BS: Is it me or is Shakespeare very strange..

Subject: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 May 02 - 04:20 PM

I went to see 'A midsummer nights dream' at the Lowry the other day. Enjoyed it immensly but found my thoughts wandering a bit.

Has it always been that sexy? (It sure wasn't when I was at school!!!) Wer bottom and Titania supposed to simulate sex on stage???

Are all the faeries supposed to be spaced out Goths?

Does old Bill always use 77 words when 1 will do? (I found my mind wandering during one monologue and upon coming round 3 days later the orator was still on the same point...)

Were all the plays written by the same person? I saw the Taming of the Shrew only a few months ago and they certainly could have been from a difeerent planet. Or was that just the production?

Are there any folk songs stemming directly from Wobblesticks writings?

Anyhow. If anyone gets the chance to see it -Go!

Cheers

Dave the rude mechanical Gnome

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: MMario
Date: 17 May 02 - 04:25 PM

if he were writing today he'd be doing "art films" and Soap Opera...

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: paddymac
Date: 17 May 02 - 04:47 PM

The major university here caused a big flap a couple of years ago when Ol' Willy was dropped from the "must study" list for English majors. My understanding is that there is quite a debate in academia about who Willie really was - seems like many folks now believe he was actually a composite of several writers.. Anyhow, there's more stuff about him on line than I care to wade through. Regardless of the personna/personnae issue, "he" is, I think, still credited with being a major force behind modern English (whatever the hell that is).

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: lamarca
Date: 17 May 02 - 04:54 PM

Well, DTG, I think the comedies probably started out a lot bawdier in production than our public school classes ever let on - after all, they were writ for a fairly crude Elizabethan audience, not for a typical uptight, sexually repressed school governing board!

The fairies as spaced out Goths sounds like an interesting directorial interpretation, though...

As inaccurate and deliberately anachronistic as it may have been, I absolutely loved "Shakespeare in Love" - and then I found out that Tom Stoppard was one of the screenplay authors, so no wonder! Stoppard is another playwright, who, like Shakespeare, is in love with language and with playing with words at multiple levels of meaning. Those of us mere mortals sometimes have to listen to or read the plays multiple times to catch all the puns or more serious imagery.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Amos
Date: 17 May 02 - 05:39 PM

Dave:

It's just you -- he's not weird.

Imagine dropping in to an Albaniam opera house some night to hear the latest local production. You might find it even weirder than Elizabethan language designed for the kind of audience that watches soaps or sitcoms today, in a crude open theater. You may be underwstimating the distance from his mouth to your ear -- but weird, no.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Amergin
Date: 17 May 02 - 05:47 PM

the way I understand it it depends on who is producing it....i have seen plays done in modern dress and medeival weaponry....and i have seen some productions of midsummer night's dream that were alot bawdier than others....

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 May 02 - 06:47 PM

Dave
Twouldst be amighty remarkable twere Mr Shakespear not interested in what interests all people of all times all the time.
Forsooth! are we not descended from a lengthy lineage all pre-occupied with "Rumpus Pumpus"? (as long as Ann Hathaway does not learn of Bill's extra curricular interests)

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 17 May 02 - 07:35 PM

Sexy? You bet! I's love the bawdy bard! (trying to think of a particularly bawdy line off the top of my head and blanking).

So many words? Yes, Shakespeare wrote with a lot more words than we use today, but his plays were done in a different context than in a modern theater -- outdoors in broad daylight, with the only "set" on the stage being a about four doors leading in different directions and maybe a chair or two if the scene was indoors. Therefore, his actors had to describe the scenery. That he could do it in only 77 words is what I find amazing.

I, personally, think Shakespeare was one man, and that he did write the plays... mainly, because I think conspiracy theories are simply far too complicated. As for the wide differences between his plays, I'd say: of course! I mean, he wrote over a span of nearly thirty years -- I dare say your style of singing (& songwriting?) has changed over time.

And yes, I'd say that the production style makes up about 60% of the total experience of any play. My high school English teacher made this analogy:

Reading a play is like looking over a set of blueprints.
Seeing a play is like walking through a house.

and I'd add: And the director is like the decorator of that house.

Decorating the house with heavy Victorian Oak with marroon and gold velvet will give you a very different feel than if you did the exact same house with Danish Modern.

Sounds to me like this director is a little wacko (every Titania and Bottom scene that I've seen never went past the sultry flirtatious stage, and the fairies had always been very alert and on their toes)... from your description, sounds to me like the director was in love with his own cleverness at pushing the envelope.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: little john cameron
Date: 17 May 02 - 07:36 PM

Ye Compleate Workes o' Villiam Shakespeare founde heare.
Clicke

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Amergin
Date: 17 May 02 - 07:42 PM

got a book of his plays....big huge book that has them all....lovely reading...

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 17 May 02 - 08:22 PM

'Course, I fell in love with Shakespeare because I got to see his plays first, before those stuffy, uptight schoolboard decided what I should learn from him...

This was back in the day when their were only 4 stations to choose from on the tv.

It was a Sunday, and it was raining. My four choices of things to watch were: golf, boxing, bowling, and a play of some sort.

Two women in Shakespeare-y clothing:

First woman: I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my cuz, be merry.

(Well, thought I, this looks like Shakespeare, and sounds like Shakespeare... But isn't "cuz" modern slang? Maybe this is a spoof.)

So I stuck with it. It wasn't a spoof, but one of the BBC productions of As You Like It... and by the end of the second act, I was LOLing!

(one of the snippets that got me that way):

JAQUES: [...] I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.

AMIENS My voice is ragged: I know I cannot please you.

JAQUES I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing. Come, more; another stanzo: call you 'em stanzos?

AMIENS What you will, Monsieur Jaques.

JAQUES Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will you sing?

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 17 May 02 - 10:00 PM

Mmario! LOL!!!!

Never really thought about it, but now that you mention it, I think you're right!!

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Jacob B
Date: 17 May 02 - 10:22 PM

Any folk songs from his plays? How about "Under The Greenwood Tree". Pete Seeger did a setting of "Full Fathom Five".

And as for a bawdy line, how about this exchange between the Nurse and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet:

Nurse God ye good morrow, gentlemen.

MERCUTIO God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.

Nurse Is it good den?

MERCUTIO 'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 17 May 02 - 11:39 PM

Heh, yeah!

Ol' Will gave some of his best lines to Mercutio... I think that's why he had to kill him off: he was stealing the show from the two acne-faced "main" characters

I thought about posting a bit of the repartee between Helena and the soldier Parolles on how a woman might defend her virginity (Parolles' point was why the hell should she?!), but the metaphor gets really complex and extended between them (a really long joke on all the variations of "Blowing a man up by blowing him down"), that it was too much to post here, so I'll offer a link to

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: NicoleC
Date: 18 May 02 - 12:28 AM

I introduced my Mom to Shakespeare after she saw "Shakespear in Love" by reading out loud parts of Twelfth Night -- she was intrigued and so I got her an audio CD (As You Like It, as it turned out). Boy is she hooked now! As a Ren Faire fan, it was inevitable. They should never make kids read this in school, because it's such an aural experience, even more so than other plays.

Of course, if they had them read it out loud, the kids would probably understand all the sex stuff faster than the uptight censors.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 18 May 02 - 01:11 AM

TRIVIA - CapreUni -

The "double meaning" on the word JAQUES

The same ours for JOHN....a toilet.

It IS you Dave of Nome It takes a modecum of intelligence...and some inate curiosity - to discipher the Bard. (BTW with modern, computer assisted analysis - William is one person- W.S. The "conspiracy theorists" have been laid to the floor and swept out the door in the later half of the previous decade.)

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: hesperis
Date: 18 May 02 - 01:23 AM

CapriUni's Link - All's Well That Ends Well

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: alison
Date: 18 May 02 - 02:48 AM

A Midsummer nights dream is a remarkable sexy play when done well.......

one of the best performances I saw had the faeries in St Trinians type school uniforms.......

and another absolutely superb one in Sydney botanic Gardens (backdrop of the Opera House and Bridge and city lights).... a fairy led us from this backdrop through the gardens in the dark by the light of a flaming torch..... to a beautiful glade where they did the "fairyland" part of the play.... magical

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Jeanie
Date: 18 May 02 - 03:30 AM

I couldn't agree more that so many people have been put off Shakespeare by the way they were taught at school, and it's a great pity. This may sound strange, but the problem is that Shakespeare is more often than not taught by *English* teachers, who like to start with the printed page and work through the book from beginning to end.

I did enjoy Shakespeare at school, "did" Hamlet and Henry IV for A Level, and saw some excellent productions. We read round the class to hear it spoken - but it was only later, when I started *acting* Shakespeare that I discovered how wonderful these plays are.

I reckon that's the best springboard to really enjoying Shakespeare's plays - acting them: becoming the people in the situations presented in the plays, discovering why they are behaving the way they do, seeing how similar/different they are to yourself or people you know. Learning about yourself, others, life through the whole experience.

You may have guessed by now: I teach drama ! The way in to Shakespeare, I think, is through the characters and situations - improvising, acting them out, relating them to the student's own experience - and the sheer enjoyment of those wonderful *sounds* of the "strange" language - before EVER seeing any of it in print, or even mentioning that any of this is leading up to a Shakespeare play at all !

The younger this can be done, the better ! (Well before the senior school and the set texts for exams) Then, when the time comes for exams, the children have associated Shakespeare with *fun*: being a witch and her "familiar"; cooking up fantastic potions; hurling wonderful abuse at each other as Montagus and Capulets "I bite my thumb at you, Sir! "; rallying their troops for a big battle. They will also have learned about loyalty, friendship, betrayal of trust, the consequences of seeking revenge, greed, ambition.... you name it, all life is there. Used properly, the characters and situations in Shakespeare can be a wonderful teaching tool.

Taught in this way, Shakespeare makes fantastic lessons for the 7 to 11 age-group. He has the perfect recipe for everything children of this age love: ghosts, witches, armies, fights, words that are fun to say for the sheer sound they make, and, most beloved of all (by them and me): lavatorial humour !

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: C-flat
Date: 18 May 02 - 04:18 AM

I was so lucky to have a teacher who could make Shakespeare less intimidating and who could help us to break out the meaning, see the pun or metaphor and move through the storyline at a pace that kept us riveted.She managed to show us his use of decasyllabic blank verse, took us to see Macbeth and Hamlet and we never felt like we were in a lesson, just spending time together looking at the same stuff and figuring it out. I wished I'd realised at the time what a gem she was as I never got the chance to thank her for showing me that Shakespeare wrote for the working class of his time and wasn't an elitist like many of the experts on the subject today seem to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Bert
Date: 18 May 02 - 04:43 AM

Jeanie, a great many people have been put off of EVERYTHING by the way they were taught at school. So much so that perhaps we need a new word for taught.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 18 May 02 - 05:09 AM

When I was in junior high school, my parents got me a record collection (remember records?) called "Living Shakespeare". As I recall, they were abridged versions of the plays, read by good Shakespearean actors, with printed scripts so you could follow along. I loved them! Of course, when I tried to tell my 7th grade classmates about how great Shakespeare was, it was one more nail in the coffin of my (nonexistent) popularity. But such is life...

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: lady penelope
Date: 18 May 02 - 06:08 AM

I think getting the hang of the language is the main problem. A lot of teachers are so used to the language when they come to teach it that they forget the pupils need a little time and help to get into it. Also they avoid doing the comedies as they contain very bawdy passages, so you get stuck with things like Macbeth and Hamlet which can be a little much for children of 11 - 13 years old. Not many kids are into political machinations at that age and it all becomes deathly boring, putting most of them off Shakespeare for life.

As to your production Dave, it really does depend on who's doing it. I've seen various versions of Twelfth Night and some of them were riots and others would have led you to think you were watching a tragedy! This happens with modern plays as well. I don't think people realise how editing a director does when he puts on a production of any play.

People can also have a very snobbish attitude to Shakespeare. I got to go to a brilliant production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Barbican when I went to summer school ( oooh ever such along time ago ). Derek Jacoby was the male lead and Sinead Cusack was the female lead. I was in stiches. The pair of them worked so well together. Come the interval, I got up to go to the loo when a man and woman who had been sitting behind me said "Pardon Me Ma'am". I stopped as I thought they wanted to ask me something. Instead I got an earfull about how 'disrespectful' I was, actually laughing at Shakespeare. I was to be ashamed of myself, apparently. I was stunned. " You do realise that this play is a comedy, don't you ?" I asked them. I got glared at and the man said that he would see the manager about my behaviour, he shouldn't have to put up with this sort of thing etc. I couldn't help my self, I just burst out laughing and the couple stormed off to see the manager . Strangely they didn't come back in for the second half.

They'd obviously gone to play with the attitude that Shakespeare was high culture , deadly serious and you couln't come to England without "experiencing the Bard". I've quite often got little "tisks' and 'tuts' when I have dare to laugh at the funny bits. It really makes me wonder why some people go at all.

There are loads of songs throughout Shakespeare's plays. There are also loads of arguments as to whether they are songs that were around at the time or Shakespeare wrote tham himself. Loads of people have put the songs to various tunes ( usually for productions ) one of my current favourites being a band called Paescod doing The Rain It Raineth Everyday ( they also do a nice little line in bluegrass!)

Cor, haven't I gone on? I shall clear the floor for others.

TTFN M'Lady P.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: alanabit
Date: 18 May 02 - 06:16 AM

Yeah, I love the dirty jokes too. When Hamlet talks to Ophelia of "country matters", he isn't talking about his rural residence. There are plenty of other good ones in the porter's scene of MacBeth and the pub scenes of Henry IV part one. What struck me once though, when watching "Pericles", (which is by no means a masterpiece), was that he seemed to know everything there is to know about people. Villains like Richard III and Falstaff can also ooze charm. It's all so plausible. Even Aaron, the almost comicallly bad villain of "Titus Andronicus" can win your sympathy and the end of all his misdeeds. So I think the key to understanding it is to watch what the characters do rather than what they say. Using that as my yardstick, the only really loathsome villain in the whole of Shakespeare is the truly appalling, egocentric Hamlet. I wouldn't want him for a mate!

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Jeanie
Date: 18 May 02 - 06:41 AM

Couldn't agree more, Alan ! The key to understanding Shakespeare is in the characters and what they do (and why). As I said (at length, on my hobby-horse !) earlier on, the way in to discovering Shakespeare, and helping others to discover the delight of these plays, is through the people and the situations they are in and recognizing yourself and others in them.

When Shakespeare is being acted well (with the actors *being* these people on stage, experiencing all the emotions/conflicts etc.) the audience really don't have to understand every single word that is being said. (Though the actors do !!) They understand by the way the actors/characters are behaving & reacting to each other, their body language, tone of voice and so on.

I heard one acting teacher say that with Shakespeare, the key is for the actor to "feel the feeling and say the words". And what wonderful words they are ! I have found that it is like a cycle: you feel the feeling, say the words, and somehow the words themselves help to engender the feeling... and so it goes on. Then, when you really get into the fine detail of it, by the way the verse line is regular or irregular, spoken by one character or shared between several, Shakespeare actually gives stage directions in how each line is to be spoken. He is there, on the page, directing his plays even to this day !

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 02 - 06:50 AM

Falstaff a villain?

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 18 May 02 - 06:56 AM

Folger Library's Shakespeare Set Free has active hands-on lessons which capture the spirits and minds of the even the most recalcitrant students.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 May 02 - 11:07 AM

Cheers peeps

Yes I thought it must have been me that was strange, Garg, but I'm glad someone else has confirmed it! As to having a modicum of intelligence and some inate curiousity - I don't even know what it means;-0

Still, as I said, it was very enjoyable. I think...

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Amergin
Date: 18 May 02 - 11:45 AM

another good way of really getting into shakespeare is to watch the world class actors do their magic....like at the festival in Ashland, OR....such wonderful acting I have hardly seen anywhere else....all too often people over act in his plays....

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Mr Happy
Date: 18 May 02 - 12:17 PM

paddymac,

your mail reminds me of a heated debate some years ago about ws's plays having been written by bacon.

one of the stories i heard was that the Royal Shakespeare Company was most unhappy at the thought of having to change its name to the Royal Bacon Company.

similarly, the well known reference publication 'Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare' did not wish to be renamed 'Lamb's Tales from Bacon'

cheers

mr happy

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 May 02 - 01:53 PM

Re: The whole "Shakespeare is a hoax" thang:

First, remember that the Earl of Oxford theory was first (and most loudly) put forward by a descendant of the Earl of Oxford.

Second, I find it easier to believe the "conventional" biography of Will (that he started out as an actor in a traveling troupe, and then discovered his real gift was writing) because of the depth and realism of all his characters, regardless of class -- from prostitutes to kings. It is far easier to get an accurate view of all the levels of society from the bottom up (and in the 17th century, you couldn't get much lower than an actor) than it is from the top down.

Hesperis: Thanks for fixing my link (moral: don't try doing blickies when you're sleepy!)

Lady P: couldn't agree more that the teaching of high school Shakespeare is tragedy-heavy. 'Tis a shame, really, 'cause nothing gets a teenager's interest than a really good (bad) sex joke. Also, that the plays are too often read -- every time you come to an unfamiliar word or phrase, you have to check the extra-small print footnotes, then go back to the line -- that is no way to get a sense of the rhythm, much less the meaning of the words... But if you hear the line spoken, and see the accompanying action, then you figure out the meaning for yourself without even realizing it.

And I agree about Much Ado -- I think it's my all time favorite of his comedies (although some good stuff was cut out, I highly recommend the movie version done by Kenneth Branaugh [?]). I do wish they would teach this instead of Romeo and Juliet. I think Benedick and Beatrice are much better role models as to what makes a healthy relationship, in the end (none of this whole suicide nonsense, for one thing).

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 May 02 - 01:58 PM

I've always regarded Falstaff as a role model.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakespeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 May 02 - 02:48 PM

Good for you, Don! I see Falstaff as more of a rogue and a rascal than a true villain (except in the earliest sense of the word, as "low born")

And, in order to remove some the BS from this thread, here are the songs from Shakespeare (in full, as snippets, or mentioned by him) that just happen to be in the DT:

Hey Robin, Jolly Robin

When that I was a Little Tiny Boy

Jog On, Jog On

It Was a Lover and His Lass

Fortune, My Foe

Come Away Death

Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind

(and one from Two Noble Kinsmen-- that some say Ol' Will wrote in collaboration with John Fletcher) Three Jolly Welshmen

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 May 02 - 03:21 PM

Oops! missed some!

It Was a Lover and His Lass

Hold Thy Peace

We Be Three Poor Mariners

Since first I saw your face

and the aforementioned Falstaff does much singing of Greensleeves in Merry Wives, much to the annoyance of the other characters.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Emma B
Date: 18 May 02 - 06:08 PM

Great song in 'Hair' - remember that? (you're older than you think) 'What a piece of work is man'

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 May 02 - 06:51 PM

Dave the Gnome, you're response to our old pal gargoyle confirms that you are a great-hearted and robust soul who refuses to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune damge his jovial countenance. I think, whatever your opinion of old Will, he would have approved of you.

alanabit said "the only really loathsome villain in the whole of Shakespeare is the truly appalling, egocentric Hamlet. I wouldn't want him for a mate!" My response is that Shakespeare wrote few true villains. Iago comes closest. Most of the main characters in the Tragedies were examples of the standard dramatic conceit of "the tragic flaw" : For Macbeth it was ambition, for Othello Jealousy, and for Hamlet it was Indecision. I think Shakespeare understood too much about the ambiguity and depth of human nature to write any true villains. Shylock the Jew was stereotypically painted as avaricious, cunning, deceitful, and yet Shakespeare gave him one of the most impassioned speeches ever made in protest of prejudice and hatred...hath not a Jew eyes?

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Deda
Date: 18 May 02 - 06:52 PM

Much of Cole Porter's wonderful score to "Kiss me Kate" works because of lyrics lifted directly from The Taming of the Shrew, which play is the backdrop of the musical anyway. OTOH, Cole Porter comes up with some kick-ass lyrics of his own, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Peg
Date: 18 May 02 - 07:28 PM

Alison; was that production of Midsummer Night's Dream at Stratford by the RSC, by any chance? I saw it also, about twelve summers ago (was at a study abroad program at Oxford and we always saw a number of Shakespeare plays for a course). Hilarious and wonderful! The following year the Hartford Stage Company did an epic production of Peer Gynt in which the scene with the Goblin King borrowed heavily on that Stratford costume design, dressing the fairies in ripped, soiled Victoriana...

I recently saw a photo (I didn't know existed) of me performing a rather bawdy version of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet; my leading man has most of his clothes off and I am not far behind! I am borrowing it from my friend's collection to get enlarged copies made (one to frame for a gift to "Romeo" who just got married).

The one thing I miss about acting is Shakespeare...

Peg

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 May 02 - 07:52 PM

Shylock the Jew was stereotypically painted as avaricious, cunning, deceitful, and yet Shakespeare gave him one of the most impassioned speeches ever made in protest of prejudice and hatred...hath not a Jew eyes?

Actually, Shakespeare's character would have been most unstereotypical by his audiences. In an online essay, Shylock and History, Jami Rodgers points out all the ways in which Shakespeare busted past the stereotypes of his day.

You're right, though. I think the most villianous of his characters is Iago.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 May 02 - 08:20 PM

And Iago is evil chiefly because of his falseness. We see and hear his true intent as he confides in his confederates, and then we see the lies and deceit he uses to achieve his goals. I think Shakespeare could understand flaws like jealousy and ambition, but couldn't fathom falseness.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 May 02 - 08:34 PM

A pretty adept take on Iago is here. For some reason, it is on a page headed "fartgreetings".

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 May 02 - 08:35 PM

Try again

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: alison
Date: 18 May 02 - 09:03 PM

Peg,

yes it was the RSC... but it was the touring production which I saw in Belfast..... and 12 years ago sounds about right.... they had "souped up" (read electrified) the Mendelssohn music too.... sounded fantastic......


slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: alanabit
Date: 19 May 02 - 07:07 AM

Lonesome EJ, I am going to have to concede you quite a lot of ground. And fair enough, as for Iago, I ain't inviting him round here for dinner either. Is Don winding me up over Falstaff? He is convivial and funny for sure. However, he is also deceitful, avaricious, lecherous, vain, boastful and cowardly. Indeed, it is very often the difference between what he says and what he does that makes his scenes funny.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 May 02 - 07:41 AM

I heard an interesting argument on Shylock recently that suggested that the "has not a Jew?" speech was not to be read as we often read it, as a plea for tolerance. As the link above shows, the audience would not have been much aware of Jews in everyday life to counteract medieval ideas from the mystery plays. Apparently, there were a number of ideas around that suggested that, physically, Jews differed greatly from non-Jews. In particular, "If you cut me, do I not bleed" would have elicited the response, "oh no you wouldn't" - see the blood libel. By comparison, there was a medieval idea that the English all had tails.

This was a radio talk, and I was driving, so it is difficult to get at sources for this discussion. However, it does seem to me that Shakespeare, as often, was writing simultaneously for the educated, who might have taken the speech as we do, and the groundlings, who wouldn't. Which is not in his favour, and puts he, himself, in Iago territory.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 May 02 - 07:43 AM

Grammar - him, himself

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 19 May 02 - 09:58 AM

Interesting thread!

I think I got grabbed quite young, by seeing Olivier's Henry V on television in the 60's. I was probably around 7 or 8 at the time, but as well as enjoying the fight scenes, & the almost comic Pistol, Nym, & Bardolph, & Fluellen too, I suppose...what REALLY grabbed me, of course, was the speeches.... I could see how that stirring stuff was effective in hyping the troops up for battle, & from then on, I couldnt get enough. Henry V remains my favourite of Shakespeare.

(thinking about it, possibly it worked cos I had seen my Dads scars from WW2...)

I was less impressed by A Midsummer Nights Dream at that age (no more than about 9yo, if that) & was watching what I THINK was prob. the Mickey Rooney one, & got sent to bed, & worse, for complaining 'oh no, more bloodyfairies'....

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 19 May 02 - 09:58 AM

Interesting thread!

I think I got grabbed quite young, by seeing Olivier's Henry V on television in the 60's. I was probably around 7 or 8 at the time, but as well as enjoying the fight scenes, & the almost comic Pistol, Nym, & Bardolph, & Fluellen too, I suppose...what REALLY grabbed me, of course, was the speeches.... I could see how that stirring stuff was effective in hyping the troops up for battle, & from then on, I couldnt get enough. Henry V remains my favourite of Shakespeare.

(thinking about it, possibly it worked cos I had seen my Dads scars from WW2...)

I was less impressed by A Midsummer Nights Dream at that age (no more than about 9yo, if that) & was watching what I THINK was prob. the Mickey Rooney one, & got sent to bed, & worse, for complaining 'oh no, more bloodyfairies'....

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 19 May 02 - 10:11 AM

Opps...sorry

Had a feeling it had done that

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: alanabit
Date: 19 May 02 - 11:20 AM

I sympathise Paul. Henry V is quite stirring and it shows the ruthlessness of the character (brought out more clearly in the Branagh version, I felt).The Olivier version has a softer focus, but it's still excellent in a different way. I particularly like the way in which the opening scene pokes fun at the absurdity of the English claims to France. Pistol and his gang are meant to be funny. As for "Midsummer NIght's Dream", I can watch it, but it's a long way short of my favourite. I also happen to think that there is no film so good that Mickey Rooney couldn't kill it stone dead...

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 19 May 02 - 11:45 AM

I highly recommend Much Ado for those new to Shakespeare... it was one play that he wrote entirely in prose, avoiding all that blank verse iambic pentameter stuff... Also, Beatrice is one of the best female character in any of his plays.

And, yes, its the modern interpretations that make her out to be a feminist. Contemporarily, she was played as an undiluted shrew.

But I consider that evidence of Shakespeare's remarkable skill as a writer. Real people, like their fictional counterparts, exist in the context of their overall culture -- people are people, and their general behavior hasn't changed much over the last 400 years. What has changed is the culture's attitudes toward that behavior. If Shakespeare wrote entirely from his culture outward, his characters would come off as hopelessly dated and 1 dimensional. But he was an astute witness of people, and that was his artistic center, which leaves his characters open to different interpretations through the ages...

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Cllr
Date: 19 May 02 - 03:29 PM

I love Shakespear and I was lucky enough to play Oberon two years back (Brunel theatre workshop) Midsummer Nights Dream is one of my favourites. Best seen (imho) in the open air theatre in Regents Park. I am just back from rehearsels from The Purple Theatre Company ( a drama group I co-founded five years ago) and we are doing "Much Ado About Shakespeare" which is looseley based on the scottish play with other bits thrown in and set in a burger bar, the style is modern day but the language is cod shakespeare. we started reheasing in January and my friend who wrote it was most annoyed that an american film (Scotland PA) was released on Feb 11 with roughly the same idea.Cllr

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 19 May 02 - 04:32 PM

Interesting, 'Councillor'....are you going to offer Her Majesty a ticket to see it when you meet her? *G*

I have to say I DO, of course, enjoy Midsummer Nights Dream now...even though there ARE others I enjoy more (I havent seen the modern Hollywodd version though (with Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania, was it?)

'Much Ado About Nothing' I LOVE....& the Branagh/Thompson/Keanu Reeves/Denzil Washington version is SUPERB.... Twelfth Night is also a fave of mine.

I have to agree with you about Branaghs Henry too, Alanabit..... & I'm a little surprised that the execution of the French captives wasnt included..... he was playing Henry 'dark' enough & hot-headed(if thats the right term) enough to have 'carried' that aspect of the tale, even if they had shown it as a 'revenge' for the attack on the baggage train & the boys.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: GUEST,Nurk the lurk
Date: 19 May 02 - 05:03 PM

Favorite Shakespeare performance:

Comedy of Errors performed at the University of Anchorage Alaska, costume and set for a cast and planet in a galaxy far far away. Beat anything ol' Lucas ever dreamed up.

Next to Shakeseare the main concentrated influence on the English language by one Samuel Johnson and thridly in the mid Twentieth Century by The Goons, of whom we just lost Spike Milligan, but that's for another thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: alanabit
Date: 20 May 02 - 10:03 AM

Fully agree Paul. The execution of the hostages was historical fact as well. I don't believe that chivalry was ever doled out in generous portions, although I view the act as a horrible mistake - however indefensible.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 20 May 02 - 11:28 AM

alison - I saw that production of Midsummer Night's Dream in Belfast too - in the Opera House, wasn't it?
I was at school at the time, and my mum took my sister and me to see it. She didn't know how much we'd understand, but I can vividly remember it hurting because I was laughing so hard, especially at the Pyramus and Thisbe scenes at the end ("I die...argh..ugh..I die..." - and still dying 5 minutes later). I got to see a few more RSC productions later when I was on school trips, but none topped that performance.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: DMcG
Date: 20 May 02 - 11:34 AM

I saw a production of MacBeth in the Globe recently that was very odd - the witches wore dinner jackets for example. People lives were symbolised by small balls or stones that were wrestled over. However, this did manage to make one of the lines sensible which is very difficult to act well conventionally:

"They have killed me, mother. Run away, I pray you."

The usual way of doing this is with the victim having a clearly fatal wound, but it still seems to get chuckles from the audience.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 May 02 - 12:12 PM

I thought the recent Midsummer Night's Dream was well done. It is set in the late 1800s. Solid performances from Kevin Kline as Bottom, Stanley Tucci as Puck, and the rest of the "rude mechanicals". The unintentionally comical presentation of Pyramis and Thisbe contains an excellent bit, where the actor who reluctantly agreed to portray Thisbe transcends the script and moves the audience to tears. I have never seen it played that way before, and that points up a fact about Shakespeare : There is a depth and dimension to his words that make them work on a variety of levels.

I also enjoyed the recent film of Twelfth Night with Ben Kingsley doing excellent work as the Clown, mixing humor, sarcasm, and pathos in equal measures.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Penny S.
Date: 20 May 02 - 03:38 PM

One of the most stunning performances in Midsummer Night's Dream I saw was - believe this or not - Jeffery Archer as Puck in an open-air theatre in a park in Dover (Kent, England), where every one of his entrances was made over the high hedge which formed the surround of the stage, impelled from a small trampoline behind. He was wearing little, but much green greasepaint, and his hair pulled in spikes, and he has lied about where this happened, but I know, I was there.

Type casting?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Kim C
Date: 20 May 02 - 04:23 PM

I love Shakespeare. I kept only two of my college textbooks: my Riverside Chaucer and my Riverside Shakespeare. For those of you who don't know about the Riverside company, their books are large enough to require transport on a small cart. Lucky for me I've been lifting weights and can now carry said books around on my own strength.

Macbeth is one of my favorites, and Hamlet, even as long and cumbersome as it is. Comedy of Errors is quite hilarious. And yes, Iago is just about the most villainous villain who ever graced a page of print.

I think one reason people are put off by Shakespeare is that so many think Romeo and Juliet was the Only Play Ever Written, and has consequently been done to DEATH. It's an all right story, but I wouldn't consider it one of his better works. It's become such a cliche, and there are so many other plays to choose from.

Some directors like to take liberties with the classics - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, it's just plain weird.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: M.Ted
Date: 20 May 02 - 04:50 PM

Capri-Uni--There is little record or evidence of any sort about the life of William Shakespeare--curious for a man whose work, even in his lifetime, was greatly acclaimed-- his plays seem generally to have been generally published anonymously, only aquiring the attribution "Shake-speare" in reprintings after about 1598, and of all his literary contemporaries, only Ben Jonson made any reference to him--Indeed, early biographers began to have doubts about him simply because there was no record of him at all, even in places that there should have been--

When William Shakespeare of Strafford-on-Avon died, there was no public tribute to him, though he was wealthy, his estate contained no copies of his own work--no plays, no poems, no first editions, no manuscripts, and his will made no mention of them--strange indeed for a man of such literary impotance, and perhaps even unique in history--

WS works may utilize as many as 21,000 words, Milton used only 10,000, and Bacon, master of law and philospohy and regarded as the greatest intellect of his time, only used about 8,000--WS works include nearly 2000 words that had never been used in print before(at a time when the average man used only 2000-3000 words in total), he demonstrated a mastery of law, yet there is no record that he had any formal education at all--

Another peculiarity is that nowhere in his writings are there either incidents that parallel incidents in his own life, or characters that correspond to those that he knew--nor is there mention of the place he lived in his writing--

It was a time of conspiracy and , and more than one writer payed the ultimate price for his literary creations, so there concealed poets, and anonymous or pseudonymous playwrites. If there is mystery about the authorship of the plays, it seems to have been deliberately imposed--There are many posssible candidates for Shakespeare's works, and the open minded individual will find each compelling, at least until reading about the next--the reason that this is true is that of all the prospects, William Shakespeare seems the least likely to have written his plays--

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 May 02 - 06:32 PM

M.Ted:

Well, as you like it, if you do, that's fine. ;-)

Personally, I simply do not like conspiracy theories, even for "an age of conspiracy" -- we can call it that now because the conspiracies of the time have evarporated over the last half millennium, all the people who had a vested interest in maintaining the conspiracies are long since dead, and we can say with confidence who was plotting against whom and why. The intricate plots have become as transparent as tissue paper in the rain... All except for this one. Do you really think that 500 hundred years of theaters owners and Drama and English teacher have that big a vested interest in maintaining a fiction?

You may very well be correct: that W.S. was not a single man, and/or was not a low-born man. All I have to go on is my Pelican collection of Complete Shakespeare, and after reading (and rereading, in some cases) a sizeable portion of the words printed therein, I, personally, find it easier to believe they were all written by the same person over a lifetime, and that that person spent more time among the lower and middle classes than he did in court.

Whether my conclusion is correct or not certainly won't stop me from enjoying those words in the future, or recommending them to others, so it's all a bit of a moot point.

Kim C. --

Couldn't agree more on your assessment of R&J. Last time I saw it was an outdoor performance under a tent. The production and acting were all fine, but it struck me that there were several holes in the plot you could drive a coach and four through -- The main one being that the friar didn't simply tell Juliet's parents that she was already married to Romeo, and that no man could put them assunder, rather than handing a pre-pubescent girl a vial of poison. Of course, the plot wasn't original to the play W.S. was adapting a renaisance version of a Harlequin novel. The skill level is higher than in earlier plays attributed to him, but it was harldly the peak of its genre.

If it were up to me, and I had to choose one W.S. play to teach for school, this wouldn't be the one. ... If I didn't have to worry about the schoolboard censoring me, I'd go for one of the comedies, with the bawdy jokes to catch the kids' attention. Otherwise, I'd go for Lear. Downright depressing at the end, but supurbly written, with a decent gore factor to make up for the lack of sex, and the whole plot revolves around a father not understanding his kid... which I suspect the kids could relate to.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 May 02 - 08:38 PM

Kim said R&J had "several holes in the plot you could drive a coach and four through -- The main one being that the friar didn't simply tell Juliet's parents that she was already married to Romeo".

Is it not plausible that the priest, who married the two with good intentions but against the will of their two powerful families, feared for his position if the secret marriage was discovered?

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: NicoleC
Date: 21 May 02 - 12:17 AM

CapriUni, you're right about Lear. In high school we got split up into groups and assigned Shakespear plays to do a project with -- my group got Lear and made a movie. We had a blast laughing at all the silly disguises and turned it into kind of a dark comedy.

Whadda ya know, I forgot about that one. My flair for non-performance was established early on... I was the cameraperson :)

Of topic -- why do they insist that you memorize the prologue to Canterbury Tales? Oh please. If we were allowed to read the Wife of Bath, Much Ado is nothing!

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 21 May 02 - 12:19 AM

actually, it was me who talked about the plot hole...

And yes, I suppose it's plausible. But it still felt like a hole... Still, as I said before, he was simply dramatising a Harlequin Romance novel of the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 02 - 01:01 AM

Capri-I don't think it much matters to five hundred years of producers, theatre owners, actors, audiences, how the plays came to be--Ben Jonson said(in a very circumspect way), in his introduction to the first folio that we shouldn't worry too much about who wrote the plays, and just concentrate on the plays themselves--

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: CapriUni
Date: 21 May 02 - 10:53 AM

Well, I'll agree with that. Personally, I this think whole debate was created simply a gossip outlet for those who consider themselves too highbrow for the talk shows on tv...

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: alison
Date: 21 May 02 - 11:18 AM

yeah Fib, Belfast opera House... and probably as part of the "Queen's Festival".... I wish you hadn't said you were at school though.... now I feel old...... *grin*


slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 21 May 02 - 11:55 AM

aw, sorry alison! ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Is it me or is Shakspeare very strange..
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 02 - 06:22 PM

The debate went on long before there were talk shows--in 1592, a dramatist named Robert Greene published a story, Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, in pamphlet form, about a thinly disguised, disgraced young dramatist who is asked by a wealthy actor to write plays, which the actor takes credit for--the actor was an even more thinly disguised Shakespeare-Greene and George Peale seem to have written the original versions of all three parts of "Henry VI"--

Even Ben Jonson, in an epigram called "On Poet-Ape", says "To a little wealth and credit on the scene, He takes up all, and makes each man's wit his own"--

The questions about the authorship of Shakespeare seem to be about as old as the works themselves--