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Tuesday, October 29, 2024

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 23: The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor, first broadcast December 28th 1982
  • When was it written? In or around 1597, possibly his 23rd play
  • What’s it about? 200 years have passed since Henry IV Part 2, but John Falstaff is seemingly alive and well in Elizabethan England, up to his old tricks. He sends identical love letters to two married women, who compare notes, and lay a series of traps to humiliate him. Meanwhile, three suitors want to marry one of the women’s daughters, who ends up with the one she loves.
  • Most famous dialogue: “Why then, the world’s mine oyster, which I with sword will open.”
  • Sources: Some elements may have been adapted from “Il Pecorone,” a collection of stories by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino.
  • Best insult: So many!
    • “You Banbury Cheese”
    • “I combat challenge of this latten bilbo” (I learned that the word “bilbo” refers to a flexible sword made in Bilboa, Spain.)
    • “Froth and scum, thou liest”
    • “O base Hungarian wight!”
    • “Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you polecat, you runyon!”
    • “What, a hodge pudding? A bag of flax?” “A puffed man?” “Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?” “And one that is as slanderous as Satan?” “And as poor as Job?” “And as wicked as his wife?” “And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?”
  • Best word: Anthropophaginian
  • Best production of this play I’ve seen: I saw it in Stratford ON with Brian Dennehy as Falstaff and it was rather fun.
  • Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: It’s practically star-studded: Richard Griffiths (Mr. Dursley from Harry Potter) is Falstaff, Judy Davis is one of the wives and Ben Kingsley is her husband
How’s the cast?
  • Wonderful. I saw Griffiths on Broadway in the very serious Equus, so I know he would probably do great with the more tragic material in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, but he’s certainly great here as well in this strictly comedic take on the character. Ben Kingsley, the same year he had his big break-out as Gandhi, is delightful as a manic Mr. Ford, yet another of Shakespeare’s imaginary cuckolds (though he has more reason to be afeared than some).
How’s the direction by David Jones?
  • Very sprightly and funny. He wanted to shoot outdoors in the streets of Stratford, but was forced to stay in studio by the BBC. He nevertheless makes it feel airy and outdoorsy. My only complaint is that 2:45 is a bit too long for a lightweight (no pun intended) comedy, but blame Shakespeare for that.
Storyteller’s Rulebook: Should You Give Your Audience What They Say They Want?

The legend that has always trailed this play, whether it’s true or not, is that Queen Elizabeth saw the Henry IV plays (or possibly only the first one had come out at this point) and said she wanted more of Falstaff, so she requested a play where Sir John falls in love. Shakespeare then supposedly dashed this off quickly to satisfy the request, which has led to it being dismissed by later critics. (Personally, I find it to be carefully-constructed and very funny, so I dispute the claims that Shakespeare didn’t care about it.)

There will always be much debate about the veracity of this story, and what the timeline might have been, and what we can possibly know about what actually went down.

But let’s suppose that it’s all true, and this play really was written to give the queen a play where John Falstaff falls in love. This begs the question that is never answered, not even in the wildest speculation: What did the queen think of the new play? Did she feel it satisfied her request?

The answer is: Surely not. Falstaff doesn’t fall in love! He pursues two married women, and it’s a bit unclear if he’s going for sex or money, but love is right out. He’s barely chagrined that his plans don’t work out, and ends the play happily single, as he began it.

Did Shakespeare have contempt for his queen’s request? Did he feel it would violate the character to have him actually fall in love, whether happily or unrequitedly? Did he feel that she didn’t really want what she thought she wanted, and would have actually been horrified to see Falstaff overcome his wicked ways (“old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails”), so he crafted a play that he knew would actually please her more? History, and even wild conjecture, tells us nothing. Certainly, she had the power to punish Shakespeare in various ways (from killing him to withdrawing his charter) and didn’t, so she can’t have been that upset.

Do audiences want characters to grow and change in sequels, or do they want more of the same? If they insist on the former, should writers confidently assume they really want the latter? Shakespeare, if this backstory is true, defied his queen and wrote a very funny play, which hopefully amused her though it might have frustrated her.

I, for one, would have loved to see Shakespeare actually try to satisfy her request, and try to write a play in which Falstaff moved from gut to heart, but I love this play, too, which stays firmly in the gut. Whether Shakespeare felt this was what Elizabeth truly wanted to see, or simply what he himself truly wanted to write, or perhaps if he felt this was all Falstaff could be, we have to respect his decision.

Friday, October 11, 2024

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 22: King Lear

The Tragedy of King Lear, first broadcast September 19, 1982
  • When was it written? We really don’t know. Sometime between 1603 and 1606. Possibly his 28th play.
  • What’s it about? In ancient England, King Lear decides to retire early and divide his land among his three daughters, but demands they profess their love for him first. Cordelia, who actually loves him, is insulted by the request and refuses, so she gets nothing. Goneril and Regan falsely praise him and get everything. They instantly start abusing Lear after they get it. Meanwhile, Lear’s friend Gloucester has one bad son (Edmund) and one good one (Edgar), and likewise misunderstands which is which. Both old men end up wandering around outside in a storm. In the end, everybody except Edmund ends up dead.
  • Most famous dialogue: One of these three:
    • How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child
    • I am a man more sinned against than sinning
    • As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods, they kill us for their sport
  • Sources: First Geoffrey of Monmouth and then Holinshed told the story of Leir of Britain and his daughters, supposedly from the pre-Roman times of 800 BCE. Shakespeare moves it up just a bit, because they all swear to the Roman gods. But the names of all the dukedoms match 1600 AD, not ancient times. Miller, of course, puts them in Elizabethan dress, which only confuses matters all the more.
  • Best insult: So many!
    • You whoreson dog, you slave, you cur!
    • A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue; one trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch.
    • And yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter, or rather a disease that’s in my flesh which I must needs call mine, Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood
    • You’re not worth the dust that the rude wind blows in your face
    • Milk-livered man, that bear’st a cheek for blows
    • A most toad-spotted traitor
    • And finally we get the title of Taylor Swift’s next breakup album: “You base football player!”
  • Best word: Yokefellow
  • Best production of this play I’ve seen: I just saw it once, in Startford ON, which was good but Paul Gross was a fairly low-energy Lear.
  • Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: They had originally planned to do it with Robert Shaw but he died unexpectedly during the planning stages. As it turned out, the only familiar face is Penelope Wilton returning as Regan.
How’s the cast? 
  • Michael Horden is excellent as a very haggard Lear. Everyone else is good but Miller did a bit too well casting for family resemblance, because I had a hard time telling the three daughters apart and the two sons apart.
How’s the direction by Jonathan Miller?
  • The good news is that, after producing the last two seasons and making a lot of bad decisions (not the least of which was having a white Othello), a new season begins here and Miller is now out as producer. But on his way out the door, he does one last job, directing this play for the new producer. And he repeats a lot of the mistakes he made before, such as using Elizabethan dress and stagebound sets, but of course the real job of a director is to get great performances, and he does that here.
Storyteller’s Rulebook: Great Plays Transcend Bad Politics

Many things made the England of 1603 unjust, but one of the worst was primogeniture. Basically, only the first born legitimate son could inherit anything and everyone else, especially daughters and illegitimate sons, was out in the cold. Shakespeare could have seen the injustice of this and protested it, but, to put it mildly, he does not do that here. 

Instead, this play could be seen as a paean to primogeniture, because it shows why it’s a bad idea to inherit your daughters and your bastard sons. Cordelia presumably would have done a better job if she had inherited some land, but she wisely rejects it and it’s made clear by several characters that the two daughters who do accept the land are particularly perfidious because they’re women. (“Women will all turn monsters.”)

And certainly Edmund does not paint a good portrait of bastard sons. (Has there ever been a good bastard son in literature? The most obvious answer is Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, but it’s the exception that proves the rule, because it eventually turns out that he’s not really a bastard, which explains his nobility.)

So the politics are bad here. But it’s a great play for lots of other reasons. Ultimately, once we begin condemning works for failing to stand up to power systems in place at the time, we’ll lose almost everything. We should still particularly praise authors who, in addition to their other gifts, actually were on the right side of history on whichever issues they address, and we should be hyper-aware of poisonous political messages lurking in the bosom of plays like Lear, but, given that, we should marvel all the more at Shakespeare’s ability to create something so emotionally powerful when coming from a politically dubious place.

Straying From the Party Line: Come Up With Complimentary Plots and Subplots

From a storytelling point of view, the biggest flaw of this play is that the plot and the subplot are too similar. Both Lear and Gloucester believe a lying child (or children) over an honest child, lose everything, end up howling mad in the same rainstorm on the same heath, finally figure it out only to keel over dead at the very end for no real reason (one of joy, one of grief).

Shakespeare usually does a much better job coming up with an A-plot and B-plot that compliment each other by approaching the same themes with different tones and plot turns. In the last play we looked at, for instance, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the teenagers in the A-plot and the fairies in the B-plot both had jealousies and love-potion shenanigans, but neither felt like a repeat of the other. They each resonate together richly.

At first, the two plots in this play are on different tracks and, while hitting the same beats, barely intersect, until the third act when Lear’s bad daughters both fall for Gloucester’s bad son. There shouldn’t be this much of a record scratch when we jump from one plot to the other, as is the case in the first two acts.

Worse, each story is precisely as bleak as the other. Both fathers suffer so extremely that we yearn for more tonal relief, and switching back and forth between these two plots provides none. (Lear’s fool provides just a bit of comic relief to his plot, and he’s my favorite character, but he doesn’t really try to alleviate the grimness)

Many consider this to be Shakespeare’s greatest play, but, for this reason, I must disagree. I would still put it very high, but not in the Top 5.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Express Love in Ways That Love Has Never Been Expressed Before

So do I have anything positive to say? Yes, obviously, there is much to praise in this devastating play.

The most powerful moment is when Gloucester, who’s had his eyes gouged out by Regan and her husband, wanders the heath and runs into his good son Edgar, who (as was the case with Hamlet) may have gone mad or may be feigning madness (or both).

Gloucester, not recognizing his son’s voice, asks this stranger to lead him to a cliff he can jump off, and Edgar agrees, then leads him to the middle of a flat meadow, tells him about looking down a sheer cliff and encourages him to jump forward. Gloucester stumbles forward but there’s no cliff. Edgar then switches voices, pretends to be someone way down at the bottom of the cliff who has just seen him land, and convinces his father that he has fallen from a great height and survived, so he should now embrace life. (“Thy life is a miracle.”) This works. It’s a truly bizarre way for a father to try to save his father’s suicidal soul, and makes for a delightful scene.

This is a play about human behavior pushed to horrific extremes by terrifying events. In such twisted times, love can only be expressed in twisted ways. The oddity of it makes it all the more transcendent.

Friday, October 04, 2024

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 21: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, first broadcast December 13th, 1981
  • Possibly written: 1595 or 1596, possibly his 12th play. Very early for such a great play!
  • What’s it about? It’s very complex, but I’ll attempt to sum it up. In ancient Athens, Helena loves Demetrius who loves Hermia who loves Lysander who loves her back, but Hermia’s dad insists she marry Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander go into the woods at night to elope, followed by the other two trying to stop them. Meanwhile, fairies Titania and Oberon are feuding and their war affects the teenagers as well as some workmen who are rehearsing their play in the forest. Oberon sends out his servant Puck with love potions, and soon the boys both switch their affection from Hermia to Helena, and Titania falls for one of the workmen, who has been given the head of a donkey. In the morning, the teens finally pair off into two happy couples and Bottom rejoins the workmen. They perform their play at a wedding, unintentionally amusing the other characters.
  • Most famous dialogue: Either “The course of true love never did run smooth,” or “Lord what fools these mortals be”
  • Sources: None! This is considered one of Shakespeare’s few truly original works. Aristophanes’ The Birds does have a scene similar to the scene with Titania and Bottom.
  • Best insult: Lots of them:
    • Away you Ethiope! Hang off, thou cat, thou burr; let loose or I will shake thee from me like a serpent. Out, tawny Tartar, out!
    • You juggler! You canker-blossom! Thou painted maypole
    • Get you gone, you dwarf, you minimus, of hind’ring knot-grass made! You bead! You acorn!
  • Best word: None stood out.
  • Best production of this play I’ve seen: I’ve seen many very good productions. One at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem had a very funny Bottom. There was a good one at Stratford during the Iraq war that was shockingly warlike. But perhaps I have the most affection for the bare bones version I saw in the brief time we had a Shakespeare company here in Evanston. I loved that Flute, as Thisbe in the play at the end, gives a shockingly great performance that quiets the hecklers.
  • Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: Helen Mirren returns for the first time since As You Like It, this time in the very different role of Titania. Geoffrey Palmer, who you’ve seen in a million things, shows up as Quince. They’re both very good.
How’s the cast?
  • Excellent. As you would expect from the BBC, the “teenagers” are a little long in the tooth, but they’re very funny, especially Cherith Mellor as Helena. The real stand-out is Phil Daniels as Puck. Moshinsky said he didn’t like portrayals of Puck as a harmless sprite and had Daniels play him as an “anti-establishment punk.” (He sounds like Billy Bragg, so I guess that’s an Essex accent?) I’d never seen a scary Puck who genuinely dislikes the people he’s zonking, and it’s a great interpretation.
How’s the direction by Elijah Moshinsky?
  • It’s delightful. Everything is very funny and, as opposed to the last two, which were over three hours long, this one is under two hours because it’s played fast, so fast in fact that they spend half the time talking right over each other. The sets, while stagy, are beautiful, with much use made of pools and puddles, and the lighting really makes it feel like a forest on a moonlit night.
Rulebook Casefile: The Case for Imperfection

Previously on this blog and in one of my books, I talk about being T.A. for Andrew Sarris’s Hitchcock class at Columbia, and a student asking me, “Why does everybody say that Vertigo is better than North by Northwest, when North by Northwest is generally considered to be perfectly constructed and Vertigo is so messy.” My answer was that depth is found in holes. Vertigo’s plot holes make it deeper, more mysterious, and more beautiful.

Likewise, this play has always been my favorite Shakespeare play. But it’s a mess.

The pacing is bizarre. Every other comedy builds up to the fifth act, when all of the misunderstandings are resolved in the final scene and true love wins out at the last possible minute. But in this play, that all happens in the fourth act. Almost every storyline wraps up in Act Four Scene Two, and Act Five is just a long one-scene epilogue, where our two pairs of happy lovers just do some heckling while the workmen put on their play.

I’ve always wondered when I’ve seen this play on stage or screen, if anyone has ever tried to “fix” it, slice and dice it, and move the resolution of the teenager and fairy plots until after (or during) the performance of the workmen’s play. I think you would have to make a terrible hash of it if you did, but I’ve never stopped thinking about ways to do it.

But no, this is as it should be. Shakespeare, masterfully splicing together other people’s plots, would usually interweave many story elements until they tie together into a beautiful fifth act bow. In this, one of the only plays without source material, he doesn’t try, and allows many of his (original) plot elements to be resolved early, with only one plot element awkwardly spilling over into the final act. It’s a somewhat baffling decision, but still wildly entertaining.

It’s a mess, but it’s his most beautiful mess, and greater than many plays that are far more (and perhaps far too) tidy.

Straying From the Party Line: Don’t Give Physical Descriptions of Your Actors!

This is one of the few Shakespeare plays which limits who can play which part, because it’s a big element of the dialogue that Helena is taller than Hermia. And indeed, I think in every production I’ve seen they did cast the taller actress as Helena. It breaks a big rule of playwriting, because it means they can’t cast just anybody in any part, but it’s a very funny dialogue runner (see the insults above), so Shakespeare can get away with it just this once.

Storytellers Rulebook: Redeem the Old “Take Her Glasses Off” Trick

The production does an old trick: Helena wears glasses (one of many anachronisms) and, when Demetrius finally realizes he loves her, the glasses are, of course, off.  But I loved that later, when they spend the fifth act just heckling the play, the couple are happy together and the glasses are, thankfully, back on.  Guys may not make passes at girls who wear glasses, but once they realize they’ve found the one, they’ll hopefully let you see again.  

Friday, September 27, 2024

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 20: Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida, first broadcast November 7th, 1981
  • Possibly written: 1602, possibly his 24th play
  • What’s it about? During the Trojan War, Achilles sulks in his tent on the Greek side while Ajax prepares to fight Hector in his place. Meanwhile, over on the Trojan side, Prince Troilus loves a young woman named Cressida, but when her father defects to the Greeks, he insists that Cressida be forced to follow him. Troilus spies on her seemingly being untrue to him. There’s a battle, Achilles kills Hector while he’s unarmed, but the Troilus and Cressida story is forgotten and never concluded.
  • Most famous dialogue: None, but we do take the phrase “good riddance” from this.
  • Sources: Combines Homer’s Iliad with Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, and many others.
  • Best insult: This play rivals Henry IV Part 1 for number of insults. There’s a character (Ajax’s slave Thersites) who does nothing but exchange insults. Some of the best:
    • “Dog, thou bitch-wolf’s son”
    • “Thou mongrel beef-witted lord”
    • “Thou vinewedst leaven”
    • “You whoreson cur”
    • “Thou stool for a witch”
    • “Thou has no more brain than I have in mine elbows”
    • “Thou thing of no bowels, thou!”
  • Best word: Orgulous? Frautage? Vinewedst? No, this is the best word we’ve encountered in all 20 plays: oppugnancy
  • Best production of this play I’ve seen: This was my first exposure to the play
  • Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: Charles Gray (Diamonds are Forever, Rocky Horror Picture Show) returns to the series (after playing Julius Caesar and others) as Pandarus, who gets Troilus and Cressida together in a leering way, thus giving us the word panderer. I don’t recognize anyone else.
How’s the cast? 
  • Terrible. Anton Lesser as Troilus and Suzanne Burden as Cressida are both forgettable and I kept losing track of each one. Benjamin Whitrow as Ulysses is too old and not wily enough. Then there’s the issue of the three parts that are played as gay, which I’ll discuss below.
How’s the direction by Jonathan Miller?
  • Terrible. Miller stages the play as if it was a comedy and the actors keep waiting for laughs that never come, because none of it is remotely funny. Yet again, he dresses them up in Elizabethan dress for no reason, which feels ridiculous in the Trojan War. This is the same director who just cast Anthony Hopkins as Othello in the previous production, but somehow this one is even more offensive as I’ll talk about below.
Storyteller’s Rulebook: How to Avoid Causing Offense

In the original Homer, Patroclus and Achilles seem, at least to modern readers, to be having a gay romance. Shakespeare also portrays them this way. Thersites says to Patroclus, “Thou art said to be Achilles’ male varlet.” Patroclus responds, “Male varlet, you rogue! What’s that?” and Thersites says, “Why, his masculine whore.”

So this is a play with gay content and that has to be dealt with. Miller, however makes odd choices. He has Simon Cutter play Patroclus as fairly effeminate, which is not inherently offensive, but has Kenneth Haigh seemingly play Achilles as straight, which loses out on a chance to positively portray a gay relationship. Oddly, Miller also has Charles Gray (who was good in his other productions) play Pandarus as a fey caricature of a gay man, though there’s no indication of that in the text, and it’s tremendously grating.

But Miller then codes a third character as gay, and here's where he really wrecks the production. For Thersites he cast an actor named Jack Birkett, who chose to be billed here as “The Incredible Orlando,” which is an odd billing to see in the BBC font. Wikipedia describes Birkett/Orlando as “flamboyantly gay.” As Thersites, he wears dresses, acts very swishy and speaks with a greatly exaggerated lisp. I was tremendously offended as I watched it, even more so than I had been by watching Anthony Hopkins play Othello, but I tempered my opinion of the character somewhat afterwards when I found out that Birkett/Orlando might not have been that far off from how he seemed in real life.

Is it inherently offensive to have three gay-coded characters in the time of the Trojan War? No, of course not. It’s somewhat progressive to not have “the single example.” Is it preferable to cast a flamboyant gay man in a part you have chosen to code as flamboyantly gay? Yes, it is. But something just tips into offense here, even knowing the circumstances.

Two years earlier, in 1979, the out-and-proud gay film director Derek Jarman cast Birkett/Orlando as Caliban in his version of “The Tempest” and I checked out his performance there to see how different it was. The performance was similar, and there was also a bit of a lisp there, but Birkett/Orlando was far less grating there that he is here. Jarman, being gay, seems to have a respect for Birkett/Orlando’s flamboyance that Miller, being straight, does not have. Thersites seems like a very cruel mockery of gay people, in a way that the same actor’s not-entirely dissimilar portrayal of Caliban did not.

Birkett/Orlando has a tremendous amount of fun with the part. He is simultaneously the best thing and the worst thing about this production. His insults and crudity are delightful, but the part is ruined by the fact that, though this was probably the farthest thing from the actor’s intention (and may not even have been the director’s intention), it feels like a hateful caricature.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: The Difference Between Ambiguity and Just Not Finishing the Damn Thing

What is this thing?

Embarking on this project, I was unfamiliar with several Shakespeare plays. I haven’t finished the project, so there are still six more coming up I am unfamiliar with, but, according to my research, this is the play that people are most confused about whether it is supposed to be a comedy or tragedy (or even a history play!)

Usually, you can tell from the ending. “The Winter’s Tale” and “Cymbeline” aren’t funny, but they end with scenes where everybody comes together to resolve mix-ups, lovers are reconciled, and everything works out for most characters, so we have to conclude that Shakespeare intended them to be comedies. This play has no such scene at the end. The entire final act is dark and heavy and nobody ends up happy, so it was surely intended to be a tragedy.

The problem is that the main story doesn’t end at all. The lovers pledge loyalty to each other but are separated, at which point she is dragged into what she considers to be an enemy camp, where she is immediately ordered by a general to kiss every man there. She then has an encounter with one where she may or may not be capable of consenting. Troilus spies on this and comes to hate her, and swears to kill the man she’s with. Indeed the next day in the war, he chases that man off stage, but we never find out if he killed him, and he returns back to his camp without ever confronting Cressida who is never seen or mentioned again! In the original Chaucer, Troilus dies in battle, but here he’s talking to Pandarus in the last scene, still quite alive. And Cressida? Who knows.

Surely the play is unfinished, but that would make more sense if it were published posthumously. Rather, this was one of the plays that Shakespeare published in his lifetime, so he seemingly okayed it being published in this form.

Bizarrely, when it was first sorted into a category, in the first Quarto, it was classified as a History Play! (Very odd since all of the plays that are classified today as History Plays took place in medieval England.) The First Folio then reclassified it as a Tragedy, but Miller seems to believe it’s a Comedy, and plays it as if it’s funny. Everybody seems vaguely amused by most events for no reason.

Ultimately, whether the story of the two lovers ended in death or reconciliation would have determined if it were tragedy or comedy, but since their story has no conclusion, we’ll never know. Given that it is possible that this was a complete play, should we assume that Shakespeare was being intentionally ambiguous here?

If so, this is the worst type of ambiguity. Even today, stories must climax. This non-climax is not intriguing or meaningful in any way, it’s just unsatisfying and bizarre. Maybe if either one had announced that they never wanted to see the other again, that might have given us some sort of finality, but no, we get the feeling that neither of them feels any closure here, and there would be ample opportunity to gain it if the story didn’t just end where it does. This might have been a chance to discover a third way other than reconciliation or death, and if Shakespeare had attempted something new, it could have been a great play, but the way it is, it just feels like it was unfinished or something went very wrong.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Consent is Tricky

One of Shakespeare’s favorite tropes is the woman who is falsely accused of infidelity. Women in Othello, Much Ado About Nothing and Cymbeline are framed for committing infidelity by a villainous third party, whereas in the Winter’s Tale, the husband just imagines the infidelity with nobody tricking him into it. In each case, it’s presented as the ultimate nightmare for these blameless women to face the most grave accusation a woman can face, one that makes the love of their life want to kill them.

I had begun to come to the conclusion that no Shakespearean women actually cheated, until I saw this play.* This play complicates that conclusion, but does not entirely overturn it. This situation is just really fucked up. Cressida is in love with a Trojan and loyal to Troy, but her father is not and bargains to have her seized in Troy and taken over to him in the Greek camp. Ulysses takes an immediate dislike to her, orders every Greek man to kiss her, then refuses to do so himself because he says she’s clearly a slut. She then has an assignation with one of the men that night, which Troilus spies on and condemns, but it’s hard for me to really see this as cheating. She’s in an enemy camp and cannot meaningfully give or refuse consent.

The question is, am I just misapplying messy 21st century morality to a situation that would have been clear at the time, or is Shakespeare intentionally allowing this messy interpretation? Ultimately, Cressida is an underwritten, unconvincing character either way. When everybody kisses her, she says some things to them that could be considered either flirtatious or just desperate to survive, and Shakespeare wrote the character well enough that an actress could play it either way, but Shakespeare doesn’t give her enough three-dimensionality to help us (or the poor actress) feel strongly either way. The play is just a mess, and has no ending, so we can choose how we feel, but god help the student who has to use this text to write a term paper defending his or her point of view. There’s a reason this play is never assigned.

(*Titania in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream is under a love spell, and is basically in an open marriage, so I don’t count her.)

Friday, September 20, 2024

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 19: Othello

Yup, that’s Anthony Hopkins in (light) blackface as Othello!  The most infamous episode.  (Okay, folks, this series has taken way too long.  I now plan to do one every Friday until we’re done.)  
Othello, first broadcast October 4th, 1981
  • Possibly written: Sometime around 1604 or 1605, possibly his 27th play.
  • What’s it about? Othello, a Black Moor, has earned a place in the Venetian military, marries Desdemona the daughter of a senator, and appoints Cassio to an office that another officer named Iago wanted. Iago gets his revenge by convincing Othello that Desdemona cheated on him with Cassio. Othello kills Desdemona, then himself. Iago’s role is exposed but he lives, being dragged off in chains.
  • Most famous dialogue: Many candidates:
    • “Your daughter and the moor are now making the beast with two backs”
    • A line I often say about my empty wallet: “Who steals my purse, steals trash.”
    • “Tis the green-eyed monster”
    • “Then you must speak of one that loved not wisely, but too well.”
  • Sources: A tale in the story collection “Gli Ecatommiti” by Giovanni Battista Giraldi, better known as Cinthio
  • Best insult: Not a lot of great insults! Surprisingly, Othello never really lets go on Desdemona when he believes he is deceived. The best one is when Iago’s wife sums up men: “They are all but stomachs and we all but food”
  • Best word: exsufflicate
  • Best production of this play I’ve seen: I studied the play in college but I’ve just seen the Larry Fishburne film before this. I’d like to make it to Broadway next year to see Denzel Washington and Jack Gyllenhaal as Othello and Iago.
  • Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: Bob Hoskins is Iago. It took me a long time to recognize Desdemona: She’s Penelope Wilton from Doctor Who and Downton Abbey. I finally realized I’d seen her before from recognizing the way she pursed her lips. Othello, tragically, is played by Anthony Hopkins. Cedric Messina, director of the first two seasons, originally wanted to bring over James Earl Jones from America, but the British film unions (famous for being assholes) threatened to strike if any non-British actors were brought in, so the production was cancelled. Instead, it launches the fourth season, the second with Jonathan Miller as showrunner, and Miller declared the play had nothing to do with race, and so cast Hopkins.
How’s the cast?
  • Hopkins is, of course, one of the greatest actors of all time. It’s shameful that he was given this part rather than a Black actor, and I desperately wish they had recorded Jones in the part, but it’s undeniable that Hopkins does an amazing job. (If he’s wearing any blackface, it’s just a little bronzer, but still inexcusable) Hoskins as Iago is even better. His Iago is constantly bitterly amused by himself, and his uncontrollable laughter (the last thing we hear in the play) is truly terrifying. Wilton, who I’m used to in much older roles, is heartbreaking as a pessimistic young Desdemona.
How’s the direction by Jonathan Miller?
  • Miller, in addition to his deplorable decision to cast Hopkins, makes other bizarre decisions. Much of the dialogue is inaudible, including Desdemona’s final speech. The dress, as we’ve seen in his other productions, is nonsensically Elizabethan. The whole thing runs too long at three hours and twenty-four minutes. But Miller is great with the actors and the staging and lighting are excellent.
Rulebook Casefile: Speak to the National Pain of 400 Years Later

Modern productions of “The Merchant of Venice” try to rescue the mildly-sympathetic character of Shylock, but I found him to be a vicious racial caricature, reeking of Shakespeare’s ignorant prejudice towards Jewish people. And I found “The Taming of the Shrew” to be unforgivably misogynist. So why does “Othello”, which is also about a group that was despised at the time, work so well? Why does it, unlike those two plays, get no protestations when it is produced today? Why are they about to do it on Broadway with Denzel Washington?

Because it’s a brilliant play, and Shakespeare, astoundingly, creates a fully human portrait of a Black man despite the fact that he’s writing in 1603. It’s a part every Black actor considers himself lucky to get to play today. He’s truly noble at times, though he does eventually prove to be a menace.

Of course, one of the reasons he’s so great is that he can be played many different ways. As with all of Shakespeare’s greatest characters, directors and actors have a tremendous amount of leeway when deciding how sympathetic to make him. He can be played as either a violent man whose true nature comes out, or a non-violent man who gets pushed to violence that is totally against his nature. (But even if you play him as having a violent nature, it somehow never feels like that would be an example of a prejudice Shakespeare has against Black men.)

I had the misfortune of taking my college Shakespeare course with a professor who flat-out didn’t like Shakespeare and was teaching the course under duress. She made many bizarre pronouncements, but the oddest was when we were studying this play in 1995 and she said that it had nothing to say about our modern world. 

I was gobsmacked. 

I said, “Oh yes, a Black man succeeds in the martial arena, earns a place among his white masters, marries a white woman, becomes convinced she’s cheating on him, beats her in front of everybody which they all choose to ignore, finally kills her and attempts to kill the man he falsely thinks she’s cheating with, then attempts suicide. Yes, that has nothing to do with anything that’s going on right now.”

Of course, the big difference between Othello and O.J. Simpson is that Othello is meant to maintain our sympathy, whereas, aside from 12 jurors, O.J. largely did not. But does Othello deserve our sympathy? Unlike O.J., Othello is the victim of a vicious, brilliant, overwhelming deception engineered by one man, and that makes him more sympathetic, but does that really excuse Othello’s actions?  Every wife killer, in his own mind, has his reasons.

It’s interesting that racial prejudice is not a prime motivating factor in the play, though it’s always, of course, bubbling under the surface. Iago tells Roderigo that his primary motivation is that he was passed up for promotion, not a hatred of the idea of interracial marriage, and even Desdemona’s father says he’s more upset at being deceived than the possibility of miscegenation, but Miller’s contention that the play has nothing to do with race is absurd. Right at the beginning, Iago and Roderigo are mocking Desdemona’s father with racial language: “What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe If he can carry ’t thus!” and “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe.” Racial hatred is everywhere under the surface, but Othello, like O.J., has earned such a place of esteem in the white world that no one speaks openly of it.

Rulebook Casefile: Not the Way the World Works

Let’s talk about the most bizarre aspect of this play. Desdemona is choked to death in her bed, not once but twice. Othello wanders off and leaves her there. Iago’s wife Emilia finds her. Desdemona then utters some final words to Emilia before she dies. That’s not how choking works! If someone tries to choke you, then leaves, then you can still speak five minutes later, you’re going to be fine! Choking kills you off while you’re being choked or not at all. There’s no lingering death. The only way this would make sense is if he stabs her, and I think that it could be staged that way, but it seemingly never is. It totally takes me out of the play! Directors must find a way to fix it.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: The Promise and Peril of Downtime

As I say above, the production runs way too long at 3 hours and 24 minutes, but, if you’re going to bother to produce all 37 plays for posterity, there’s a case to be made for cutting nothing. One of the most fascinating scenes is one that I’m sure most productions cut, where Desdemona and Emilia somewhat idly prepare for bed and Desdemona, like Nicole Simpson to Faye Resnick 400 years later, makes clear to her friend that she knows she will be killed before long. 

It’s a languidly paced scene: Desdemona has a song stuck in her head and keeps murmuring it as she goes about her nighttime routine, then it occurs to her to mention something else and continue the conversation. It’s a momentum killer, but it’s a brilliantly written scene in its own rite. Downtime is one of the hardest things to write because it kills storytelling momentum, but, if you’ve got a very indulgent director who’s in no hurry, it can make for beautifully written, heartbreaking scenes.

Monday, September 16, 2024

Episode 48, Our First Live Show: Capturing the Voices of Children with Betsy Bird

Recorded Live at The Book Stall in Winnetka, IL, hosted by The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, James and I welcome the legendary Betsy Bird (my wife) to tackle a topic all three of us know something about: Capturing the Voices of Children in Your Writing. I argue that novels that feature truly authentic kids are by definition not children’s books, and James and Betsy debate me on that.

Monday, September 09, 2024

Thanks to those who came out on Wednesday!

James, Betsy and I had a great time recording the first ever live episode of The Secrets of Story Podcast at The Book Stall in Winnetka, IL last Wednesday.  (And thanks to my brother-in-law Andrew Atienza, who you can see in the back doing the sound!)  We’ll post the episode soon.

Monday, September 02, 2024

Come Out On Wednesday to Our First Secrets of Story Podcast Live Recording!

Please come out to Winnetka's bookstore The Book Stall on Wednesday (September 4th) from 6:30pm to 8pm to hear the first ever live recording of The Secrets of Story Podcast featuring usual co-host James Kennedy and special guest Elizabeth Bird, where we'll discuss the ways authors capture the voices of children. The Book Stall would love it if you could register in advance so they can get a headcount, but you can just show up, too! It's free!

Thursday, August 01, 2024

Check out the 100th episode of Marvel Reread Club with Dan Santat!

Hi guys, sorry you haven’t heard much from me recently! I’ve been meaning to restart 37 Days of Shakespeare but I haven’t gotten around to it. In the meantime, I have exciting news! I stopped posting about my other podcast, Marvel Reread Club, on this blog because I decided to separate the two brands, but MRC has been going strong and now it’s reached the epic milestone of 100 episodes! Even more impressive, our guest for the 100th episode is National Book Award Winner Dan Santat!  Dan really opens up for us about his life, and he previews his hilarious new Incredible Hulk picture book. It’s a really fun conversation and I think it’s accessible even to people who haven’t read the comics we’re discussing and don’t care to. Check it out!

Soundcloud no longer let’s me embed the episodes, but you can find it here or here!

It’s our landmark 100th episode, with very special guest, National Book Award winner Dan Santat! We discuss the 1966 Annuals: Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3, Fantastic Four Annual #4, and Giant-Size Thor #2! Testiness! Anguish! Brawling! Check it out!

Monday, June 24, 2024

Episode 47: The Heroine's Labyrinth with Douglas A. Burton

We’re back! This time, we welcome author Douglas A. Burton to discuss his new book The Heroine’s Labyrinth! I blurbed it and said “The Heroine’s Labyrinth is filled with profound and unique observations on the topic of story structure, no matter what the gender of your protagonist. Burton closely analyzes a wide breadth of stories and proves his thesis that Joseph Campbell missed half the story.” James agrees and we dive into some of Douglas’s many interesting new archetypes!

Saturday, June 08, 2024

Oh No, Emergency Reviews Needed!

Hi everybody!

Help, I have an emergency! Ive written before about how proud I’ve always been that the average review on my first book was five stars on Amazon.  Well today, after eight years, it dipped down to 4.5!  This has destroyed me.  Could you please restore my devastated sense of self?  If you’ve never reviewed “The Secrets of Story: Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers”, could you give it five stars today?  Thank you so very much!  Feel free to review it here.

And/or you can review my second book: “The Secrets of Character: Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love” here.  Thank you again!

Both books are apparently easier to review on Goodreads, so please feel free to rate the first one or the second one there!

Maybe you like the audiobook of my first book? You can review the book on Audible. (Click on “More options”)

And/or you can review the second audiobook!

If you’re a fan of “The Secrets of Story Podcast”, I would love an iTunes review, especially because one of the featured reviews on this page is entitled “so-so” (I don’t see how you can do it here, but you can do it by searching for The Secrets of Story Podcast in the iTunes store, then clicking on Ratings and Reviews)

Or you can review that podcast on Audible! (Once again, click on “More Options”)

And while you’re on iTunes, you can also review “Marvel Reread Club”!

Or Review “Marvel Reread Club” on Audible!

At this point, it’s the end of a long day of reviewing Matt Bird stuff, so kick back, relax and watch the sunset. Thanks so much for any help you can give me!

Monday, April 15, 2024

Podcast Appearance on Fuse 8 n' Kate to discuss I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla-Sollew!

I had a wonderful time on the Fuse 8 n’ Kate podcast (run by my wife Betsy and her sister Kate) discussing my favorite picture book, I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla-Sollew. At this link you’ll get bonus content! 

Thursday, March 28, 2024

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 18: Antony and Cleopatra

The Tragedie of Antonie, and Cleopatra , first broadcast May 8th, 1981
  • Possibly written: 1606-1607. Possibly his 30th play.
  • What’s it about? Antony, last seen in “Julius Caesar”, has become enamored of Egyptian queen Cleopatra and ignores his duties, but his co-ruler Octavian calls him home to help deal with various threats to Rome. Antony and Cleo eventually decide to rebel against Rome and both wind up dead.
  • Most famous dialogue: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety”
  • Sources: Plutarch’s Lives, specifically Thomas North’s translation (which was an English translation of a French translation of the Attic Greek original.) Shakespeare takes whole passages, but also makes up some things.
  • Best insult: Not a lot of great insults in this one. Just a few: “Ah, you kite”, “You have been a boggler ever”, “Triple-turn’d whore!”
  • Best word: weet, foison
  • Best production of this play I’ve seen: I read it in college but I’ve never seen it performed.
  • Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: Colin Blakely as Antony showed up in a lot of stuff. You’ve seen him before.
How’s the cast?
  • The most disappointing thing about the cast is that they didn’t carry over Antony and Octavian from their production of Julius Caesar. I think this play becomes a lot more interesting when it’s treated as a sequel to that play, showing Antony’s devolution from manipulator to manipulated. As it is, Blakely does a good job and Jane Lapotaire ably brings to life Miller’s lusty interpretation of Cleopatra.
How’s the direction by Jonathan Miller?
  • Miller produced the whole season and this is the third we’ve seen him direct, though apparently it was shot first. Unlike Timon of Athens, he doesn’t insist on Elizabethan dress, thankfully. Unfortunately, he said in interviews that he saw Cleopatra as just a “treacherous slut” and that dismissive attitude infects the production. If he’d had more respect for Cleopatra, it would have been a better show.
Storyteller’s Rulebook: You Can Only Draw It Out So Much

This production is almost three hours, but the war is over at the 2 hour mark. The final hour is dedicated to the two most overwrought death scenes in all of Shakespeare (or at least the half we’ve read so far). It plays a little camp in this version, and it would be hard to imagine it not seeming over the top unless it was cut down. If Shakespeare is to be believed, one of the world’s top causes of death is failing to understand that other people were faking their deaths. Just don’t fake your deaths, kids.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Gendering Flaws is a Problem

Was Miller right to see Cleopatra as just a “treacherous slut”? Was there more in the text he could have plumbed? I would say there’s room for a more sympathetic portrait here, but it’s certainly true that Shakespeare slights the actual historic figure. The real Cleopatra was not only a political genius but a flat-out genius-genius. She spoke 8 languages! Shakespeare doesn’t give an actress room to play that.  His Cleopatra is undeniably petulant, flighty, and sex-obsessed (“Oh happy horse to bear the weight of Anthony!”) 

 Of course, his male heroes are all deeply flawed as well. It’s not like there are any moral paragons in Shakespeare, but because he has only four female title heroes (Juliet, Cymbeline and Cressida being the others), it becomes more of a problem that Cleopatra’s many flaws are gendered as female. Knowing how kick-ass the real Cleopatra was, it’s natural to want her to be more sympathetic here, even if that might be too much to ask of any of Shakespeare’s universally-flawed heroes.

Alright, that’s the end of Season 3 of the BBC show, and I’m once again barded out, so I will take another break for a while. I’m not crazy about Miller taking over the show and only loved one of the six in this season (Timon). There’s some great material coming up in Miller’s second and final season, so let’s see how he does with that.

Monday, March 25, 2024

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 17: Timon of Athens

Timon of Athens, first broadcast April 16, 1981
  • Possibly written: 1606, possibly his 32nd play
  • What’s it about? Wealthy Athenian Timon throws lavish parties and gives generously to everyone who needs it, but when his bill comes due he tries calling in some favors and everyone abandons him. He has one last feast for his friends but serves them only water and condemns them, then goes to live in a cave where he spurns everyone and dies alone.
  • Most famous dialogue: Not much, but Nabakov drew the title of one of his greatest novels from this play: “The moon’s an errant thief whose pale fire is snatched from the sun”
  • Sources: It probably draws upon the twenty-eighth novella of William Painter's Palace of Pleasure, (the thirty-eighth novella of which was the main source for “All’s Well That Ends Well”) as well as  Plutarch’s Lives, Lucian’s Dialogues and a lost comedy on the subject of Timon, allusions to which survive from 1584. 
  • Interesting fact about the play: In the 20th Century, scholars began to claim the play was co-written with an uncredited Thomas Middleton. It feels like pure Shakespeare to me (as opposed to “Henry VIII”, which felt co-written) but you never know.
  • Best insults:
    • Unpeaceable dog
    • Thou disease of a friend
    • Smiling, smooth, detested parasites, courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears, you fools of fortune, trencher friends, cap and knee slaves, vapours and minute-jacks.
  • Best word: A twofer: “unclew, I crave no pelf”
  • Best production of this play I’ve seen: I had never seen nor read this play.
  • Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: A young Jonathan Pryce as Timon!
How’s the cast?
  • Pryce is astonishingly good. This is my favorite performance in any of the 16 plays I’ve seen. Heartbreakingly naïve when rich and profoundly angry when poor, he’s always riveting to watch. Everybody else is great too, especially John Welsh as Flavius, the servant who finally breaks the bad news to him.
How’s the direction by Jonathan Miller?
  • Miller produced this season and directed several episodes. For this one, he hired a different director who wanted Asian costumes. That would have been odd but interesting, but Miller, as we’ve seen in other plays, felt strongly, for some reason, that all of Shakespeare’s plays, no matter where or when they were set, should have Elizabethan dress, so he fired the director and took it over himself. As it turns out, the costuming is the only choice I disagree with in this otherwise brilliantly staged production. Astoundingly, almost the whole second half is shot from one angle with an almost still camera and almost still Timon, rejecting everyone who seeks him out on a stony beach, one by one. It shouldn’t work but it’s wonderfully intense.
Storyteller’s Rulebook: Not Everything Needs to Have a Happy Ending

When I began this project to cover all 37 adaptations, my biggest worry was about the 16 plays that I had never read nor seen. Were all of these plays unknown to me for good reason? Would I be slogging through 16 quagmires? That hasn’t been the case with the ones I’ve covered so far, since all the new ones have been watchable, but none have been truly great. This changes that. This is a perfect play, right up there with Shakespeare’s best.

We’ve just covered four plays that were all supposedly comedies which were, for one reason or another, not very funny. I started this play, as with “The Winter’s Tale,” knowing nothing. Like that one, this one seemed like a tragedy, but I was prepared for this, too, to bizarrely swerve to comedy at any moment. It does not! This is our first pure tragedy since Hamlet and it is a welcome relief.

Avoid the temptation to tack a happy ending onto tragic material. Respect your audience. If it would end badly, let it end badly.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Every Great Play is About Donald Trump

Shakespeare’s greatest quality is his timelessness, and the mark of a timeless play is that it can suddenly become very timely, even in the far-flung future of 2024.

One of the richest men of his day flaunts his wealth ostentatiously. When some bills unexpectedly come due, he goes to his fellow billionaires and entreats them to lend him the money, but they all turn him down. He tries to sell some property but realizes that it’s all mortgaged ten times over and his in name only. Does this sound familiar? What a delight to watch this play out in Shakespeare and in real life this week! Especially delightful because, in this version, he ends up dead.
 
Storyteller’s Rulebook: Add More Moments of Humanity

What can we add to Shakespeare? Will additions only subtract? Miller largely just trusts the text here but he makes a few tiny additions that are brilliant.

At Timon’s party, mime-like entertainers come out and prance around for the revellers, much to everyone’s amusement. Eventually the party breaks up and all of Timon’s friends drift off one by one, followed by Timon himself. As soon as the last rich person is gone, the ethereal entertainers suddenly abandon their postures and pounce on the abandoned feast, hungrily devouring it. This was not in the text.

It’s a rare laugh in a very serious production, but it’s also a very believable and human moment. To this day, we all feel like painted puppets of our wealthy overlords, looking for the chance to break character and stop performing, if only for a few desperate moments.

Thursday, March 21, 2024

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 16: The Winter’s Tale

The Winter’s Tale, first broadcast February 8th, 1981
  • Possibly written: 1610 or 1611, possibly his 35th play
  • What’s it about? King Leontes falsely suspects his wife Hermione of sleeping with his friend Polixenes and tries to have them both killed. Leontes’s son winds up dead, and his baby daughter ends up being raised by a shepherd. She grows up to fall in love with Polixenes’s son. Insanely, things work out well for everyone (except the poor dead son.)
  • Most famous dialogue: No famous dialogue here.
  • Source: It’s apparently little changed from Robert Greene's pastoral romance Pandosto, published in 1588
  • Best insults:
    • A gross lout, a mindless slave, or else a hovering temporizer
    • Were my wife’s liver infected as her life, she would not live the running of one glass
    • She’s a bed-swerver
    • A mankind witch! A most intelligencing bawd!
    • A gross hag, and, lozel, thou are worthy to be hanged.
  • Best word: virgalling
  • Best production of this play I’ve seen: I had never read nor seen any production of this play. I knew about the line “exit, pursued by bear”, but that’s pretty much it. I didn’t even know if it was a tragedy or comedy. Now that I’ve seen it, I still don’t know.
  • Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: No names or faces I recognized
How’s the cast?
  • It’s a well acted play. Jeremy Kemp as Leontes is excellent, driving himself mad with suspicion and then desperately clawing his way out of it over the course of sixteen years.
How’s the direction by Jane Howell?
  • Our first female director! She uses sets that are even more minimalist and abstract than the BBC Hamlet, which is certainly daring, but only makes a strange play even stranger. No one has ever been able to figure out when and where this play is supposed to be set, but she makes the odd choice to put them all in Jacobean English dress, which certainly can’t be right. Ultimately though, it all sort of works. A bizarre staging of a bizarre play.
Storyteller’s Rulebook: Pick a Lane, Man

We’ve just done three plays that were supposed to be comedies but are, for various reasons, not very funny to modern ears. You’re tired of hearing me complain that these plays aren’t funny enough, but sorry, here I go again.

What even is this? The first two acts are pure tragedy, and work very well. Whether the play is set in ancient Greece (as it often seems to be) or Renaissance Sicily and Czechia (which is sometimes stated) or anywhere in between, the story of the imaginary cuckold is evergreen, and makes for a satisfactory little two act tragedy. Then everything goes insane. Father Time comes on stage and teleports us 16 years into the future so that we can have a romance for Leontes’s grown daughter. And suddenly everything is comedic for the remaining three acts!

Some of it is funny, but the tone shift is so utterly bizarre that it just wrecks the play. Is this Shakespeare’s most forced happy ending? Surely the most contrived we’ve seen so far, but I’ve still got a lot of plays to go.

Straying from the Party Line: Show, Don’t Tell

Still, the play kind of works. Why not try a half tragedy / half comedy? By this point he’d written dozens of plays and was seemingly getting bored.

But then Shakespeare engages in the worst writerly malpractice I’ve yet seen him engage in. He flagrantly violates his contract with the audience in a truly shocking way.

Events (which is to say Shakespeare) have contrived to bring Leontes together with his long lost daughter. We see them reunited, but neither knows who the other is. He then finds out that she is pursued by his ex-best friend, who is on his way. What will happen when they have their painful reunion? At what point will Leontes realize that this is his daughter, and what emotions will that tear out of him? That’s the heart of the play, right?

But it all happens off stage! Just when things are getting good, we cut away and meet some random citizens of wherever-the-hell-this-is who chat amongst themselves about what went down, and we never get to see it ourselves. We never get to see the good stuff. In the sixteen plays we’ve done so far, this is Shakespeare’s most bizarre and inexplicable choice. How cruel to the actors to deny them that scene! The whole play has led up to it, but all we get is hearsay.

Can anyone explain this bizarre choice? I’m frankly furious.

Monday, March 18, 2024

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 15: All’s Well That Ends Well

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 15: All’s Well That Ends Well, first broadcast January 4th, 1981
  • Possibly written: 1602, possibly his 25th play
  • What’s it about? Helena, the ward of a countess, falls in love with the countess’s son Bertram, who despises her. She saves the life of the king and asks only that he order Bertram to marry her, which he does, but Betram flees to fight in a war. She follows and tricks Bertram into impregnating her, at which point he finally begrudgingly says he loves her.
  • Most famous dialogue: None. If I had to pick one, I’d say “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”
  • Sources: The play is based on the tale of Giletta di Narbona (tale nine of day three) of Boccaccio’s “The Decameron”.
  • Best insults:
    • That vile rascal, that jack-an-apes with scarfs.
    • A most notable coward, an infinite and hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy of your lordship’s entertainment.
    • A snipt-taffeta fellow there whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour.
    • But the biggest insult seems to be “physician’s daughter”, which apparently at the time was quite a lowly thing to be.
  • Best words: adoptious, misprison, moiety, armipotent
  • Best production of this play I’ve seen: I saw a fine production at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre that made a brilliant decision I’ll address below.
  • Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: No names or faces I recognized.
How’s the cast?
  • Glum. Angela Down as Helena is basically just bummed that Bertram doesn’t love her, and Ian Charleston as Betram takes little more joy from his philandering then he does from his forced marriage. Nobody told either that this was supposed to be a comedy. The one time Down perks up is when Peter Jeffrey as Parolles is flirting with her. Marry him, girl! Even with Parolles being totally degraded by the end of the play, he seems a better prospect than Bertram.
How’s the direction by Elijah Moshinsky?
  • Picking up from last episode, Moshinsky continues Miller’s project of recreating the work of famous painters. There’s more Vermeer here and also Rembrandt and Georges de La Tour. The result is one of the most beautiful episodes. But the tone is more problematic than playful. He does get good milage out of the one truly funny scene in the play, the scene where Parolles is kidnapped by his own compatriots speaking pseudo-Italian gibberish.
Storyteller’s Rulebook: If Your Characters Refuse to Fall in Love With Each Other, Don’t Force It

How do you solve a problem like “All’s Well That Ends Well”? Since the term “problem play” was coined by critic F. S. Boas, there’s been much debate about which plays fall under that definition, but this one is on everybody’s list. The “problem”, of course, is that it’s a romantic comedy that’s not very funny and not at all romantic.

The primary distinction that makes a Shakespeare play a comedy rather than a tragedy is whether or not there’s a happy ending. This play is supposedly a comedy which means the ending is supposedly happy, but does anybody believe that this marriage will be anything other than a horror show? Was any husband dragooned into marriage so unwillingly?

If actors want to play this as a true love match with a happy ending, they get no favors from Shakespeare, who gives the two nothing happy to play together. The only remaining option is to play it downbeat, either playing his forced profession of love as insincere or go so far as the justify it by playing him gay and secretly in love with Parolles (If so, that’s an even more sadistic love than he has with Helena, if such a thing is possible!)

In the uncharitable reading, Shakespeare wanted us to buy Betram’s final abrupt-180 declaration of love, and simply fails to convince us. If you’re going to give Shakespeare more credit than that, you have to make it clear something else is going on. The Chicago production I saw had what I thought was a brilliant solution. Helena reveals to Betram that she’s tricked him into impregnating her. He then gets down on one knee and says “I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly” to her belly! He’s not going to love Helena, he’s going to love the baby. Not necessarily a happy ending, but no truly happy ending would be supported by the text. At least this ending is believable and explains his reversal. And marriages, after all, have subsisted on less.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 14: The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice, first broadcast December 17th, 1980
  • Possibly written: 1596-1598, possibly his 14th play
  • What’s it about? Antonio wants to loan money he doesn’t have to his friend Bossanio so that Bossanio can court Portia. Antionio borrows the money from Shylock, promising a pound of flesh if he can’t pay it back. When Shylock comes to collect, Portia dresses up as a man to defend Antonio, and humiliates Shylock in court.
  • Most famous dialogue is hard to pick:
    • If you prick us, do we not bleed?
    • All that glisters is not gold
    • The quality of mercy is not strained
  • Sources: The primary source was the 14th-century tale Il Pecorone by Giovanni Fiorentino
  • Interesting fact about the play: I had always thought of Shylock as the title character, on second watch, it’s clearly Antonio.
  • Best insults:
    • Such a want-wit sadness makes of me
    • An inhuman wretch uncapable of pity, void and empty from any dram of mercy
    • O, be thou damned, inexecrable dog
  • Best words: eanlings, fruitify, slubber
  • Best production of this play I’ve seen: I’ve just seen the Pacino movie, which is fine.
  • Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: Just John Rhys-Davies in a small role as Salerio
How’s the cast? 
  •  This production was widely denounced for its anti-Semitism, as well it should have been, but Miller defended it saying that he, the director and Warren Mitchell, who plays Shylock, were all Jewish. Nevertheless, Mitchell’s Shylock still comes off as a broad caricature. Gemma Jones does a good job as Portia.
How’s the direction by Jack Gold?
  • Continues this season’s themes of realistic costumes combined with abstract sets. I’m starting to long for an actual set. Give them objects! Actors act better when they can interact with actual objects on an actual set. The cross-dressing is remarkably well done, even though they don’t add facial hair (as I usually suggest). I sort of believed that Bossanio wouldn’t recognize his new wife.
Storyteller’s Rulebook: Don’t Try to Redeem the Unredeemable

Why on Earth did the BBC do the two most problematic plays back-to-back to launch their third season? Ultimately, unlike The Taming of the Shrew, this play is unredeemable. Yes, Shylock has one great speech demanding we recognize his humanity, but that can’t make up for the rest of the play.

In Taming of the Shrew, there’s really only one character who’s horrible to women, and, if you interpret the text in such a way that he’s slaughtered with a carving knife, which, as I showed last time, you can do by only deleting a few lines of text, then proper morality is restored. In Merchant of Venice excising the evil of anti-Semitism is impossible, because almost every character, all of whom are supposed to be sympathetic, is virulently anti-Semitic. The dispossession, humiliation and forced conversion of Shylock, with its inescapable intimations of the holocaust, is cheered on by almost the entire cast.  They all think it’s hilarious. 

Ultimately, the problem with both plays is that they’re posited as comedies. Nowadays, seeing misogyny and anti-Semitism as evil, we can choose to stage them as tragedies, and the text will partially support us, but then you have all these comedic scenes in the subplots undercutting that. In Taming, the scene with the rival tutors is genuinely funny. In this play, the exchanging of the rings at the end is quite funny as well. You simply cannot hide that these are supposed to be comedies, and that includes the “hilarious” abuse heaped on Katherine and Shylock. Shakespeare was usually a writer of great humanity, but it failed him in these two plays. You can try to redeem Taming but this one should be consigned to the dustbin of history.