Day 5 of 38:38
The Comedy of Errors
Okay, a confession. I'm not going to read Comedy of Errors very carefully. I skimmed it rather quickly. But only because two weeks ago I closed a production that I was assistant directing and playing Emilia. And the script was uncut, so I think I remember this play well enough.
When we starting the rehearsal process, I remember our director talking about the fact that this play is often pooh-poohed by critics and being light and not having much literary value. Then we all talked about whether we liked the play or not. I was honest and said it wasn't one of my favorites, but not necessarily for the play itself, but because I prefer comedy less as an entire genre. And Comedy of Errors is straight comedy. Which means it can be quite entertaining (and our production certainly was), but I have to be in the mood as an audience member for that kind of entertainment. (Though I will fully admit that I am not in the norm and most audience members prefer comedy and have to be in the mood for a dramatic work.)
Why you can tell this is an early play -- well, to be frank, the verse is quite a mess, and actually very difficult to scan. There are few scenes where you kind of have to throw your hands in the air, and just say the lines as you would speak them and find the scans that way, because there are so many extra syllables that if you tried to figure out how to elide them into ten you would drive yourself crazy. As an actor in the play, I can tell you that the text doesn't roll off of the tongue the way Shakespeare usually does. I had to concentrate more with the lines in this text.
What do I like about this play? It's such a nice ensemble piece. There is no standout lead role, and as an actor, I love getting to work in an ensemble environment. Some many roles have their moments to shine. Let's take a look:
Antipholus of Syracuse has the drop of water speech
Antipholus of Ephesus gets to get really, really angry in the scene with Pinch
Dromio of Syracuse has the scene about Nell and all the countries in her body
Dromio of Ephesus has the beating speech
Adriana has both the Are my discourses dull speech, and the Ay, ay Antipholus speech.
Luciana has the And may it be that you have quite forgot a husbands office speech
Finally, let me just take a moment to talk about casting. Many directors are under the illusion that the Dromios and the Antipholuses have to look alike. Since, you know, they are twins. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the comedy in the play works. The characters in the play are confused about who is who. But the audience never should be. The audience should always be able to tell which Antipholus is from Syracuse and which is from Ephesus and the same with the Dromios. If the audience can't tell them apart, then they can't follow the plotting of the story and the mistakes and therefore they miss most of what is funny about the play.
---------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Adriana. The Ay, ay Antipholus speech is pretty great.
Favorite Male Character:
Dromio of Syracuse
Laugh out loud:
Antipholus Syracuse Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
Dromio Syracuse O, sir, I did not look so low.
Oh, misogyny:
Luciana Man, more divine, the masters of all these,
Lords of the wide world and wild watery seas,
Indued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more preeminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords.
Down with the Patriarchy:
Adriana Why should their liberty than ours be more?
Favorite Moment/Line:
This isn't going to make any sense, but when Egeon is telling his history and talking about when Emilia was pregnant and says:
From whom my absence was not six months old
Before herself (almost at fainting under
The pleasing punishment that women bear)
Had made provision for her following me
There is just something so utterly ridiculous about labor and pregnancy being described as "the pleasing punishment."
I also really like the repeated sounds in Adriana's
Wouldst thou not spit at me, and spurn at me
And hurl the name of husband in my face
Thursday, March 4, 2010
4:38 Titus Andronicus
Day 4 of 38:38
Titus Andronicus
Oh, Titus Andronicus. I find this to be clearly one of Shakespeare's earlier works, because even though there are a lot of things I love about it, the verse just isn't that elegant. And the plotting in the second half of the play is rather weak ("You look just like Tamora." "I'm not, I'm Revenge." "Oh, great." "Ha, we fooled him!") Still, I'm a fan of the play. One of my great sadnesses in life is that I will never get to play Aaron. Maybe there will be some crazy director who would let me play Edmund or Iago... but I'm pretty sure Aaron is never going to happen. Ah well, I will just have to wait until I am old enough for Tamora and then play the hell out of that role.
As for what aspect of the play I will blog about... well let's talk about sources and influences. Whenever talking about why Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus, people tend to point to Marlowe. Well I'm here to point you to an under-appreciated early modern playwright who truly began the genre of Revenge Tragedy. That would be none other than Marlowe's one-time roommate, Thomas Kyd. The play, under-appreciated as well, The Spanish Tragedy. This is a really good play, that no one ever puts on. Which is why I directed about one year ago. The Spanish Tragedy works as a piece of theatre, but it is also fascinating as a piece of theatre history. If you ever read or see this play, you will find echoes in the work of Shakespeare.
The Spanish Tragedy was immensely popular in the Elizabethan era. One of the most popular plays of the day. Titus Andronicus was Shakespeare throwing his hat into the ring of Revenge Tragedy. And Hamlet was Shakespeare's elevation of this genre. Titus is crude in comparison, Hamlet much more intellectual. Both draw from The Spanish Tragedy.
Titus Andronicus is not a very valued play, perhaps because scholarship snobs don't like all the gore and violence. Its authorship has been much debated; both Marlowe and Kyd have been suggested as having a hand on it. But frankly, I'm a scholarship snob, and I like this play a lot. But then, I like gore and violence, and am a big fan of the entire genre of Revenge Tragedy.
Titus Andronicus has the chopping off of a hand, the rape and disfigurement of Lavinia, the eating of children as pies. The Spanish Tragedy has a letter written in blood, a hanging, and the main character ends the play in a bloodbath and then BITES OFF HIS OWN TONGUE.
So Shakespeare seems to take the gore and put it into Titus Andronicus. But then he takes the more refined aspects of The Spanish Tragedy and uses them for Hamlet. There is a ghost. There is a woman going crazy. There is the question of whether the hero is crazy or not (in Titus also). A play within is an important aspect of the hero's revenge. The question of suicide versus revenge is discussed. And then Shakespeare does one major flip. In The Spanish Tragedy the plot concerns a father seeking revenge for his murdered son. In Hamlet, it is of course a son seeking revenge for the murder of his father.
Okay, I'll admit it. This blog posting isn't so much about Titus Andronicus as it is me blatantly trying to spread the love for the first Elizabethan revenge tragedy, The Spanish Tragedy.
Okay, fine, I will speak more about Titus Andronicus. I will contract two fine production I have seen, specifically with what the directors chose to leave the audience with, i.e. how they ended the play.
First there is the movie available for all to see starring Anthony Hopkins and directed by Julie Taymor. Taymor clearly believes in the nobility of Lucius. She believes he will keep his promise to Aaron not to kill the child. She believe that Lucius will stop the circle of violence and restore peace. Her ending is a hopeful ending. Taymor also used Young Lucius as part of that hope, increasing his role, and using him to provide a sort of frame. Children, the hope of the future, I guess.
Gale Edwards directed a production at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC a couple years ago. Edwards, like Taymor, saw Young Lucius as key to what happens after the play. But Edwards directed an ending directly opposed to Taymor's. Edwards believed that the point of Titus Andronicus, and perhaps of all revenge tragedy, is that violence breeds more violence, and that children learn what they are taught. Her ending, horrific and sad, was incredibly memorable. Marcus and Lucius do their final speeches, Lucius promising peace to Rome. Young Lucius during this time is sitting downstage, holding Aaron's baby. As the lights begin to dim, they stay brighter around Young Lucius and the baby. Young Lucius lifts and knife, and just as he is moving downward to stab Aaron's baby, blackout. Wow.
As great as I generally think Julie Taymor is, I much preferred Edwards interpretation. I don't think we are supposed to feel hope at the end of revenge tragedies. We are supposed to be horrified by the acts human beings are capable of, all human beings. Edwards gave us that. And Edwards interpretation seemed much more in line with the text, given that Young Lucius at one point says, "if I were a man, / Their mother's bed-chamber should not be safe / For these bad bondmen to the yoke of Rome."
--------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Tamora, duh.
Favorite Male Character:
Aaron the Moor, duh.
Laugh out loud:
Titus Ha, ha, ha!
(bad joke?)
Oh, misogyny:
Demetrius She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd,
She is a woman, therefore may be won.
Down with the Patriarchy:
"That's what she said!":
Chiron Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron Villain, I have done thy mother.
Famous Last Words:
Titus Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned grudges, here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep:
In peace and honor rest you here, my sons!
Oh, Titus... if you only knew, you silly, silly man.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Aaron Even now I curse the day--and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse,--
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death,
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,
Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.
Come on, that's amazing. He dug up corpses from their graves and set them in front of doors. WTF? Love it!
Titus Andronicus
Oh, Titus Andronicus. I find this to be clearly one of Shakespeare's earlier works, because even though there are a lot of things I love about it, the verse just isn't that elegant. And the plotting in the second half of the play is rather weak ("You look just like Tamora." "I'm not, I'm Revenge." "Oh, great." "Ha, we fooled him!") Still, I'm a fan of the play. One of my great sadnesses in life is that I will never get to play Aaron. Maybe there will be some crazy director who would let me play Edmund or Iago... but I'm pretty sure Aaron is never going to happen. Ah well, I will just have to wait until I am old enough for Tamora and then play the hell out of that role.
As for what aspect of the play I will blog about... well let's talk about sources and influences. Whenever talking about why Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus, people tend to point to Marlowe. Well I'm here to point you to an under-appreciated early modern playwright who truly began the genre of Revenge Tragedy. That would be none other than Marlowe's one-time roommate, Thomas Kyd. The play, under-appreciated as well, The Spanish Tragedy. This is a really good play, that no one ever puts on. Which is why I directed about one year ago. The Spanish Tragedy works as a piece of theatre, but it is also fascinating as a piece of theatre history. If you ever read or see this play, you will find echoes in the work of Shakespeare.
The Spanish Tragedy was immensely popular in the Elizabethan era. One of the most popular plays of the day. Titus Andronicus was Shakespeare throwing his hat into the ring of Revenge Tragedy. And Hamlet was Shakespeare's elevation of this genre. Titus is crude in comparison, Hamlet much more intellectual. Both draw from The Spanish Tragedy.
Titus Andronicus is not a very valued play, perhaps because scholarship snobs don't like all the gore and violence. Its authorship has been much debated; both Marlowe and Kyd have been suggested as having a hand on it. But frankly, I'm a scholarship snob, and I like this play a lot. But then, I like gore and violence, and am a big fan of the entire genre of Revenge Tragedy.
Titus Andronicus has the chopping off of a hand, the rape and disfigurement of Lavinia, the eating of children as pies. The Spanish Tragedy has a letter written in blood, a hanging, and the main character ends the play in a bloodbath and then BITES OFF HIS OWN TONGUE.
So Shakespeare seems to take the gore and put it into Titus Andronicus. But then he takes the more refined aspects of The Spanish Tragedy and uses them for Hamlet. There is a ghost. There is a woman going crazy. There is the question of whether the hero is crazy or not (in Titus also). A play within is an important aspect of the hero's revenge. The question of suicide versus revenge is discussed. And then Shakespeare does one major flip. In The Spanish Tragedy the plot concerns a father seeking revenge for his murdered son. In Hamlet, it is of course a son seeking revenge for the murder of his father.
Okay, I'll admit it. This blog posting isn't so much about Titus Andronicus as it is me blatantly trying to spread the love for the first Elizabethan revenge tragedy, The Spanish Tragedy.
Okay, fine, I will speak more about Titus Andronicus. I will contract two fine production I have seen, specifically with what the directors chose to leave the audience with, i.e. how they ended the play.
First there is the movie available for all to see starring Anthony Hopkins and directed by Julie Taymor. Taymor clearly believes in the nobility of Lucius. She believes he will keep his promise to Aaron not to kill the child. She believe that Lucius will stop the circle of violence and restore peace. Her ending is a hopeful ending. Taymor also used Young Lucius as part of that hope, increasing his role, and using him to provide a sort of frame. Children, the hope of the future, I guess.
Gale Edwards directed a production at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC a couple years ago. Edwards, like Taymor, saw Young Lucius as key to what happens after the play. But Edwards directed an ending directly opposed to Taymor's. Edwards believed that the point of Titus Andronicus, and perhaps of all revenge tragedy, is that violence breeds more violence, and that children learn what they are taught. Her ending, horrific and sad, was incredibly memorable. Marcus and Lucius do their final speeches, Lucius promising peace to Rome. Young Lucius during this time is sitting downstage, holding Aaron's baby. As the lights begin to dim, they stay brighter around Young Lucius and the baby. Young Lucius lifts and knife, and just as he is moving downward to stab Aaron's baby, blackout. Wow.
As great as I generally think Julie Taymor is, I much preferred Edwards interpretation. I don't think we are supposed to feel hope at the end of revenge tragedies. We are supposed to be horrified by the acts human beings are capable of, all human beings. Edwards gave us that. And Edwards interpretation seemed much more in line with the text, given that Young Lucius at one point says, "if I were a man, / Their mother's bed-chamber should not be safe / For these bad bondmen to the yoke of Rome."
--------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Tamora, duh.
Favorite Male Character:
Aaron the Moor, duh.
Laugh out loud:
Titus Ha, ha, ha!
(bad joke?)
Oh, misogyny:
Demetrius She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd,
She is a woman, therefore may be won.
Down with the Patriarchy:
"That's what she said!":
Chiron Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron Villain, I have done thy mother.
Famous Last Words:
Titus Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned grudges, here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep:
In peace and honor rest you here, my sons!
Oh, Titus... if you only knew, you silly, silly man.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Aaron Even now I curse the day--and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse,--
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death,
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,
Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.
Come on, that's amazing. He dug up corpses from their graves and set them in front of doors. WTF? Love it!
3:38 King John
Day 3 of 38:38
King John
How great is it that on the third day of this challenge we get to read King John? This means, even if you peter out after a week, you'll still have read one of the more obscure plays. And to confess, I have not read King John all the way through. Sections, yes. A couple Constance scenes, and of course I know the Commodity speech. But never the whole play. And the Histories happen to be my favorite subset of Shakespeare plays. So here we go! (PS. My Yale collection of these plays is proving to be most convenient for this reading challenge. Though I'm missing about seven of them, so at some point I'll probably have to break out my Pelican complete works.)
And since we are delving into those History Plays, let me take this time to recommend Shakespeare's Genealogies by Vanessa James. Not only does this book contain thorough family trees for all of Shakespeare's works, it's also really, really cool. The only issue is that James doesn't always list the family in chronological order, for spacing reasons I imagine. So from her tree you can't confirm which son is the oldest and which is the youngest. Which matters since the whole dispute in King John is that Arthur is the son of John's elder brother, giving him a claim to the throne.
Since it is a history play, we can find many connections to the other history plays. France vs. England, who is the rightful heir, God fights on our side, etc. But something else that shows up in the history plays is young royals being manipulated by adults, not for the good of the child, but because the adults want as much power as they can get. There is something so touching about Arthur's frustration in II.i: "Good my mother, peace! / I would that I were low laid in my grace; / I am not worth this coil that's made for me." Actually, I think the beginning of that whole scene is pretty great. All the bickering, and antithesis and accusations and interruptions. I'd imagine that in performance there is a lot of comic potential, along the lines of the second gage scene in Richard II.
And then the scene ends with the Commodity speech. Okay, all of 2.i is pretty much brilliant. How come this play doesn't get done?
There are lots of verbal echoes, especially with Caesar. Most obviously, the "Cry Havoc" line, but Constance also says "O lawful let it be / That I have room with Rome to curse awhile." These two words sounding the same is a joke Shakespeare used again with Cassius: "Now is it Rome indeed and room enough."
But let's also talk about how this play is different than all the other history plays -- The French characters are not comical. In the Henry plays, it's very clear that we are meant to laugh at the ineffectual and often effeminate (or at least vain) French. But here in King John they are characters just like the English characters. In fact, I think we find ourselves sometimes on their side in this play, which doesn't happen in the other history plays.
---------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Constance, because boy does she get to freak out and rail a lot.
Favorite Male Character:
Philip, the Bastard, obviously.
Laugh out loud:
Philip the Bastard And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.
Austria Thou darst not say so, villain, for thy life.
Philip the Bastard And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.
It's nice to know that some jokes really have been around forever.
Oh, misogyny:
I was surprised with how little there was, considering how outspoken Eleanor and Constance are. But we still have the typical characterization of feminine weakness with Hubert's:
I must be brief, lest resolution drop
Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.
and the Bastard's:
Show me the very wound of this ill news:
I am no woman; I'll not swoon at it.
Down with the Patriarchy:
Kings are people too:
Prince Henry What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now is clay?
Edward II has hot pokers for the butt:
King John has hot pokers for the eyes.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Philip, the Bastard
And why rail I on this Commodity?
But for because he hath not woo'd me yet.
Not that I have the power to clutch my hand
When his fair angels would salute my palm;
But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.
I love that Shakespeare's "bad guys" are often the most honest characters.
But then, let me take a moment to talk about the bad guy in this play. Philip the Bastard kind of seems to be two characters. He's obviously an early prototype for Edmund, the better-known bastard, and he seems delightfully wicked in the first half of the play, encouraging war and battles, but then in the second half of the play he is all loyalty and nobility. He doesn't actually do anything bad or mischievous or wicked. All his actions are rather on the side of England and the existing King. And he is the character who gets the final lines of the play, which are entirely patriotic. While generally bad guys and bastards serve but their own self-interests, Philip seems to go an entirely different route. The play ends with him:
This England never did, not never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself to rest but true.
I mean, that's really quite beautiful.
King John
How great is it that on the third day of this challenge we get to read King John? This means, even if you peter out after a week, you'll still have read one of the more obscure plays. And to confess, I have not read King John all the way through. Sections, yes. A couple Constance scenes, and of course I know the Commodity speech. But never the whole play. And the Histories happen to be my favorite subset of Shakespeare plays. So here we go! (PS. My Yale collection of these plays is proving to be most convenient for this reading challenge. Though I'm missing about seven of them, so at some point I'll probably have to break out my Pelican complete works.)
And since we are delving into those History Plays, let me take this time to recommend Shakespeare's Genealogies by Vanessa James. Not only does this book contain thorough family trees for all of Shakespeare's works, it's also really, really cool. The only issue is that James doesn't always list the family in chronological order, for spacing reasons I imagine. So from her tree you can't confirm which son is the oldest and which is the youngest. Which matters since the whole dispute in King John is that Arthur is the son of John's elder brother, giving him a claim to the throne.
Since it is a history play, we can find many connections to the other history plays. France vs. England, who is the rightful heir, God fights on our side, etc. But something else that shows up in the history plays is young royals being manipulated by adults, not for the good of the child, but because the adults want as much power as they can get. There is something so touching about Arthur's frustration in II.i: "Good my mother, peace! / I would that I were low laid in my grace; / I am not worth this coil that's made for me." Actually, I think the beginning of that whole scene is pretty great. All the bickering, and antithesis and accusations and interruptions. I'd imagine that in performance there is a lot of comic potential, along the lines of the second gage scene in Richard II.
And then the scene ends with the Commodity speech. Okay, all of 2.i is pretty much brilliant. How come this play doesn't get done?
There are lots of verbal echoes, especially with Caesar. Most obviously, the "Cry Havoc" line, but Constance also says "O lawful let it be / That I have room with Rome to curse awhile." These two words sounding the same is a joke Shakespeare used again with Cassius: "Now is it Rome indeed and room enough."
But let's also talk about how this play is different than all the other history plays -- The French characters are not comical. In the Henry plays, it's very clear that we are meant to laugh at the ineffectual and often effeminate (or at least vain) French. But here in King John they are characters just like the English characters. In fact, I think we find ourselves sometimes on their side in this play, which doesn't happen in the other history plays.
---------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Constance, because boy does she get to freak out and rail a lot.
Favorite Male Character:
Philip, the Bastard, obviously.
Laugh out loud:
Philip the Bastard And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.
Austria Thou darst not say so, villain, for thy life.
Philip the Bastard And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.
It's nice to know that some jokes really have been around forever.
Oh, misogyny:
I was surprised with how little there was, considering how outspoken Eleanor and Constance are. But we still have the typical characterization of feminine weakness with Hubert's:
I must be brief, lest resolution drop
Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.
and the Bastard's:
Show me the very wound of this ill news:
I am no woman; I'll not swoon at it.
Down with the Patriarchy:
Kings are people too:
Prince Henry What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now is clay?
Edward II has hot pokers for the butt:
King John has hot pokers for the eyes.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Philip, the Bastard
And why rail I on this Commodity?
But for because he hath not woo'd me yet.
Not that I have the power to clutch my hand
When his fair angels would salute my palm;
But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.
I love that Shakespeare's "bad guys" are often the most honest characters.
But then, let me take a moment to talk about the bad guy in this play. Philip the Bastard kind of seems to be two characters. He's obviously an early prototype for Edmund, the better-known bastard, and he seems delightfully wicked in the first half of the play, encouraging war and battles, but then in the second half of the play he is all loyalty and nobility. He doesn't actually do anything bad or mischievous or wicked. All his actions are rather on the side of England and the existing King. And he is the character who gets the final lines of the play, which are entirely patriotic. While generally bad guys and bastards serve but their own self-interests, Philip seems to go an entirely different route. The play ends with him:
This England never did, not never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself to rest but true.
I mean, that's really quite beautiful.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
2:38 The Taming of the Shrew
Day 2 of 38:38
The Taming of the Shrew
Shrew is a play that I have very, very strong feelings about. I am willing to accept different interpretations of most Shakespeare plays, but not this one. But let me explain why. I have seen Shrew, on film and on stage, more than any other Shakespeare play (though Hamlet is starting to catch up). Not by choice, it's just happened. I have seen well directed, well acted, well thought out productions, but never until I saw Ed Hall's all-male production in 2007 did I understand or have any affection for this play.
Except for Ed Hall's production, the film and stage versions I have seen have been exactly the same in two respects. One, Katherine was always played by a vivacious actress in her 30's. Two, the ending, though it may have caused some pain to Katherine, was always played as a knowing joke between Katherine and Petruchio, as Katherine joining him to win money from the others, because the two of them were truly in love. Everyone always wants to make this play a romantic comedy. And so I could never get behind this play. Because each production would come to the last scene and I would wince. Repeatedly. And not because the production and director wanted me not to wince, but because they wanted me to be okay with how it ended.
Even the video of the production the American Conservatory Theatre did in the 70's, which has the single most brilliant staging of the courtship scene you will ever find, and which I whip out to show to friends when they visit, even this production left me cold at the end. I couldn't stay with it.
Then in 2007 I saw a production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, touring from England, directed by Ed Hall, and performed by the all-male company Propeller. And everything I thought I knew about this play changed. Leaving the all-male aspect aside (which perhaps helped Ed Hall do this production since no women were involved critics didn't accuse Hall of you know, imposing his feminist perspective on the play), this production did two things differently from every other production I've seen.
One, Simon Scarfield played Katherine as a teenager, probably about 18. Thus Bianca was a silly girl about 16. This makes so much sense textually, as people were wedded earlier in the Early Modern era, and why would Baptista need tutors for his daughters if they were in their 30's?
Two, the production wasn't afraid to go dark. It was still very, very funny. Very, very energetic. Very, very entertaining. But it was also sad, terrible, and therefore affecting and memorable in a way no other production of Shrew has been for me. This was the first and only time The Taming of the Shrew has rung true for me from beginning to end. I always find the "happy ending Shrew" to feel forced and unnatural. In this version, Katherine was in dirty rags. She hadn't eaten. She was scared. She felt alone. She was a child who wanted to be loved. A man came along that seemed to offer that love, and then denied it. When she did that final speech, she was broken. And it was true. And I was convinced that this is the way Shrew is supposed to be.
To be fair, Ed Hall was not able to achieve his perfect vision without some doctoring of the text. He brought in later induction scenes from the anonymous The Taming of A Shrew, since Sly and his part of the story completely disappear in the Shakespearean version that we have today.
The final scene of A Shrew reads:
SLY. GI'S SOME MORE WINE! WHAT'S ALL THE PLAYERS GONE?
AM NOT I A LORD?
TAPSTER. A LORD, WITH A MURRAIN! COME, ART THOU DRUNKEN STILL?
SLY. WHO'S THIS? TAPSTER? OH, LORD, SIRRAH, I HAVE HAD
THE BRAVEST DREAM TONIGHT, THAT EVER THOU
HEARDEST IN ALL THY LIFE!
TAPSTER. AY, MARRY, BUT YOU HAD BEST GET YOU HOME,
FOR YOUR WIFE WILL COURSE YOU FOR DREAMING HERE TONIGHT.
SLY. WILL SHE? I KNOW NOW HOW TO TAME A SHREW!
I DREAMT UPON IT ALL THIS NIGHT TILL NOW,
AND THOU HAST WAKED ME OUT OF THE BEST DREAM
THAT EVER I HAD IN MY LIFE.
BUT I'LL TO MY WIFE PRESENTLY
AND TAME HER TOO, AND IF SHE ANGER ME.
TAPSTER. ANY, TARRY, SLY, FOR I'LL GO HOME WITH THEE,
AND HEAR THE REST THAT THOU HAST DREAMT TONIGHT.
Ed Hall gave the Tapster lines to the actor playing Katherine. (But since it's a frame he wasn't Katherine, just the male actor that had been through playing Katherine in the charade. In Hall's staging, Sly entered the inner play, taking Petrucio's part.) The end of the Propeller staging went thus:
Sly: Are the players all gone?
I’ve had the bravest dream that ever you
Heard in all your life!
(Kate): Ay, marry, but you had best get you home,
For your wife will course you for dreaming here tonight.
Sly: Will she? I know now how to tame a shrew!
I dreamt upon it all this time till now,
But I'll home with my wife presently
And tame her too, and if she anger me. (The actor said all this proudly, clearly suggesting that he would go home and treat his wife the exact way Petruchio treated Katherine).
(Kate): (The Kate actor was disgusted) Come art thou drunken still? This was but a play. (and he left slamming a door, leaving a bewildered Petruchio/Sly onstage. The message was clear. This is not the way to treat women. This is not the way to treat anybody.)
So sure, some people will protest that with these changes, Ed Hall's Shrew was not Shakespeare's Shrew. But how is Hall's adding of lines any more objectionable to most director's removing of the Sly plot all together? And how can you argue with what works? This production was revolutionary for me.
I absolutely cannot accept the argument that "in Shakespeare's day, women were expected to act that way, and so the audience would have had no problem with that final speech of Katherine's." How can we claim that Shakespeare believed that men were higher or somehow better than women? We must remember that this is the same playwright who wrote Emilia in Othello -- "Let husbands know / Their wives have sense like them." It's certainly not as if there were no strong women onstage until Ibsen! Also, the argument that this ending would have been acceptable to an Early Modern audience (also used in reference to the ending of Measure for Measure), just doesn't make sense since we have hundreds of years of critics wrestling with it. Do we think there was some magic year where suddenly these endings became a problem? If we wrestle so much with this today, why do we think no one would have wrestled with it when it was written? Do we really think human nature has changed so much?
I maintain, and always will, that the problem plays were meant to be a problem. The one thing Shakespeare never did was provide easy answers.
Plus, the problem with most modern productions is that with men playing men and women playing women and then cutting the induction scenes, is that they are losing entirely what Shakespeare is doing with theatricality, reality vs. performance, etc. Sly is told he is a lord, so he believes he is. We are told Katherine is a shrew, and that Bianca is mild-mannered, so we believe them to be. But how much of that characterization is truly shown in their actions? Bianca is far from a "tradition female" saint; she gets married without her father's approval, and coquettish with her suitors. I think there is something very important in that. I don't think the Katherine-Petruchio plot was ever meant to be taken "straight" and that is almost all we ever see these days.
---------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Katherina, but played by me, copying Simon Scarfield, as a teenager, and very unhappy at the end.
Favorite Male Character:
Grumio, by virtue of being the least annoying "clown" in Shakespeare (I generally hate the clown characters).
Laugh out loud:
Page Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandoned from your bed.
Sly 'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
Madam, undress you and come now to bed.
Oh, misogyny:
Petruchio I will be master of what is mine own.
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything;
And here she stands, touch her whoever dare
Down with the Patriarchy:
Katherina I see a woman may be made a fool
If she had not a spirit to resist.
"That's what she said!":
Petruchio A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.
Hortensio That's my office.
Favorite Moment/Line:
To me, a key moment, and further indication that we aren't supposed to "accept" the taming of Katherine.
Lucentio The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me five hundred crowns since suppertime.
Bianca The more fool you for laying on my duty.
Also, the final speech of Katherine's of course makes me uncomfortable, but the part that truly makes me sad is:
But not I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
How is this a "happy" ending????
The Taming of the Shrew
Shrew is a play that I have very, very strong feelings about. I am willing to accept different interpretations of most Shakespeare plays, but not this one. But let me explain why. I have seen Shrew, on film and on stage, more than any other Shakespeare play (though Hamlet is starting to catch up). Not by choice, it's just happened. I have seen well directed, well acted, well thought out productions, but never until I saw Ed Hall's all-male production in 2007 did I understand or have any affection for this play.
Except for Ed Hall's production, the film and stage versions I have seen have been exactly the same in two respects. One, Katherine was always played by a vivacious actress in her 30's. Two, the ending, though it may have caused some pain to Katherine, was always played as a knowing joke between Katherine and Petruchio, as Katherine joining him to win money from the others, because the two of them were truly in love. Everyone always wants to make this play a romantic comedy. And so I could never get behind this play. Because each production would come to the last scene and I would wince. Repeatedly. And not because the production and director wanted me not to wince, but because they wanted me to be okay with how it ended.
Even the video of the production the American Conservatory Theatre did in the 70's, which has the single most brilliant staging of the courtship scene you will ever find, and which I whip out to show to friends when they visit, even this production left me cold at the end. I couldn't stay with it.
Then in 2007 I saw a production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, touring from England, directed by Ed Hall, and performed by the all-male company Propeller. And everything I thought I knew about this play changed. Leaving the all-male aspect aside (which perhaps helped Ed Hall do this production since no women were involved critics didn't accuse Hall of you know, imposing his feminist perspective on the play), this production did two things differently from every other production I've seen.
One, Simon Scarfield played Katherine as a teenager, probably about 18. Thus Bianca was a silly girl about 16. This makes so much sense textually, as people were wedded earlier in the Early Modern era, and why would Baptista need tutors for his daughters if they were in their 30's?
Two, the production wasn't afraid to go dark. It was still very, very funny. Very, very energetic. Very, very entertaining. But it was also sad, terrible, and therefore affecting and memorable in a way no other production of Shrew has been for me. This was the first and only time The Taming of the Shrew has rung true for me from beginning to end. I always find the "happy ending Shrew" to feel forced and unnatural. In this version, Katherine was in dirty rags. She hadn't eaten. She was scared. She felt alone. She was a child who wanted to be loved. A man came along that seemed to offer that love, and then denied it. When she did that final speech, she was broken. And it was true. And I was convinced that this is the way Shrew is supposed to be.
To be fair, Ed Hall was not able to achieve his perfect vision without some doctoring of the text. He brought in later induction scenes from the anonymous The Taming of A Shrew, since Sly and his part of the story completely disappear in the Shakespearean version that we have today.
The final scene of A Shrew reads:
SLY. GI'S SOME MORE WINE! WHAT'S ALL THE PLAYERS GONE?
AM NOT I A LORD?
TAPSTER. A LORD, WITH A MURRAIN! COME, ART THOU DRUNKEN STILL?
SLY. WHO'S THIS? TAPSTER? OH, LORD, SIRRAH, I HAVE HAD
THE BRAVEST DREAM TONIGHT, THAT EVER THOU
HEARDEST IN ALL THY LIFE!
TAPSTER. AY, MARRY, BUT YOU HAD BEST GET YOU HOME,
FOR YOUR WIFE WILL COURSE YOU FOR DREAMING HERE TONIGHT.
SLY. WILL SHE? I KNOW NOW HOW TO TAME A SHREW!
I DREAMT UPON IT ALL THIS NIGHT TILL NOW,
AND THOU HAST WAKED ME OUT OF THE BEST DREAM
THAT EVER I HAD IN MY LIFE.
BUT I'LL TO MY WIFE PRESENTLY
AND TAME HER TOO, AND IF SHE ANGER ME.
TAPSTER. ANY, TARRY, SLY, FOR I'LL GO HOME WITH THEE,
AND HEAR THE REST THAT THOU HAST DREAMT TONIGHT.
Ed Hall gave the Tapster lines to the actor playing Katherine. (But since it's a frame he wasn't Katherine, just the male actor that had been through playing Katherine in the charade. In Hall's staging, Sly entered the inner play, taking Petrucio's part.) The end of the Propeller staging went thus:
Sly: Are the players all gone?
I’ve had the bravest dream that ever you
Heard in all your life!
(Kate): Ay, marry, but you had best get you home,
For your wife will course you for dreaming here tonight.
Sly: Will she? I know now how to tame a shrew!
I dreamt upon it all this time till now,
But I'll home with my wife presently
And tame her too, and if she anger me. (The actor said all this proudly, clearly suggesting that he would go home and treat his wife the exact way Petruchio treated Katherine).
(Kate): (The Kate actor was disgusted) Come art thou drunken still? This was but a play. (and he left slamming a door, leaving a bewildered Petruchio/Sly onstage. The message was clear. This is not the way to treat women. This is not the way to treat anybody.)
So sure, some people will protest that with these changes, Ed Hall's Shrew was not Shakespeare's Shrew. But how is Hall's adding of lines any more objectionable to most director's removing of the Sly plot all together? And how can you argue with what works? This production was revolutionary for me.
I absolutely cannot accept the argument that "in Shakespeare's day, women were expected to act that way, and so the audience would have had no problem with that final speech of Katherine's." How can we claim that Shakespeare believed that men were higher or somehow better than women? We must remember that this is the same playwright who wrote Emilia in Othello -- "Let husbands know / Their wives have sense like them." It's certainly not as if there were no strong women onstage until Ibsen! Also, the argument that this ending would have been acceptable to an Early Modern audience (also used in reference to the ending of Measure for Measure), just doesn't make sense since we have hundreds of years of critics wrestling with it. Do we think there was some magic year where suddenly these endings became a problem? If we wrestle so much with this today, why do we think no one would have wrestled with it when it was written? Do we really think human nature has changed so much?
I maintain, and always will, that the problem plays were meant to be a problem. The one thing Shakespeare never did was provide easy answers.
Plus, the problem with most modern productions is that with men playing men and women playing women and then cutting the induction scenes, is that they are losing entirely what Shakespeare is doing with theatricality, reality vs. performance, etc. Sly is told he is a lord, so he believes he is. We are told Katherine is a shrew, and that Bianca is mild-mannered, so we believe them to be. But how much of that characterization is truly shown in their actions? Bianca is far from a "tradition female" saint; she gets married without her father's approval, and coquettish with her suitors. I think there is something very important in that. I don't think the Katherine-Petruchio plot was ever meant to be taken "straight" and that is almost all we ever see these days.
---------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Katherina, but played by me, copying Simon Scarfield, as a teenager, and very unhappy at the end.
Favorite Male Character:
Grumio, by virtue of being the least annoying "clown" in Shakespeare (I generally hate the clown characters).
Laugh out loud:
Page Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandoned from your bed.
Sly 'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
Madam, undress you and come now to bed.
Oh, misogyny:
Petruchio I will be master of what is mine own.
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything;
And here she stands, touch her whoever dare
Down with the Patriarchy:
Katherina I see a woman may be made a fool
If she had not a spirit to resist.
"That's what she said!":
Petruchio A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.
Hortensio That's my office.
Favorite Moment/Line:
To me, a key moment, and further indication that we aren't supposed to "accept" the taming of Katherine.
Lucentio The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me five hundred crowns since suppertime.
Bianca The more fool you for laying on my duty.
Also, the final speech of Katherine's of course makes me uncomfortable, but the part that truly makes me sad is:
But not I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
How is this a "happy" ending????
Monday, March 1, 2010
1:38 The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Day 1 of 38:38
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
I have read and seen this play before. In fact my friends were in an all-female production. And frankly, Two Gents, like Measure for Measure, is a play that screams for you to comment on the gender politics. So much so that I get annoyed when I see productions that try to ignore them. I'm a big believer in embracing the "problems" of the "problem plays" rather than trying to smooth them over.
What I find remarkable is the number of famous moments contained in this text, despite it's WTF ending. Let's recount in brief: Proteus and Valentine are best friends. Proteus loves Julia. Valentine loves Silvia. Proteus meets Silvia and falls in love with her. When she resists his wooing, he attempts to rape her. He is stopped by Valentine. Proteus apologizes. Valentine says, "Hey, no problem. We're best friends!" The women say nothing. And we have our first of many examples of male douche-bagery and female silence in Shakespeare.
And yet there are memorable, beautiful moments:
Julia's "O hateful hands, to tear such loving words" speech
Valentine's "What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?" speech
I love the spirit of Silvia's "I would have been a breakfast to the beast / Rather than have false Proteus rescue me" speech.
------------------------------------------------
The play is definitely problematic when you stage it. What do you do with that ending? How sincere is Proteus? How sorry is Proteus? How sincere is Valentine? Here are some thoughts I've copied from an email I wrote to a friend about ideas for staging this play:
---------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
I have to give it to Silvia, but mostly because she's the one female Shakespeare specifically endows with "auburn" hair.
Favorite Male Character:
As an actor, Proteus, cause he's an ass, and that's more fun.
Laugh out loud:
Proteus Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.
Speed And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.
Oh, misogyny:
Launce To be slow in words is a woman's only virtue.
Down with the Patriarchy:
Julia It is the lesser blot, modesty finds, / Women to change their shapes than men their minds.
Hamlet has Pirates:
Two Gents has Outlaws
Favorite Moment/Line:
The speech where Proteus decides to woo Silvia. He starts off tormented because he knows it's wrong, and that he would be betraying both Julia and Valentine. But 30 lines later he's absolutely resolved without any qualms. I just think it's fascinating. And clearly Shakespeare knew that it is a remarkable moment, because he places this soliloquy in a scene by itself. I wonder how often he does something like that? (EDIT: My bad -- most scene and act delineations are editors' doings, so it's pretty impossible to tell whether Shakespeare was making this a "scene" by itself).
To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
And even that power which gave me first my oath
Provokes me to this threefold perjury:
Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.
O sweet-suggesting Love! if thou hast sinn’d,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it.
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
But now I worship a celestial sun.
Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;
And he wants wit that wants resolved will
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better.
Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad,
Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr’d
With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
But there I leave to love where I should love.
Julia I lose and Valentine I lose:
If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
If I lose them, thus find I by their loss,
For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.
I to myself am dearer than a friend,
For love is still most precious in itself;
And Silvia—witness heaven that made her fair!—
Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
I will forget that Julia is alive,
Remembering that my love to her is dead;
And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy,
Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
I cannot now prove constant to myself
Without some treachery us’d to Valentine:
This night he meaneth with a corded ladder
To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber-window,
Myself in counsel, his competitor.
Now presently, I’ll give her father notice
Of their disguising and pretended flight;
Who, all enrag’d, will banish Valentine;
For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;
But, Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross,
By some sly trick blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding.
Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift!
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
I have read and seen this play before. In fact my friends were in an all-female production. And frankly, Two Gents, like Measure for Measure, is a play that screams for you to comment on the gender politics. So much so that I get annoyed when I see productions that try to ignore them. I'm a big believer in embracing the "problems" of the "problem plays" rather than trying to smooth them over.
What I find remarkable is the number of famous moments contained in this text, despite it's WTF ending. Let's recount in brief: Proteus and Valentine are best friends. Proteus loves Julia. Valentine loves Silvia. Proteus meets Silvia and falls in love with her. When she resists his wooing, he attempts to rape her. He is stopped by Valentine. Proteus apologizes. Valentine says, "Hey, no problem. We're best friends!" The women say nothing. And we have our first of many examples of male douche-bagery and female silence in Shakespeare.
And yet there are memorable, beautiful moments:
Julia's "O hateful hands, to tear such loving words" speech
Valentine's "What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?" speech
I love the spirit of Silvia's "I would have been a breakfast to the beast / Rather than have false Proteus rescue me" speech.
------------------------------------------------
The play is definitely problematic when you stage it. What do you do with that ending? How sincere is Proteus? How sorry is Proteus? How sincere is Valentine? Here are some thoughts I've copied from an email I wrote to a friend about ideas for staging this play:
Perhaps Julia could be played as very chaste? This could add to Proteus's frustrations. He's not getting any and then he encounters a vivacious woman that isn't shy at all and bandies about with men. That could be very exciting to him. Then at the end when he realizes that Julia has dressed up like a man and traveled to find him, it could be like he's realized he's misjudged her, and she's not weak or boring or whatever.
Proteus is not without a struggle, it is short, but it is still there. Not cutting this speech will help make him more sympathetic. Also, it would be interesting if he heard the conversation between the Duke and Valentine where the Duke is asking Valentine for advice on how to woo a woman and Valentine says:
A woman sometime scorns what best contents her.
Send her another; never give her o'er,
For scorn at first makes after-love the more.
If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,
But rather to beget more love in you;
If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone;
For why the fools are mad if left alone.
Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;
For, 'get you gone,' she doth not mean, 'away!'
Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;
Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
The script states that Proteus leaves before this, but it would be an interesting choice if he was hidden or overheard it somehow. And it would make sense for Proteus to stay to hear what happens because he has set Valentine up to be caught by the Duke, and he might want to eavesdrop to make sure it goes according to plan. Plus, Proteus re-enters immediately when Valentine leaves.
So if Proteus heard this speech and decided that Valentine was always more successful with women or something so for whatever reason decided that Valentine's advice was great advice – it might explain some of how he treats Silvia.
And Proteus seems to be a bit of a hothead that just gets carried away in the moment. People always say what they mean in Shakespeare (unless they've just told the audience to watch them dissemble), so when he gets caught, to me it reads like he's just been slapped back into reality, and "Oh my god, what am I doing?" moment.
Additionally, it would be yours and the actors' decision on how sure Julia is when she takes him back. This could be an awkward, uncomfortable moment, much like the end of Alls Well.
And of course, the other problem is the whole Man Code thing. Valentine is so quick to forgive Proteus after he almost rapes Silvia. This is the aspect that is most troubling to me, and the one I am least able to fathom. Could it only work if Proteus is so incredibly sorry and shocked by his own behavior?
And it doesn't really seem that there is any unsureness with Valentine. I mean, you could try to play it like his forgiving Proteus is just one of those things you say, like a band-aid over a wound that is still there, EXCEPT that he says
And, that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.
There's just no getting around that.
So maybe the point is how a woman's life is controlled by the men around her. The two women try as they might to make their own life and get what they want, but they ultimately don't get it until the men decide that it is so, from the suitors to the fathers. There is a sense of powerlessness. Not just the last line, but the last 54 lines are spoken by the men.
Hmm – interesting – what if you did something with that final speech of Valentines:
Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along,
That you will wonder what hath fortuned
Come, Proteus; 'tis your penance, but to hear
The story of your loves discovered:
That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;
One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.
Where Valentine sort of takes the Duke and Proteus arm and arm and they all go off together pleased as punch, because it's been sorted out among them, but Julia and Silvia are left behind onstage alone, because they are expected to just follow whatever the men do?
---------------------------------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
I have to give it to Silvia, but mostly because she's the one female Shakespeare specifically endows with "auburn" hair.
Favorite Male Character:
As an actor, Proteus, cause he's an ass, and that's more fun.
Laugh out loud:
Proteus Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.
Speed And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.
Oh, misogyny:
Launce To be slow in words is a woman's only virtue.
Down with the Patriarchy:
Julia It is the lesser blot, modesty finds, / Women to change their shapes than men their minds.
Hamlet has Pirates:
Two Gents has Outlaws
Favorite Moment/Line:
The speech where Proteus decides to woo Silvia. He starts off tormented because he knows it's wrong, and that he would be betraying both Julia and Valentine. But 30 lines later he's absolutely resolved without any qualms. I just think it's fascinating. And clearly Shakespeare knew that it is a remarkable moment, because he places this soliloquy in a scene by itself. I wonder how often he does something like that? (EDIT: My bad -- most scene and act delineations are editors' doings, so it's pretty impossible to tell whether Shakespeare was making this a "scene" by itself).
To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
And even that power which gave me first my oath
Provokes me to this threefold perjury:
Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.
O sweet-suggesting Love! if thou hast sinn’d,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it.
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
But now I worship a celestial sun.
Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;
And he wants wit that wants resolved will
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better.
Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad,
Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr’d
With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
But there I leave to love where I should love.
Julia I lose and Valentine I lose:
If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
If I lose them, thus find I by their loss,
For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.
I to myself am dearer than a friend,
For love is still most precious in itself;
And Silvia—witness heaven that made her fair!—
Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
I will forget that Julia is alive,
Remembering that my love to her is dead;
And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy,
Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
I cannot now prove constant to myself
Without some treachery us’d to Valentine:
This night he meaneth with a corded ladder
To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber-window,
Myself in counsel, his competitor.
Now presently, I’ll give her father notice
Of their disguising and pretended flight;
Who, all enrag’d, will banish Valentine;
For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;
But, Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross,
By some sly trick blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding.
Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift!
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