Twelfth Night (also known as “‘Back’ is such a relative term”)

I have no idea where this month has gone. Poof, even. It’s a good thing, in one way at least: Twelfth Night is coming!

Well, it’s there now, at the Hartford Stage:

Twelfth Night

May 18 – June 16

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Darko Tresnjak

- – And I’m going on Saturday. And I’m excited. Their Tempest last year was everything perfect and wonderful, and as some reading this may know I’m … rather fond of Twelfth Night. (Search it on the blog. You’ll see,)

But it’s sneaked up on me! Now all I have to do – by Saturday – is go back and read all my blog posts, watch the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production, write my piece on it, watch one or two other productions I’ve acquired since I let the Project peter off, write about them, and in all other ways refamiliarize myself with the play.

No problem.

Oh, and my sister just invited me to West Side Story at the Shubert next weekend. The theatah, my friends! *squee*

 

Much Ado About a trailer

There’s a trailer. I’m excited.

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• ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ Looks Like a Pretty Fun Party at Joss Whedon’s Place (theatlanticwire.com)
• Watch the Trailer for Joss Whedon’s Shakespeare Adaptation, Much Ado About Nothing (gawker.com)
• Trailer for Joss Whedon’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (geektyrant.com)
• Joss Whedon’s “Much Ado About Nothing” Gets A Thoroughly Charming And Vintage Whedon-like Trailer (xavierpop.com)
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Shakespeare’s As You Like It, edited by Demitra Papadinis

I received this as a LibraryThing Early Reader book, in exchange for an honest review.

(Warning – pretty much all the language I generally avoid in reviews up to now shows up here, en masse.)(In fact …)

 

 

 

Now, see, they teach this stuff in school. In high school. And the kids sit there bored out of their minds in class. Little do they know.

The idea behind this edition of Shakespeare’s comedy – and, it appears, also Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet in the series so far – is to undo some of the “cleaning up” that the plays have suffered over the centuries. Papadinis has gone back to the earliest printed versions of the work (for this, to the First Folio) to suss out what the original punctuation looked like, trying to undo layer after layer of standardization and “correction”. Also, she combs through the text word by word with a few dozen reference books to hand trying to determine any and all alternate meanings for words and phrases. One of the first examples, given in the introduction, is the phrase Shakespeare used fairly often and probably most memorably in Hamlet, “country matters”. This is fairly commonly known, I think (I knew, so therefore I tend to assume anyone knows), to be a euphemism for sex; I always sort of assumed it was some sort of reference to the highjinks lads and lasses get up to in the meadow. Not quite. “Country” was pronounced as it is now, so for Hamlet to say this as he lays his head in Ophelia’s lap – emphasize the first syllable of the phrase, now … Get it, wink wink nudge nudge? That’s what I expect from wordplay in Shakespeare.

I’m a little dubious about the extent to which this idea is developed in this edition, though. It feels like a drastic overcompensation for bowdlerism. While I fully agree with the precept that the plays had to compete with bawdy houses and bear baitings and cockfights and executions to sell tickets, and that Shakespeare was more than capable of not only double but triple and quadruple entendres, and that, in brief, it was all much dirtier than we really understand it to be now (as in “country matters”) … I don’t think it was necessarily as steeped in sex and excrement as this annotation suggests. I do believe that there were an absolutely gob-smacking number of words which stood for sex acts and various body parts; if nothing else, plays had to be gotten past the censors. But – well, take Act one, scene one of this play as presented here.

On the surface, and as it is probably staged 99.9% of the time, this is a scene in which a younger brother, Orlando, complains bitterly about his lot, first to the audience and then to his oppressive older brother. It’s clear and straightforward, and easy to understand. Now, to be sure, it benefits from the idea of multiple meanings of words, with the end result that by the end of the scene it is clear that Orlando has been, as the editor says, “treated like shit” and has been, figuratively at least (I hope figuratively) pretty thoroughly buggered. (I sincerely hope this wasn’t in any way meant to hint that there actually was a forced incestuous relationship there; that would put a slightly different spin on what after all is a comedy…) But does this add anything to what a straight and straightforward reading brings? I don’t think so. Orlando has been treated like shit, and has been screwed out of his rights; I don’t think it’s really necessary to use that big a hammer to make sure the point goes home.

They say that to a man with a hammer everything begins to look like a nail; to a woman with a shelf full of Elizabethan reference books everything begins to look X-rated?

This annotated edition goes back to the First Folio for spelling and punctuation, for reasons she makes clear and which make good sense. I, however, am using text as found online, to make my life easier. So. In this first scene, there are:

- At least ten words and phrases which are defined as also meaning “buggers” or “fucks” or “screws”: grieves, shake me up, be naught, pezant/peasant; trained; “it” means “sex”; foil; give him the payment; go; search (to search is to probe, so there you go)
- At least five words and phrases which are defined as also meaning sodomy/sodomize/be sodomized: endure; villaine (eunuch, or pathic, which I now know is the passive participant in sodomy); offend; be patient; old dog (as in “be used like an”)
- At least six words and phrases which are defined as also meaning penis: (spirit; that; part; grace (with disgrace meaning castration); thing; life)
- There is a “shit” theme, too: “It”, besides meaning sex, also means “chamberpot”; somehow “nearer to his reverence” relates to turds in some way; “elder”, as in “elder brother”, is a purgative (a derivative of the elder tree); rankness; “clear all” is the equivalent to a purging; Kindle = candle = suppository = Orlando is a piece of shit. (I’m not tempted to change the name of my Kindle.)

“His horses are bred better” – “Horses” is a homonym for “whores”, of course.

“He lets me feed with his hinds” – with a little acrobatic definition of “hinds” it means that Oliver makes an ass of Orlando.

Take the line “I will no longer endure it”. Rather than meaning simply that he’s mad as hell and not gonna take this any more, it becomes something else entirely: He will no longer endure it = he will no longer be a “patient”, or “sodomite”, and suffer – allow himself to be buggered, as “it” is (as aforementioned) the sexual act.

Oliver asks Orlando if, having been given a pittance, he will beg when that is spent – and “spent” is made to refer to ejaculation, because “that” means penis.

Orlando says he will “buy my fortunes” – which refers to Lady Fortune, and Lady Fortune’s buy or bay = vagina.

“Some part of your will” = “On the other hand, perhaps Oliver means to fulfill his own will (lust, libido…) by giving Orlando’s part (‘division in the buttocks’…) his part (penis, testicles, and semen…) – i.e., to ‘fuck’ him.”

“Her cousin so loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together”: cousins = harlots; together = mutually engaged, as lovers; and that they “bred” (cherish, foster) each other’s cradles (vaginas): therefore Rosalind and Celia are lovers.

“Either you might stay him from his intendment or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into” = If Orlando “persists in his intendment” (“a purpose, an intent”…), he will suffer intendment (i.e. “be screwed”). “Tent” is “the penis” … to “tent” is “to probe”… Orlando will brook (bear or suffer) disgrace (sexual violation…) in the such (“pubic-anal area”…)…

“Entrap thee by some treacherous device”: entrap = screw; trap = female pudendum; device = emasculate (vice = penis
All – the whole – hole – arse hole
Nothing remains = nothing is left to do but ensure Orlando gets his remain = balance of sum of money = payment = fucked.

In case it wasn’t clear, many words do double duty, adding layers of profanity to the thing. (Not that kind of thing. The book. Get your mind out of the gutter. Well, no, don’t bother till this is over….)

Bang, bang, bang goes the hammer.

To me this is all a little like reinterpreting Dickens this way:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” = “It”, as we’ve seen, means “penis”, which leads naturally to “worst” as a homonym for “wurst” = sausage = penis. To “best” is to overcome – clearly = sodomy; “times” = rhythm of metronome or beating heart = rhythm = copulation.

Obviously this is not remotely a subtext of Tale of Two Cities – Dickens was a Victorian writing for Victorians, after all – whereas there certainly is a bawdy undertone (and, often, overtone) to Shakespeare. But to pick each word apart from the rest in its sentence and then reconstruct the line with alternate meanings … I don’t buy it. For one thing, it’s exhausting for nearly every line to have hidden significance. For another, context is so completely discounted that I find it hard to credit such verbal calisthenics to Shakespeare, who was, after all, first and foremost a writer.

There is no denying this is a lovely edition; it’s nice to have the play spread out luxuriously over a well-made thick trade paperback, with lots of room to breathe and such thorough annotation. So many paperbacks of the plays seem hell-bent on conserving space, squishing notes on the text into space dictated by the setting of the text itself. If scene ii takes up six pages, then the notes have to fit into whatever room is allotted over those six pages, no matter what. This edition goes in the opposite direction, fitting the play around the notes, and there’s plenty of elbow room for extensive background on allusion and quote. It’s fascinating to read the text as it was printed in the First Folio – and surprising to me how comprehensible it is. (YMMV: I’m a freak, remember.) And I’m impressed to the point of awe at the sheer scope of research that went into this project. I just wish the reverse-bowdlerism hadn’t been taken to quite this extreme. It puts me in mind of the two opposing images of Elizabeth I: the Virgin Queen, and the story certain anti-Stratfordians favor – that not only was she not literally a Virgin Queen, she slept with just about everyone and had secret bastards littering the landscape. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction: that’s Newton’s Third Law writ simple. This annotation is far beyond equal and opposite.

So: do I agree with this book completely? Obviously not. But c’est la guerre – and Shakepearean scholarship, from my little observation post, really does on occasion resemble warfare. Do I recommend this? Absolutely. The research is impressive and valuable. I look forward to getting hold of the other plays Ms. Papadinis has worked on.

Related articles

• Thoughts: As You Like It by William Shakespeare (roofbeamreader.com)
• Costume & Theater: Shakespeare Resource Center (costumediscounters.com)
• Shakespeare And Emoticons (shkspr.mobi)

 

 

The Lodger Shakespeare – Charles Nicholl, Simon Vance

I pounced on this because I enjoyed/admired/appreciated Charles Nicholl’s [book:The Reckoning], about the murder of Christopher Marlowe, and because I was mad about Simon Vance’s reading of [book:Dust and Shadow]. Those two, plus Shakespeare, indicated an instant win.

Well… mostly.

First of all, I’m going to try to remember not to approach histories through Audible. If an author feels maps and illustrations and charts and the like are useful, then audio is not the way to go. The Civil War series I’ve already bought should be all right (except maybe for want of maps) – but something like this, which according to Google Books has 36 illustrations, loses in translation.

What this is, is an examination of what can be learned or inferred about Shakespeare from his deposition in a case that involved his landlord. “On Monday 11 May 1612, William Shakespeare gave evidence in a lawsuit at the Court of Requests in Westminster. His statement, or deposition, was taken down by a clerk of the court, writing in an averagely illegible hand on a sheet of paper measuring about 12 x 16 inches (see Plate 1) [see?]. At the end of the session Shakespeare signed his name at the bottom. It is one of six surviving signatures, and the earliest of them (though it can hardly be called early: he was forty-eight years old and already in semi-retirement).” “The dispute concerned a dowry: a sum of £60 which, Belott alleged, had been promised when he married Mountjoy’s daughter in 1604, and which had never been paid. … Belott also claimed that Mountjoy had promised to leave the couple a legacy of £200 when he died. Mountjoy denied both claims, and now, eight years after the event, the case was before the court.” Shakespeare was to be a valuable witness, as (by then) a gentleman and, very likely, a pretty well-known fellow. He turned out not to be so very valuable, and that’s part of the story.

I appreciate what I have learned from this examination of the period. Shakespeare took up lodgings over a tire-makers’ workshop on Silver Street in Cripplegate. “Tire” in the seventeenth century meant not Dunlops or Michelins, but the “tire” from which “tirewoman” and (I believe) “attire” come from: headgear worn by ladies (and those pretending to be ladies on the stage, and those wanting to attract gentlemen). The house was a decent distance away from the playhouse where Shakespeare still labored – getting there involved crossing the Thames, along with a rather lengthy land-bound slog. The whys and wherefores of this decision are explored; we can’t know once-and-for-all why, any more than we can know the details of anything else we are not given specifically in the court documents or other reliable sources, but this is one of the places where Nicholl exercises his well-honed art of learned supposition.

The tire-makers were Christopher and Marie Mountjoy; they had a daughter, Mary, and an apprentice named Stephen Belott, and, we learn in the course of the lawsuit, Marie had approached Mr. Shakespeare and asked him to persuade Belott to marry Mary. He did so, and the two were betrothed (hand-fasted, apparently) and married – and Mary’s father was not forthcoming with what he had promised. (He was apparently a real piece of work.) From the paperwork surviving from this four hundred year old family dispute (turned up by eccentric Shakespeare fanatics Hulda and Charles William Wallace) can be gleaned a surprising amount of information.

“It is true that biographical readings of the plays are dangerous, unregulated, prone to sentimentalization. It is absurd to cherry-pick passages of poetry written over more than two decades and infer from them a consistent personal attitude. Lines belong in a dramatic context and in the psychological context of the character who utters them and cannot be taken to reflect Shakespeare’s views.”

There are references to Shakespeare noted throughout this book that I’ve never heard of before, from contemporary letters and publications. I’m not an expert – but I would have thought I had read enough to have come across some of the contemporary and slightly post-mortem mentions. Dedications, and mentions of “Prince Hamlet”, notes about meeting with Shakespeare and so on – surprising.

However, this is really a great deal more “The Lodgings of Shakespeare” than “The Lodger Shakespeare”. As illumination of the setting in which Shakespeare lived, it’s wonderful; it explores the terrain in a fascinating, scholarly manner, and suddenly there are sights and sounds and scents, neighbors and lawsuits and voices and arguments enriching my mental image of Shakespeare. Nicholl, I already knew from [book:The Reckoning], has the ability to milk the smallest historical mention for everything it can possibly give. His caution is exemplary; while he does draw conclusions from the historic record, he never jumps to conclusions. The assumptions he makes are logical and sensible, and hedged about with “maybe”s and “possibly”s.

In fact, from what I was able to access on Google Books, I found the following:
Likely – 29 uses of the word
Possibly – 31
Possible – 24
May be – 91
May have – 29
Could be – 53
Perhaps – 87

There are entire chapters which barely mention Shakespeare at all. But close study of the documents surrounding the Mountjoy case and the drawing in of other documented facts allows for intelligent commentary on everything from Shakespeare’s sexuality, the state of his marriage, and the identity of the Dark Lady to what his surroundings were when he wrote. This is painting a portrait of Shakespeare by painting his surroundings. I remember one art school assignment being to pick your favorite shoes and to draw them in fine detail; this was, basically, a self-portrait. (Mine, if anyone’s interested, were a pair of tall floppy boots, which I often wore to faire.) This works both ways, and through existing information. There is an engraving of a writer’s chamber here, and a description of one there, and an average sort of a chamber elsewhere; take into account what Shakespeare’s income was and what he was working on at the time and a variety of other factors, and here is what his room looked like. Here is what the house he lived in looked like. Here is what his neighborhood looked like. Here is what he was like.

I enjoyed it, for the most part; it strayed into dry areas at times, particularly when it wandered away from the topic of Shakespeare himself. I feel I know more in some ways now about the Mountjoy family than I do about Shakespeare himself. But the portrait of William Shakespeare – the Lodger – drawn through this book is one I enjoyed the evolution of. Barring time travel or miraculous discoveries of documents, we’ll never know everything about Shakespeare; this pushed the boundaries of what is guessed into what might be called “known” a little further.

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Kissing Shakespeare – Pamela Mingle

Oh dear. I have this feeling I should have run screaming from this book. But the premise both repelled and interested me. I do love a good time travel story. (A good time travel story.) I love the idea of going back and meeting, say, Shakespeare. Unfortunately, that’s not really what this book is about.

What the book is about is a self-centered and not very intelligent girl put into a ridiculous circumstance, and an utterly predictable doomed love story. Shakespeare is barely a secondary character, a cardboard cutout, almost uninvolved in the plot.

Yeah, this is gonna be long. Honestly, I’ve winnowed it down as much as possible – it really doesn’t deserve this much time and thought. But, to quote Opus the Penguin, “Lord, it wasn’t good.”

Here’s the deal. Miranda, a teenaged budding actress, is coerced by Stephen, a time traveler, to go with him back in time to the home of his aunt and uncle, where – conveniently – a young William Shakespeare has taken a post as schoolmaster. Young Will has evidently fallen under the sway of a renegade Jesuit and is considering becoming a priest himself. Miranda will pose as Stephen’s sister; his real sister is – conveniently – ill, and the aunt and uncle in question are – conveniently – estranged from the family, so that they won’t know the difference, he says. Miranda’s task is to use whatever means necessary to convince young Will that he ought to be a playwright, not a priest, and thereby save the world. By “whatever means” I mean sex, which, you know, priests can’t have and all.

I won’t even get into the whole can of worms surrounding free will and the gravity of persuading someone with a calling away from the priesthood – but it’s no small matter, and having been brought up Catholic I am made a little queasy by it. But let that bide. There’s plenty else to talk about.

I understand why the writer chose to plunk an idiot American girl down in this story: everything had to be explained to her and therefore to the idiot American reader. What makes less sense is why Stephen would choose an idiot American girl. Why did he not choose an English girl who might at least be familiar with the history? Why travel all the way to America at all (which did not exist yet, and where Stephen should have fit in even worse than Miranda should have fit into an Elizabethan household, but never mind)? Towards the end Miranda muses about how very very important Shakespeare is to her – which is not, by any means, the impression I had any earlier. Which is a bit backwards.

Some time at the beginning of the story is spent building up Miranda’s potential: she is the daughter of famous Shakespearean actors, and wants the same career for herself, but as the book opens has just given a disastrous first performance in her high school’s production of The Taming of the Shrew. Because of her parents she has been exposed to the language and the atmosphere from an early age. She’s not a bad actor – she did well, we are told, in Much Ado, and her teacher saw fit to put her in the lead role in Shrew (thought that could have been sucking up to the parents). She has been to Renaissance Faires. She should be familiar with the language: she should be able, especially in an immersive environment, to take what she knows and extemporize conversation, should be able to slip into some semblance of believable speech and behavior patterns.

She doesn’t. She somehow simultaneously fails to adapt and yet effortlessly fits in. Somehow, the obstacles she encounters are negligible. The alien clothes don’t trouble her – well, she has worn costumes before. (Never mind that they were costumes from high school productions, and probably not historically accurate.) The alien food doesn’t trouble her – well, maybe she’s too young to suffer the massive indigestion she probably should wind up with. The ale – the only beverage provided – does trouble her, which is played, apparently, for comedy (not that it was funny), but I have a hard time believing that even someone so young would be so stupid as to get snockered her first night in an alien and dangerous place. (Dearie, ale x several mugs = drunk, no matter what century you’re in.) Had she drunkenly given the show away, she would have not only put herself at risk – very real physical risk – but the man posing as her brother and probably the rest of his actual family as well. She seems to see the situation as not even as important as her high school play. She keeps forgetting not to say “yeah” and suchlike (again, this seems to be played for comedy), but accents don’t trouble her – and they should, because the Shakespearian accents she’s used to aren’t going to remotely resemble those of the people around her, and neither will the BFA’s she’s heard all her life. Realistically, she is going to sound outlandish to them. (See below.) For this reason alone her masquerade as Stephen’s sister is ludicrous – why are their accents so completely different?

The whole situation was left very fuzzy. Stephen traveled forward in time, he eventually reveals, so as to determine just how big a deal it would be if Shakespeare never wrote a word. So, of course he enrolled in a high school in Massachusetts.

Wha – ?

Now, it is indicated that Stephen has been in a position to observe Miranda and the rest of her classmates for months … but he never spoke to her before literally grabbing her and dragging her off to a portal to the 1580′s. Might it not have been wiser to approach her first? But no. The way he spoke to her, and then actually manhandled her – abducted her by force, in fact – was disturbing. His behavior was not calculated to encourage cooperation – and, too, it was completely outside the realm of acceptable behavior for an Elizabethan (or any other era’s) gentleman. Actually, it was punishable by law: kidnapping is a federal offense.

There are a hundred and one reasons I could list why Miranda was a ludicrous choice, but this is going to be long enough as is. But … Why was time travel involved at all? Why couldn’t Stephen just have his sister do the seducing, or if that offended his delicacy some other loose female? Or here’s a thought: why not use, oh I don’t know – the woman who will be Shakespeare’s wife? However you look at the Second Best Bed thing, still and all, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. I would think this might be of some relevance to someone wanting to convince the man not to go celibate. Or did Stephen – not so bright his ownself, it seems – not discover this small detail? It makes no sense – but allowing for this nonsense, why didn’t he at least pick a smart girl?

“I had no idea what mutton was; I only knew it tasted awful, especially for breakfast.” ~ Miranda

This moment was, for the record, that at which I stopped actually reading and started skimming. I am required to deal with enough idiots at work; there is no reason in the world I should choose to spend my leisure time with them. If it had merely been that Miranda didn’t know what mutton was, I might have kept plowing on. Mutton isn’t eaten a lot in the Northeast – I’ve never seen it in the store, only lamb; it’s a forgivable gap in knowledge. It was just the proverbial last straw.

The one reason that comes to mind for Stephen’s choice of Miranda is one which would have resulted in the following exclamation from her had I (God forbid) written this:

“You mean you picked me because you thought I was a slut?!” – followed by mayhem and bloodshed.

It took me a little longer to realize that the other side of this was almost as offensive:

“You mean you came up with this plan because you thought Shakespeare was a slut?!”

Stephen and the author both do seem to believe so. Granted, odds are pretty good in any age that a teenaged boy is going to be more than willing to sleep with any girl who offers – but the circumstances here aren’t exactly favorable: he is trying to decide if he has a calling, he is a gentleman, he is already in love with another girl, he has a position as a teacher in this household and swiving the master’s niece would be a Bad Thing… But he falls right in with the plan. As I mentioned, there’s not much work put into fleshing out the character; what there is presents him as an irreligious frivolous light-minded idiot.

I really don’t like it when that happens.

It’s on that thought that my rating for this lost one of its only two stars. Because really, that’s the underlying message: Shakespeare + random expendable pretty girl = no more priestly thoughts. I loathe the entire idea: the only plan the main male character can come up with is seduction; he believes that the 21st century is completely licentious, and therefore never considers that a girl all-but-randomly chosen might be a virgin. If this was meant to be a commentary of any sort, I don’t know what the author was trying to say. While Miranda was a virgin she wasn’t terribly troubled by what was being asked of her. Of course, it did take her quite a while to catch on to the fact that this is what’s being asked of her, so, again, not the sharpest blade in the drawer.

And of course, in the end, all of it was pointless; nothing Stephen or Miranda did really seems to have affected Shakespeare’s decision. Which thereby renders the entire book completely pointless.

Part of my argument that Miranda is indeed an idiot, or at least remarkably incurious: she should have been badgering Stephen – who does belong to the 16th century – about how he traveled forward in time, how he chose her (besides his low opinion of her morals), and how he even knew Shakespeare’s future was worth protecting in the first place. He is, after all, Will Shakespeare’s contemporary. Will is the same age as Miranda, and hasn’t written anything anyone knows about yet. I would think however dismissive Stephen was I wouldn’t get off his back until he gave me something: you dragged me – literally – out of my life into this, you are damn well going to tell me how and what that was based on. Miranda? Wanders about for at least a couple of weeks without questioning a thing: it was 40% into the book. Sorry, no. It’s too long for her to have waited (it makes no sense), and too long to have made me to wait.

The writing has a juvenile tone, which is appropriate in some ways to the juvenile whose head we occupy, and also I suppose could be said to be appropriate to the age group the book seems to have been written for (though I had to force myself to write that – for me, writing down to anyone of any age is a cardinal sin). The challenge this sort of choice presents to a writer is to keep the narrator’s voice age-appropriate while still seeing to it that the adults around her sound like adults. Here? They don’t. And they certainly don’t sound like Elizabethan adults. It’s awkward.

Which is the kindest word I can come up with for the book as a whole.

It is, perhaps, harsh for me to judge this little book by the same standards I would a serious historical novel. I was going to say I judge everything I read by much the same standards – but I realized that’s not entirely true. For me books aimed at a younger audience have if anything a higher standard to adhere to. Look at it this way: if this is the first experience a teenager has of Shakespeare, what is she going to take away from it? He was a not very interesting character who almost became a priest (which is not supported by historical evidence)? There is nothing in the discussion of him or his work that would send a reader off to find out why he’s so great. This isn’t to say that a book aimed at non-adults must instruct – but, in my opinion, they ought not to either give bad information or turn a reader away from learning.

Also? A book’s audience must be taken into account. A children’s book that contains a lot of profanity is not a very good children’s book, and a young adult book that advocates loose sex is not a very good YA. This is not only not a very good YA, it’s not a very good book.

My sighing prediction near the beginning was that as the book begins with Miranda’s self-flagellation about a botched job as Katherine, events in the past would teach her about the inner workings of Kate’s mind so that she would come back and give a second performance that would deserve a Tony Award.

*dingdingding*

Just for fun:

Stephen is touted in his introduction to the story as having a lovely British accent. Wrong.

From www.renfaire.com: “Proper Elizabethan language is not the modern ‘snooty’ English of many plays and movies, nor the drawn out cockney accent; proper Elizabethan is more akin to the speech of backwood communities on the East Coast of the United States, where language has not changed significantly since the founding of those communities.”

But from the Dialect Blog: “I have heard many people make the claim that ‘American English is closer to the language of Shakespeare than British English.’ That is misleading. In reality, Elizabethan English would have been radically different from the contemporary English spoken in both countries. Everything I have read suggests it would be most similar to Irish English, or perhaps some very strong West Country dialects. Furthermore, it had so many grammatical and syntactical features unfamiliar to contemporary English speakers that neither Brits nor Americans would have an easy time understanding your average audience member at the Globe.”

And there’s lots more here. And also here.
This absolutely earns the Penguin of Disapproval (stolen from Popcorn Dialogues):

In related news:

Kat’s Cuddlebuggery review

 

The Tempest at the Hartford Stage

I’m excited. Every year, it seems, I do the research on Shakespeare plays that are going to be produced in Connecticut – they’re doing Hamlet over here, and the Dream over there, and Much Ado yonder, and oh boy can’t wait! And then every year something happens: I don’t have money for the tickets, I don’t have anyone to go with, I, er, forget … yadda. The end result is that I haven’t seen live Shakespeare in … oh. Since I saw The Tempest with Patrick Stewart in 1995? Unless of course there was a RenFaire play after that. Well. That’s just sad.

This spring I planned to do my income taxes nice and early and drag my sister to see Kevin Spacey in Richard III in New York… oh well.

Still, a couple of months ago I spent an afternoon wandering the web looking for a list of plays coming up in the next months in Connecticut. I did it with a feeling of partly resignation (Eeyore-like, thinking, oh, bother, it’s not going to work out this year either) and partly steely determination (will too).

Steely determination for the win.

There’s still – unbelievably – a little income tax refund money floating around; it usually vanishes like snow in August, somehow, I never quite know how. But not this year! For the heck of it, I checked my list of what’s coming, and saw that the Hartford Stage’s performance of The Tempest is on now – it just began and runs into early June. Well.

I checked the bank balance. Looked okay.

I don’t have anyone to go with, I thought. The only way I would have been able to drag my sister off to see Richard III was Kevin Spacey; nobody else does Shakespeare (or pretty much anything else I love).

So?

I’d best adapt to doing things I want to do by myself if there’s no one in my life who would enjoy them. (Which there isn’t.) I did the RenFaire alone, once – I can do this. While it will lack the fun of shared memories and the ability to turn to someone and say (excitedly or disgustedly) “did you see that?!” … there’s also the positive aspect that I can do whatever I want, when I want to. The last RenFaire trips I took were marvels of concession and adaptation. A scene from Frasier kept running through my head: Niles buys a whippet which is basically Maris in canine form, skinny and haughty and high-strung. The dialogue went something like (In bright tones): “Come back, Girl. (no response) Come back here this instant! (nothing) OHkay.” I could hear myself saying things like “Great, we’ve agreed, we’re going to see this show that starts at 11! This way! OHkay, we have a little time, we can stop at this booth. OHkay, we still have a few minutes, we can stop to watch this performance. OHkay, well, there’s another show at three, maybe we’ll try that one” – that same bright “okay”. When it really wasn’t.

Alone? No “OHkay.”

I bought a ticket for The Tempest.

There was a single seat priced in the mid-range, isolated three in on a staggered row which looks – looks, mind you, on the diagram – like it will have an unobstructed view of the stage from row 7: Not bad. It’s a matinee, so I don’t have to worry about wandering Hartford aimlessly looking for the highway in the dark (did that coming home from seeing Jeff Dunham with my sister – that wasn’t fun, and why was that street blocked off by a row of trashbags anyway?)

I wonder if it will rain on the day I go. I hate driving in the rain, but if it does rain, I will laugh: my cousin and I tried to see The Patrick Stewart Tempest when it was still in Central Park, but we were neophytes to the whole thing and had no idea you have to all but camp out for tickets. We schlepped off to NYC early, but not early enough – and then it started to rain. A lot. A whole lot. We went to the Natural History Museum instead. A bit later he and my sister and I (my sister being interested in Patrick Stewart as well as Kevin Spacey) got tickets for The Patrick Stewart Tempest at the Public Theatre … and it rained. A lot. So twice we tried to see The Tempest in a tempest. I almost hope it does rain.

And as it turns out, Prospero is played by Daniel Davis. The name rang no bells, but the face definitely did, so I Goodsearched, and found this: “Davis played his most famous character, Niles the butler on the television series The Nanny, throughout its run from 1993 to 1999 …” Oh right! And, even better: “Davis also used an English accent as Professor Moriarty in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes ‘Elementary, Dear Data’ and ‘Ship in a Bottle.’” Whee! (He also played the captain of the Enterprise in The Hunt for Red October, which is semi-geeky.) As I recall, he has a wonderful voice; this should be fun.

Maybe this will after all be the year I see live Shakespeare again.

I’m excited.

Related articles

• Christopher Plummer’s ‘The Tempest’ hits cinemas (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Theatre Coventry: Review: The Tempest at Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford (coventrytelegraph.net)

 

William Shakespeare: The World as Stage – Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is an old friend. His approach to history makes the standard tome all the more flat and dull by comparison – Bryson knows his stuff well enough to not only present it to an audience but to play with it, to have fun with it, to make it fun. He genuinely loves his subjects, and it is infectious. He’s like the teacher you always hoped to get – the brilliant, funny, cool one who (to use a real example) sat cross-legged on the table at the front of the room and told the most amazing stories and made you sorry when the class was over, rather than the one who turned the lights off and showed irrelevant slides to a group of uninterested and often napping art students at the deadly time of 3:00 in the afternoon.

With The World as Stage, Bryson has succumbed to the lure of adding to the groaning shelves of Shakespeare biography, with the excuse (if he needs one) that herein will lie

The Chandos portrait

only what is known beyond doubt. Shakespeare biography is, he tells us, 90% conjecture, and about 5% fact; here he tries to gather together “just the facts” (I said that, he didn’t), and talk about where they originated and about the conjecture they’ve sparked and the probabilities therein.

For example, he begins with the visual image of Shakespeare as we know it. He efficiently dissects the three images most closely associated with him, the three on which all others are based: the Chandos portrait (which may not be Shakespeare); the engraving which appeared as the frontispiece of the First Folio (which is bloody awful); and the bust that is part of his memorial (many of the details of which have been obliterated). Did he look like any or all of these? Maybe. What, exactly, did he look like? We don’t really know.

The Cobbe portrait, the Chandos, and the Droeshout engraving

When was he born, and where? We’re not sure.

Shakespeare's birthplace - maybe

How did he do in school, and what exactly did he study? We don’t even know that he went – though it’s probable.

How was his marriage to Anne Hathaway? We have no idea – we don’t even know that “Anne” was her name; her father’s will refers to her as Agnes. I never knew that.

The Cobbe portrait

And so forth. Data is so very scarce for many reasons. It’s been four hundred years; records have deteriorated or gone up in flames; what records there are can be next to impossible to locate and once located to read and/or decipher. Shakespeare’s name was spelled dozens of different ways, including by himself, and never “Shakespeare”. Even with all that, a researcher simply can’t expect so very many mentions of Shakespeare in the public record: unless he was getting married, baptizing a child, or involved in an arrest or lawsuit (or dying), there simply would be no official documentation. If for no other reason, I would treasure this book for two things: first was the story of the husband and wife team of Charles and Hulda Wallace who, driven in the early 1900′s by the husband’s obsession with Shakespeare, spent 18 hour days poring over the public record from Will’s lifetime and made some discoveries (and then he lost his mind and went paranoiac and into oil). I know it marks me out as a bit freaky, but I’ll admit it anyway: I would give a lot to be able to go and spend 18 hours a day studying cramped and often faded and illegible 16th century documents looking for mentions of Shakespeare. Sounds like a dream job. Seriously. The second gift Bryson gives me in this is the concept that if there really was a Love’s Labours Won, there were probably enough copies made that it could still be found one day. (Way to reduce a Shakespeare geek to tears, Bryson.) (Sadly, in the interview which serves as Chapter 10, he contradicts that. But hope springs, and all that.)

I call myself a Shakespeare geek, and probably shouldn’t; for me it refers to my deep affection and fascination for the man and his work – thirst for knowledge, not necessarily possession of knowledge. I know more than the average bear, but not enough to truly qualify me as a geek. For example, I had no idea that Will’s brother Edmund was an actor (and died at only 27 in the same year as their mother, both of unknown causes). I also didn’t know Walt Whitman was a rabid anti-Stratfordian (which Bryson doesn’t mention, but which I discovered in related reading.) I do know enough not to trust any single source – not even Bill Bryson …

Bill Bryson reads his own words, and I enjoy his voice, lightly deep, young and humorous and pleasant. He reads naturally and easily, with healthy pauses where they’re needed and not where they are not. And it’s fun to listen to the British influence on his accent (he was born in Des Moines, lived there from 1977 to 1995, moved back to the US, then returned to England in ’03, where he remains). It’s not wholly a British accent, but there is British in it; I feel like Sherlock Holmes tracing his travels through his enunciation, except that I’m going about it backwards.

Much as I enjoy Bryson’s reading, though, I’m not sure audio is the best format for this, for me. For a book like this I need to be able to flip back and see what year the will was found, and remind myself of names of the Folger Library archivists Bryson talked to, and how many Shakespeare-related publications he mentioned were there, and so on. It’s a lot harder to do this with audio, even the comparatively flexible medium of a digital file on my iPod. Also, I suspect there are illustrations in the tangible editions; there usually is an insert in exactly this sort of book.

If for no other reason, I owe Bill Bryson for a wonderful quote which I am adopting. I may have it tattooed somewhere. Written in a letter to a friend upon having written a preface to Delia Bacon’s dense and nutty anti-Stratfordian book (without having read it): “This shall be the last of my benevolent follies, and I will never be kind to anybody again as long as I live.” ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne. (In L.M. Montgomery, the only people who share my last name are nasty cows. In The World as Stage, the city of my birth is the home and gravesite of Delia Bacon. *sigh*) I kind of want to go lay Hawthorne’s quote, in illuminated calligraphy and elaborately framed, on her grave. (I just might.)

Bryson devotes a chapter – a funny, sardonic, bubble-popping chapter – to what is often called the Authorship Question. To wit: that actor guy who couldn’t even spell his own name couldn’t have written the finest works in the English language. Bryson happily takes that concept apart, and then takes its component pieces apart. I’m a Stratfordian, and … honestly, as a rock-solid Stratfordian, I’ll admit, I have a sneaking affection for the Oxfordian theory of authorship. It’s fun. It’s balderdash, but it is fun. Not, however as much fun as the Marlovian theory – who doesn’t love the idea of someone faking his death so as to become a better spy, as well as to go off and write the finest plays and poetry the English language has ever produced? I would love to play with that story … But the Kit-Marlowe-didn’t-die-at-Deptford story is mostly wishful thinking for me, because I have an unaccountable fondness for the man.

But when all is said and done, I can only marvel at the insistence of so many otherwise intelligent people that Shakespeare could not have had the education or breadth of experience to write his plays. First of all – no one knows that. Bill Bryson takes great pains to enumerate all the things we do not know about William Shakespeare. (And even at that we know more about him than about 99% of his contemporaries.) Second of all … A large plank in the platform of many of the Theorists is that the author of the plays has to have been a lawyer because of the extent to which the law is referenced in the plays, and/or has to have traveled extensively because of the non-English settings of so many plays … et cetera. I can only conclude that the people who hold those beliefs have never written fiction. I know next to nothing about cars, but if I decided to create a character like Mercedes Thompson I could crack a book or talk to a mechanic (or use the internet), and present a reasonable simulation of expertise. I am not now nor ever have been a forensic analyst, but I can talk (within very strict limits) about petechial hemorrhaging and lividity and epithelial cells and loops and whorls and so on without making a total fool of myself, because of exposure to stories about forensic analysts. If I needed more artistic verisimilitude for an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative, I could – again – crack a book or talk to a CSI (or wander the internet). If I want to set a book in Katmandu, I don’t have to go there; it’s a wonderful thing to be able to do so, but – - it’s called “research”.

Oddly, it’s an defense I haven’t seen used in what I’ve read about the Authorship Question. It just seems so obvious…

Shakespeare was not writing in a vacuum, all alone and armed only with his own direct experience. If fiction was written under those rules, science fiction, fantasy, most mystery, and a large percentage of non-subgenre novels would be impossible. In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes a wonderful account of calling up a local vintner to ask what the wire gadget is called that anchors the cork in a champagne bottle. As she points out, most people are delighted to talk about their vocations. All those reference to the law? Shakespeare went out and observed, and read, and talked to lawyers. All those Italian settings? Shakespeare went out and read, and talked to sailors and other travelers (and either did not pay close attention or got bad information, as his geography is way off in several cases). Every single one of the objections that “Shakespeare couldn’t have known that” can be knocked down with two simple sentences: “We don’t know what he knew”, and “If he didn’t know, he asked”. It’s just all so foolish.

What’s rather alarming, reading about the theories, is reading in turn about this new movie that’s just come out, “Anonymous”. (Which, not to be obtuse about it, is rather an idiotic name, isn’t it, if the theory is that in order to disseminate his work Edward DeVere made use of some guy named Shakespeare as a front for the plays? They’re not by “Anonymous”, after all.) It’s part of the Oxfordian cabal’s arsenal – and the worrying bit is that they are spreading high school and college study guides as far and wide as they can. Not, from what I understand, insisting that DeVere was actually the author, but raising the question suggestively. “Make your own decision,” they seem to say, “was it Sir Edward DeVere 17th Earl of Oxford … or was it that guy Wilm Shaksper whose father made gloves?”

In the end, for me the Authorship Question has the kind of interest of one of those alternate histories: what if the South had won the Civil War, or if Hitler had won WWII? Or (not that I’ve seen this one, yet) what if the moon really was made of green cheese? The South and Hitler didn’t, and the moon isn’t, and while what-if’s are entertaining, they’re not otherwise productive.

And, in the end, did the world desperately need one more book about Shakespeare? Well, no. But am I for one happier because Bill Bryson wrote one? Yeah. I am.

 

Twelfth Night – Viola

VIOLA
A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled
me, was yet of many accounted beautiful: but,
though I could not with such estimable wonder
overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly
publish her; she bore a mind that envy could not but
call fair. She is drowned already, sir, with salt
water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.

I think for many the character of Viola, who becomes Cesario, puts Twelfth Night into the realm of fantasy as much as the fairies do for Midsummer.  Not for me.  Sure, it is far-fetched for a well-bred young lady to dress like a boy and convince everyone around her that she is, basically, her brother… but I feel Shakespeare takes care of the reasons for not suspending disbelief.  Yes, she’s a young gentlewoman – but since their father died (some four years ago, perhaps?) she and her twin brother have been much on their own.  (There’s a fan-fiction there.)  She knows him better than she knows anyone else.  And, since they’ve been alone together since the age of thirteen, she will have had a close view of his process of learning to become a man.  Additionally, there’s never a mention of their mother, so the presumption can be that she’s been gone for a long time, and that for a while before he died their father was raising them alone; she’s had masculine companionship all her life.  If you really wanted to go fan-ficty and conjecture, it’s not so far-fetched that her father and brother have taught her things, like the basics of fencing, which no girl should know.  It’s obvious she’s intelligent, and it’s believable she has had the closest thing to firsthand experience of boyhood a girl can have; she would know how to make excellent use of all of that.  Plus, she says that she is in a way keeping her brother alive by becoming his image –

VIOLA
He named Sebastian: I my brother know
Yet living in my glass; even such and so
In favour was my brother, and he went
Still in this fashion, colour, ornament,
For him I imitate: O, if it prove,
Tempests are kind and salt waves fresh in love.

And while such a thing may never have happened, I don’t think it’s my steady diet of fantasies and gothics that make the whole charade a reasonable response for her situation.  The Trevor Nunn film pads the story, making the threat to her bigger and darker, but I don’t think it’s necessary.  I know a bit about how impossible would be the position of a, say, seventeen-year old girl, completely alone in a strange land with only the clothes and possessions salvaged from a sinking ship and what money she had on her

I found a nice little examination of the names used in the play (somewhere): the viola, for example, is also a musical instrument with a deeper tone than a violin, so perhaps our Viola has (or affects) a lower voice than other girls.

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BBC (1980): Felicity Kendal‘s Viola is composed and calm, much like the rest of the production.  She does not begin shaken by grief, and continues largely unperturbed by circumstances.  She loves Orsino, and gazes longingly, and seems to quietly enjoy thinking about him while quietly sorrowing that she cannot at the moment have him.  She does not love Olivia, and shows some frustration there at not being able to shake her off; it is only toward the end that any passion breaks through, when Orsino announces he will kill Cesario – passion to allow her beloved to do whatever he thinks he needs to do to ease his heart.  Which is not to say it isn’t a lovely performance – it is; Felicity Kendal isn’t speaking lines, she’s speaking her character’s thoughts, inhabiting her “poor monster”, softly rueful there.  This Cesario is a young lad, although a bit feminine possibly convincing to someone who doesn’t look at “him” and say “oh, look, it’s Felicity Kendal”.  She does something the others don’t, standing like a boy with feet apart and hands behind back, and putting a boot up on Olivia’s bench and leaning on that knee to address the lady – not like a woman pretending to be a girl pretending to be a boy, but naturally and unaffectedly, as she delivers her lines.  Naturalistic body language.

The costume of the period helps Viola in this masquerade – it’s a very clever period to set 12 in.  The flowing hair and swags of lace and big swaggering boots are both feminine enough (to modern eyes) and ostentatious enough that it can all be hidden behind.  And all of that – the big droopy feather on the hat and the swashbuckling sword on the hip (man, what a great period for costume) – is the first thing someone is going to be seeing.  It’s wonderful camouflage.

This Viola is a cool-headed, logical, calm girl, with a great sense of humor.  She took on the role of Cesario for self-preservation, and is finding herself to be quite enjoying it, and being amused by a great deal of what goes on.

She, Michael Thomas as her brother, and the wardrobe and makeup departments (but especially she) did a good enough job that upon one of Sebastian’s entrances I was near-sightedly startled when he spoke that it wasn’t Felicity.  That’s the only time that’s happened.  Same long, feathered hair – Cavalier style; same clothes, of course; but most of all they coordinated on manner of walking and carriage, and that made what would have been a total lack of resemblance (in face, voice – and height) much, much less ridiculous.  She put on Cesario like a second skin, and played a relaxed, sharp young lad with perfect ease.  There were things I missed – but overall I loved her Viola.

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Trevor Nunn (1996): Imogen Stubbs – cut hair, bound breasts; she has a deeper voice, and husky, so passes as a boy well in that area.  And she’s the only Viola among the versions I watched who pasted on a mustache.  I don’t remember any incidents with it, which, if that memory is accurate, is remarkable: a director passing up the easy laugh.  Good on him.

This is also the only Viola (almost) who follows up on “for I can sing And speak to him in many sorts of music” – we meet Cesario playing Orsino’s piano.

This Viola is bold – she makes the leap of cutting off all that hair.  I know from experience that this is a huge move, and there’s no going back, not quickly.  It’s smart – when men’s fashion is short hair, it would be dangerous to try to hide long hair – and in the setting of this production especially it’s a big deal.  She is physical: she gamely makes an attempt in a fencing salle (which of course gave Trevor Nunn the opportunity to have the fencing master put a hand squarely on her breast), and practices spitting and other such masculine arts.  She plays pool with Orsino (very well), and cards – it’s very much an Edwardian sort of man’s world here, and this Viola fits in as well as could be expected.

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No image is available as pre-Cesario Helen Hunt in L@LC

L@LC (1998): Helen Hunt – wonderful.  I have the suspicion that it’s not fashionable to love Helen Hunt, but when have I ever cared about that?  I loved her in this.  It’s a totally different animal from the Trevor Nunn, this play, a straight-forward on-stage production rather than a full cinematic event.  Helen Hunt has lovely comic timing, and perfect reactions – broad, but appropriate for the stage.  She pulled off a very good impersonation of a young man or teenager, slightly older than many of the Cesarios appear to be – an attractive woman who can be an attractive boy.  The costume and hair made it almost perfect: hair in a sleek ponytail, as is Sebastian’s of course, and a white suit just like his (of course).  The resemblance was the best here,   Great reactions, great comic timing – all the right notes perhaps slightly overplayed for the stage, and sometimes played to the audience.  Viola here is a woman in transition, trying to get her feet under her, and suddenly set upon by love from two angles – here, the everywoman thrown into a thoroughly extraordinary situation.  A viola-like voice, low for a woman, and just right for a young man: perfect.  I still want to see the rest.  Stupid PBS.

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HVSF (2008): Katie Hartke – wonderful.  She pulls off her impersonation nicely (though there’s not so much of a resemblance to Sebastian) – could be a young boy, young enough to make it squicky – but mature for “his” age.  Her hair gathered under her hat.  She’s on edge, emotional – as a woman would be in her place.  There is a wonderful immediacy to this performance: this Viola is absolutely present in the moment, every moment, sharply aware and intent on each line, each scene.

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ATV British TV (1969): Joan Plowright – Not immensely convincing as a girl playing a boy.  It was, in a way, a nice choice to have her witness the end of Orsino’s scene and decide she will serve him.  It explains the decision nicely- because it is a drastic decision … but then it weakens the scene.  She leaves the scene with backward glances (except for the hair, he’s handsome, nice legs, and nice voice).  She is devoid of feeling for much of it, very still, with many soulful upward gazes – not the passion required for some scenes.  She also plays Sebastian, with a hint of facial hair – which solves the mistaken identity casting problem, but …

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Branagh (1988): Frances Barber is sweet, smart, good as a fifteen-year-old boy; lovely emotion.  She is a relief in a mean-spirited production – and it’s a horrible shame: if the whole thing had lived up to her, it would be one of my favorite versions instead of my far and away least favorite.

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Tim Supple (2003): Parminder Nagra

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Image via Wikipedia

 

Twelfth Night – Branagh/Thames Shakespeare

Branagh (1988) (Thames Shakespeare Collection)

Made for television?
VIOLA: Frances Barber
FESTE: Anton Lesser
DUKE ORSINO: Christopher Ravenscroft
MALVOLIO: Richard Briers
SIR TOBY BELCH: James Saxon
OLIVIA: Caroline Langrishe
SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK: James Simmons
MARIA: Abigail McKern
ANTONIO: Stuart McCreery
SEBASTIAN: Sebastian/Curio: Christopher Hollis
DIRECTOR: Paul Kafno; Producers: Paul Kafno, Ian Martin
OTHER: Paul Williams

The music for this staging is (as in Branagh’s other Shakespeares) by Patrick Doyle, except the Shakespearean ballad performed by Feste – “Come Away Death” – borrows an adapted melody from Paul McCartney’s song “Once Upon A Long Ago”. McCartney donated the melody for Kenneth Branagh’s original stage production of Twelfth Night, performed by the Renaissance Theatre Company, and allowed the melody to be used in the film version.

McCartney or no McCartney – I honestly hated this.  Once again I wanted to love it.  Come on – Kenneth Branagh and Shakespeare are like peanut butter and chocolate.  Patrick Doyle!  And Richard Briers!  And I loved the concept of Anton Lesser’s Feste.  And … But dear lord…

It’s kind of funny (funny strange, very definitely not funny … ha ha) that this was the only one – I think – in which there were references to the time of year of the title: instead of dodging about hedges the tricksters here kept a Christmas tree between them and Malvolio.

The only reason I might watch any of this again is that I just saw on imdb that Paul Williams played Curio.  That Paul Williams?  Really?  That’s just bizarre enough to bring me back – briefly.

Actually, funnily enough, it seems that this was probably relabeled for DVD sales, with Branagh’s name writ larger all over it than back in ’88; he was not as prominent in the production of it, based on some places I’ve looked, as the big letters would have one think.  I like the idea that he wasn’t – his Much Ado is one of my favorite things in the world, and did a wonderful job of capturing the joy of the story, where this … did not.

This production, like Tim Supple’s, sucked every drop of joy out of the play.  There’s a quote I saved from the Cambridge University Press, via a very messy article on archive.org: “Another feature is the genial spirit that pervades the piece . . . its tone of pure kindliness and pleasure.”  Not here.  None of the above.  Every scene takes place out of doors, in the courtyard and garden outside Olivia’s home or Orsino’s garden – despite the fact that the Twelfth Night part is taken seriously and everyone is bundled up, and in several scenes it snows.

And the weather is not the only chilly thing about it.  Olivia (Caroline Langrishe) is a stone cold bitch, with the tiniest of soft spots for Feste – not to be relied upon, because my impression of this Olivia is that she might yank her support again at any moment.  Malvolio (Richard Briers) is spiteful and vicious, and deserves what he gets – almost.  Uncle Toby (James Saxon) is just a drunk, Sir Andrew (James Simmons) is a young moron being fleeced for every cent he has, Orsino (Christopher Ravenscroft) is depressed and depressing, and Sebastian (Christopher Hollis) was such a non-entity that the actor did double duty as Curio.  I’d love to punch Maria in the face.

And Feste (Anton Lesser) … Oh my, Feste.  He looks great.  I love the long and wild hair and the costume.  He sounds great – he has an excellent voice and delivery.  But this Feste is depressed and angry and violent – outright scary in several scenes.  This is a Feste you don’t want to piss off, in plain American; this is a Feste whose life is screwed up, who should be in rehab and on antidepressants, and could use a couple of back-to-back courses on anger management.  There is, par for the course in this film, no joy in Feste, no fooling around in the Fool.

This all lends extra pain to the torture and release of Malvolio.  In other productions, Toby and company play their tricks to get revenge on a pompous twit who has wronged them and belittled them and just annoyed the hell out of them.  It starts out in high spirits – and in distilled spirits – and goes further than they meant.  In the “Branagh” version it starts out mean-spirited and only gets worse.  And when Briars as Malvolio is let out of his tiny cell, it’s one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen in a while: he’s bent, because there was not room to stand straight; he’s blinded by the winter daylight, because he was in the dark for so long; he’s filthy.  And he’s obviously injured.  This isn’t funny.  This isn’t a practical joke.  This is reason to call the police in and prosecute.  If there was any sign of remorse at any point in the film, I don’t remember it; that’s one more thing the Supple version had that this didn’t – Maria bursts into bitter tears toward the end.  To channel Kristin Chenoweth’s intro to HVSF: brightly – “It’s a comedy!”

The closest thing to a saving grace about the whole thing was Frances Barber as Viola.  I liked her a lot.  She was lovely; she was a lovely actor; she was the sole source of warmth in the thing.  She had a sparkle in her eyes, and inhabited Viola nicely – and made a natty Cesario: she made one of the best boys.  Unfortunately, she just wasn’t enough to remotely save this nasty mess.

 

Twelfth Night – Live at Lincoln Center

Good grief, tonight is Twelfth Night! I so intended to have all my posts done!  (And my book finished!  And … stuff.  Woops.) 

However, in honor of the Lord of Misrule and all that, let’s see what I can accomplish.  I’ve Netflixed the BBC 12th, which for some reason I bought in VHS (!), and also the Supple one again because I shot it back so fast I didn’t take any screencaps.  I also do want to take another look at parts of the latter because, really, it can’t be as bad as I thought.  And I flat out don’t remember Feste.  Which is just weird.   

In the meantime, here’s my take on one of my favorite productions.  As much as is possible, at least.

L@LC (1998)
Filmed stage production
VIOLA: Helen Hunt
FESTE: David Patrick Kelly
DUKE ORSINO: Paul Rudd
MALVOLIO: Philip Bosco
SIR TOBY BELCH: Brian Murray
OLIVIA: Kyra Sedgwick
SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK: Max Wright
MARIA: Amy Hill
ANTONIO: Julio Monge
SEBASTIAN: Rick Stear
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Hytner
COSTUME: Catherine Zuber
MUSIC/SCORE: Jeanine Tesori

 I saw this when it was first on PBS, and I loved it; I taped it, but I haven’t ever been able to find the tape.  (Unfortunately, I taped a lot of things, and therein lies the problem.)  There are bits and pieces on YouTube, and that’s all I’ve found so far – I’ll have to remember to put in a search for it on eBay now and then.  Never know.  Based on memory and what’s available, here’s L@LC.

I remembered the pools onstage, and the sexiness of it, and just enjoying the heck out of it – and based on the excerpts I’ve gotten my hands on the memories were accurate.  The setting was modernish, with minimal sets: gates (though no walls), paths and distant views, those pools, benches around the pools.  I thought it was an interesting choice to use pools when furniture is so minimal.  Also interesting: in hunting for Twelfth Night video and pictures I’ve found references to other productions (including one with John Lithgow as Malvolio – that I would have loved to see) which used pools.  I wouldn’t have thought that a natural progression of ideas.  But they are used very well indeed here; wet clothes are the next best thing to nudity (insert smiley face here).  Feste has some fun splashing through toward the end, and I’m fairly sure that Orsino has one of the obligatory bath scenes in one of them.   Best of all was Act II, scene iv:

Orsino:
Come hither, boy: if ever thou shalt love,
In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
For such as I am all true lovers are,
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
Save in the constant image of the creature
That is beloved …

Wonderfully, Orsino rolls over onto his chest and stares into the water as he says those last words.  And then splashes the image away.  Brilliant. 

The hedge scene is not one of those available, sadly, so I don’t know how they handled that.  My impression of the costuming by Catherine Zuber is a fusion of 1900-ish (in Sir Toby and Sir Andrew), the late 1700′s (the feel of Cesario and Sebastian feels Revolutionary War era to me), and, in Orsino’s costume and that of his court, Arabian Nights.  After a severe button shortage.  (Nigel Lythgoe has ruined me with all of his post-ballroom-routine comments about men having misplaced all their buttons.)

Like the clothing, Jeanine Tesori’s music is eclectic – a bit of many styles.  And it’s strong.  It is woven throughout rather than just in the scenes where Shakespeare said there was a song; the opening to Act III, which is Part I after the intermission, is a marvelously fun jam.  This production has I think my second favorite Feste (my second favorites in several roles, but I’ll come back to them): David Patrick Kelly has a wonderful look, and a wonderful voice.  The Fool should march to an irregular drumbeat no one else can hear, and Kelly makes him a 60′s Fool: he has turned on, tuned in, and dropped way out, man.  He has a separate wisdom, a sense and sensibility of humor that is Other – and that is exactly as it should be.  He was brilliantly cast, and and played it brilliantly.  I’d buy the CD if there was one.  (And PBS?  I’d buy the DVD if there was one…)

I love Helen Hunt as Viola/Cesario.  I have the feeling it’s unfashionable to love her, but that’s never stopped me before.  She’s fantastic.  She has lovely comic timing, and perfect reactions; she draws the audience into her befuddlement, and her facial expression and gesture broadens to fit the stage.  I do believe Helen Hunt is my second favorite Viola, a very close second to Katie Hartke’s.  And this set of twins is far and away the best.  I won’t count the set of twins both played by Joan Plowright – that just wasn’t right.  I would love to see more of Rick Stear’s performance as Sebastian; what there is of him is very nice, and when he comes together with his “sister” at the end it’s phenomenal.  There’s a little gag which I believe has been used elsewhere, but which was nice here, where Orsino reaches out to stroke his bride-to-be’s face and touches Sebastian’s instead.  Well played, and here almost believable. 

Malvolio here (Philip Bosco) is Dignity, Always Dignity, coming down to upbraid the revelers in his nightcap and chain of office.  “Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs” is perfect here – he’s ready for bed, but he’s either put his chain back on to come down and throw his weight around, or he’s never taken it off.  I can’t decide which I prefer.  His final scene is the only one of the L@LC ones I can watch that really gives me qualms (apart from all of Olivia’s); he emerges from his captivity battered and tattered, missing his glasses – and bloody.  The blood bothers me – it has no place there.  It’s hard enough to keep the froth bubbly with his fury and humiliation; when he emerges with blood under his ear, the bubbles deflate much faster. 

Sirs Toby and Andrew are a wonderful pair here.  Brian Murray is Toby – a familiar face – and Max Wright is Andrew – even more familiar: he was, among many other roles, Mr. Tanner from ALF.  This Toby has a morose edge to him, breaking down during “O mistress mine”.  He’s a depressed drunk (and very much a drunk), and with what I have to go by it seems like as he’s leading Sir Andrew around he will in turn be led by Maria – she’s hard as nails.  I want so badly to say Max Wright’s Sir Andrew, with his magnificently whiny voice and forlorn aspect, is my favorite, but I just can’t. 

Paul Rudd’s Orsino is … well, really.  This is one of the productions where my response to “she fell in love with him in three days or less?” is “sure”.  He is the sexiest Orsino, even taking into account the insanely tight tights in the ATV (largely canceled out by the Dutch Boy hair).  But that isn’t part of his self-centeredness; my impression is that he dresses that way because he can dress any way he pleases, and this pleases him; if it also happens to accentuate his positives, he pays little attention.  He is very much enamored of himself, as witness the scene with the pool, but it’s his passion he is wallowing in.  He is wringing every drop out of Being In Love, and, more, having his love go Unrequited.  He is miserable, and making the most of it.  But there’s a human being in there amid all the angst and emo; the “died thy sister of her love, boy?” scene reaches him through his own pain, which while theatric is still pain.  He just needs to do some growing up, hopefully.  There are some productions where I worry for poor Viola, marrying an overgrown, overly emotional yet emotionally shallow boy full of hot air.  Here I think he’ll turn out all right.  It isn’t a great performance, but it is a good performance, and Paul Rudd provides an Orsino that doesn’t make me question Viola’s sanity.

Not so positive is Kyra Sedgwick.  Well, I will start with what positive there is: she looks glorious.  As I can accept Viola falling very quickly for this Orsino, I can see Orsino clinging to his love for this Olivia.  She is scornful in her black, and when her infatuation catches fire she bursts onstage in a spring pink dress, all rose and flowing curls and parasol.  She looks marvelous.  But.  When she is onstage there is not a stick of scenery left unmasticated.  She overdoes everything – every gesture, every facial expression, every line, every step across the stage.  She flounces and stamps and cavorts and swirls her skirts.  She doesn’t frown – she scowls.  She doesn’t smile – she grins.  There’s broad emoting for stage, and then there’s massive overacting.  Particularly playing against Helen Hunt, who is, despite broad expressions and reactions, still a natural actress, playing what feels like a comparatively realistic character, Sedgwick comes across as a caricature.  Pity. 

Again, I’m hoping to get hold of the whole production; maybe I’ll do another hunt (so to speak) through the many many videotapes I still have dragging around.  If I strike it lucky, I will update.  Who knows?  Maybe PBS will be kind and release a dvd.  Maybe?  I really, really enjoyed most of what I saw, and I’d love to fill in the blanks.