Hamlet: National Theatre Live (2015) via Fathom Events

If you have wanted to see the National Theatre Live's 2015 version of Hamlet and haven't had a chance yet, check the Fathom Events site to see if there will be a screening near you on July 8th. The time I saw it, the audience had a nice mix of ages which I attribute to Benedict Cumberbatch's popularity.

For what it's worth, I recommend taking advantage of this opportunity if you have the interest. I've linked to it before, but here's an interview with Benedict Cumberbatch on this production.

One Man Romeo and Juliet by Shelby Bond

We had a busy weekend, but the highlight for me was seeing "One Man Romeo and Juliet" by Shelby Bond. He has performed it at many spots around the world, and hopefully you'll get a chance to see it live. There is a lot of audience participation, and despite the title the kids had a chance to play parts in it, too. Bond is nonstop and changes roles in the blink of an eye. Judging by the line after the show to meet (and tip) him, I wasn't the only one that enjoyed it. Here's a trailer for the show and some links to more of his work. I'm looking forward to seeing the show he does at the Dickens Fair later this year. Enjoy!

Links:
Shelby's home page, with links to other characters/projects

His YouTube videos

Choose your madness: King Lear or King Lear. Or King Lear.

Later this month (at least in some locations) you can choose the form of madness you wish to see:

• On Thursday, September 27, 2018 in select theaters is King Lear with Ian McKellen. The blurb at National Theatre Live:

  Broadcast live from London’s West End, see Ian McKellen’s ‘extraordinarily moving portrayal’ (Independent) of King Lear in cinemas.
  
  Chichester Festival Theatre’s production received five-star reviews for its sell-out run, and transfers to the West End for a limited season. Jonathan Munby directs this contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s tender, violent, moving and shocking play.

  Click on the above link or the one for Fathom Events to find a venue screening it on the 27th. It will be interesting to compare McKellen's performance now versus that of a decade ago with Trevor Nunn as director (which, coincidentally, is currently airing for free on Amazon Prime).


• Available on September 28th to Amazon Prime viewers is King Lear with Anthony Hopkins in the title role and directed by Richard Eyre. There's nothing beyond a description of the play on Amazon's site about the film, but plenty to find online from people that have already watched it. For the cast, see imdb.com.
  
  It's raining Lear.

Hamlet (2015), or the third try's the charm

I finally got to see this version of Hamlet, the 2015 filming of National Theatre Live's production starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. I had intended to see it twice before, but I had been unable to attend either time (even after buying tickets to one of them). I had a strong sense of déjà vu on Sunday when I got caught in stopped traffic due to an accident on the way to the theater, then found myself stuck in an extended line of people at the "will call" window due to ticketing software malfunctions. Despite finally getting into the theater twenty minutes after the stated start time, I only missed a few seconds of the film.

Fortunately it was worth the troubles and the wait. Benedict Cumberbatch's performance was one of the most controlled Hamlet's I've seen, never veering close to real madness, but striking in its own way as he juggles the many contradictions the prince presents. The injections of humor provide a welcome relief, partially offsetting the dissolution of characters and set. For me, this was a Hamlet you actually care about and want to see come to terms with what he feels he must do. Of the other characters, Sian Brooke's Ophelia convincingly emphasizes her brittleness while Anastasia Hille’s Gertrude effectively moves from restraint to her own madness. The set designer, Es Devlin, erected a massive interior that seems to be an additional character in the play. Director Lyndsey Turner's cuts and edits to the play work well most of the time, although some of the symbolism feels forced. There are moments where things don't quite gel or felt rushed, but overall I found it a stimulating production.

Filming a play presents several challenges in addition to a regular production. The most jarring example in this film version is what to do when actors project loudly for the live audience. On film, this seems like empty bombast. I overheard an elderly lady, heading out at intermission, complaining to her family that there was too much shouting. Well, sure. I don't know what the answer is, other than to note that versions filmed in smaller venues find this easier to avoid. I didn't find it as off-putting as that lady, but I could sympathize with her complaint.

Links:
- National Theatre Live's Hamlet page, which has screening dates and times.
Go to their main page for additional plays being screened. - An interview with Benedict Cumberbatch on this production of Hamlet

Shakespeare in Swahililand by Edward Wilson-Lee

Shakespeare in Swahililand: Adventures with the Ever-Living Poet
by Edward Wilson-Lee
William Collins; London: 2016

One of the most striking things I found as I followed Shakespeare on his travels through East African history was the fact that the works were present at every stage of life in the region during the very period when the region was struggling to free itself from colonial rule. The plays were set as compulsory reading at school, yes, but they were not dispensed with after that as nothing more than rote learning. Many—even most—of those who would go on to become post-independence political, social and cultural leaders went on to study English literature at Makerere University, where the emphasis was heavily on the reading and performance of Shakespeare's plays. And though this odd fact in itself was the result of a curious set of historical circumstances, these readers of Shakespeare did not simply shake off their reading after graduation as so much colonial propaganda. Instead, they too Shakespeare with them out into the world, and he was woven into every part of the fabric of African life, into the speeches of politicians and lawyers, but also into the folklore of rural villages. Shakespeare even followed in times of crisis, into riots and guerrilla warfare and into concentration camps. Yet any temptation to write this love of colonial masters even as they overthrew them, is quickly dispelled as the trail is followed: these are wholehearted commitments to reading Shakespeare, and ones as likely to Africanize his works as to preserve him as a pristine European fetish. (137-8; quotes are from the U.K. edition)

Edward Wilson-Lee, raised in Kenya, teaches Shakespeare at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge. He ran across the fact that one of the first books printed in the Swahili language had to do with Shakespeare, "a slim volume of stories from Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, published ... on the island of Zanzibar in the 1860s." Traveling through the countries where Swahili was common (plus Ethiopia), Wilson-Lee found "a hidden history that brought both Shakespeare and the land I thought familiar into richer focus than I had ever known them." Shakespeare in Swahililand records his journey and what he unearthed in these southeastern African countries, part travelogue, part literary and theatrical development, combined with the region's history. Many colorful characters, political and theatrical, grace the pages.

Early explorers to Africa's Lakes Region made a point of noting they carried Shakespeare (and other weighty works) in their safari kitbag, not to share with the natives but rather to remain in touch with civilization. Wilson-Lee visits Zanzibar, where the volume of the Lamb's Shakespeare translation was published, only to find that most archived documents of the mission house are in various stages of disintegration. While the man responsible for the publication of the translation, Edward Steere, initially came to the area as a missionary, it seems clear that in publishing this volume, and in other of his reports, he wanted to establish a shared culture, too. Explorers and missionaries lifted Shakespeare's narratives in writing their reports and memoirs, showing how integral the poet was in their lives and, possibly, how they thought he captured aspects of civilization and savagery.

I enjoyed the tie-in between the history of a region and how it impacted the theater, such as the use of Indian workers to build the East Africa Railway, running from Mombasa at the coast to the interior lakes. The side-effect of this was a "vibrant culture of East African Shakespeare performance in the early years of the twentieth century." All play performances had to obtain a license from the colonial authorities at the East African Protectorate, and Wilson-Lee includes an appendix showing approval for eight approved plays in Mombasa that are either performances of or adaptations from Shakespeare during February and March 1915. Reports of these and other performances provide interesting detail, especially surrounding the changes to Shakespeare's plots. There was also music added, of which Wilson-Lee was able to find two gramophone recordings on shellac (crushed battle-shell). The changes to Shakespeare's texts, or maybe better described as liberties taken, demonstrate an interaction with the poet, highlighting his appeal to audiences throughout time, language, and place.

Wilson-Lee illustrates presence of Shakespeare at the stages of life in the region by showing how Shakespeare may have been present in colonial run schools, but more importantly he wasn't discarded with colonial propaganda on the countries' roads to independence. His language "was woven into every part of the fabric of African life, into the speeches of politicians and lawyers, but also into the folklore of rural villages." What the people of East Africa did was take Shakespeare's writing and make it their own. Or as Wilson-Lee puts it, "the Shakespeare made in Africa has come to replace the one that was taken there."

I think it a little dangerous to view what happened through the lens of Shakespeare, such as British explorers viewing natives through The Tempest, but Wilson-Lee makes it clear when he does something like this it's only speculation. The book is a marvelous guide to the life of Shakespeare's writings and performances in the eastern Africa region, a travelogue of the poet's influence in the area. Even though his writings are understood in differing ways, his works have been available to the residents of East Africa for a while, open to their interpretations, and made their own. East Africa has appropriated Shakespeare, just as Shakespeare did with other works. Very highly recommended.

The abrupt withdrawal of Shakespeare from the front lines of East African life [at the end of the Cold War, post-1989] gives a strong indication of the extent to which his place there was sustained by power struggles rather than by disinterested love of his works. This, like so many other aspects of the story I have been pursuing, makes clear how difficult it is even to ask questions about Shakespeare's universal appeal. The Victorians' idolization of Shakespeare meant that he would have a place at the foundations of language learning in their colonies, and would serve as a totemic standard of beauty for the peoples over whom they ruled. In this respect there was a certain inevitability to the central place that he would have in East African history—first as something kept from the natives, then a test through which they could prove their allegiance to their colonial masters, then as something they could take over and make their own, and finally as something to be cast off, as the final and most internalized form of colonial power. It is possible that something would have serve this role even had it not been Shakespeare's works. (220-1)

Additional Links:
Edward Wilson-Lee's article in Foreign Affairs—Africa's Theater of War: Shakespeare and Nation Building on the Continent

A more detailed (and much better) review by Ramnik Shah.

Edward Wilson-Lee's essay A Voice in the Desert at FSG's Work In Progress blog

"The resulting book is bursting with stories about reading in unexpected places and how it changes what we read, but at its heart is always the question of whether there is anything that is beautiful and significant to everyone—whether, in a sense, in a world deserted by shared values, there is any voice that can speak to us all."

Shakespeare in Swahililand: In Search of a Global Poet
by Edward Wilson-Lee
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; New York: 2016

The Hollow Crown: The War of the Roses on PBS

Passing along the info, for those that might be interested...

I really enjoyed PBS' airing of The Hollow Crown series last year (Richard II, Henry IV Part I and Part II and Henry V), and I'm looking forward to their The Hollow Crown: The War of the Roses series airing now. This season's lineup includes Henry VI Part I and Part II, ending with Richard III. Fortunately you can stream the episodes whenever you'd like. I know what I'll be doing the next few weeks.

See "About the Series" for more information. Henry VI Part I is available now, availability ending on January 3rd.

Shakespeare: movies currently available online

There are some movies currently streaming online that I wanted to pass along to readers.

First up is Coriolanus available for free to Amazon Prime members. Directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes while John Logan adapted the play for the screen. I was impressed by the whole production, which was as troubling on the screen as it is on the page. Set in modern times, the action can be graphic and troubling for younger viewers, so discretion is advised. Fiennes brings a simmering intensity to the Roman general who defends Rome until he is banished, a political victim. It's one of the strongest performances I've seen from him lately. It helps that the supporting cast is strong, too. James Cox's Menenius was especially good, while Vanessa Redgrave's Volumnia provided a believable stern mother to Coriolanus. I even enjoyed Gerard Butler's portrayal of Aufidius. I highly recommend catching this while it is available.

I've not seen the 1984 TV adaptation of Antony and Cleopatra, starring Timothy Dalton and Lynn Redgrave. I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try it, although I did want to mention that it is also available for free on Amazon Prime.

The 2013 Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet starring Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad was released the following year as a movie and is currently available on Hulu. There was a lot of press about the play when it debuted so I won't go into much detail here. There were some nice touches, but the truncation of the burial vault scene (at least in the screen version) dealt a strong blow against it for me. The performances that stood out to me were Brent Carver as a nervous Friar Laurence and Christian Camargo’s Mercutio. Most of the other roles were played by the book. I'd put this production in the middle of the pack of versions I've seen, still enjoyable in places despite the unevenness.

Chime in if you have seen any of the these films!

Romeo and Juliet by the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company

Last night I went to see the movie version of Romeo and Juliet presented by the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company. It was a little eerie being one of only four people in a sizable movie theater watching this marvelous production, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Richard Madden was solid as Romeo, showing progress from self-absorbed youth to a lover and husband, but Lily James as Juliet stole the show for me, one of the most impressive performances in that role I've seen. Interestingly enough, she doesn't seem that ... ahem ... inexperienced at the start of the play, displaying a pronounced amorous side from the beginning. Casting Derek Jacobi as Mercutio might have seemed a little odd, but having an older, more experienced friend works extremely well since his advice and entreaties to Romeo seem more credible. This is a Mercutio that has been around the block, the city, and the state. The rest of the cast was solid. I'll only point out Meera Syal as the Nurse, who adds a frisky quality to the role, seeming to look forward to Juliet's amorous meetings as much or more than her charge.

The setting was moved to mid-20th century Italy. Given that the print was in high-contrast black and white, the play at times had the feel of a Fellini film. I loved the set design of towering columns, with fluid changes between scenes. My only complaint was that the sound was tinny at times, but since this has been a consistent complaint I've had with similar screenings, I guess I wasn't too disappointed.

I wanted to post on this production since Fathom Events sometimes provides encore screenings. If you get the chance to see it, I highly recommend it.

Lunatics, Lovers and Poets: Twelve Stories after Cervantes and Shakespeare

Lunatics, Lovers and Poets: Twelve Stories after Cervantes and Shakespeare
Edited by Daniel Hahn and Margarita Valencia
Introduction by Salman Rushdie
Los Angeles: And Other Stories, 2016. Paperback.

Links:

• Introduction by Salman Rushdie at the NewStatesman
• "The Dogs of War" by Juan Gabriel Vásquez at the Irish Times
• "Shakespeare, New Mexico" by Valeria Luiselli in Guernica

For this anthology, publisher And Other Books commissioned six Spanish-speaking writers to write stories inspired by Shakespeare and six English-speaking writers to do the same for Cervantes. The impetus behind the project being, of course, the 400th anniversary of the death of each writer on the "same day" (or a day apart), although with England was using the Julian calendar and Spain the Gregorian system, which meant they died approximately ten days apart. Regardless, it's close enough to support such a project.

I've commented before that most fiction I read can easily tie back to Cervantes, and that's not just true of the Cervantes-based stories in this collection but the Shakespeare-based stories, too. And I guess you could say several of the Cervantes-based stories show touches of Shakespeare as well. All of which reflects the importance of the two on current authors. One thing that comes across in each story is the universal nature of Cervantes and Shakespeare. Stories are based from the modern day back to the early 17th century, in locations all around the world, and all of them seem fresh and current. It's a fine collection highlighting the pervasiveness of each author.

The opening story by Ben Okri, "Don Quixote and the Ambiguity of Reading," perfectly sets the tone for the collection. The knight shows up at a printing shop and reads about his adventures as written by a Ben Okri from oral histories as well as from "manuscripts originally written by Cervantes, who wrote his from papers he discovered by Cide Hamete Benegeli, who got it from an Arabic manuscript." The matryoshka doll-like nesting of narration calls up Part I of Don Quixote while visiting the printing shop borrows from Part II. But this Don Quixote tries to teach Ben Okri how to read, which is, in large part, what Don Quixote is all about. This crazed version of the knight notes," Reading is about understanding that which cannot be understood, which the words merely hint at." The fact that the pages he read contained nothing like what he said he read makes the narrator wonder, "There still remains some doubt as to whether his reading of this secret reality is a consequence of his madness, or whether our inability to read it is a consequence of our dimness." I feel his pain.

There are other Cervantes-based stories from Don Quixote and his Exemplary Novels. Rhidian Brook's "The Anthology Massacre" tells of the narrator's completion of a novel told from Rocinante's point of view, obliquely references the collection of stories we're reading, and has a bodycount that would make Shakespeare envious. Kamila Shamsie creates the storyteller Mir Aslam, who seems to share characteristics of both Don Quixote and Cide Hamete Benegeli. Nell Leyshon and Deborah Levy start with "The Glass Graduate" from the Exmplary Novels, but take the premise in different directions, each of which touch on the psychosis of the original.

There is a similar range in the stories based on Shakespeare. Marcos Giralt Torrente's "Opening Windows" borrows heavily from Hamlet, especially the play-within-a-play device. Vicente Molina Foix's "Egyptian Puppet," set in Shakespeare's London, tells of a couple going to the Globe Theater to watch Antony and Cleopatra. The next morning the husband, a jailer, leaves for work but is never seen again. His wife moves on with her life, yearning for the man who once was while suffused in melancholy (very A&C-like). In the link above to "The Dogs of War," Juan Gabriel Vásquez gives us real life characters stepping directly from Julius Caesar into 1984 Bogotá, Colombia, filling their roles a little too convincingly.

Valeria Luisella's "Shakespeare, New Mexico" took a while to grow on me, but it gradually became my favorite Shakespeare-based story. A ghost town off the beaten path has become a tourist attraction with actors re-enacting historical characters and events. The catch is that the actors are permanently in character, even when there are no tourists present. The narrator plots to commit adultery with Billy the Kid while one character opts for a Mickey Mouse costume instead of historical dress. That's when things turn weird. Each actor tends to strut and fret upon their own stage of life.


Lunatics, Lovers and Poets proves to be a fine collection that commemorates Cervantes and Shakespeare and their continuing influence, not just on these writers but on all of us. Recommended.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
are of imagination all compact.

— A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Bill (2015 movie: UK)

Last night my wife and I went to see the 2015 movie Bill, which has the tagline of "How Bill became Shakespeare." As far as I know, this was the only U.S. screening before its DVD release in the states next month. Thanks to Fathom Events for another wonderful media experience.

If you're familiar with the live Horrible Histories series, you'll know exactly what to expect with the movie (seeing as it's mostly the same people). The movie supposedly fills in some of the gaps of Shakespeare's "lost years"—how he moved from obscurity in Stratford-upon-Avon to a famous London playwright. Don't look for it to make sense...just let the lunacy and gags wash over you. And the gags come at warp speed. The musical group "Mortal Coil," after kicking Bill out of the band (for doing an extended solo on his lute), doesn't just leave...they shuffle off. After being told, "Saying things in a short snappy way instead of a long drawn-out way is the soul of wit," Bill asks, "You mean brevity?" When Bill stands on a stage in an empty theater that looks eerily familiar, you hear strains of music in the background that sound a lot like the Shakespeare in Love soundtrack. You get the idea, and either you enjoy this kind of humor or you don't.

Much of Shakespeare's entire career and the surrounding history of both Elizabethan and Jacobean eras are crammed into the few days during the Lost Years shown. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 provides a crucial plot device (even though it's...well, I'm not really sure how many years earlier since I'm not sure what year it is exactly). And for me, that was the fun of it. There are running gags throughout about an espionage agent not understanding the meaning of a Trojan Horse. Lines from Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet get mashed together. There's a musical number providing a lot of insight into theater at the time. Christopher Marlowe not understanding some of the basic principles of humor. And even if some of the themes are ahistorical, it serves the purpose of the movie.

Catching the references. Understanding the sight gags. It may be geeky fun, but non-geeks can like it, too. Many reviews I've seen of the movie say it is Monty Python-esque, and while I don't disagree, I think the "Horrible Histories" people have established themselves well enough to say that it faithfully follows their franchise's family-friendly approach, even though it isn't officially affiliated. I look forward to seeing it with my boys, where they might actually learn something by accident. Which is the whole point of "Horrible Histories."

The showing had bonus content, with an introduction on special facts about Shakespeare and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the movie, some of which I'm sure will be on the upcoming DVD release. All in all, a lot of fun if you like snarky humor. Definitely recommended.

Stratford Festival film: King John

Details on the screening

Written up at midnight after seeing the Stratford Festival's screening of King John, while a few thoughts I actually had during the viewing are with me. Forgive the hasty nature of this post.

Philip Faulconbridge, the Bastard, is a marvelous character, and not just in the sense he's a "type" that Shakespeare will later develop into even greater characters. This was the first time I saw his strength and resolve in the face of adversity as a foil to the waffling nature of his uncle, John. Graham Abbey did a great job in the role, bringing out the playful nature of the character but also accounting for the bitter residue in feeling cheated at what is due. He is every bit as mercurial as King John since he is willing to forsake his claim to his father's lands and income for the potential that lies with Eleanor. Most things I have read about the role laughs at his playfulness without recognizing the darkness underlying many of his lines. To me, this darkness shows up immediately, leaving a bitter taste in his joking from the start. The "commodity speech" isn't an outlier. Abbey's performance was definitely one of the strong points of the play.

King John...what do we do with a character like King John? Tom McCamus did a lot with the role, demonstrating strength, weakness, resolve, expediency, not to mention his flawed calculations, all of which lies in Shakespeare's creation. It's not exactly how I would have portrayed John, but then again you have to live within the constraints of the role. Despite the advertised mercurial and narcissistic nature of John, I'm not sure I fully got that from the performance. There are touches of that nature here and there. But John seems a bit of an enigma outside of the text. Don't get me wrong. I think Tom McCamus did a wonderful job in a difficult role. I think it boils down to how a director wants to portray John, and it's not an easy decision to make. A too-strong John (consistently) goes outside of character, while a too-weak portrayal lends no credibility to his rule and the battle scenes. Shakespeare shows John as willingly handing away major holdings based on an alliance based on calculation instead of the actual losses that occured. In that calculating sense, in figuring out what everyone's price is, McCamus did a great job. He emphasizes a desire for peace and harmony at a calculated cost (albeit frivolously at times), which runs through the text.

If I had to pick one performance that made me love this screening, though, it would be Wayne Best as Hubert, the Angers citizen tasked to kill young Arthur. That task comes with a contrived dose of deniability from King John, and Best wears the troubles of this irrevocable job on his face and in his voice. The dungeon scene was without a doubt the highlight for me.

Cardinal Pandulph's role in the carnage from the battles definitely stood out, too. Eager to call religious might on his side when it comes to enlisting soldiers against heresy, he also shows his impotence at stopping the forces he has called forth. Like most everything else, it's a double-edged sword that Shakespeare calls into play in making parallels between Plantagenet and Elizabethan events.

Other, minor issues:

I guess I'm going to have to get used to the screenings I see having crappy sound, coming out in simple stereo from behind the screen. Despite touting there would be "128 tracks of sound to create a lush, surround-sound experience," I got none of that. You know you sound like a weary snob when one of the dozen other patrons in the theater asks if you can tell someone in charge that the previews have no audio, and your reply is, "Yeah, Lear was like that, too."

Forget what you do with a character like John. What do you do with a character like Constance? Sean McKenna's performance as Constance was strong, yet leaving me disliking her character even more. When is too much too much?

The staging was simple, which I found to be a strong point of the play. Almost everything is left to the imagination, which is fine by me, not to mention it comes closer to the original Elizabethan/Jacobean staging. I liked the simplicity of the scenery, which causes the staging of certain scenes to be well planned and thought out. I thought the choreography of the scenes to be extremely well done.

The casting of Arthur poses a difficult question: how old do you want to portray and cast this character? Fortunately, they seemed to have gone with a slightly older actor, or at least a more experienced one, Noah Jalava. Jalava demonstrates the innocence of a young boy but is also able to express the deeper issues he raises, especially in his scenes with Hubert.


All in all, I though it was an admirable performance. I'm obviously upset with a theater that can take advantage of high definition video (and trust me, it looked great on a huge screen), but isn't able to do the same with the sound.

Coming back to what the Stratford Festival is trying to do with these films, though, I'm a huge fan after only two of them. I'm looking forward to more.

King John by William Shakespeare

I have been looking forward to the upcoming Stratford Festival screening of King John for several reasons, but especially since I've only seen it once. The play can be described as erratic, but there are some wonderful moments in it. The selection of incidents Shakespeare includes in the play brings home the parallels between the reigns of John and Elizabeth I, which was an edgy move, if not dangerous. In the Introduction to the second Arden series, E.A.J. Honigmann summarizes the similarities in an extended sentence:

An English sovereign, said to be a usurper, and perhaps a bastard, defies the pope, becomes "supreme head," is excommunicated, imprisons his rival, who was barred from the crown by a will; the pope promises his murderer canonization, invites another king to invade England, the English sovereign darkly urges the murder of the rival "pretender," then needs a scapegoat, a foreign invasion is attempted, the invaders intending to kill the Englishmen who help them, their navy is providentially wrecked off the English coast, English unity being finally achieved through the failure of the invasion:—frequent "Armada idiom" hammering home the topicality of the play. (xxix, line references corresponding to the events/incidents omitted)

Some of John's history had to be "adapted" to fit into this framework, leading to an often-made claim that King John is Shakespeare's most unhistorical play." By adding ahistorical events and rearranging things that did happen to fashion a coherent, compressed play, Shakespeare highlights Elizabethan experiences. There's an interesting question Shakespeare seems to address when writing the play: should he attempt to make King John appealing?

For a few short moments here and there, Shakespeare succeeds in making a likable (but definitely not a lovable) King John. Sure, he's self-absorbed and mercurial. (When I get around to posting on the 13th-century work Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal, as promised here, these features of the monarch shine through quite well.) And the John that appears in Holinshed's Chronicles, one of Shakespeare's sources and clearly echoed here, has a king of impetuous desires and unceasing lies. In the play John attempts to buy off everyone, providing a backdrop for the "commodity" speech. His schemes may succeed in the short term but bankrupt him, and nearly the country, in the long run. He attempts to hide from the results of his disastrous commands. But there are flashes, brief though they may be, where it's fun to watch John work. His judging of the family matter at the beginning of the play and the brief moment when things are looking up for him at the center of the play (in III. ii where the French have been stopped, he escapes from his mother's smothering care, and he has Arthur in his control) provide shining moments for the king. But only moments. Immediately after his apparent successes he attempts to talk Hubert into killing Arthur. Then Randolph, in a "prophetic spirit," lays out the destruction that awaits John.

The only time I've seen this play is the 1984 performance from the BBC series of Shakespeare's plays. Leonard Rossiter, in one of his last performances, does a good turn at King John while George Costigan brings out the playfulness of The Bastard/Philip. My major complaint about this version is the shortening of the dungeon scene, one of the best parts of the play.

Details of the upcoming screening of last year's Stratford Festival can be found here. Folks outside the U.S. may want to go to the Stratford Festival's website, too. According to this write-up, the sound should be just as good as the picture, one of my complaints about the screening of King Lear I saw, which did not take advantage of the theater's sound system. I'm hoping that's fixed...I'm going to the same theater as Lear, so we'll see. Anyway, I hope you're able to see it!

Details on the screening

King Lear: Stratford Festival movie

This was the first screening of the Stratford Festival HD: From Stage to Screen Series that is now underway. They intend to offer 38 of Shakespeare's plays...similar to that of the BBC's Shakespeare project from 1978-1985 plus Two Noble Kinsmen. If last night's show is any indication of the quality of the series, I am all for it.

The intent of the movie was to capture the stage experience, although I understand there were some re-shot scenes following the live performance. All in all, it provides a great cinematic experience of watching the play. The only problem I had with the movie version was the sound was...well, not lacking, since it was adequate. But it was simple stereo. I know it's a lot to ask for, but I'm hoping future screenings take better advantage of movie theater sound systems.

In Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom starts his chapter on King Lear with "King Lear, together with Hamlet, ultimately baffles commentary." If that's the case, that should have been the end of the chapter. But everyone who experiences the play, reading or watching it, seems to feel the need to expound on it (and Bloom did for another 39 pages). I'll keep my comments on this production to a minimum.

Colm Feore was one of the best Lears I've seen. His lucid moments were perfect, and his madness wasn't an over-the-top production. It helps that he was supported with a solid cast. I enjoyed Stephen Ouimette’s Fool, who seemed righteously and rightly pissed. Steven Wentworth as Gloucester drew a nice parallel with Lear, although the rating on his dive from the "cliffs" would probably rate only a 6. The three sisters (Maev Beaty’s Goneril, Liisa Repo-Martell's Regan, and Sara Farb's Cordelia) make you wonder why Lear hadn't gone mad before the play even starts. Well, except for Cordelia, although it may have been Sara Farb I fell for...I can never tell in these matters. Brad Hodder as Edmund and Evan Buliung as Edgar played off each other quite nicely. The full cast list can be found here.

One of the outstanding things about the staging was how unremarkable it was. There seems to be a big debate on whether King Lear is better read than acted, but what I liked about the sparse sets (and the great camera work) was that it allowed the viewer to focus on the language. They seemed to take the attitude that there doesn't need to be a lot of showy acting or special effects to get the full impact of the play across to the audience, to which I thank them.

Next up in the Stratford Festival series is King John on April 8. I will be posting a reminder as the date gets closer.


Update (4 March 2015): There were several articles about the film and quotes from the festival's executive director. I'll just link to this one.

Too good not to share

Picture source

Looking forward to seeing King Lear in the Stratford Festival HD: From Stage to Screen Series tonight. I could do much worse for a cheat-sheet on the play than the above summary. It almost puts me in the mood to review the movie from the standpoint of a Joe Bob Briggs Drive-In Movie Report.

But the main reason for this post is to link to this wonderful recap of movie Gloucesters NOT taking a dive off a cliff. The author of the post isn't the only one that tends to inappropriately giggle at the flop. I love the disclaimer and reminder, too.

DISCLAIMER: MANY GLOUCESTERS WERE HURT IN THE MAKING OF THIS POST, BUT NONE OF THEM WERE KILLED BECAUSE, HA HA, THEY WEREN’T STANDING ON THE EDGE OF A CLIFF AFTER ALL, HA HA HA.


REMEMBER, KIDS… The Gloucesters you have seen here are trained professionals. Don’t try this at home.

Enjoy. Be sure and check out the rest of their site! (Goodticklebrain.com or Goodticklebrain on Tumblr)

King Lear this Wednesday—Stratford Festival HD: From Stage to Screen Series

Well, despite the press release over two months ago this was news to me:

Three of Shakespeare’s great dramas about the burdens, madness and romance of ruling, all performed by one of the world’s premier repertory theater companies – The Stratford Festival in Ontario Canada – come to select U.S. cinemas courtesy of Fathom Events and By Experience. Presented under the banner of Stratford Festival HD, the series begins with the tragic tale of King Lear on Wednesday, Feb. 25, continues with King John on Thursday, April 8 and finishes with Antony and Cleopatra on Thursday, May 21. Each production features top-notch casts that breathe fresh life into these timeless dramas.

I see that these were three of last year's performances at The Stratford Festival filmed in high definition. Colm Feore will be in the title role of King Lear. There are approximately 320 U.S. theaters currently listed on the location finder. More information for non-U.S. locations can be found here.

Here's the detail page on Wednesday's one-night event of King Lear. I'm planning on going (wishing I had more information on it and that I had found out about it before today).

Stratford Festival: King Lear: Colm Feore (Credit: David Hou)
Picture source

Listen to Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" this week

I have not had a chance to listen to this yet but wanted to pass on this information because of the time limit…

On Sunday BBC Radio 3 aired a production of Antony and Cleopatra and has it available this week for listening. Kenneth Branagh and Alex Kingston are in the title roles, directed by Alison Hindell.

The less mature "version" of this play, Romeo and Juliet, will be airing next week. Leave a comment if you listen to it and let me know what you think!

Shakespeare Uncovered: Macbeth

In a unique series of six films, Shakespeare Uncovered combines history, biography, iconic performances, new analysis, and the personal passions of its celebrated hosts — Ethan Hawke, Jeremy Irons, Derek Jacobi, Trevor Nunn, Joely Richardson, and David Tennant — to tell the stories behind the stories of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. Produced by Blakeway Productions, 116 Films and THIRTEEN in association with Shakespeare’s Globe, each episode explores and reveals the extraordinary world and works of William Shakespeare and the still-potent impact they have today. The films combine interviews with actors, directors and scholars, along with visits to key locations, clips from some of the most celebrated film and television adaptations, and illustrative excerpts from the plays staged specially for the series at Shakespeare’s Globe in London.
(From the PBS "About" page)

The series is currently available at PBS.org and for instant viewing on Netflix.

I watched the first episode of Shakespeare Uncovered and quite enjoyed it. Ethan Hawke explores the play with an eye toward understanding the title role in order to play the part. He begins by watching various versions to see how others have played the role. Hawke watches a 1958 interview with Orson Welles talk about his experience with the play: “It isn’t often one gets a chance to do these plays. I’ve done this one. Through my long career, I’ve played it on both sides of the Atlantic, I’ve done a textbook on it. I don’t know what I haven’t done about this play except do it as well as I’d like to. It’s a great feeling to be dealing with material which is better than yourself, that you know that you can never live up to.” Hawke lightheartedly comments, “It’s weird to see such ego and such humility at the same time.”

A lot of this episode is spent evaluating the weird sisters’ trigger of Macbeth’s ambition and how much of the eventual darkness was present at their initial greeting to him. There are many other topics, including the political implications of writing about witchcraft at the time, differences with the historical figure, and Lady Macbeth’s role as a partner in crime.

Hawke walks through the dagger scene (before the murder of King Duncan) with actor Richard Easton. I find it interesting to hear actors who have played Macbeth walk through scenes and relate what they did to prepare or what they thought during the scene. There were two extremely moving sections of the episode for me. The first was an excerpt from Sleep No More, an adaptation of parts of Macbeth using dance, movement, and mime to tell the story. Staging and body language powerfully conveyed the short piece they showed. The second moving section was when Hawke gets to handle and read from a First Folio at New York’s Morgan Library. His excitement about and reverence for the book is palpable.

All of my quibbles with some points raised in this episode are minor, such as my understanding that Macbeth’s “heat-oppressed brain” (and other mentions of fever) go beyond the literal fever or feverish imagination and were meant to provide then-current medical clues to demonstrate Macbeth’s state of mind as frenzy instead of madness.

People weighing in on aspects of Macbeth include
Prof. Justin Champion,
Prof. Gail Kern Paster,
Prof. Marjorie Garber,
Prof. Stephen Greenblatt,
Prof. Justin Champion,
Tanya Pollard (a performance historian; she looks at the different portrayals of Lady Macbeth),
Dr. Gwen Adshead (a forensic psychiatrist who has worked with murderers), and
From the RSC 2001 production: director Greg Doran and actors Antony Sher and Harriet Walter.

Many of Hawke’s points can seem painfully obvious but it doesn’t hurt to say them. As he points out to close this episode, the power of the play comes from not holding Macbeth at arm’s length—what is inside him might be inside us. Reviews of Hawke as Macbeth called his performance underwhelming but as I mentioned above I found his exploration of the play very enjoyable. I’m looking forward to watching other episodes of this series and may post on a few of them.

More MOOCS

So I've signed up for another MOOC since I enjoyed the one on Hamlet so much. (More on that later.)

So this one is titled Shakespeare and His World and is led by Professor Jonathan Bate, in conjunction with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. From the course description:

Each week, Professor Bate will examine a particular play and a cultural theme alongside a selection of treasures from the Trust’s archives in Stratford-upon-Avon. Weekly learning material will be broken down into six video segments, each examining a variety of artefacts and play extracts. The course will open with an introduction to Shakespeare and his living and working environment, moving onto broader cultural themes and issues examined in his plays and ending with an exploration of his legacy.

The pre-read was Venus and Adonis, which (of course) meant I had to re-visit Ovid before re-reading the poem. I think I'll work in The Rape of Lucrece this week, too, just for the fun of it. And it's been too long since I've read either of the poems.

Anyway, expect more stray Shakespeare posts for a while.

To be? Or not to be? All of the above? None of the above?

More online musing on the online Hamlet course I'm taking…

In the upcoming week's class there is a major focus on Hamlet as a negative character as well as looking at the "To be or not to be" soliloquy. The best performances I've seen of that scene is when the actor makes it clear that Hamlet has contemplated suicide before…this isn't off-the-cuff musing but questions he has been asking all along. So what does he choose? To be? Or not to be?

He continues 'to be,' but is that really his choice? I'd frame it more along the lines that he chooses not "not to be," which is a very different spin. That decision means that he is "to be" but it doesn't mean that's what he specifically chose. And that's what provides some of the many paradoxes we run across in Hamlet. Hamlet is an actor within the play for a large part of it. You could say we see the 'true' Hamlet in his first scene, where he tells his mother that he doesn't seem to be displaying the nighted colors she describes but he argues he *is* exactly as she says. Most of the rest of the play, though, he's an actor, introducing one of the many paradoxes of the play. In order to be an actor, he has to suppress who he is in order to play the role. Yet he must draw on his own feelings and experiences to sell the role. So we're seeing something much more complicated.

Which begs the question of when the role of the actor ends and we see the 'real' Hamlet again, assuming such a thing exists by this point. The simplest answer would be during Hamlet's last soliloquy, when he sees Fortinbras march on Poland and resolves to act instead of just thinking. But you're never quite sure with Hamlet because this is where action replaces thinking. Or is that part of the role, too?

Back to the "To be or not to be" soliloquy…who is he addressing? Is it inward musing? Or as some stagings have done it, aimed at Opehlia? Or is it meant for anyone listening in, Ophelia as well as (most likely, to him) Claudius and Polonius, to overhear as part of his act? Or a direct address to the audience? All of the above? A combination? This one I find much harder to answer with any degree of certainty, but I love that it can be performed in several ways which would seem valid.

The last point on this rambling post… The "To be or not to be" soliloquy seems like a direct confrontation to religion by saying we don't know what awaits us when we die. Backing up a step, though, are we supposed to judge Hamlet's speech by the prevailing religion of his time or by Shakespeare's day? If of Hamlet's time, it's a direct affront to the Catholic Church since it had plenty of doctrine on Purgatory and what to expect. If of Shakespeare's day, things become murky: Martin Luther (teaching at Wittenberg, where Hamlet was studying) rejected Purgatory. The Church of England didn't have an agreed-upon afterlife cosmology for several decades, until well after the play was written. Is Hamlet saying the church doesn't, and can't possibly know what awaits us (following in part Luther's rejection)? Is he following the confusion of the Church of England of the day? Ah, so many questions from just a few lines, without definite answers, but fun to go over regardless.

The problem with Gertrude

A few notes on the online Hamlet course I'm taking…

The Argumentative Old Git had a good post on the three different versions of Hamlet. We took a closer look at the First Quarto (Q1) and despite all its deficiencies the order of its scenes resolve some issues raised in the Second Quarto and First Folio. But I wanted to focus on a scene in Q1 that isn't in the other two versions. Horatio informs the Queen that Hamlet has returned safe from his English voyage. A copy of Q1 is available online, although this excerpt updates the spelling:

Enter Horatio and the Queen.

HORATIO
Madam, your son is safe arrived in Denmark.
This letter I even now received of him,
Whereas he writes how he escaped the danger
And subtle treason that the King had plotted.
Being crossed by the contention of the winds,
He found the packet sent to the King of England,
Wherein he saw himself betrayed to death,
As, at his next convers’ion with your grace,
He will relate the circumstance at full.

QUEEN
Then I perceive there’s treason in his looks
That seemed to sugar o’er his villany.
But I will soothe and please him for a time,
For murderous minds are always jealous.
But know not you, Horatio, where he is?

HORATIO
Yes, madam, and he hath appointed me
To meet him on the east side of the city
Tomorrow morning.

QUEEN
Oh, fail not, good Horatio, and withal commend me
A mother’s care to him. Bid him awhile
Be wary of his presence, lest that he
Fail in that he goes about.

HORATIO
Madam, never make doubt of that.
I think by this the news be come to court:
He is arrived. Observe the King, and you shall
Quickly find, Hamlet being here,
Things fell not to his mind.

QUEEN
But what become of Gilderstone and Rossencraft?

HORATIO
He being set ashore, they went for England,
And in the packet there writ down that doom
To be performed on them ‘pointed for him.
And by great chance he had his father’s seal,
So all was done without discovery.

QUEEN
Thanks be to heaven for blessing of the Prince!
Horatio, once again I take my leave,
With thousand mother’s blessings to my son.

HORATIO
Madam, adieu. [Exeunt.]

A question we had to address—if we were staging Hamlet would we include this scene? Many students wanted to include it because they believed it adds to Gertrude's characterization, demonstrating mettle in dealing with Claudius and showing concern for her son. I'm not convinced it paints her completely in a positive light, especially where she thanks heaven when hearing of G & R's death sentence.

So would you include it?
To me it depends on how you plan on portraying Gertrude. Is she weak-willed, easily pushed around, overwhelmed by the death of her husband and the seeming madness of her son? Or is she a strong character, doing what she wants regardless of what others think (and maybe having an affair with her brother-in-law)? Or somewhere in between. I prefer a strong Gertrude who's focusing mostly on herself (even if the text doesn't always support that reading) and the scene doesn't really fit for me if you go in that direction. But then that's my preference.
What's yours?