As You Like It in the Arb

Dinner on the grass before the performance of "As You Like It"
by the Shakespeare in the Arb company.
As in former years, we brought a picnic.

Walking through the peonies to get to the first location: the
performance moves among the woods, glens, and fields of
the Arboretum.

Touchstone the Fool, the French maid, Rosalind, and Celia:
all played by fantastic actors.

The wrestling scene

The audience (musicians way in back).

We enjoyed a marvelous performance in what I think is the most perfect Forest of Arden imaginable!

If music be the food of love, play on...

A long line of Shakespeare lovers waited to buy tickets to Shakespeare in the Arb this evening. The play begins at 6:30 but sells out around an hour earlier, so we ate a picnic supper while waiting. The sunlight was beautiful, especially since there has been a great deal of rain -- last night's attendees were soaked on their way out at dusk, we heard, and the paths were full of gulleys from the downpour. Also, the river at the bottom of the Arb is almost flooded.
On the way to the performance, we went by a fence covered with climbing roses. The aroma of roses and peonies is heavy and appealing.
Twelfth Night begins with Viola committing herself to dress as a boy and serve the Countess Olivia. Here, she enters along the boardwalk. Most of the roles are played by students.
Sir Toby Belch was acted with great gusto and humor by a young man that we have known all his life! Above is his first scene with the tricky maid Mariah. The audience sits on the ground, so close that the actors almost step on ones feet.

Olivia

Music, pratfalls, changes of scene by changes from one glen, glade, or hill in the Arboretum to another, all make the play extremely enjoyable. I love Twelfth Night, and felt the actors totally did it justice.

The peony garden is at the entrance used for the box office and gathering area, and the peonies were very beautiful, though many are past their peak.

This is the third year in a row that we have attended this event -- for previous years see: Shakespeare in the Arb and Verona in the Arb.

Verona in the Arb

This year's outdoor performance was Two Gentlemen of Verona, an early Shakespeare play with a preposterous plot. We bought our tickets just outside the peony garden, where many blossoms are still near their peak, and walked down the hill into the meadow where the actors and musicians were arranging themselves in Elizabethan attitudes.
A fine rain was falling as we walked around the hill to where the players were gathering. A few audience members had umbrellas -- we had raincoats. As the play began, the evening sun began to shine. Beautiful light continued throughout the performance.

The first act started in one of the open meadows, below a hill where a "sheep" was sitting. A group of musicians and a singer performed the song "Tell me where is fancy bred..." They played other well-known Shakespeare songs throughout the play as well.

As in last year's presentation of The Tempest (see Shakespeare in the Arb), the stage moved around the Arboretum, and the audience followed a leader with a flag, to re-seat themselves on the grass at various points. It's a fun way to do it!

The sheep in the meadow was stuffed -- but Crabbe the dog, a character in the play, was a real dog. His role is to watch respectfully while his master (a lowlife servant) goes on in a very funny and buffoonish way. The players hammed up the broad comedy throughout the play, much to our enjoyment. A baby fussing in the audience was the only problem, as far as I'm concerned.

Back to Shakespeare

From time to time, I read another Shakespeare book. After all, as Bill Bryson says in Shakespeare: The World as Stage -- "The amount of Shakespearean ink, grossly measured, is almost ludicrous. ... Shakespeare Quarterly, the most exhaustive of bibliographers, logs about four thousand serious new works ... every year."

This is good for me, a reader with a yen to read something new about Shakespeare from time to time. Bad for writers like Bryson, who says immediately after giving these stats: "To answer the obvious question, this book was written not so much because the world needs another book on Shakespeare as because this series does. The idea is a simple one: to see how much of Shakespeare we can know, really know, from the record." (p 20-21)

So I read this one, continuing with my 2007 resolution which has served me well for a year and a half. And Bryson's book is a very entertaining read. He takes Shakespeare seriously, but not too seriously, avoiding the excesses of flip that he often indulges himself in. There are all kinds of good things: even an insight into why the cover image may or may not look like the Shakespeare, a playwright who lived 400 years ago. And why it's wise to spend no time bothering with the idea that this man didn't write the plays.

Bryson sticks to his claim that he's only trying to find out what is known without speculation -- not much. He deftly combines the Shakespeare info with info on the critics and speculators, emphasizing both the life and the origins and dates of the plays. As a result, he debunks or even pillories the most speculative and thus arrogant of critics -- no fools are gladly suffered here. He's not reverent (Bill Bryson, reverent?) so he doesn't gush about the bard. But he has plenty of respect. The overall result is a book with lots of really useful details about Shakespeare himself, about made-up or over-the-top claims and legends, and about how so much incorrect or unsubstantiated stuff had its start. He refrains from tackling any actual literary judgments of the works, which keeps the pace up and the book short.

Finally, I thank Evelyn for giving this book to me. It was a good Mother's Day present. I appreciate it as much as last year's good Mother's Day read, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which has been in the news all year. And to follow up, I've already ordered another book by an author that Bryson cites a lot.

"Will in the World"

Shakespeare's lifetime was full of events as compelling as those in his plays. Any author, however, claims at his peril that he knows exactly how reality and Shakespeare's fictions line up. In Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare author Stephen Greenblatt presents the real events in a most fascinating way. Then he quite frankly speculates on how Shakespeare reflected them in his poetry and plays.

Some questions will never be answered. Many authors have pondered them, sometimes rather trivially, sometimes, as in this book, in a thought-provoking way. Was there a real lover -- a man who inspired Shakespeare to write the early sonnets? A real dark lady for the later sonnets? Did the trial of the secret Jew Roderigo Lopez influence the creation of Shylock? Are the witches in Macbeth related to the witches in the deep and disturbed fears of King James? How did the death of Hamnet, Shakespeare's young son, relate to the creation of Prince Hamlet?


Greenblatt is most interesting when describing the complexities of life under Queen Elizabeth. The tension over the perceived Catholic menace, the residual Catholic faith among many inhabitants of the realm, the yearning that some felt because of the loss of Catholic ritual -- all are shown to be interesting topics in themselves, all most interestingly tied to the content of the plays.

I love the way Shakespeare's early life is connected, speculatively, to his career. For example, I enjoyed the discussion of whether Shakespeare had a history as a deer poacher at Sir Thomas Lucy's deer park at Charlecote near Stratford (shown in a photo from our visit in 2000). Then I enjoyed the speculation of what this did to Shakespeare: "Throughout Shakespeare's career as a playwright he was a brilliant poacher -- deftly entering into territory marked out by others, taking for himself what he wanted, and walking away with his prize under the keeper's nose." (Will in the World, p. 152)

Ultimately, the book also is most interesting for its interpretation of the plays. For example, I like this:

Macbeth leaves the weird sisters unpunished but manages to implicate them in a monstrous threat to the fabric of civilized life. The genius of the play is bound up with this power of implication, by means of which the audience can never quite be done with them, for they are most suggestively present when they cannot be seen, when they are absorbed into the ordinary relations of everyday life. If you are worried about losing your manhood and are afraid of the power of women, it is not enough to look to the bearded hags on the heath, look to your wife. If you are worried about temptation, fear your own dreams. If you are anxious about your future, scrutinize your best friends. And if you fear spiritual desolation, turn your eyes on the contents not of the hideous cauldron but of your skull: 'O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!' (3.2.37)" (Will in the World, p. 355)

Favorites from 2007

Here are my favorite posts that I wrote in 2007 about my Shakespeare reading project:
Claudius the Evil King
Reading "The Merchant of Venice"
Shakespeare in the Arb
Shakespeare: Reduced and Censored

My favorites about traveling:
The Sacred Well (Chichen Itza, Mexico)
Cherry Blossoms in Washington, D.C.
Palermo Sunday Flea Market,
Skipped by the Hurricane and Diving (Kona, Hawaii)
The Army 10-Miler (Washington, DC)
Kaifeng in Toronto
A little about Middle Earth, (Wellington, NZ)

And my favorite posts on food history -- from my food blog:
Mona Lisa: By Request: What did Mona Lisa Eat?
What would you serve to Queen Elizabeth?
Two Books: "Paradox of Plenty" and "Hungering for America
What if global warming makes our crops fail?
What did Columbus Discover?

New Year's Resolutions

Last year my resolution was to review my very obsolete knowledge of Shakespeare. Through the year, I read several plays, watched recordings, saw one live performance, and read some history and criticism. I summarized much of my reading on this blog. Today: one more play, Much Ado About Nothing, which we watched in the 1993 version by Kenneth Branagh. It's highly enjoyable. Sometimes I think Shakespeare liked to try out the same ideas as both comedy and tragedy. All the tragic-leaning events here are so easily corrected.

So far, I plan a completely different resolution this year: to try to use less packaging; that is, bring my own shopping bags and whatever else I can think of to reduce waste. This seems a little too unambitious, but it's all I have thought of so far.

Shakespeare: Reduced and Censored

I just read a news article about a performance of this show:



In Mesa, Arizona, yesterday, school officials stopped a performance during presentation to students. They said they thought it was inappropriate and not the kind of show they want the students to see. They didn't like the language. Wait, they didn't like Shakespeare's language? Well, they didn't specify which language they disliked. (As long as it lasts, the link from CNN is: School halts racy Shakespeare play)

According to Windwood Theatricals, who produced the show, it was written in 1987 by the original founders of the Reduced Shakespeare Company and has been undergoing constant metamporphosis. It was a smash hit Off-Broadway as well as the longest running comedy in London -- where, several years ago, I saw and really liked it.

Well, well, well.

Shakespeare in the Arb

The isle was full of noises. A flute, drums, and thunder-making devices supplemented the sounds in the Arboretum on a beautiful evening, mild and not particularly humid. The rumbling of the train and once its whistle, the songs of birds, a woodpecker drumming, a very loud creaking of a branch in the wind, a helicopter heading for one of the nearby hospitals, and the puffing of an occasional runner rounded out the noises.

"The Tempest" in the Arboretum used the entire Arb as Prospero's island. Before the performance, we ate a snack beside the Huron River, where the remains of the shipwreck that begins the play were visible on the other side of the river. (Admittedly, although we suspected they were the shipwreck we thought they also might be a homeless person's belongings.)

The play began in a rather open space beside the woods. As Prospero explained Miranda's mysterious past, an airy spirit was standing in the limbs of a pine tree. Several sprites shared Ariel's lines, as well as haunting the woods as the 150 members of the audience moved to the part of the island where the action took place, under the direction of the artistic director. Ushers in identifiable "Tempest" t-shirts guided the lines of "groundlings" who like us had brought a blanket to sit on, and the others, who had chairs or chose to stand up. Two golf carts transported those who couldn't walk.

The constant changes of scene, the movement of the sprites in the trees, and the changing light as the sun set on the longest day of the year made an extraordinary setting for an excellently acted production, which used no artificial lighting or amplified sound. As in Shakespeare's time, it began early in the evening and ended at sunset.

Prospero was excellent as particularly were the two drunken courtiers, Stephano and Trinculo. Caliban was fantastic. He walked on his hands and feet, and snarled most effectively as Stephano drank from his bark bottle:Here is how the audience filed through the woods. In the foreground is my friend Olga, who's visiting us this week:
The players bowed as the audience applauded and the sun was setting behind the trees. The only odd sensory experience was a miasma of insect repellent that people sprayed on themselves throughout the play.

Anthony and Cleopatra

I'm dizzy from reading this play where each scene moves to a different location all around the Mediterranean, and where the personal and the political swirl together more confusingly than the current political scene in France. (Parallel in the news: the loser of the recent election, Segolene Royal, has dismissed her lover and rival for political leadership of the French socialists. Bedfellows make strange politics there. They will soon be forgotten in France, and have hardly been noticed at all over here.)

In movies, there are often examples of swirls like this. By chance, in the midst of my reading the play, we watched the film Babel, which jumps between Africa, Japan, San Diego, and Mexico with alarming jumpiness, and a lot less skill than Shakespeare. (I didn't like the film much and wouldn't even mention it except for the coincident jumping.)

Shakespeare usually has a more coherent focus. At least I usually find it a lot easier to follow the action and thematic development of a play. Here, he includes many descriptions of the exotic locales. Maybe he would have been pleased to have the filmmaker's choice of showing the many settings visually, but the richness of the descriptions suggest that he loved doing it the way he did.

As I say, I feel somewhat lost in the plotting. Anthony has much to lose, and he loses it: his political power, his family connections, his military might and reputation, and his relationship with Cleopatra. She of course is suggested to be older than most women in their prime, but to have an inexhaustible prime to call on.

I could start pulling up all the utterly famous quotes that set the exotic scenes, create the amazing character of Cleopatra, and cause one to share the depths to which Anthony falls. But I don't feel the need to do what's been done so often.
Bevington's Wide and Universal Theater demonstrates that every age had a new way to visualize and present Shakespeare, and that the 19th century was especially prone to make every word into a concrete onstage image, while 20th century performances sometimes are more abstract than the original productions at Shakespeare's Globe. Here's an image I found that really goes over the top, painted by Alma-Tadena in 1883.

Shakespeare on Stage

Around a month ago, I read reviews of several new books on Shakespeare, and decided to read David Bevington's new book This Wide and Universal Theater. I've now obtained it, and I'm in the middle -- and finding it better than I even expected.

The author has one chapter comparing how Shakespeare's own company (and contemporaries) presented battle scenes, and how they have been presented more recently. This is really fascinating.

All of Shakespeare's nine history plays and several of his tragedies "stage military confrontations, more often than not as the climax of the play's dramatic action," writes Bevington -- in fact, the importance of war was a true reflection of the reality of history during the depicted era of Henry IV onward, and continued into Shakespeare's own time. (p. 74)

"Siege warfare is a staple of the dramatic presentation of war in Shakespeare's theater," he writes. In addition, Shakespeare often depicted an open battlefield. Both of these types of warfare received conventional depiction in Shakespeare's time, and were "strikingly different from the conventions of stage fighting with which modern audiences are familiar." (p. 74-75)

The back wall of Shakespearian stages included doors, a curtained recess, and a higher-up area. This served for presentation of the battlements or gates to a besieged city. Bevington repeatedly points out that the stage was not set up in any special way, either as a gated city, a balconied mansion, or other architectural element: rather, a character voiced the descriptive detail, setting up the viewers' imagination to see the scene as Shakespeare wanted it seen. In producing battles, Shakespeare placed a variety of statements in his characters' mouths to clue the audience in to what they should imagine the stage to represent.

By describing what can be known of 16th and 17th century performances and contrasting them with the visual details of modern stage productions and films, the author clarifies how our theater experience differs from the original (though he constantly reiterates that he doesn't mean to criticize modern choices at all, just elucidate them). Modern stage conventions, he explains, use "armed men in one-on-one combat, parrying each other's swords and timing their choreographed blows so that the actors will not get hurt.... Today's theater fighting is neither modern warfare nor Elizabethan siege warfare; it is an understood theatrical convention about the way Elizabethan warfare is 'supposed' to look on the modern stage." (p. 82)

The history plays recieve much other discussion on other topics; I found the comparison of war-presentation and attitudes especially interesting.

Cymbeline

Shakespeare begins his play Cymbeline in the middle of a mess at the court of the title character, a king in Britain. His wife had died long ago, leaving two toddler boys and an infant girl, Imogen. Cymbeline had banished Belarius one of his most loyal noblemen, and as he fled, Belarius had convinced the children's nurse to kidnap the two boys and go with him to live in the woods, where a few scenes into the play, we see them -- now adult men -- in their cave.

At the start of the play, Imogen is a young woman, and has just eloped with a visitor to court, Leonatus Posthumus, a Roman. We quickly learn that Cymbeline's second wife was beautiful and manipulative in a very evil way. Her aptly named son Cloten (rhymes with Rotten) was a very dumb clod who could hardly speak prose and virtually never spoke the native iambic pentameter of the other characters. Cloten and his mother had had a plan: he would marry Imogen and take over the kingdom. Obviously, Imogen's love marriage thwarted that, and they were angry and vengeful. The Queen can make Cymbeline do anything: she has him banish Posthumus.

Next we have a tricky part of the plot. Leonatus Posthumus brags about Imogen to the wrong people, who wager that she can be led astray. One of them has himself smuggled into her bedroom in a chest, and while she sleeps he memorizes all its secrets and steals the bracelet that her husband had given her. Wronged and innocent, she is cast out of court and soon assumes the disguise of a boy.

Now we are set up for a series of wanderings in the woods and finally a long series of recognition scenes, as fathers and children and husbands and wives are reunited. But only the good ones: Cloten, on his way to rape Imogen and kill Posthumus, is beheaded by one of her unrecognized brothers, and Cymbeline's Queen dies, repenting all her evil deeds. Spirits and Roman gods appear in dreams to Posthumus, predicting justice and harmony. And the predictions come true as Cymbeline emerges as a more kingly figure, no longer just henpecked and stupified.

Why does it read so well? Shakespeare made it all work. The interactions, though improbable, are very dramatic, and the poetry is as impressive as any. Imponderable, I think.

Channeling Shakespeare

If we all talked Shakespeare

I just found out about a column published in honor of Shakespeare's birthday in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: We can’t all be Shakespeare — but we could try to be. Author: Joe Muldoon. Also published in his blog at Thoughts upon the Bard's Birthday. Also discussed on NPR and in the blog polyglot conspiracy in Shakespeare would text.

Well, Mr. Muldoon showed us what would happen if we constantly quoted Shakespeare instead of trying to think up new ways to say things. He demonstrated that this approach would be fine as long as there was a famous quote to fit whatever was going on. I suspect that we'd all be pretty quickly bored from nothing new, even if the quotes express a past thought much better than we can speak for ourselves. All his examples are the most overused Shakespeare quotations anyway -- he didn't seem to bother to read even one play to look for a new idea!

Here's how the article ends, a passage that I think illustrates my point:

And then -- the finale! One day, bewildered by senescence or stoked to the brim on pain pills, I will rampage out the door of the nursing home to weave among the semis on I-94. In a snowstorm. It's got to be a snowstorm.

As a mighty Peterbilt juggernaut bears down, the driver will hear my defiant challenge: "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes . ... "

Said driver surely will stop and scurry to my side. As life seeps from my poor body, she will pull a tarp off the flatbed and -- ye gods, let it be so! -- be reminded of something she heard in English class long ago. (Though she'll as likely have a Ph.D. in literature.)

With snow swirling about, she will whisper ever so gently, "Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!"

'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Shakespeare's Birthday Presents

According to New York Times book reviewer William Grimes: this month brings "a stack of Shakespeare books released to coincide with the playwright’s birthday on April 23. Such onslaughts are a time-honored ritual, but this year the pickings are unusually rich." The review: Keeping the Faith With Shakespeare.

Most discussed is the latest single-volume edition of the plays edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (Modern Library). I'm sure it's great, but when I actually read plays, I want a small, easy-to-handle volume. In fact, in my latest project of rereading a fair portion of the plays, I've been buying new paperbacks to replace the ones I discarded many years ago.

The reviewer enthuses about the "wayward and intermittently brilliant" observations in A. D. Nuttall’s Shakespeare the Thinker (Yale University Press): "a close reading of the plays that tries to map the creases and folds in Shakespeare’s mysterious, elusive brain. ... with pithy barroom observations sharing space with arguments so fine-spun they threaten to disappear on the page." I don't know if I want to read that or not. Another reviewed book I doubt I'll read: a book about riots over Shakespeare performance in 19th century New York.

For me the most appealing of the new books from this discussion is David Bevington: This Wide and Universal Theater (University of Chicago Press). I'm adding it to my list of books to be read along with my projected Shakespeare reading. From the review:

Mr. Bevington, by focusing on the stage directions in Shakespeare’s plays, shows how actors relied on words alone to suggest time, place and action, and how the stage at the Globe could be manipulated in the hands of a canny playwright. There was no balcony in “Romeo and Juliet.” On the other hand, since there was nothing in the way of stage décor, no intervals were needed to move from scene to scene. More recent directors, returning to Shakespeare’s idea of staging, have embraced abstract spaces and let the language do the work.

From a Friend in London: Shakespeare's Birthday

Did you know that today (April 23 - also St. George's Day) is Shakespeare's "official birthday"? I learnt this nugget of information from Radio 3 (BBC's classical music channel) while showering this morning. They played

Linley
Extract from "A Shakespeare Ode On the Witches & Fairies"
Helen Parker & Julia Gooding (sopranos)
Musicians of the Globe
Philip Pickett, director
PHILIPS 4466892 Tr 2-8

The extract dealt with Shakespeare's birthday - hence the reason for playing it. I searched out the above details from the playlist on the BBC website - but I'm not recommending you to search for it - it was pretty dire.

When they say that it's his "official birthday" I don't know if that means they only know the year that he was born & therefore "gave" him St. George's day as his birthday or whether he's like the Queen (who has a real birthday and an "official" one on which she "troops the colour").

Apparently they had a party for him at "Shakespeare's Globe" yesterday evening & tonight, from 8pm onwards they are further celebrating by projecting various films of Shakespeare's plays (including one dating from 1899!) onto the walls of the theatre.

I thought of you & your blog when I learnt all these facts this morning!!

Measure for Measure

Experiments on human subjects cause much soul-searching in our society. As a result of this ingrained mistrust, I'm uncomfortable with the basic premise of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. In the play, the Duke of Vienna leaves a morally questionable man, Angelo, in charge of his duchy. While Angelo abuses his delegated power, the Duke disguises himself as a friar and watches and even manipulates some of Angelo's victims. There are no specifics to show that this is Vienna: it might as well be Venice or Stratford-on-Avon.

The Story. In an excess of legalism, Angelo imprisons Claudio and sentences him to death for having slept with his fiance before marriage. (They couldn't get married because of some problem resolving dowry issues that were comprehensible in Shakespeare's time but are not so clear now, I think.) She's off somewhere, pregnant. In his early appearances, characters portray Angelo as a cold, unfeeling man: his blood is "snow-broth." (I, iv, 58)

Claudio's sister Isabel is about to take vows as a nun. She's called in to beg Angelo to free him. Angelo demands sexual favors from her. The disguised Duke participates in quite a few of the conversations, disguised as a Friar -- he even hears confessions, and elicits unwary remarks against himself. In asides and to one in the know he gives various explanations for his experimentation and his desire to be outside of his usual reponsible role as Duke.

The Duke already knew that Angelo had jilted a woman, Mariana, several years before, when her dowry was lost. So does this mean the Duke didn't hesitate to put a morally compromised man in charge? Not clear.

The duke ensures that Mariana is sent in Isabel's place to sleep with Angelo. The next morning, he demands Claudio's head on a platter. He's clearly a bad egg! With the Duke's connivance, the jailers bring the head of a man who died in prison of natural causes -- and coincidentally resembles Claudio. (Mariana is shown in the drawing by Rosetti.)

In the last act, the Duke undisguises himself and shows up to straighten things out and extract confessions, apologies, and reconciliations from everyone, including a forced marriage of Angelo to Mariana. Isabel is offered the death of Angelo, but forgives him. Claudio returns. All occurs with maximum drama and surprises.

The Shakespearan Side of the Play. Shakespeare entertains us with lots of philosophizing by the various characters, and a bit of baudy joking between some low-lifes and a brothel owner named Mistress Overdone -- she had nine husbands: "Overdone by the last." (II, i, 211) The action flows magnificently, and the characters' emotions and personalities are very fully developed. Pure Shakespeare. But that darn Duke is so manipulative: how could he do that to them?

Says the disguised Duke when comforting Claudio, whose death he could so easily prevent:

Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads the. 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 has 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 whn 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. (III, i, 27-41)

Shakespeare in "The Guardian"

A fascinating article in The Guardian presents a summary of Shakespeare's reputation throughout history. The article (which appears to be unsigned) discusses how Shakespeare's popularity developed, beginning in Shakespeare's lifetime and continuing with the Folio edition. The article shows that, as the plays were reprinted over and over again, each era reinterpreted the plays in its own context.

The headlines:

A man for all ages

According to many critics of his time, Shakespeare was vulgar, provincial and overrated. So how did he become the supreme deity of poetry, drama and high culture itself, asks Jonathan Bate, editor of the first Complete Works from the Folio for 300 years

Saturday April 14, 2007

See:

A man for all ages

When shall we three meet again?

From the first line of Macbeth onward, I remember indelibly much because of the intense memorization required when I was in high school. Rereading nevertheless amused me and fascinated me. I can't resist enjoying the many facets of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth even if my high school English teacher's voice keeps cackling the lines in my head. I like contemplating Lady Macbeth's steely resolve that turns to madness, and the pain and horror of all the victims.

To reread the play is always to revisit the questions of whether Macbeth is free to decide his own path or if he's inevitably condemned by his own ambition and the goading of the witches. The shaping of these questions begins with the witches' first predictions. Banquo raises questions as soon as the witches leave, setting the tone for the whole play. Are the witches (which Banquo calls "bubbles") setting Macbeth up to do evil? Or are they simple fortune tellers? Banquo's view is so rational compared to that of Macbeth -- and he so soon pays for it. His words:

But 'tis strange;
And oftentimes to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence. (I, iii, 122-126)

The witches struck me in a new way in this reading. They are just as magical, airy, and ineffible as the fairies of Midsummer Night's Dream, I realized. They fly, they only have a material presence sometimes, they answer to the abyss, they commune with all sorts of other spirits. I don't think this aspect was part of my high school lessons.

A few of the quotes that gave me a new view of Shakespeare's supernatural world especially surprised me with their similarity to Puck and the harmless fairies. Here are the words of a spirit accompanying Hecate:

O what a dainty pleasure's this,
To sail i'th'air while the moon shines fair,
To sing, to toy, to dance, and kiss.
Over woods, high rocks and mountains,
Over hills and misty fountains,
Over steeples, towers and turrets
We fly by night 'mongst troops of spirits.
No ring of bells to our ears sounds,
No howls of wolves nor yelps of hounds,
No, not the noise of water's breach,
Nor cannons' throats our height can reach. (III, v, 55-65)

A little later Hecate in person responds to the long recipe in the famous "Double, double toil and trouble" speech:

O, well done! I commend your pains,
And every one shall share i' th' gains.
And now about the cauldron sing
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.

Music and a song intervene, and Hecate continues:

Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and gray
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may. ( IV, i, 39-45)

The more I read, the more I picture the witches as beautiful women, even despite the reference to their beards -- beautiful, not very young, without any human responsibility, and very tempting.

Shakespeare at the Movies

From the Guardian Online I read an article titled The Bard on screen --

"Nearly 700 films and TV productions have taken their stories from Shakespeare, according to the Internet Movie Database - and the true figure may be much higher. The website does not distinguish between productions that keep the Bard's original texts, in English or in translation (Laurence Olivier's Henry V, Orson Welles's Othello, Grigori Kozintsev's Russian King Lear), and what are known as "genre adaptations" - westerns, gangster thrillers, melodramas, musicals, sci-fi, teen comedies and so on, which have abandoned Shakespeare's pentameters and settings, then customised his storylines and characters to fit their own conventions."

The article continues by summarizing the range and commercial success of both adaptations and original-text Shakespeare films, of which the most successful is Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet.

A book titled 100 Shakespeare Films, by Daniel Rosenthal, will be published by the British Film Institute on April 16 (not yet listed in amazon.com -- but they list a previous book on Shakespeare films from 2001, see image at right).

I'm putting this book on my list: I would like to see more good Shakespeare films. For example, I'd like to re-view the Kurosawa films of Samurais as King Lear and MacBeth. Evidently I've barely scratched the surface!