way, from the Duke. How are we supposed to react to this? Every production of this play will have a different answer, which is exactly why I think Measure for Measure is so brilliant.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Isabella
Favorite Male Character:
Lucio
Laugh out loud:
Escalus What do you think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?
Pompey If the law would allow it, sir.
"That's what she said!":
Duke Know you this woman?
Lucio Carnally, she says.
How insulting:
Isabella O you beast!
O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!
Shakey loves his meta:
Duke I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement
Oh, misogyny:
Duke So then it seems your most offenceful act
Was mutually committed?
Juliet Mutually.
Duke Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
Boys are silly:
Isabella Women? Help heaven! Men their creation mar
In profiting by them.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation, where thou keep’st,
Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art death’s fool;
For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run’st toward him still. Thou art not noble:
For all th’ accommodations that thou bear’st
Are nurs’d by baseness. Thou art by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok’st; yet grossly fear’st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist’st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv’st to get,
And what thou hast, forget’st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age;
But, as it were, an after-dinner’s sleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What’s yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.
Measure for Measure
I've been waiting for this day since we started this project. I love this play. It's my favorite work in the canon. It would not be a stretch to say I'm obsessed with it. So there are a million different topics I could tackle in this blog posting, because I can talk forever about this play. I've performed scenes from the play in an education setting twice. I've performed scenes in a performance setting twice. I've done the play once. I hope to do it several more times. I read scholarly articles about it FOR FUN. I told you I was obsessed.
The topic I am choosing for this blog posting, since it does have relevance to Shakespeare's other works, is Shakespeare and his sources. Shakespeare's genius did not lie in coming up with stories. In nearly every play he wrote, the story was pre-existing, and often in multiple forms. But Shakespeare never just took the most common version of the story and presented it straight. He changed details, deleted characters, combined other plots, etc. And what Shakespeare chooses to keep and what he chooses to change is often a fascinating window into what he was trying to accomplish, particularly with Measure for Measure.
Shakespeare makes two major changes to the traditional story behind Measure for Measure. Two major, striking changes. But before we get into that, let's visit that traditional story. It's known as the story of the bad magistrate. There are many variations, but basically the story goes that there is a man who is awaiting execution due to a crime he committed (originally murder). A female relative of his (usually his wife, but sometimes his sister) pleads to the judge for mercy. The judge says he will free the man if she sleeps with him. The woman does, but the judge still has the man executed. The woman complains to the ruler of the land. The judge's punishment is two-fold: first he has to marry the woman, second, he is executed.
The first major change Shakespeare makes to this story is that Isabella does not sleep with Angelo. I'm pretty sure that in every other version of the story I've been able to read the woman gives up her honor in order to save the man's life. This is, we can all agree, a terrible choice to have to make, and Shakespeare heightens the stakes even more by making Isabella an almost nun (and therefore virgin). Unlike all the other heroines, Isabella says no and sticks to that.
Secondly, Shakespeare changes Angelo's punishment. It's pretty horrifying to imagine that a raped woman would then be forced to marry her attacker. In the versions of the story where he is immediately put to death, this is somewhat more bearable. But there are versions (Cinthio's novella Hecatommithi is one) where the woman, after being married to the corrupt magistrate, then pleads for mercy for him, and he is spared. This plot point seems absolutely ludicrous. Shakespeare changes the nature of this entirely by adding the character Mariana. Isabella says no, but someone still sleeps with Angelo. Angelo is still forced to marry the woman he slept with (but not the woman he wanted to rape), death is threatened, Angelo's wife begs for mercy, and Angelo is pardoned.
By making these changes, Shakespeare also ensures the play's ambiguity (the very characteristic for which I love it). If we had this play today, and Isabella slept with Angelo and then was forced to marry him, I doubt any one would produce it with anything but a dark ending. But Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is produced and interpreted with a wide variety of tones. Add to this the fact that the woman of the tale still is confronted with marriage. But here Isabella is asked by the Disguised Ruler, further complicating our response to this play. Isabella is not forced into marriage to the Bad Magistrate; instead she is forced into marriage with the Disguised Ruler; or is she? Her chosen state of virginity first comes under assault from Angelo, and then again at the end of the play, albeit in a very different way, from the Duke. How are we supposed to react to this? Every production of this play will have a different answer, which is exactly why I think Measure for Measure is so brilliant.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Isabella
Favorite Male Character:
Lucio
Laugh out loud:
Escalus What do you think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?
Pompey If the law would allow it, sir.
"That's what she said!":
Duke Know you this woman?
Lucio Carnally, she says.
How insulting:
Isabella O you beast!
O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!
Shakey loves his meta:
Duke I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement
Oh, misogyny:
Duke So then it seems your most offenceful act
Was mutually committed?
Juliet Mutually.
Duke Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
Boys are silly:
Isabella Women? Help heaven! Men their creation mar
In profiting by them.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation, where thou keep’st,
Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art death’s fool;
For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run’st toward him still. Thou art not noble:
For all th’ accommodations that thou bear’st
Are nurs’d by baseness. Thou art by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok’st; yet grossly fear’st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist’st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv’st to get,
And what thou hast, forget’st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age;
But, as it were, an after-dinner’s sleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What’s yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.
23:38 Troilus and Cressida
Day 23 of 38:38
Troilus and Cressida
This is the first time I've read the play, and I don't have time to read it again right now (have to move on to the next one!), so there are several aspects I found interesting, but I'm not sure I have full, coherent thoughts about them yet. There is something going on in this play with identity. People keep asking who someone is, or making jokes about who someone is, or comparing one person to another.
Shakespeare clearly states in the prologue of the play that is begins in media res. In the middle of already happening action. But he forgets to tell us it will end that way too. I mean, what kind of ending was that? They all fight, and the play ends. There is no final scene between Troilus and Cressida, he doesn't die in battle, she doesn't kill herself, etc. It felt very abrupt.
I had heard that this was not a very nice play, and that's true. It reminds me of Merchant of Venice in that respect. Everyone's quite mean. There are a lot of very mean lines.
Also this is one of the plays where the title doesn't seem to accurately describe the play. Even though Helen isn't a very large character, there is, of course, a lot of talking about her. I thought these two moments were very striking.
Troilus Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
Paris You are too bitter to your countrywoman.
Diomedes She's bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris.
For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight
A Troyan hath been slain. Since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath
As for her Greeks and Troyans suffered death.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Cressida
Favorite Male Character:
not sure
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
Cressida My lord, come you again into my chamber.
You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.
How insulting:
Thersites Thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou!
Shakey loves his meta:
Prologue our play
Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Oh, misogyny:
Troilus But I am weaker than a woman's tear...
Less valiant than the virgin in the night
Also
Patroclus A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
In time of action.
Wow. That's mean.
Boys are silly:
Ulysses How one man eats into another's pride
While pride is feasting in his wantonness!
Favorite Moment/Line:
In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf’d,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish’d Helen, Menelaus’ queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps; and that’s the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come,
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their war-like fraughtage: now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam’s six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan, 16
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr up the sons of Troy.
Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come
A prologue arm’d, but not in confidence
Of author’s pen or actor’s voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are:
Now good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.
Troilus and Cressida
This is the first time I've read the play, and I don't have time to read it again right now (have to move on to the next one!), so there are several aspects I found interesting, but I'm not sure I have full, coherent thoughts about them yet. There is something going on in this play with identity. People keep asking who someone is, or making jokes about who someone is, or comparing one person to another.
Shakespeare clearly states in the prologue of the play that is begins in media res. In the middle of already happening action. But he forgets to tell us it will end that way too. I mean, what kind of ending was that? They all fight, and the play ends. There is no final scene between Troilus and Cressida, he doesn't die in battle, she doesn't kill herself, etc. It felt very abrupt.
I had heard that this was not a very nice play, and that's true. It reminds me of Merchant of Venice in that respect. Everyone's quite mean. There are a lot of very mean lines.
Also this is one of the plays where the title doesn't seem to accurately describe the play. Even though Helen isn't a very large character, there is, of course, a lot of talking about her. I thought these two moments were very striking.
Troilus Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
Paris You are too bitter to your countrywoman.
Diomedes She's bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris.
For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight
A Troyan hath been slain. Since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath
As for her Greeks and Troyans suffered death.
-----------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Cressida
Favorite Male Character:
not sure
Laugh out loud:
"That's what she said!":
Cressida My lord, come you again into my chamber.
You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.
How insulting:
Thersites Thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou!
Shakey loves his meta:
Prologue our play
Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Oh, misogyny:
Troilus But I am weaker than a woman's tear...
Less valiant than the virgin in the night
Also
Patroclus A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
In time of action.
Wow. That's mean.
Boys are silly:
Ulysses How one man eats into another's pride
While pride is feasting in his wantonness!
Favorite Moment/Line:
In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf’d,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish’d Helen, Menelaus’ queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps; and that’s the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come,
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their war-like fraughtage: now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam’s six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan, 16
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr up the sons of Troy.
Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come
A prologue arm’d, but not in confidence
Of author’s pen or actor’s voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are:
Now good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.
Monday, March 22, 2010
22:38 Twelfth Night
Day 22 of 38:38
Twelfth Night
I just... I just can't get behind this play. I know it's beloved. I have very close friends that worship this play. But I just don't find it that delightful. Especially on the page. Watching drunkenness is more entertaining than reading it, so I felt like I was slogging through this play a lot. Compared to Shakespeare's other heroines I find Viola to be a bit of a wet mop. The exposition is rather unpolished. "Oh, I've heard of the Duke. Isn't he a bachelor?" "Yes, but he's in love with Olivia." "What's she like?" Ug.
But I do think the kinkyness of the ending is fun. The second Orsino finds out Viola is a girl, it's on. Ha. Also "Give me thy hand / And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds."
---------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
None of the three really stand out to me.
Favorite Male Character:
Malvolio
Laugh out loud:
Feste Good madonna, why mournest thou?
Olivia Good fool, for my brother's death.
Feste I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
Olivia I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
Feste The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul, being in heaven.
"That's what she said!":
Olivia Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?
Malvolio To bed? Ay, sweetheart, and I'll come to thee.
How insulting:
Olivia Ungracious wretch,
Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,
Where manners ne'er were preached...
Rudesby, be gone. (Just for you, Emily)
Shakey loves his meta:
Fabian If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.
Oh, misogyny:
Orsino For women are as roses whose fair flower,
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.
Boys are silly:
Orsino For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than woman's are.
Favorite Moment/Line:
I like the song that ends the play.
When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
’Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gates,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.
A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.
Twelfth Night
I just... I just can't get behind this play. I know it's beloved. I have very close friends that worship this play. But I just don't find it that delightful. Especially on the page. Watching drunkenness is more entertaining than reading it, so I felt like I was slogging through this play a lot. Compared to Shakespeare's other heroines I find Viola to be a bit of a wet mop. The exposition is rather unpolished. "Oh, I've heard of the Duke. Isn't he a bachelor?" "Yes, but he's in love with Olivia." "What's she like?" Ug.
But I do think the kinkyness of the ending is fun. The second Orsino finds out Viola is a girl, it's on. Ha. Also "Give me thy hand / And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds."
---------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
None of the three really stand out to me.
Favorite Male Character:
Malvolio
Laugh out loud:
Feste Good madonna, why mournest thou?
Olivia Good fool, for my brother's death.
Feste I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
Olivia I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
Feste The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul, being in heaven.
"That's what she said!":
Olivia Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?
Malvolio To bed? Ay, sweetheart, and I'll come to thee.
How insulting:
Olivia Ungracious wretch,
Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,
Where manners ne'er were preached...
Rudesby, be gone. (Just for you, Emily)
Shakey loves his meta:
Fabian If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.
Oh, misogyny:
Orsino For women are as roses whose fair flower,
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.
Boys are silly:
Orsino For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than woman's are.
Favorite Moment/Line:
I like the song that ends the play.
When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
’Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gates,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.
A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.
21:38 Hamlet -- On Hold
I'm placing re-reading Hamlet on hold for now. Here's why: My plan was to use this opportunity to read the 1st Quarto Hamlet (also known as the "bad quarto) all the way through. I've read the "regular" Hamlet several times, see it multiple times, and prepared auditions for it. So I know the more recognized text quite well. So I'm planning to read the Q1 just to really see all the differences. But I'm not reading it right now, because in a week I'll be heading to Chicago to attend the annual conference of the Shakespeare Association of America. One of the pre-conference events is a reading of, you guessed it, the first quarto Hamlet! A reading that we get to PARTICIPATE in! I'm pretty excited. What are the chances they'll let me read Ophelia? (Not that I think she's an amazing part -- more on that later, but because I spent so much time prepping to audition for her, that I'd love the chance to sort of do it. I do know the songs... ;-) ) Though hey... maybe if they do the thing were the cast changes each act... maybe I will get to read a little of the melancholy Dane himself...
So I'll report back on that next week.
So I'll report back on that next week.
20:38 As You Like It
Day 20 of 38:38
As You Like It
Okay, Shakespeare's brilliance lies in his verse, in his poetry, in his character creation. It doesn't lie so much in his eye for details. Many of the plays involve contradictory elements (I'm sure we can soon talk about Just How Old is Hamlet?), confusions about time, location, and others.
Rosalind is commonly perceived as being tall, but the text actually isn't 100 percent clear on her height. The note in the Arden edition sums it up excellently. The note comes at the first mention of height, when Le Beau tells Orlando that the "taller" girl is daughter to the Duke, meaning Celia. Arden says:
Shakespeare appears to follow Lodge: "I (thou seest) am of a tall stature" (sig. D3), but the word is frequently emended because it is inconsistent with Rosalind's claim to be more than common tall (1.3.112) and with Oliver's information about Celia, the woman low (4.3.86). Rosalind is not very tall (Phoebe's testimony at 3.5.119); Orlando's 'Just as high as my heart' (3.2.262) makes her, even allowing for a lover's extravagance, hardly a lamp-post. Variations in the height of different boy actors may have created inconsistencies in the text. Another meaning of tall is 'bold', usually applied to men, as (satirically) to Sir Andrew Aguecheek (TN 1.3.20), but sometimes also to 'mannish' women.
When staging this production, it has to be decided whether Orlando figures out that Ganymede is Rosalind or not, and if so, when. Textually, there is no line that suggests he's figured out the game. Quite the opposite, in fact. After all, right before the scene where Rosalind is revealed, the Duke asks Orlando whether he believes the boy (Ganymede) can do what he's promised, and Orlando replies "I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not, / As those that fear to hope, and know to fear." And while it's possible that Orlando's later line could be played as holding the game up and secretly teasing the Duke ("My lord, the first time that I ever saw him / Methought he was a brother to your daughter. / But my good lord, this boy is forest-bred / And hath been tutored in the rudiments / Of many desperate studies by his uncle, / Whom he reports to be a great magician, / Obscured in the circle of this forest."), this line seems less able to fit that interpretation.
However, I do think it is dramatically more interesting for Orlando to figure it out at some point. When have you seen Orlando's figure it out and how well did it work? I love James Shapiro's thoughts on this subject in his book 1599. He says Orlando has to figure it out at some point. If the point is too late, Orlando looks stupid and undeserving of Rosalind (as Shaw described him, a "safely stupid and totally unobservant young man"). If Orlando figures it out too early, he doesn't really learn anything and doesn't mature in his understanding of love. Shapiro's theory (though he admits that Shakespeare leaves it so uncertain he can only guess) is that Orlando first begins to figure it out during the mock wedding scene. In Elizabethan times, there was a form a betrothal that just involved swearing before a witness that you would be married. Orlando and Ganymede and Celia would be participating in a legally binding betrothal. To Shapiro, Orlando would realize that he wasn't playing anymore, as evidenced by the fact that at first he says "I will" but then says "I take thee, Rosalind, for wife."
---------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Rosalind
Favorite Male Character:
hmm... I guess Jacques, but I feel pretty equally about the male roles in this play.
Laugh out loud:
Touchstone This is the very false gallop of verses. Why do you infect yourself with them?
Rosalind Peace, you dull fool, I found them on a tree.
Touchstone Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.
"That's what she said!":
Rosalind I prithee take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.
Celia So you may put a man in your belly.
How insulting:
Jacques let's meet as little as we can.
Orlando I do desire we may be better strangers.
Shakey loves his meta:
Duke Senior This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.
Oh, misogyny:
It only seems to exist when Rosalind uses it ironically
I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel and to cry like a woman, but I must comfort the weaker vessel.
Boys are silly:
Rosalind Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
Favorite Moment/Line:
I love all the speeches where Rosalind gets carried away and just keeps going. They are charming.
As You Like It
Okay, Shakespeare's brilliance lies in his verse, in his poetry, in his character creation. It doesn't lie so much in his eye for details. Many of the plays involve contradictory elements (I'm sure we can soon talk about Just How Old is Hamlet?), confusions about time, location, and others.
Rosalind is commonly perceived as being tall, but the text actually isn't 100 percent clear on her height. The note in the Arden edition sums it up excellently. The note comes at the first mention of height, when Le Beau tells Orlando that the "taller" girl is daughter to the Duke, meaning Celia. Arden says:
Shakespeare appears to follow Lodge: "I (thou seest) am of a tall stature" (sig. D3), but the word is frequently emended because it is inconsistent with Rosalind's claim to be more than common tall (1.3.112) and with Oliver's information about Celia, the woman low (4.3.86). Rosalind is not very tall (Phoebe's testimony at 3.5.119); Orlando's 'Just as high as my heart' (3.2.262) makes her, even allowing for a lover's extravagance, hardly a lamp-post. Variations in the height of different boy actors may have created inconsistencies in the text. Another meaning of tall is 'bold', usually applied to men, as (satirically) to Sir Andrew Aguecheek (TN 1.3.20), but sometimes also to 'mannish' women.
When staging this production, it has to be decided whether Orlando figures out that Ganymede is Rosalind or not, and if so, when. Textually, there is no line that suggests he's figured out the game. Quite the opposite, in fact. After all, right before the scene where Rosalind is revealed, the Duke asks Orlando whether he believes the boy (Ganymede) can do what he's promised, and Orlando replies "I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not, / As those that fear to hope, and know to fear." And while it's possible that Orlando's later line could be played as holding the game up and secretly teasing the Duke ("My lord, the first time that I ever saw him / Methought he was a brother to your daughter. / But my good lord, this boy is forest-bred / And hath been tutored in the rudiments / Of many desperate studies by his uncle, / Whom he reports to be a great magician, / Obscured in the circle of this forest."), this line seems less able to fit that interpretation.
However, I do think it is dramatically more interesting for Orlando to figure it out at some point. When have you seen Orlando's figure it out and how well did it work? I love James Shapiro's thoughts on this subject in his book 1599. He says Orlando has to figure it out at some point. If the point is too late, Orlando looks stupid and undeserving of Rosalind (as Shaw described him, a "safely stupid and totally unobservant young man"). If Orlando figures it out too early, he doesn't really learn anything and doesn't mature in his understanding of love. Shapiro's theory (though he admits that Shakespeare leaves it so uncertain he can only guess) is that Orlando first begins to figure it out during the mock wedding scene. In Elizabethan times, there was a form a betrothal that just involved swearing before a witness that you would be married. Orlando and Ganymede and Celia would be participating in a legally binding betrothal. To Shapiro, Orlando would realize that he wasn't playing anymore, as evidenced by the fact that at first he says "I will" but then says "I take thee, Rosalind, for wife."
---------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Rosalind
Favorite Male Character:
hmm... I guess Jacques, but I feel pretty equally about the male roles in this play.
Laugh out loud:
Touchstone This is the very false gallop of verses. Why do you infect yourself with them?
Rosalind Peace, you dull fool, I found them on a tree.
Touchstone Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.
"That's what she said!":
Rosalind I prithee take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.
Celia So you may put a man in your belly.
How insulting:
Jacques let's meet as little as we can.
Orlando I do desire we may be better strangers.
Shakey loves his meta:
Duke Senior This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.
Oh, misogyny:
It only seems to exist when Rosalind uses it ironically
I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel and to cry like a woman, but I must comfort the weaker vessel.
Boys are silly:
Rosalind Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
Favorite Moment/Line:
I love all the speeches where Rosalind gets carried away and just keeps going. They are charming.
19:38 Much Ado About Nothing
Day 19 of 38:38
Much Ado About Nothing
I love that Spring arrives on the weekend we get to read my two favorite Shakespearean comedies, Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It.
Much Ado is a mature piece in the sense that the comedy is very good, the characters we love, and when it gets serious, the tension is palpable. On the one hand the relationship between Benedick and Beatrice feels so modern, on the other hand, Claudio's treatment of Hero is one that we have difficulty accepting (though we certainly do live in a society that falsely prizes female virginity, and certainly there are still places in this world where women are killed if it is discovered they are not virgins, but that's a different blog posting).
Much Ado affords us a perfect example of how people often take Shakespeare out of context. Sometimes when people talk about villains in Shakespeare, they use Don John as an example. Shakespeare doesn't always give his villains reasons for their actions, they'll say, they are just bad guys. In fact they know it. Don John says right out "I am a villain."
Well, no. That's not, in fact, what Don John is saying. Then entire section of that line is "I am a plain-dealing villain" but even that doesn't give us the full story. The line is "In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain." I interpret this as not Don John saying he's a bad guy and that's that, but that he is pointing out the irony of the fact that all the people who are considered noble in this play are fake flatterers, and he, who refuses to be false, is a accused of being a villain. Sure, the guy is bitter, and he tries to ruin everything, but I think he's more complex than people give him credit for. Though we may not see any direct reason for his actions in the play itself, the text hints at past wrongs from Don Pedro and Claudio. We don't know what the back story is there, but I think Don John clearly feels justified in his actions.
But maybe I just feel this way because I played the role once so not only did I come up with a back story, but I feel quite protective of this character.
Plus, in the full text, Don Pedro is kind of a prick. And I think he's more interesting this way. I think it really adds a lot to the Don John-Don Pedro relationship if Don Pedro isn't the perfect man he's so often portrayed as. Usually though, Don Pedro's less noble moments get cut, and people tend to take their cue off of Denzel Washington's portrayal.
---------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Beatrice
Favorite Male Character:
Don John
Laugh out loud:
Leonato Indeed, neighbor, he comes too short of you.
Dogberry Gifts that God gives.
"That's what she said!":
Margaret 'Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man!
How insulting:
Beatrice Scratching could not make it worse an 'twere such a face as yours were.
Shakey loves his meta:
Oh, misogyny:
Don John What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?
Boys are silly:
Beatrice Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? To make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?
Favorite Moment/Line:
Too many to count! But let's go with the "O God that I were a man" scene.
Much Ado About Nothing
I love that Spring arrives on the weekend we get to read my two favorite Shakespearean comedies, Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It.
Much Ado is a mature piece in the sense that the comedy is very good, the characters we love, and when it gets serious, the tension is palpable. On the one hand the relationship between Benedick and Beatrice feels so modern, on the other hand, Claudio's treatment of Hero is one that we have difficulty accepting (though we certainly do live in a society that falsely prizes female virginity, and certainly there are still places in this world where women are killed if it is discovered they are not virgins, but that's a different blog posting).
Much Ado affords us a perfect example of how people often take Shakespeare out of context. Sometimes when people talk about villains in Shakespeare, they use Don John as an example. Shakespeare doesn't always give his villains reasons for their actions, they'll say, they are just bad guys. In fact they know it. Don John says right out "I am a villain."
Well, no. That's not, in fact, what Don John is saying. Then entire section of that line is "I am a plain-dealing villain" but even that doesn't give us the full story. The line is "In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain." I interpret this as not Don John saying he's a bad guy and that's that, but that he is pointing out the irony of the fact that all the people who are considered noble in this play are fake flatterers, and he, who refuses to be false, is a accused of being a villain. Sure, the guy is bitter, and he tries to ruin everything, but I think he's more complex than people give him credit for. Though we may not see any direct reason for his actions in the play itself, the text hints at past wrongs from Don Pedro and Claudio. We don't know what the back story is there, but I think Don John clearly feels justified in his actions.
But maybe I just feel this way because I played the role once so not only did I come up with a back story, but I feel quite protective of this character.
Plus, in the full text, Don Pedro is kind of a prick. And I think he's more interesting this way. I think it really adds a lot to the Don John-Don Pedro relationship if Don Pedro isn't the perfect man he's so often portrayed as. Usually though, Don Pedro's less noble moments get cut, and people tend to take their cue off of Denzel Washington's portrayal.
---------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Beatrice
Favorite Male Character:
Don John
Laugh out loud:
Leonato Indeed, neighbor, he comes too short of you.
Dogberry Gifts that God gives.
"That's what she said!":
Margaret 'Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man!
How insulting:
Beatrice Scratching could not make it worse an 'twere such a face as yours were.
Shakey loves his meta:
Oh, misogyny:
Don John What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?
Boys are silly:
Beatrice Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? To make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?
Favorite Moment/Line:
Too many to count! But let's go with the "O God that I were a man" scene.
Friday, March 19, 2010
18:38 Richard III
Day 18 of 38:38
Richard III
Throughout the history plays, we have seen prophecies, history speeches, and curses, but never so much as in Richard III. This play in inundated with curses, prophesies, and dreams. Not only do the characters curse and prophesy, but each time a statement comes true, the original curse is referred back to. We have Richard making up the prophecy about "G" in order to get his brother killed, but really this prophecy comes true, as Richard is the Duke of Gloucester. Margaret curses practically everyone, and as they die, one by one, they recall her words. Anne recalls the curse she spoke to Richard once she has become his miserable wife. All the ghosts curse Richard and bless Richmond, and Richmond is of course victorious.
Every curse and prophecy comes true in this play. Here we see the power of language, the language of truth. But the play also gives us the power of language as deception, as Richard puts on role after role in order to deceive those about him. Nearly every time, he is successful. Indeed, taking his speeches out of context, they are entirely noble, or romantic. It's only because we know who he is and what he is after that we can see through him. In this play, language is the ultimate weapon. It deceives, it woos, it kills, it manipulates, it persuades, it warns, it curses, it blesses.
---------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Margaret
Favorite Male Character:
Richard III
Laugh out loud:
2 Murderer Some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.
1 Murderer Remember our reward when the deed's done.
2 Murderer Come, he dies.
"That's what she said!":
Mistress Shore!
How insulting:
Margaret Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rotting hog!
Shakey loves his meta:
Buckingham Tut! I can counterfeit the deep tragedian
Oh, misogyny:
Clarence Relent and save your souls.
1 Murderer Relent? 'Tis cowardly and womanish.
Buckingham Play the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it
Boys are silly:
Favorite Moment/Line:
Opening monologue
Now is the winter of our discontent...
Richard III
Throughout the history plays, we have seen prophecies, history speeches, and curses, but never so much as in Richard III. This play in inundated with curses, prophesies, and dreams. Not only do the characters curse and prophesy, but each time a statement comes true, the original curse is referred back to. We have Richard making up the prophecy about "G" in order to get his brother killed, but really this prophecy comes true, as Richard is the Duke of Gloucester. Margaret curses practically everyone, and as they die, one by one, they recall her words. Anne recalls the curse she spoke to Richard once she has become his miserable wife. All the ghosts curse Richard and bless Richmond, and Richmond is of course victorious.
Every curse and prophecy comes true in this play. Here we see the power of language, the language of truth. But the play also gives us the power of language as deception, as Richard puts on role after role in order to deceive those about him. Nearly every time, he is successful. Indeed, taking his speeches out of context, they are entirely noble, or romantic. It's only because we know who he is and what he is after that we can see through him. In this play, language is the ultimate weapon. It deceives, it woos, it kills, it manipulates, it persuades, it warns, it curses, it blesses.
---------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Margaret
Favorite Male Character:
Richard III
Laugh out loud:
2 Murderer Some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.
1 Murderer Remember our reward when the deed's done.
2 Murderer Come, he dies.
"That's what she said!":
Mistress Shore!
How insulting:
Margaret Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rotting hog!
Shakey loves his meta:
Buckingham Tut! I can counterfeit the deep tragedian
Oh, misogyny:
Clarence Relent and save your souls.
1 Murderer Relent? 'Tis cowardly and womanish.
Buckingham Play the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it
Boys are silly:
Favorite Moment/Line:
Opening monologue
Now is the winter of our discontent...
Thursday, March 18, 2010
17:38 Henry VI, part 3
Day 17 of 38:38
Henry VI, part 3
Part three is the part with the most cruelty, the most bloodiness, the most terrible acts. And yet, what makes this play so remarkable is the way Shakespeare shows up opposing sides to the same personality. We see the unfeeling cruelty the characters enact on each other, but we also see deep grief and caring from these same people. Richard Duke of York is proud and haughty, but his speech after he sees the blood of his youngest son, Rutland, is infused with anger -- anger coming from sadness. It is painful just to read it, let alone see it performed ("This cloth thou dipped'st in blood of my sweet boy, / And I with tears do wash the blood away.").
The sheer cruelty of Margaret in this scene, boasting and mocking Richard Duke of York is contrasted with her love of her son Edward. "No, no, my heart will burst an if I speak; / And I will speak that so my heart may burst."
And Richard, who seems to have so little humanity in his own play, is devastated by the news of the murder of his father and brother:
I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture
Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart;
Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burden,
For selfsame wind that I should speak withal
Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,
And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.
I would imagine it is easy for people to dismiss this play as a bloody spectacle, but what really sticks with me is the emphasis on family, family love and family loyalty. There is not only the fact that characters are enraged when their family member is slain and then seek revenge, but Shakespeare also gives us the father who killed his son and son who killed his father scene.
I think it is easy for production to forget to play the family aspect when performing a History. They get caught up in the violence, and the politicking, and the schemes for the crown. Michael Boyd quite brilliantly kept us aware of the family dynamic when he directed the Histories cycle for the RSC. He did this by having the same two actors play all the minor father-and-son duos. They were Henry Percy and Hotspur. They were the Master Gunner and his son. They were Talbot and son. They were the above mentioned father-who-killed-his-son and son-who-killed-his-father. Finally they were Lord Stanley and Richmond in Richard III. To see the same actors portray this relationship over and over packed quite an emotional wallop.
---------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Margaret
Favorite Male Character:
Richard (that shall be III)
Laugh out loud:
George He is the bluntest wooer in Christendom.
"That's what she said!":
Edward To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.
How insulting:
Richard Duke of York Thou art as opposite to every good
As the antipodes are unto us,
Or as the south to the septentrion.
O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!
Shakey loves his meta:
Richard I'll play the orator as well as Nestor.
Oh, misogyny:
Richard A woman's general -- what should we fear?
(Note: It's a grave mistake to underestimate Margaret, as Richard will learn.)
Boys are silly:
Margaret Go rate thy minions, proud insulting boy!
Favorite Moment/Line:
Richard Why I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry "Content!" to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;
I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.
I can add colors to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.
Henry VI, part 3
Part three is the part with the most cruelty, the most bloodiness, the most terrible acts. And yet, what makes this play so remarkable is the way Shakespeare shows up opposing sides to the same personality. We see the unfeeling cruelty the characters enact on each other, but we also see deep grief and caring from these same people. Richard Duke of York is proud and haughty, but his speech after he sees the blood of his youngest son, Rutland, is infused with anger -- anger coming from sadness. It is painful just to read it, let alone see it performed ("This cloth thou dipped'st in blood of my sweet boy, / And I with tears do wash the blood away.").
The sheer cruelty of Margaret in this scene, boasting and mocking Richard Duke of York is contrasted with her love of her son Edward. "No, no, my heart will burst an if I speak; / And I will speak that so my heart may burst."
And Richard, who seems to have so little humanity in his own play, is devastated by the news of the murder of his father and brother:
I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture
Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart;
Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burden,
For selfsame wind that I should speak withal
Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,
And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.
I would imagine it is easy for people to dismiss this play as a bloody spectacle, but what really sticks with me is the emphasis on family, family love and family loyalty. There is not only the fact that characters are enraged when their family member is slain and then seek revenge, but Shakespeare also gives us the father who killed his son and son who killed his father scene.
I think it is easy for production to forget to play the family aspect when performing a History. They get caught up in the violence, and the politicking, and the schemes for the crown. Michael Boyd quite brilliantly kept us aware of the family dynamic when he directed the Histories cycle for the RSC. He did this by having the same two actors play all the minor father-and-son duos. They were Henry Percy and Hotspur. They were the Master Gunner and his son. They were Talbot and son. They were the above mentioned father-who-killed-his-son and son-who-killed-his-father. Finally they were Lord Stanley and Richmond in Richard III. To see the same actors portray this relationship over and over packed quite an emotional wallop.
---------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Margaret
Favorite Male Character:
Richard (that shall be III)
Laugh out loud:
George He is the bluntest wooer in Christendom.
"That's what she said!":
Edward To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.
How insulting:
Richard Duke of York Thou art as opposite to every good
As the antipodes are unto us,
Or as the south to the septentrion.
O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!
Shakey loves his meta:
Richard I'll play the orator as well as Nestor.
Oh, misogyny:
Richard A woman's general -- what should we fear?
(Note: It's a grave mistake to underestimate Margaret, as Richard will learn.)
Boys are silly:
Margaret Go rate thy minions, proud insulting boy!
Favorite Moment/Line:
Richard Why I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry "Content!" to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;
I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.
I can add colors to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.
16:38 Henry VI, part 2
Day 16 of 38:38
Henry VI, part 2
Part two. I love part two. Forget Romeo and Juliet. I think H6, part two has the best scene between lovers that Shakespeare ever wrote. Suffolk: "'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence, / A wilderness is populous enough, / So Suffolk had thy heavenly company. / For where thou art, there is the world itself, / With every several pleasure in the world; / And where thou art not, desolation."
I also love the way part two starts exactly where part one ended. With Suffolk trying to make Margaret queen and the entire question of her worth and lack of dowry.
Something that interest me is how aware these plays are of Henry V. The characters are constantly evoking his name and his deeds. One wonders how much Shakespeare was thinking ahead. While he was penning this was he musing, "You know, someday I'll write a Henry V play..."
I also love the very first scene of the play. Someone leaves and then every agrees to join against him, and then someone leaves, and everyone talks bad about him, and then someone leaves... So many machinations!
Lots of people lose their heads in this play. So fun.
I know some scholars believe that part two and part three were written first, and then part one was written as a prequel, but I find part one's verse much less mature.
-----------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Margaret
Favorite Male Character:
Okay, I wanted to put Suffolk, because I love him, but I think I'm going to have to go with Richard, Duke of York.
Laugh out loud:
Richard For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate
Ha! Suffolk! Suffocate! Get it?
"That's what she said!":
Butcher Why, my lord, he would have 'rested me and I went and entered my action in his wife's proper house.
How insulting:
Margaret Contemptuous base-born callet as she is
Shakey loves his meta:
Oh, misogyny:
Margaret The excess of love I bear unto your grace
Forbids me to be lavish of my tongue
Lest I should speak more than beseems a woman.
(Obviously, Margaret is not being misogynistic, but she is playing on the male perceptions of women. Too bad for these men that she never holds her tongue again! Though - question - could not one play an arc of Margaret where she is not being politic at this moment, but actually buys into this to some amount, and through her experiences learns to use her voice? And though I generally believe that people tend to say what they mean in Shakespeare, does not this line, and this scene in fact, disprove those who would dogmatically claim "there is no subtext in Shakespeare"?)
Boys are silly:
Duchess of Gloucester Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,
I would remove these tedious stumbling blocks
And smooth my way upon their headless necks.
And, being a woman, I will not be slack
To play my part in fortune's pageant.
(I love that Shakespeare gives us a second strong, plotting, ambitious woman. And though she falls rather quickly, the Duchess of Gloucester is still rather bad-ass. I love that Shakespeare makes both these strong women complex. They are ambitious and cold, but they both love and have heart-wrenching scenes.)
And speaking of men versus women, I love how the Duke of Gloucester has a sexist line, and Margaret turns it right back on him!
Gloucester Madam, the king is old enough himself
To give his censure. These are no women's matters.
Margaret If he be old enough, what needs your grace
To be Protector of his excellence?
Oh! That's what you get Gloucester, for messin' with Margaret!
Favorite Moment/Line:
I love the Margaret/Suffolk goodbye scene.
And this exchange
Margaret O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk.
Henry Ungentle queen, to call him gentle Suffolk.
Henry VI, part 2
Part two. I love part two. Forget Romeo and Juliet. I think H6, part two has the best scene between lovers that Shakespeare ever wrote. Suffolk: "'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence, / A wilderness is populous enough, / So Suffolk had thy heavenly company. / For where thou art, there is the world itself, / With every several pleasure in the world; / And where thou art not, desolation."
I also love the way part two starts exactly where part one ended. With Suffolk trying to make Margaret queen and the entire question of her worth and lack of dowry.
Something that interest me is how aware these plays are of Henry V. The characters are constantly evoking his name and his deeds. One wonders how much Shakespeare was thinking ahead. While he was penning this was he musing, "You know, someday I'll write a Henry V play..."
I also love the very first scene of the play. Someone leaves and then every agrees to join against him, and then someone leaves, and everyone talks bad about him, and then someone leaves... So many machinations!
Lots of people lose their heads in this play. So fun.
I know some scholars believe that part two and part three were written first, and then part one was written as a prequel, but I find part one's verse much less mature.
-----------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Margaret
Favorite Male Character:
Okay, I wanted to put Suffolk, because I love him, but I think I'm going to have to go with Richard, Duke of York.
Laugh out loud:
Richard For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate
Ha! Suffolk! Suffocate! Get it?
"That's what she said!":
Butcher Why, my lord, he would have 'rested me and I went and entered my action in his wife's proper house.
How insulting:
Margaret Contemptuous base-born callet as she is
Shakey loves his meta:
Oh, misogyny:
Margaret The excess of love I bear unto your grace
Forbids me to be lavish of my tongue
Lest I should speak more than beseems a woman.
(Obviously, Margaret is not being misogynistic, but she is playing on the male perceptions of women. Too bad for these men that she never holds her tongue again! Though - question - could not one play an arc of Margaret where she is not being politic at this moment, but actually buys into this to some amount, and through her experiences learns to use her voice? And though I generally believe that people tend to say what they mean in Shakespeare, does not this line, and this scene in fact, disprove those who would dogmatically claim "there is no subtext in Shakespeare"?)
Boys are silly:
Duchess of Gloucester Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,
I would remove these tedious stumbling blocks
And smooth my way upon their headless necks.
And, being a woman, I will not be slack
To play my part in fortune's pageant.
(I love that Shakespeare gives us a second strong, plotting, ambitious woman. And though she falls rather quickly, the Duchess of Gloucester is still rather bad-ass. I love that Shakespeare makes both these strong women complex. They are ambitious and cold, but they both love and have heart-wrenching scenes.)
And speaking of men versus women, I love how the Duke of Gloucester has a sexist line, and Margaret turns it right back on him!
Gloucester Madam, the king is old enough himself
To give his censure. These are no women's matters.
Margaret If he be old enough, what needs your grace
To be Protector of his excellence?
Oh! That's what you get Gloucester, for messin' with Margaret!
Favorite Moment/Line:
I love the Margaret/Suffolk goodbye scene.
And this exchange
Margaret O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk.
Henry Ungentle queen, to call him gentle Suffolk.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
15:38 Henry VI, part 1
Day 15 of 38:38
Henry VI, part 1
It's only fair to confess to you that I love the Henry VI plays. I'm sure re-reading them, I will be able to see their weaknesses, but it won't matter, nothing can shake them from my heart. Most people will never see these plays. I have seen them three times. First, a one evening conflation of them at the New Jersey Shakespeare Theatre, starring a remarkable performance by Ryan Farley as the asexual Henry VI. (What was even more remarkable was the year before I saw him give a randy and energetic performance as one of Tamora's sons in Titus Andronicus at the Shakespeare Theatre here in Washington -- you could not find two more different roles!) Then I saw each of the three parts in their entirety as part of the RSC Histories Cycle. And I am currently two plays through seeing them at the American Shakespeare Center (part III won't be performed until Spring 2011).
There are many reasons I love these plays. Richard III was one of my favorite Shakespeare plays long before I knew of the Henry VI's, and I love that these plays tell you what happened before. I love that the two best characters in R3, Richard and Margaret, appear in H6, and we learn how they became who they are. I love the blood and cruelty in part three. I love the rose picking scene in part one. I love Suffolk and Margaret in part two.
And I had better also warn you that I think Margaret is Shakespeare's greatest creation. She is in four plays. She starts as a flirty young girl and goes through hell and becomes an old hag. Her journey is amazing, her arc like no one else's. Anytime someone accuses Shakespeare of not writing good parts for women, I can immediately point to Margaret. She is strong, she is bold, she is brave. She speaks her mind, even when the men around her clearly don't want to hear it. She wields body power as a woman, and verbal power as well, being quite smart. She is a force of nature.
Those of you who have never read these plays before, I'm so excited for you to see where Shakespeare takes this character, and for you to find out who she was before Richard III.
Two things I notice on re-reading this play. One, you can tell it is an early work, as the verse isn't as polished. This is evident to me because I noticed tons of expanded -ed endings on words in order to make up the ten syllables. It seems like it isn't coming as naturally.
Two, it reminds me of Antony and Cleopatra in the way that there are lots of short scenes. On the one hand, there is a lot of plot randomness in all these many scenes (well, maybe that's not "on the one hand" as it's kind of what is delightful about the play); on the other hand, I found the play really moved as I read it.
One more thing -- Talbot is to Henry VI as Hotspur is to Henry IV
Finally, Yay Margaret!
-----------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Joan of Arc (and Margaret)
Favorite Male Character:
Talbot "Then broke I from the officers that led me / And with my nails digged stones out of the ground / To hurl at the beholders of my shame. " A.k.a. "I'm a badass."
Laugh out loud:
Winchester Rome shall remedy this.
Gloucester Roam thither then.
Yes, Shakespeare's favorite joke.
"That's what she said!":
How insulting:
Gloucester Thou art a most pernicious usurer
Froward by nature, enemy to peace,
Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
A man of thy profession and degree.
Shakey loves his meta:
Oh, misogyny:
Suffolk She's beautiful, and therefore to be wooed.
She is a woman, therefore to be won.
Boys are silly:
Suffolk Fond man, remember that thou hast a wife!
Favorite Moment/Line:
My favorite moment is near the very end of the play, when Suffolk woos Margaret. He asks her if she has anything to send the king, and uses this question as an excuse to kiss her. She responds
That for thyself; I will not so presume
To send such peevish tokens to a king.
I also love the final lines of the play:
Suffolk Thus Suffolk hath prevailed, and thus he goes
As did the youthful Paris once to Greece,
With hope to find the like event in love,
But prosper better than the Trojan did.
Margaret shall now be queen and rule the king;
But I will rule both her, the king, and realm.
Henry VI, part 1
It's only fair to confess to you that I love the Henry VI plays. I'm sure re-reading them, I will be able to see their weaknesses, but it won't matter, nothing can shake them from my heart. Most people will never see these plays. I have seen them three times. First, a one evening conflation of them at the New Jersey Shakespeare Theatre, starring a remarkable performance by Ryan Farley as the asexual Henry VI. (What was even more remarkable was the year before I saw him give a randy and energetic performance as one of Tamora's sons in Titus Andronicus at the Shakespeare Theatre here in Washington -- you could not find two more different roles!) Then I saw each of the three parts in their entirety as part of the RSC Histories Cycle. And I am currently two plays through seeing them at the American Shakespeare Center (part III won't be performed until Spring 2011).
There are many reasons I love these plays. Richard III was one of my favorite Shakespeare plays long before I knew of the Henry VI's, and I love that these plays tell you what happened before. I love that the two best characters in R3, Richard and Margaret, appear in H6, and we learn how they became who they are. I love the blood and cruelty in part three. I love the rose picking scene in part one. I love Suffolk and Margaret in part two.
And I had better also warn you that I think Margaret is Shakespeare's greatest creation. She is in four plays. She starts as a flirty young girl and goes through hell and becomes an old hag. Her journey is amazing, her arc like no one else's. Anytime someone accuses Shakespeare of not writing good parts for women, I can immediately point to Margaret. She is strong, she is bold, she is brave. She speaks her mind, even when the men around her clearly don't want to hear it. She wields body power as a woman, and verbal power as well, being quite smart. She is a force of nature.
Those of you who have never read these plays before, I'm so excited for you to see where Shakespeare takes this character, and for you to find out who she was before Richard III.
Two things I notice on re-reading this play. One, you can tell it is an early work, as the verse isn't as polished. This is evident to me because I noticed tons of expanded -ed endings on words in order to make up the ten syllables. It seems like it isn't coming as naturally.
Two, it reminds me of Antony and Cleopatra in the way that there are lots of short scenes. On the one hand, there is a lot of plot randomness in all these many scenes (well, maybe that's not "on the one hand" as it's kind of what is delightful about the play); on the other hand, I found the play really moved as I read it.
One more thing -- Talbot is to Henry VI as Hotspur is to Henry IV
Finally, Yay Margaret!
-----------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Joan of Arc (and Margaret)
Favorite Male Character:
Talbot "Then broke I from the officers that led me / And with my nails digged stones out of the ground / To hurl at the beholders of my shame. " A.k.a. "I'm a badass."
Laugh out loud:
Winchester Rome shall remedy this.
Gloucester Roam thither then.
Yes, Shakespeare's favorite joke.
"That's what she said!":
How insulting:
Gloucester Thou art a most pernicious usurer
Froward by nature, enemy to peace,
Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
A man of thy profession and degree.
Shakey loves his meta:
Oh, misogyny:
Suffolk She's beautiful, and therefore to be wooed.
She is a woman, therefore to be won.
Boys are silly:
Suffolk Fond man, remember that thou hast a wife!
Favorite Moment/Line:
My favorite moment is near the very end of the play, when Suffolk woos Margaret. He asks her if she has anything to send the king, and uses this question as an excuse to kiss her. She responds
That for thyself; I will not so presume
To send such peevish tokens to a king.
I also love the final lines of the play:
Suffolk Thus Suffolk hath prevailed, and thus he goes
As did the youthful Paris once to Greece,
With hope to find the like event in love,
But prosper better than the Trojan did.
Margaret shall now be queen and rule the king;
But I will rule both her, the king, and realm.
Monday, March 15, 2010
14:38 The Merry Wives of Windsor
Day 14 of 38:38
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Of all 38 (39) plays, this is the one I'm not looking forward to revisiting. The Merry Wives of Windsor is my least favorite of all of the canon (or at least it is at this point. We'll see what I think at the end of this project). I have both read and seen Merry Wives. Since I am a Shakespeare Geek, I have to see all of them performed at some point. There's no question on that. So I saw it at the American Shakespeare Center last fall, because I figured if there was any company in the world that could make me enjoy Merry Wives, it would be the ASC. And they did. The production was quite enjoyable; but there was still this feeling of, "yeah, not really his best work."
It's practically entirely prose, there is no beautiful verse to speak of. There isn't really a plot, and much of the humor is antiquated and requires the reading of footnotes. Still, the work can be far more enjoyable on the stage than on the page as actors can embody absurd characters and make their ridiculousness more evident.
I also find the Falstaff in this play to have little to do with the Falstaff in the Henry IV plays. Sure, they have some things in common, but I don't find them to be the same person. In Merry Wives, Falstaff is a figure of complete and utter ridiculousness.
-----------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Quickly
Favorite Male Character:
Ford
Laugh out loud:
Ford I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself.
Oh, making fun of the drinking habits of the Irish never gets old!
"That's what she said!":
Quickly Alas the day! good heaven, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.
How insulting:
Falstaff Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue!
Shakey loves his meta:
Mistress Ford Mistress Page, remember you your cue.
Mistress Page I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Mistress Page Well, I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man. (okay, that's a great line)
Favorite Moment/Line:
I'm sorry, this is the first play in the canon so far where I haven't thought at least two or three times, "wow that's a great moment." So I don't really have one. But, I do rather enjoy the fact that instead of calling it "dirty laundry" as we do today, they called it "foul linen."
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Of all 38 (39) plays, this is the one I'm not looking forward to revisiting. The Merry Wives of Windsor is my least favorite of all of the canon (or at least it is at this point. We'll see what I think at the end of this project). I have both read and seen Merry Wives. Since I am a Shakespeare Geek, I have to see all of them performed at some point. There's no question on that. So I saw it at the American Shakespeare Center last fall, because I figured if there was any company in the world that could make me enjoy Merry Wives, it would be the ASC. And they did. The production was quite enjoyable; but there was still this feeling of, "yeah, not really his best work."
It's practically entirely prose, there is no beautiful verse to speak of. There isn't really a plot, and much of the humor is antiquated and requires the reading of footnotes. Still, the work can be far more enjoyable on the stage than on the page as actors can embody absurd characters and make their ridiculousness more evident.
I also find the Falstaff in this play to have little to do with the Falstaff in the Henry IV plays. Sure, they have some things in common, but I don't find them to be the same person. In Merry Wives, Falstaff is a figure of complete and utter ridiculousness.
-----------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Quickly
Favorite Male Character:
Ford
Laugh out loud:
Ford I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself.
Oh, making fun of the drinking habits of the Irish never gets old!
"That's what she said!":
Quickly Alas the day! good heaven, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.
How insulting:
Falstaff Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue!
Shakey loves his meta:
Mistress Ford Mistress Page, remember you your cue.
Mistress Page I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Mistress Page Well, I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man. (okay, that's a great line)
Favorite Moment/Line:
I'm sorry, this is the first play in the canon so far where I haven't thought at least two or three times, "wow that's a great moment." So I don't really have one. But, I do rather enjoy the fact that instead of calling it "dirty laundry" as we do today, they called it "foul linen."
Sunday, March 14, 2010
13:38 The Merchant of Venice
Day 13 of 38:38
The Merchant of Venice
So after hitting a couple of Shakespeare greatest hits this week, we get to finish off with another one full of controversy. The Merchant of Venice, a play which if you produce and have a talk-back, someone will inevitably stand up and ask, "Why you are performing this anti-Semitic play?" Is this play anti-Semitic? Or does this play present a sympathetic, full-fleshed out character in Shylock? Frankly, I don't find Shylock to be a sympathetic character. He is not likable. At all. Does this make the play anti-Semitic? Well, frankly, I don't think any of the characters are likable. Not a single one do I find commendable. Even Portia has rather racist comments to make. I think one could find this an anti-Semitic play if Shylock was the villain and the Christians were the heroes. And while anti-Semitic acts occur in the play, I don't think the Christians come off as heroic at all. I think Shakespeare's genius is too great for this play to be simply categorized.
In some ways, I almost prefer Marlowe's Jew of Malta. That play is more obvious than Merchant of Venice. All the characters are so apparently distasteful, that there is no way to gloss over it. I think when people stage Merchant, as when they stage Shrew, they often do their best to gloss over the nastiness, to turn the play into a romantic comedy. That is impossible to do with Jew of Malta. Though, to be fair, Marlowe's characters come across more as caricatures than do the characters of Shakespeare. That's a plus on Shakespeare's side, but it also enables people to ignore the more questionable aspects of these characters.
But maybe that is Shakespeare's point. Maybe racial and religious intolerance is slippy, maybe what we have to fear is not the obvious villains, but the not-so-obvious ones. Racism and bigotry and hate exist in all sorts of people, even in the handsome leading man, even in the witty and brilliant woman, even in the frat kid that can always make you smile and laugh. It is easier to pretend that bigotry only exists among the uneducated, but believing in that dream only allows the more nefarious kinds of hatred to continue to exist. I'll avoid making any explicit modern day political connections, but I'm sure they are there to find.
-----------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Portia
Favorite Male Character:
Gratiano
Laugh out loud:
Portia: Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will choose it.
"That's what she said!":
Gratiano Well, while I live, I'll fear no other thing
So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.
How insulting:
Portia God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
Shakey loves his meta:
Antonio I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
Oh, misogyny:
Racism, too:
Portia Let all of his complexion choose me so.
Boys are silly:
Portia I have within my mind
A thousand raw tricks of these bragging jacks
Which I will practice.
Favorite Moment/Line:
I love the sheer nastiness and tension of the court scene, but I found this passage particularly striking:
Bassanio Do all men kill the things they do not love?
Shylock Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
Bassanio Every offense is not a hate at first.
Shylock What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
The Merchant of Venice
So after hitting a couple of Shakespeare greatest hits this week, we get to finish off with another one full of controversy. The Merchant of Venice, a play which if you produce and have a talk-back, someone will inevitably stand up and ask, "Why you are performing this anti-Semitic play?" Is this play anti-Semitic? Or does this play present a sympathetic, full-fleshed out character in Shylock? Frankly, I don't find Shylock to be a sympathetic character. He is not likable. At all. Does this make the play anti-Semitic? Well, frankly, I don't think any of the characters are likable. Not a single one do I find commendable. Even Portia has rather racist comments to make. I think one could find this an anti-Semitic play if Shylock was the villain and the Christians were the heroes. And while anti-Semitic acts occur in the play, I don't think the Christians come off as heroic at all. I think Shakespeare's genius is too great for this play to be simply categorized.
In some ways, I almost prefer Marlowe's Jew of Malta. That play is more obvious than Merchant of Venice. All the characters are so apparently distasteful, that there is no way to gloss over it. I think when people stage Merchant, as when they stage Shrew, they often do their best to gloss over the nastiness, to turn the play into a romantic comedy. That is impossible to do with Jew of Malta. Though, to be fair, Marlowe's characters come across more as caricatures than do the characters of Shakespeare. That's a plus on Shakespeare's side, but it also enables people to ignore the more questionable aspects of these characters.
But maybe that is Shakespeare's point. Maybe racial and religious intolerance is slippy, maybe what we have to fear is not the obvious villains, but the not-so-obvious ones. Racism and bigotry and hate exist in all sorts of people, even in the handsome leading man, even in the witty and brilliant woman, even in the frat kid that can always make you smile and laugh. It is easier to pretend that bigotry only exists among the uneducated, but believing in that dream only allows the more nefarious kinds of hatred to continue to exist. I'll avoid making any explicit modern day political connections, but I'm sure they are there to find.
-----------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Portia
Favorite Male Character:
Gratiano
Laugh out loud:
Portia: Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will choose it.
"That's what she said!":
Gratiano Well, while I live, I'll fear no other thing
So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.
How insulting:
Portia God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
Shakey loves his meta:
Antonio I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
Oh, misogyny:
Racism, too:
Portia Let all of his complexion choose me so.
Boys are silly:
Portia I have within my mind
A thousand raw tricks of these bragging jacks
Which I will practice.
Favorite Moment/Line:
I love the sheer nastiness and tension of the court scene, but I found this passage particularly striking:
Bassanio Do all men kill the things they do not love?
Shylock Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
Bassanio Every offense is not a hate at first.
Shylock What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
Saturday, March 13, 2010
12:38 Midsummer Night's Dream
Day 12 of 38:38
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Re-reading A Midsummer Night's Dream is like spending the night with a former lover -- full of so many remembered enjoyments. This play certainly doesn't need my word to convince anyone of its quality. There has been enough written about that. So instead, I will talk about the two aspects I don't like about this play. Really they are more issues I have in performance that straight from the text.
1. Theseus and Hippolyta. Dear directors -- just because their parts are small doesn't mean they have to be BORING. For some reason, productions seem to ignore these parts, especially when they are doubled with Oberon and Titania. Yes, I will grant you that Shakespeare has underwritten these parts, but frankly there are lots of lords in the history plays and that doesn't mean any of them are allowed to be boring either. Especially since Shakespeare is naming these characters after mythological characters. Theseus and Hippolyta had the blood of gods running in them, they were warriors, they were conquerors; so you can make them many things, but boring is not one of them.
I also want to comment on the two general ways of playing Hippolyta. The first, that she is happy to be with Theseus (at least until he screws up the whole Hermia thing). The second, that she is a prisoner of way and hates Theseus. I've even heard of productions that bring her out in a cage. Now I'm all for going dark, and sometimes you can convince me that going against the text is a good thing, but I do want to point out that textually, I really think the first way is the way to go. What evidence do I have? Speak her lines out loud. Shakespeare was a master of sounds.
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night
Four nights will quickly dream away the time
Try saying that while angry, or through clenched teeth. You just can't. There are two many long sounds: the "ay" in day, "ee" in steep, the m's, the n's, "dream away the time" That phrase is just so caressing, making an actor play Hippolyta as a captive, or angry is just making her have to work twice as hard. I am not saying you can't make that choice. I just think you need to be away of what you are doing.
2. The mechanicals. Blech. I know, for most people the mechanicals are their favorite parts of the play. But it's well-known among my friends that I have a personal, strong dislike of clown characters. And this is never so much evident to me as in Midsummer Night's Dream, and with Bottom. Now again, clown characters are something I object to more on the stage than on the page. Here's why. I think it is quite, quite difficult to find actors who can play these roles well. Too often the actor knows that he or she is the "funny" character, and so plays with this awareness. He or she works to be "funny." And this always ruins it for me. And Bottoms (and Dogberrys) are the most frequent offenders. Stop trying to be funny! Just play your objective! The funny will take care of itself.
Since I spoke briefly about different possible characterizations of Hippolyta, I will do the same with Bottom. The prevailing opinion is that Bottom is ultimately a likeable fellow, that he has a good soul. This is the Bottom that Kevin Kline plays (and quite successfully). It's the Bottom that Harold Bloom believes in (even if he takes it too far). This way works very well. However, I wish I could have seen the production that the American Shakespeare Center did where John Harrell played Bottom. I didn't, but I listened to him speak about the role in their podcast. He said that he knows everyone gets behind the "good soul" Bottom, but he tried doing something different. So he played the character as that obnoxious guy we all know. Harrell points out the number of ass references - Bottom's name, he gets turned into an ass, there are lots of ass jokes, etc. So Harrell tried to come up with what our modern idea of an "ass" is and play Bottom that way, as a, as Harrell puts it, "douche-bag arts student."
I mentioned Kevin Kline's turn as Bottom, so I wanted to also say that I actually have seen all the major film versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Five or six of them, I think? Anyway, my favorite is the 1968 version stuffed full of amazing actors. Because it is so old, the film is not the clearest, but who cares? Seriously, Diana Rigg, David Warner, Ian Richardson, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Judi Dench... Seek it out if you haven't seen it yet.
-----------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Helena (I think I've just always fancied two men fighting over me in a forest)
Favorite Male Character:
Puck
"That's what she said!":
Thisbe My cherry lips have often kissed they stones,
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
How insulting:
Lysander Get you gone, you dwarf
You minimus of hindering knot-grass made
You bead, you acorn!
Oh, misogyny:
Theseus What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid
To you your father should be as a god
Boys are silly:
Hermia I swear to thee...
By all the vows that ever men have broke--
In number more than ever women spoke--
Favorite Moment/Line:
Oberon Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Re-reading A Midsummer Night's Dream is like spending the night with a former lover -- full of so many remembered enjoyments. This play certainly doesn't need my word to convince anyone of its quality. There has been enough written about that. So instead, I will talk about the two aspects I don't like about this play. Really they are more issues I have in performance that straight from the text.
1. Theseus and Hippolyta. Dear directors -- just because their parts are small doesn't mean they have to be BORING. For some reason, productions seem to ignore these parts, especially when they are doubled with Oberon and Titania. Yes, I will grant you that Shakespeare has underwritten these parts, but frankly there are lots of lords in the history plays and that doesn't mean any of them are allowed to be boring either. Especially since Shakespeare is naming these characters after mythological characters. Theseus and Hippolyta had the blood of gods running in them, they were warriors, they were conquerors; so you can make them many things, but boring is not one of them.
I also want to comment on the two general ways of playing Hippolyta. The first, that she is happy to be with Theseus (at least until he screws up the whole Hermia thing). The second, that she is a prisoner of way and hates Theseus. I've even heard of productions that bring her out in a cage. Now I'm all for going dark, and sometimes you can convince me that going against the text is a good thing, but I do want to point out that textually, I really think the first way is the way to go. What evidence do I have? Speak her lines out loud. Shakespeare was a master of sounds.
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night
Four nights will quickly dream away the time
Try saying that while angry, or through clenched teeth. You just can't. There are two many long sounds: the "ay" in day, "ee" in steep, the m's, the n's, "dream away the time" That phrase is just so caressing, making an actor play Hippolyta as a captive, or angry is just making her have to work twice as hard. I am not saying you can't make that choice. I just think you need to be away of what you are doing.
2. The mechanicals. Blech. I know, for most people the mechanicals are their favorite parts of the play. But it's well-known among my friends that I have a personal, strong dislike of clown characters. And this is never so much evident to me as in Midsummer Night's Dream, and with Bottom. Now again, clown characters are something I object to more on the stage than on the page. Here's why. I think it is quite, quite difficult to find actors who can play these roles well. Too often the actor knows that he or she is the "funny" character, and so plays with this awareness. He or she works to be "funny." And this always ruins it for me. And Bottoms (and Dogberrys) are the most frequent offenders. Stop trying to be funny! Just play your objective! The funny will take care of itself.
Since I spoke briefly about different possible characterizations of Hippolyta, I will do the same with Bottom. The prevailing opinion is that Bottom is ultimately a likeable fellow, that he has a good soul. This is the Bottom that Kevin Kline plays (and quite successfully). It's the Bottom that Harold Bloom believes in (even if he takes it too far). This way works very well. However, I wish I could have seen the production that the American Shakespeare Center did where John Harrell played Bottom. I didn't, but I listened to him speak about the role in their podcast. He said that he knows everyone gets behind the "good soul" Bottom, but he tried doing something different. So he played the character as that obnoxious guy we all know. Harrell points out the number of ass references - Bottom's name, he gets turned into an ass, there are lots of ass jokes, etc. So Harrell tried to come up with what our modern idea of an "ass" is and play Bottom that way, as a, as Harrell puts it, "douche-bag arts student."
I mentioned Kevin Kline's turn as Bottom, so I wanted to also say that I actually have seen all the major film versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Five or six of them, I think? Anyway, my favorite is the 1968 version stuffed full of amazing actors. Because it is so old, the film is not the clearest, but who cares? Seriously, Diana Rigg, David Warner, Ian Richardson, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Judi Dench... Seek it out if you haven't seen it yet.
-----------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Helena (I think I've just always fancied two men fighting over me in a forest)
Favorite Male Character:
Puck
"That's what she said!":
Thisbe My cherry lips have often kissed they stones,
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
How insulting:
Lysander Get you gone, you dwarf
You minimus of hindering knot-grass made
You bead, you acorn!
Oh, misogyny:
Theseus What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid
To you your father should be as a god
Boys are silly:
Hermia I swear to thee...
By all the vows that ever men have broke--
In number more than ever women spoke--
Favorite Moment/Line:
Oberon Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in
Thursday, March 11, 2010
11:38 Henry V
Day 11 of 38:38
Henry V
What can I say? This is a great play. Shakespeare is at the height of his poetic prowess. O for a muse of fire. The St. Crispin's speech. Once more into the breech. The delightful French scene. Henry's response to the tennis balls. The Ceremony speech. etc. etc. Shakespeare really knocks this one out of the park
There is something very interesting going on in this play with civil unrest. In the other history plays, the English are embroiled in civil wars. Here they are fighting the French for the entire play, and English-English fighting is relegated to comic subplot. But I think the point is, that it is still there. It may not be the main battle, but it still exists, and even if it exists in funny form, maybe we can't be so quick to assume there will be a happily-ever-after (which of course, there won't be, as we will discover next week).
I was having a discussion with friends recently about the proper staging of the comic subplot -- the Funny Accents Brigade, as we can call them. I think there are four ways to stage these characters:
1. Ignore the accents completely.
2. Have the actors use "authentic" stage accents.
3. Have the actors use exaggerated, silly accents for comic effect.
4. Have the actors use bad accents because you can't be bothered to learn it properly.
Option 1, I think we can dismiss as an outright mistake. One has to have accents because Shakespeare is showing the clash between different areas of England (Great Britain).
Option 4 no one would actually set out to do, of course. It just might happen.
So that leaves us 2 and 3. I was questioning whether Option 3 works only in Great Britain or not. Can you use silly accents in an American production, or would that just read like Option 4? It would be the same situation if we saw a play where a character had a ridiculous Texan accent. An American audience would understand the caricature, but would that false accent mean the same thing to an non-American audience?
-------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Katherine (not really much choice here)
Favorite Male Character:
Henry V
Laugh out loud:
Orleans I know him to be valiant.
Constable I was told that by one that knows him better than you.
Orleans What's he?
Constable Marry, he told me so himself, and he said he cared not who knew it.
"That's what she said!":
Orleans Your mistress bears well.
Dauphin Me well, which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.
How insulting:
Pistol Thou prick-eared cur of Iceland!
Oh, misogyny:
Henry V I will tell thee in French, which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook off.
Boys are silly:
Boy for indeed three such antics do not amount to a man.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Henry V We shall your tawny ground with your red blood / Discolor.
Henry V
What can I say? This is a great play. Shakespeare is at the height of his poetic prowess. O for a muse of fire. The St. Crispin's speech. Once more into the breech. The delightful French scene. Henry's response to the tennis balls. The Ceremony speech. etc. etc. Shakespeare really knocks this one out of the park
There is something very interesting going on in this play with civil unrest. In the other history plays, the English are embroiled in civil wars. Here they are fighting the French for the entire play, and English-English fighting is relegated to comic subplot. But I think the point is, that it is still there. It may not be the main battle, but it still exists, and even if it exists in funny form, maybe we can't be so quick to assume there will be a happily-ever-after (which of course, there won't be, as we will discover next week).
I was having a discussion with friends recently about the proper staging of the comic subplot -- the Funny Accents Brigade, as we can call them. I think there are four ways to stage these characters:
1. Ignore the accents completely.
2. Have the actors use "authentic" stage accents.
3. Have the actors use exaggerated, silly accents for comic effect.
4. Have the actors use bad accents because you can't be bothered to learn it properly.
Option 1, I think we can dismiss as an outright mistake. One has to have accents because Shakespeare is showing the clash between different areas of England (Great Britain).
Option 4 no one would actually set out to do, of course. It just might happen.
So that leaves us 2 and 3. I was questioning whether Option 3 works only in Great Britain or not. Can you use silly accents in an American production, or would that just read like Option 4? It would be the same situation if we saw a play where a character had a ridiculous Texan accent. An American audience would understand the caricature, but would that false accent mean the same thing to an non-American audience?
-------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Katherine (not really much choice here)
Favorite Male Character:
Henry V
Laugh out loud:
Orleans I know him to be valiant.
Constable I was told that by one that knows him better than you.
Orleans What's he?
Constable Marry, he told me so himself, and he said he cared not who knew it.
"That's what she said!":
Orleans Your mistress bears well.
Dauphin Me well, which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.
How insulting:
Pistol Thou prick-eared cur of Iceland!
Oh, misogyny:
Henry V I will tell thee in French, which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook off.
Boys are silly:
Boy for indeed three such antics do not amount to a man.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Henry V We shall your tawny ground with your red blood / Discolor.
10:38 Henry IV, part 2
Day 10 of 38:38
Henry IV, part 2
I'm not really a big fan of the Henry IV plays. Actually of the eight plays in the two tetralogies, these two are my least favorite. I don't find the poetry as striking, instead I feel like Shakespeare is spending all his time in Eastcheap writing as many insults as he can come up with. The characters don't grab me in the same way on the page as characters do in the other plays. And I'm just not charmed by Falstaff. I know that everyone is in love with him and Harold Bloom wishes he could have sex with Falstaff, but I just can't bring myself to care about that character. And part of my distaste for him comes from the fact that whenever one or both of the Henry IV plays are done, they are usually done expressly for the actor playing Falstaff. Then the staging and cutting are geared toward that actor, and the play becomes all about Falstaff, to the detriment of the other characters.
Of the two parts of Henry IV, part one is more often performed, though I'm not convinced that it is actually more dramatically viable than part two. I actually prefer part two. There are corresponding battles, comic scenes, and great speeches between the two parts, and both of them equally like part of a larger story (as opposed to one standing on its own better than the other). The only thing that part one has that part two doesn't is Hotspur, and he is a well-liked character. But part two -- part two has some moments that I love: The "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" speech. The scene between Hal and his father right before the king dies, containing the "o polished perturbation" speech. The pathos of the scene where Hal denies Falstaff -- "I know thee not, old man" -- and Falstaff attempts to keep up a brave front -- "I shall be sent for in private to him." And I also love the assholery of Prince John in regards to the rebels. He promises them peace, they dismiss their armies, and then he arrests them as traitors.
Does anyone find one part more dramatically interesting than the other?
----------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Doll Tearsheet
Favorite Male Character:
King Henry IV
Laugh out loud:
Chief Justice Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
Falstaff I would it were otherwise: I would my means were greater and my waist slenderer.
How insulting:
Doll you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate!
Oh, misogyny:
Falstaff If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we catch of you.
Favorite Moment/Line:
I love the two speeches I mentioned above, but what particularly struck me on this reading were the following lines of King Henry:
O God! that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,—
Weary of solid firmness,—melt itself
Into the sea! and, other times, to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O! if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
Henry IV, part 2
I'm not really a big fan of the Henry IV plays. Actually of the eight plays in the two tetralogies, these two are my least favorite. I don't find the poetry as striking, instead I feel like Shakespeare is spending all his time in Eastcheap writing as many insults as he can come up with. The characters don't grab me in the same way on the page as characters do in the other plays. And I'm just not charmed by Falstaff. I know that everyone is in love with him and Harold Bloom wishes he could have sex with Falstaff, but I just can't bring myself to care about that character. And part of my distaste for him comes from the fact that whenever one or both of the Henry IV plays are done, they are usually done expressly for the actor playing Falstaff. Then the staging and cutting are geared toward that actor, and the play becomes all about Falstaff, to the detriment of the other characters.
Of the two parts of Henry IV, part one is more often performed, though I'm not convinced that it is actually more dramatically viable than part two. I actually prefer part two. There are corresponding battles, comic scenes, and great speeches between the two parts, and both of them equally like part of a larger story (as opposed to one standing on its own better than the other). The only thing that part one has that part two doesn't is Hotspur, and he is a well-liked character. But part two -- part two has some moments that I love: The "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" speech. The scene between Hal and his father right before the king dies, containing the "o polished perturbation" speech. The pathos of the scene where Hal denies Falstaff -- "I know thee not, old man" -- and Falstaff attempts to keep up a brave front -- "I shall be sent for in private to him." And I also love the assholery of Prince John in regards to the rebels. He promises them peace, they dismiss their armies, and then he arrests them as traitors.
Does anyone find one part more dramatically interesting than the other?
----------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Doll Tearsheet
Favorite Male Character:
King Henry IV
Laugh out loud:
Chief Justice Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
Falstaff I would it were otherwise: I would my means were greater and my waist slenderer.
How insulting:
Doll you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate!
Oh, misogyny:
Falstaff If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we catch of you.
Favorite Moment/Line:
I love the two speeches I mentioned above, but what particularly struck me on this reading were the following lines of King Henry:
O God! that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,—
Weary of solid firmness,—melt itself
Into the sea! and, other times, to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O! if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
SWAN Day: Life 101
SWAN Day/Support Women Artists Now Day is an international holiday that celebrates women artists. It is an annual event taking place on the last Saturday of March (Women’s History Month) and the surrounding weeks.
In Washington DC, SWAN days events are organized through the tireless dedication of Catherine Aselford and the Georgetown Theatre Company. On Saturday, March 27, head to Georgetown for a full day of panel discussions, staged readings, performances and films.
At Grace Church, between 1 and 6pm there will be a staged reading marathon of works written and directed by female artists. I'm excited to announce that I will be directing one of the staged readings, Life 101, written by Robin Rice Lichtig and starring husband-and-wife performing powerhouse team Amy Rauch and Christopher Davis.
Amy is long time performer in the DC area, especially in classical roles, starring in productions of Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Julius Caesar. She can next be seen in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie with the Heritage O'Neill Theatre Company.
The face of Chris is familiar to renaissance festival fans in the area, as he has been performing as the Renaissance Man at the Maryland Renaissance Festival for many years. He also tours his shows to local schools, with the goal of making history and literature more accessible and enjoyable, while giving audience members a chance to take a meaningful role in the performance.
In Washington DC, SWAN days events are organized through the tireless dedication of Catherine Aselford and the Georgetown Theatre Company. On Saturday, March 27, head to Georgetown for a full day of panel discussions, staged readings, performances and films.
At Grace Church, between 1 and 6pm there will be a staged reading marathon of works written and directed by female artists. I'm excited to announce that I will be directing one of the staged readings, Life 101, written by Robin Rice Lichtig and starring husband-and-wife performing powerhouse team Amy Rauch and Christopher Davis.
Amy is long time performer in the DC area, especially in classical roles, starring in productions of Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Julius Caesar. She can next be seen in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie with the Heritage O'Neill Theatre Company.
The face of Chris is familiar to renaissance festival fans in the area, as he has been performing as the Renaissance Man at the Maryland Renaissance Festival for many years. He also tours his shows to local schools, with the goal of making history and literature more accessible and enjoyable, while giving audience members a chance to take a meaningful role in the performance.
9:38 Henry IV, part 1
Day 9 of 38:38
Henry IV, part 1
Favorite Female Character:
Lady Percy (she has a lot in common with Portia in Julius Caesar)
Favorite Male Character:
Sorry Harold Bloom, but it's not Falstaff. It's all about the hot-blooded Hotspur.
Laugh out loud:
Glendower I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur Why so can I, or so can any man,
But will they come when you do call for them?
"That's what she said!":
Hotspur Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down.
How insulting:
Hal thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch
Oh, misogyny:
Northumberland Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou, to break into this woman's mood,
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!
Favorite Moment/Line:
Falstaff If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked!
Henry IV, part 1
Favorite Female Character:
Lady Percy (she has a lot in common with Portia in Julius Caesar)
Favorite Male Character:
Sorry Harold Bloom, but it's not Falstaff. It's all about the hot-blooded Hotspur.
Laugh out loud:
Glendower I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur Why so can I, or so can any man,
But will they come when you do call for them?
"That's what she said!":
Hotspur Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down.
How insulting:
Hal thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch
Oh, misogyny:
Northumberland Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou, to break into this woman's mood,
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!
Favorite Moment/Line:
Falstaff If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked!
8:38 Richard II
Day 8 of 38:38
Richard II
My history with this play is rather brief. I skimmed it once when I thought I might have an audition for it, about two years ago. The audition didn't happen, so I didn't read the play in more depth. But just from that skimming I was struck into a full stop by the beauty of the line in the first scene "Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood." I read that line, and it literally stopped me in my tracks. I stopped reading just so I could say it out loud. But I don't remember any other impressions from that reading.
Then in 2008 I saw my first production. In London, as part of the RSC Histories Cycle, starring Jonathan Slinger. Oh my. I fell in love with the play. The beauty of the poetry in this play is unparalleled. And that was the production to truly realize how spectacular it was. Jonathan Slinger -- well words are not enough to describe his magnificence. I specifically remember being moved to tears three times during that performance just by the sheer beauty of the verse speaking. I came home and immediately memorized the Let us sit upon the ground speech. Because it's amazing.
Since then I've seen one more production, but unfortunately nothing will ever be able to live up to that first one. Let's face it, Shakespeare has set out an nearly impossible task for the actor playing Richard II -- be weak, whiny, ineffectual, vain, conceited, silly, and still make the audience care about you. Make them care so much that they are heart-broken watching you fall.
Also what fascinates me about R2 and Shakespeare's other early plays are the way he and Marlowe were bouncing off of each other. It's such a shame Marlowe died so young. Imagine what would have happened if Shakespeare and Marlowe were competing for even longer! I highly recommend checking out Tamburlaine, Edward II, and the Jew of Malta, just to see how they compare and contract with Shakespeare's plays. There isn't any positively known order, but Edward II, Richard II, and the Henry VI plays all deal with "weak" kings. In a time where divine providence was still the word, I imagine it was somewhat controversial to stage such ineffectual kings. Not to mention the deposition scene in Richard II and all the trouble that occurred when Essex had the play stage to drum up opposition to Elizabeth. Besides plotting, there are several verbal echoes between Shakespeare and Marlowe (more on that when we hit Henry VI).
One of the common motifs in Richard II seems to be grief and shadows.
In II.2 Bushy says to the Queen
Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which show like grief itself, but are not so.
For sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects;
Like perspectives, which rightly gaz’d upon
Show nothing but confusion; ey’d awry
Distinguish form: so your sweet majesty,
Looking awry upon your lord’s departure,
Finds shapes of grief more than himself to wail;
Which, look’d on as it is, is nought but shadows
Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,
More than your lord’s departure weep not: more’s not seen;
Or if it be, ’tis with false sorrow’s eye,
Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
Then in IV.i
Richard Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,
How soon my sorrow hath destroy’d my face.
Bolingbroke The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy’d
The shadow of your face.
Richard Say that again.
The shadow of my sorrow! Ha! let’s see:
’Tis very true, my grief lies all within;
And these external manners of laments
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortur’d soul;
There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,
For thy great bounty, that not only giv’st
Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
How to lament the cause.
And finally, here's what I think is really great about this play is that it is entirely ambiguous.
1. In the first scene is Bolingbroke or Mowbray the traitor?
2. What the hell happened with the Duke of Gloucester?
3. Does Richard abdicate or is he deposed?
4. Are Bushy and Green really weeds and ruining England? Other characters claim they are, but we never really see anything in action.
5. Is Richard commendable or not?
6. Is Bolingbroke commendable or not? Whom are we supposed to be rooting for?
7. Once Bolingbroke takes over, the question from the first scene about what happened with Gloucester comes back. Now Bagot accuses Aumerle, and like the first scene, we still don't know who is telling the truth.
8. How much of a hand did Bolingbroke have in Richard's death?
------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Duchess of York
Favorite Male Character:
Richard II
Laugh out loud:
Aumerle Some honest Christian trust me with a gage! (Though admittedly this laugh is much more potent in performance than on the page.)
Oh, misogyny:
Scroop Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
Against thy seat.
Down with the Patriarchy:
Famous Last Words:
Carlisle Fear not, my lord. The power that made you king
Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Bolingbroke Further I say, and further will maintain
Upon his bad life to make all this good,
That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries
And consequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood
Richard II For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos’d,
Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antick sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humour’d thus
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a king?
Richard II
My history with this play is rather brief. I skimmed it once when I thought I might have an audition for it, about two years ago. The audition didn't happen, so I didn't read the play in more depth. But just from that skimming I was struck into a full stop by the beauty of the line in the first scene "Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood." I read that line, and it literally stopped me in my tracks. I stopped reading just so I could say it out loud. But I don't remember any other impressions from that reading.
Then in 2008 I saw my first production. In London, as part of the RSC Histories Cycle, starring Jonathan Slinger. Oh my. I fell in love with the play. The beauty of the poetry in this play is unparalleled. And that was the production to truly realize how spectacular it was. Jonathan Slinger -- well words are not enough to describe his magnificence. I specifically remember being moved to tears three times during that performance just by the sheer beauty of the verse speaking. I came home and immediately memorized the Let us sit upon the ground speech. Because it's amazing.
Since then I've seen one more production, but unfortunately nothing will ever be able to live up to that first one. Let's face it, Shakespeare has set out an nearly impossible task for the actor playing Richard II -- be weak, whiny, ineffectual, vain, conceited, silly, and still make the audience care about you. Make them care so much that they are heart-broken watching you fall.
Also what fascinates me about R2 and Shakespeare's other early plays are the way he and Marlowe were bouncing off of each other. It's such a shame Marlowe died so young. Imagine what would have happened if Shakespeare and Marlowe were competing for even longer! I highly recommend checking out Tamburlaine, Edward II, and the Jew of Malta, just to see how they compare and contract with Shakespeare's plays. There isn't any positively known order, but Edward II, Richard II, and the Henry VI plays all deal with "weak" kings. In a time where divine providence was still the word, I imagine it was somewhat controversial to stage such ineffectual kings. Not to mention the deposition scene in Richard II and all the trouble that occurred when Essex had the play stage to drum up opposition to Elizabeth. Besides plotting, there are several verbal echoes between Shakespeare and Marlowe (more on that when we hit Henry VI).
One of the common motifs in Richard II seems to be grief and shadows.
In II.2 Bushy says to the Queen
Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which show like grief itself, but are not so.
For sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects;
Like perspectives, which rightly gaz’d upon
Show nothing but confusion; ey’d awry
Distinguish form: so your sweet majesty,
Looking awry upon your lord’s departure,
Finds shapes of grief more than himself to wail;
Which, look’d on as it is, is nought but shadows
Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,
More than your lord’s departure weep not: more’s not seen;
Or if it be, ’tis with false sorrow’s eye,
Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
Then in IV.i
Richard Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,
How soon my sorrow hath destroy’d my face.
Bolingbroke The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy’d
The shadow of your face.
Richard Say that again.
The shadow of my sorrow! Ha! let’s see:
’Tis very true, my grief lies all within;
And these external manners of laments
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortur’d soul;
There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,
For thy great bounty, that not only giv’st
Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
How to lament the cause.
And finally, here's what I think is really great about this play is that it is entirely ambiguous.
1. In the first scene is Bolingbroke or Mowbray the traitor?
2. What the hell happened with the Duke of Gloucester?
3. Does Richard abdicate or is he deposed?
4. Are Bushy and Green really weeds and ruining England? Other characters claim they are, but we never really see anything in action.
5. Is Richard commendable or not?
6. Is Bolingbroke commendable or not? Whom are we supposed to be rooting for?
7. Once Bolingbroke takes over, the question from the first scene about what happened with Gloucester comes back. Now Bagot accuses Aumerle, and like the first scene, we still don't know who is telling the truth.
8. How much of a hand did Bolingbroke have in Richard's death?
------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Duchess of York
Favorite Male Character:
Richard II
Laugh out loud:
Aumerle Some honest Christian trust me with a gage! (Though admittedly this laugh is much more potent in performance than on the page.)
Oh, misogyny:
Scroop Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
Against thy seat.
Down with the Patriarchy:
Famous Last Words:
Carlisle Fear not, my lord. The power that made you king
Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Bolingbroke Further I say, and further will maintain
Upon his bad life to make all this good,
That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries
And consequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood
Richard II For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos’d,
Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antick sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humour’d thus
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a king?
Monday, March 8, 2010
7:38 Romeo and Juliet
Day 7 of 38:38
Romeo and Juliet
I actually think Romeo and Juliet gets the worst rap of all Shakespeare plays. Hear me out. It is the most commonly done, which means that most people in their lives will have seen a bad production of Romeo and Juliet. I had only ever seen bad productions until I was an adult, with the result that I didn't understand how great this play was. Then one day a couple years ago I was looking for monologues from Shakespeare. In an anthology I ran across Juliet's Gallop apace monologue. I read it and thought "Wow. That is an incredible piece." So then, despite the fact that I had always protested not to like Romeo and Juliet and specifically not to like Juliet, I decided to re-read the play. And I made a conscious decision to ignore everything I thought I knew about it and read it fresh, without any expectations. And boy did the play surprise me. It's a damn good play. And Juliet is an amazing character. She is strong, and courageous, and she goes after what she wants without worrying about the consequences (perhaps unfortunately). She is a person who LIVES. This is demonstrated so well in her verse, as she has so many trochaic inversions. (I.e. instead of a line of verse starting da-DUM it starts out DUM-da. Trochaic inversions launch you speedily into a line of verse.)
An interesting fact about Romeo and Juliet is that the Prologue does not appear in the first folio. It is in the Quarto edition. This brings about the question whether the Prologue was written originally as part of the play, or whether it was a later addition once the play was well known. The Prologue tells us exactly what will happen, and I've heard it argued that maybe without it, the play was more exciting, because the audience didn't know what was going to happen. I'm not sure that argument holds up, given the fact that the play probably would have been advertised as a tragedy. One title page calls it "An excellent conceited tragedy of Romeo and Juliet." Another, "The most excellent and lamentable tragedy of Romeo and Juliet." And seeing how the Chorus pops up again before Act two in both the Folio and the Quarto, I think it seems likely that the exclusion of the Prologue was a mistake in the Folio.
And then there is this small speech of Romeo's in Act 1, Scene 4 that also lets the audience know what they are in for
... my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels, and expire the term
Of a despised life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
-------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Juliet
Favorite Male Character:
Mercutio
"That's what she said!":
Samson: when I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids -- I will cut off their heads.
Gregory: The heads of the maids?
Samson: Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maiden heads.
Oh, misogyny:
Friar Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art;
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Down with the Patriarchy:
Nurse There's no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Favorite Moment/Line:
3.2 is an amazing scene, and I had thought that Gallop apace would be my favorite speech, but I think the end of the scene is even better
Juliet Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name
When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have killed my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring.
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,
And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband.
All this is comfort. Wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
That murdered me. I would forget it fain,
But oh, it presses to my memory
Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners' minds:
"Tybalt is dead and Romeo banished."
That "banishèd," that one word "banishèd,"
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death
Was woe enough if it had ended there;
Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship
And needly will be ranked with other griefs,
Why followed not when she said "Tybalt's dead,"
"Thy father" or "thy mother," nay, or both,
Which modern lamentation might have moved?
But with a rearward following Tybalt's death,
"Romeo is banished." To speak that word
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. "Romeo is banished."
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death. No words can that woe sound.
Romeo and Juliet
I actually think Romeo and Juliet gets the worst rap of all Shakespeare plays. Hear me out. It is the most commonly done, which means that most people in their lives will have seen a bad production of Romeo and Juliet. I had only ever seen bad productions until I was an adult, with the result that I didn't understand how great this play was. Then one day a couple years ago I was looking for monologues from Shakespeare. In an anthology I ran across Juliet's Gallop apace monologue. I read it and thought "Wow. That is an incredible piece." So then, despite the fact that I had always protested not to like Romeo and Juliet and specifically not to like Juliet, I decided to re-read the play. And I made a conscious decision to ignore everything I thought I knew about it and read it fresh, without any expectations. And boy did the play surprise me. It's a damn good play. And Juliet is an amazing character. She is strong, and courageous, and she goes after what she wants without worrying about the consequences (perhaps unfortunately). She is a person who LIVES. This is demonstrated so well in her verse, as she has so many trochaic inversions. (I.e. instead of a line of verse starting da-DUM it starts out DUM-da. Trochaic inversions launch you speedily into a line of verse.)
An interesting fact about Romeo and Juliet is that the Prologue does not appear in the first folio. It is in the Quarto edition. This brings about the question whether the Prologue was written originally as part of the play, or whether it was a later addition once the play was well known. The Prologue tells us exactly what will happen, and I've heard it argued that maybe without it, the play was more exciting, because the audience didn't know what was going to happen. I'm not sure that argument holds up, given the fact that the play probably would have been advertised as a tragedy. One title page calls it "An excellent conceited tragedy of Romeo and Juliet." Another, "The most excellent and lamentable tragedy of Romeo and Juliet." And seeing how the Chorus pops up again before Act two in both the Folio and the Quarto, I think it seems likely that the exclusion of the Prologue was a mistake in the Folio.
And then there is this small speech of Romeo's in Act 1, Scene 4 that also lets the audience know what they are in for
... my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels, and expire the term
Of a despised life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
-------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Juliet
Favorite Male Character:
Mercutio
"That's what she said!":
Samson: when I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids -- I will cut off their heads.
Gregory: The heads of the maids?
Samson: Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maiden heads.
Oh, misogyny:
Friar Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art;
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Down with the Patriarchy:
Nurse There's no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Favorite Moment/Line:
3.2 is an amazing scene, and I had thought that Gallop apace would be my favorite speech, but I think the end of the scene is even better
Juliet Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name
When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have killed my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring.
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,
And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband.
All this is comfort. Wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
That murdered me. I would forget it fain,
But oh, it presses to my memory
Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners' minds:
"Tybalt is dead and Romeo banished."
That "banishèd," that one word "banishèd,"
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death
Was woe enough if it had ended there;
Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship
And needly will be ranked with other griefs,
Why followed not when she said "Tybalt's dead,"
"Thy father" or "thy mother," nay, or both,
Which modern lamentation might have moved?
But with a rearward following Tybalt's death,
"Romeo is banished." To speak that word
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. "Romeo is banished."
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death. No words can that woe sound.
6:38 Love's Labor's Lost
Day 6 of 38:38
Love's Labor's Lost
I find Love's Labor's Lost a fascinating look into the development of Shakespeare as a dramatist. There are several things that he tries out with this play that he returns to later.
Verbal wit.
The bickering lovers. Becomes Much Ado About Nothing
Women teaching men about love. (Also shows up a little in Two Gents). Becomes As You Like It.
And most especially, his playing with conventional genre expectations. Everyone should get married at the end of the play, and Shakespeare rather pointedly doesn't do this. He continues to bend the rules of genre throughout his career, particularly with The Winter's Tale and Cymbeline.
One of the positive aspects I am getting from this reading project is learning that I have misremembered things about certain plays. This happened to me with both Titus Andronicus and Love's Labor's Lost. With Titus, I was super pumped to read it. "I love this play," I thought. And while it's true that I am a great fan of the revenge tragedy and that there are some really great moments in Titus, if I am being honest, there are also a lot of weakness in that text. So the play itself isn't as great as I remembered it being.
Love's Labor's Lost I have a great fondness for, as the first production I did when I moved to DC was this play. Many of the cast members were smart asses, so we had a good time working together, and we fit the characters well. Love's Labor's Lost isn't one of the major plays. "Oh yeah," I thought, "it's because that subplot is impossible - all the jokes rely on knowledge of Latin, and we just don't get that anymore." Well, re-reading the play I discovered that I was wrong. The jokes aren't really about the Latin words at all. The jokes are about the characters, Nathaniel and Holofernes, and how they make a concerted effort to sound smarter than everyone else by peppering their speech with Latin and by using several words when one will do. That was still funny. I actually had to check the notes more often on the scenes with the royal couples, despite the fact that I'd done the play before. There are several witty jokes that just don't make sense anymore. But the subplot. The subplot totally still works.
Other things I like about this play:
1. The contract between the opening speech and what the play is really about. The King of Navarre gives this rousing speech to his men that makes it sound like this is a history play and they are about to go into battle. "Therefore brave conquerors -- for so you are, That war against your own affections And the huge army of the world's desires." Only about 35 lines in do we finally discover the silliness to which the King is rousing his men.
2. The scene when the men discover that they are all in love -- is this anything but delightful?
3. The wiseness of the women contrasted with the silliness of the men. I absolutely love the Princess's response to the King's courtliness.
King Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.
Princess Fair I give you back again, and welcome I have not yet. The roof of this court is too high to be yours, and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.
4. The banter.
Rosaline This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye--
Berowne (finishing her joke) I am a fool, and full of poverty.
5. The ending. It's not what we were expecting, but damn, all those final speeches are really quite, quite beautiful.
--------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Rosaline
Favorite Male Character:
Berowne
Obviously, since these two are Shakespeare's prototype for Beatrice and Benedick. But Beatrice and Benedick are a little more evenly matched. I love how, in Love's Labor's Lost, Rosalind always manages to leave Berowne completely flustered.
Laugh out loud:
Holofernes Via, goodman Dull! thou hast not spoken no word all this while.
Dull Nor understood none neither, sir.
"That's what she said!":
King This maid will not serve your turn, sir.
Costard This maid will serve my turn, sir.
Oh, misogyny:
Very little. This play loves women. Both in the female characters being witty and wise, and also in the praise the men heap on them. The women are clearly smarter than the men. And there are lovely moments of the men being in love, like Berowne's:
What peremptory eagle-sighted eye
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow
That is not blinded by her majesty?
What little there is is generally in the form of the men trying to convince themselves not to be in love, such as Berowne's:
A woman that is like a German clock,
Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
And never going aright, being a watch,
But being watched that it may still go right!
Down with the Patriarchy:
Princess We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.
Rosaline They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
Favorite Moment/Line:
King Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.
Princess A time, methinks, too short
To make a world-without-end bargain in.
No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur’d much,
Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this:
If for my love,—as there is no such cause,—
You will do aught, this shall you do for me:
Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
There stay, until the twelve celestial signs
Have brought about their annual reckoning.
If this austere insociable life
Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,
Come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,
I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut
My woeful self up in a mourning house,
Raining the tears of lamentation
For the remembrance of my father’s death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither entitled in the other’s heart.
King If this, or more than this, I would deny,
To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.
Love's Labor's Lost
I find Love's Labor's Lost a fascinating look into the development of Shakespeare as a dramatist. There are several things that he tries out with this play that he returns to later.
Verbal wit.
The bickering lovers. Becomes Much Ado About Nothing
Women teaching men about love. (Also shows up a little in Two Gents). Becomes As You Like It.
And most especially, his playing with conventional genre expectations. Everyone should get married at the end of the play, and Shakespeare rather pointedly doesn't do this. He continues to bend the rules of genre throughout his career, particularly with The Winter's Tale and Cymbeline.
One of the positive aspects I am getting from this reading project is learning that I have misremembered things about certain plays. This happened to me with both Titus Andronicus and Love's Labor's Lost. With Titus, I was super pumped to read it. "I love this play," I thought. And while it's true that I am a great fan of the revenge tragedy and that there are some really great moments in Titus, if I am being honest, there are also a lot of weakness in that text. So the play itself isn't as great as I remembered it being.
Love's Labor's Lost I have a great fondness for, as the first production I did when I moved to DC was this play. Many of the cast members were smart asses, so we had a good time working together, and we fit the characters well. Love's Labor's Lost isn't one of the major plays. "Oh yeah," I thought, "it's because that subplot is impossible - all the jokes rely on knowledge of Latin, and we just don't get that anymore." Well, re-reading the play I discovered that I was wrong. The jokes aren't really about the Latin words at all. The jokes are about the characters, Nathaniel and Holofernes, and how they make a concerted effort to sound smarter than everyone else by peppering their speech with Latin and by using several words when one will do. That was still funny. I actually had to check the notes more often on the scenes with the royal couples, despite the fact that I'd done the play before. There are several witty jokes that just don't make sense anymore. But the subplot. The subplot totally still works.
Other things I like about this play:
1. The contract between the opening speech and what the play is really about. The King of Navarre gives this rousing speech to his men that makes it sound like this is a history play and they are about to go into battle. "Therefore brave conquerors -- for so you are, That war against your own affections And the huge army of the world's desires." Only about 35 lines in do we finally discover the silliness to which the King is rousing his men.
2. The scene when the men discover that they are all in love -- is this anything but delightful?
3. The wiseness of the women contrasted with the silliness of the men. I absolutely love the Princess's response to the King's courtliness.
King Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.
Princess Fair I give you back again, and welcome I have not yet. The roof of this court is too high to be yours, and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.
4. The banter.
Rosaline This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye--
Berowne (finishing her joke) I am a fool, and full of poverty.
5. The ending. It's not what we were expecting, but damn, all those final speeches are really quite, quite beautiful.
--------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Rosaline
Favorite Male Character:
Berowne
Obviously, since these two are Shakespeare's prototype for Beatrice and Benedick. But Beatrice and Benedick are a little more evenly matched. I love how, in Love's Labor's Lost, Rosalind always manages to leave Berowne completely flustered.
Laugh out loud:
Holofernes Via, goodman Dull! thou hast not spoken no word all this while.
Dull Nor understood none neither, sir.
"That's what she said!":
King This maid will not serve your turn, sir.
Costard This maid will serve my turn, sir.
Oh, misogyny:
Very little. This play loves women. Both in the female characters being witty and wise, and also in the praise the men heap on them. The women are clearly smarter than the men. And there are lovely moments of the men being in love, like Berowne's:
What peremptory eagle-sighted eye
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow
That is not blinded by her majesty?
What little there is is generally in the form of the men trying to convince themselves not to be in love, such as Berowne's:
A woman that is like a German clock,
Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
And never going aright, being a watch,
But being watched that it may still go right!
Down with the Patriarchy:
Princess We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.
Rosaline They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
Favorite Moment/Line:
King Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.
Princess A time, methinks, too short
To make a world-without-end bargain in.
No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur’d much,
Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this:
If for my love,—as there is no such cause,—
You will do aught, this shall you do for me:
Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
There stay, until the twelve celestial signs
Have brought about their annual reckoning.
If this austere insociable life
Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,
Come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,
I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut
My woeful self up in a mourning house,
Raining the tears of lamentation
For the remembrance of my father’s death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither entitled in the other’s heart.
King If this, or more than this, I would deny,
To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.
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