Well it was provocative -- his spin p*ssed me off several times. His overall thesis seems like a reach, but it's interesting enough that I want to think about it a bit.
agree. The last words Jim Morrison sings in the opening of Apocalypse Now are 'all the children are insane' I took that to mean that the film was a story of young people fighting the war were unprepared and unequipped (emotionally) to fight. A changing of the guard, so to speak? yea, that was one of the things that floored me then. Both the play and the film have a madman at their heart who dies.........the young people thrust into the conflict are clueless, just like Lear's daughters and especially their husbands. That film said to me, the legacy is being passed and the recipients are mad. And the generations changed and we came through ok. Don't need to muddy the waters with this 2023 crap. I said to my wife way back when I showed her the film: just think about that statement.....if all the children are insane, then the decline will be slow and exceptionally painful as the old ones with sense die and the insane are left alive. Terrifying
Posted this a year ago (in another thread). Glad to see that it's stiil up... Measure For Measure (1979, Desmond Davis) The Duke of Vienna takes a mysterious leave of absence and leaves the strict Angelo in charge. Young Claudio, who is sentenced to death for premarital sex, entreats his sister, Isabella, who is taking vows in a nunnery, to persuade Angelo to deliver him from his sentence. She agrees, but instead of freeing her brother, she gets an offer from Angelo to save Claudio's life if Isabella sleeps with him. The only sympathetic friend she has is a priest who, in actuality, is the Duke in disguise... This movie is one of my favorite Shakespeare play adaptations - and one of the best of the late 70s BBC series of Shakespeare productions. Kate Nelligan as Isabella really makes this one shine although the whole cast - if you can get past Kenneth Colley's (The Duke) habit of mumbling - is good. The sets, given the BBC's obviously small tv budget, are admirable, too. Top drawer Shakespeare. Free on Crackle. You can see it ad-free with a BritBox subscription (which I'm seriously thinking of renewing. Some good British tv series on it).
Discovered two intriguing recent Shakespeare titles from a hitherto unknown scholar - They are Shakespeare's Stage Traffic (2014, Cambridge University Press) and Migrating Shakespeare (2021, Arden Shakespeare/Bloomsbury Publishing); the first involving a critical look at what Shakespeare's contemporaries were doing while he and his company were plying their trade and the second is a look at the initial European impressions of The Bard's plays as they migrated to the mainland. Both are by Janet Clare, an Honorary Professor of English at the University of Bristol. And both are in e-book format, thank goodness! Anyone here read either one?
In The Bleak Midwinter (1995, Kenneth Branagh) An unemployed actor assembles a motley group of characters to put on a production of Hamlet in an old English church. New to me. Howling a minute in…
Will Shakespeare (1978, Mark Cullingham, Robert Knights, Peter Wood) Watching the series on DVD this weekend in celebration of the 459th birthday of Shakespeare (April 23, 1564). There's a watchable copy on The Tube above. It's probably the most convincing portrait of The Bard whose character and personality remains to this day practically unknown despite the worldwide proliferation of his work. Happy BDay, Will!
On this day in history, April 23, 1564, Shakespeare is born in Stratford-upon-Avon, becomes renowned writer
Richard II (1960, Raymond Menmuir) This version of Richard was first telecast live on May 11, 1960. It's now an episode from An Age of Kings Shakespeare DVD set. There isn't much to commend the visual record (it's in SORE need of a remastering) but the soundtrack is wonderful. Not quite as intriguing to me as the late 70s BBC/Derek Jacobi as Richard/John Gielgud as Gaunt version but I love the snappy pace and fabulous elocution. Oh, and Sean Connery makes a brief cameo.
Saw my Romeo and Juliet Thames Shakespeare collection DVD today and really loved it. It was wonderful to hear actors speak every single word Shakespeare wrote and with such emotion to back it up. The sets were exquisite, the acting was superb, and of course the story resonated as much as it always has. This Shakespeare fan definitely wasn't disappointed.
Enjoying this live stream of Richard II (1971, Richard Cottrell, Toby Robertson) with Ian McKellen. As far as I can tell it's unavailable on DVD. Should be up on the Tube a while.
Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music (text is Merchant of Venice, Five-One, the Lorenzo/ Jessica scene)
A few days ago I saw an incredible and really impressive one man show by Patrick Page, called "All the devils are here (how Shakespeare invented the villain)". Its playing here in NYC at a small theater on 15th St in Manhattan thru beginning of January, I think. (I got somewhat discounted tkts thru the app TodayTix, by the way) Highly recommended- he does various scenes of some of the classic villains (richard 3, iago, shylock, macbeth, lady macbeth, etc etc) and gives really interesting spins on how shakespeare made the character of the villain so three-dimensional. Not to mention how timely it is to these days. Theres a great NY Times review from last week, if you're curious. There was an earlier version of this, I'm told, that was streamed during the pandemic, sadly tho I don't think that version is still around (would love to see it if it was tho!) anyway, hope someone here sees this and goes- its really great. Patrick Page, by the way, for several years played the role of "hades' in the musical "hadestown" (which i saw last year with him in it)
I don't read The Bard. It's nothing personal; I don't read anything anymore except movie capsule reviews from old Leonard Maltin Video Guides and various Bible verses (I Shalt Not Be A Big Heathen! ). That said . . . I listen to Disco Shakespeare. And quite often, too. Greek/Egyptian composer ALEC R. COSTANDINOS put together various full-orchestra disco songs in the 1970s and one of them was a 15½-minute version of ROMEO & JULIET from 1978. I go to YouTube and listen to it frequently; it's very tuneful. DISCO SHAKESPEARE wants YOU! (And should anyone reading think I'm trolling ("There is no such thing as 'Disco Shakespeare, dammit! This guy's lying! ) I'd recommend a quick trip to YouTube to have a listen).
As I've mentioned here before, I've hosted Shakespeare readings at my house for over 50 years, current group includes professors, actors, best-selling authors, and other assorted Bardophiles. Here's the letter I'm sending out to cue up our next reading, The Two Noble Kinsmen: Greetings fellow Bardophiles! Let's look at the last Monday in January, the 28th, as a possible date for our second reading of The Two Noble Kinsmen. If you want to read with us and the date doesn't work for you, please let me know. The Tempest has traditionally been considered Shakespeare's swan song; but after he retired he collaborated on three plays with Thomas Fletcher, who succeeded him as the principal playwright for The King's Company. With the late 20th Century's increasing attention to and legitimization of Shakespeare's collaborations, The Two Noble Kinsmen is now recognized as containing Will's last writings. Best estimates of the chronology of the final plays: The Tempest – 1610-11 Then three collaborations with Thomas Fletcher: The lost play Cardenio 1612-13 (based on a story from Don Quixote, registered to the company but survives only as a play based on play based on Cardenio) Henry VIII (aka All Is True) 1612-13 (The only play our group hasn't read yet.) The Two Noble Kinsmen 1612-1614 The central ceremony of the play is the wedding between Theseus and Hippolyta, the same wedding that is the centerpiece of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Two Noble Kinsmen was not included in the First Folio (1623) nor in any of subsequent Folios (1632, 1663, & 1685); but it was registered to the company in 1634, and a quarto edition of the play was published later that year. That Quarto is the text upon which all later editions are based. It was published in the Second Beaumont and Fletcher Folio (1679). Generally speaking, Will wrote the first and last acts, and the first scene of Act III, and Fletcher (15 years younger than him, and a much breezier and lighter writer) wrote the rest. We last read the play in 2017, and quite enjoyed it. Fletcher's sub-plot of the jailer's daughter is charming and an easy read, notwithstanding Bloom's disparagement of Fletcher's contributions. Oxford scholar Emma Smith has devoted much study to Shakespeare's collaborations and concludes that both Fletcher and Middleton were highly popular and skilled writers, and that collaborations of all sorts have always been a regular part of the theatrical life As the prologue to the play announces, the main plot is a fairly faithful retelling of Chaucer's The Knight's Tale. Contemporary audiences would have been very familiar with the story: two cousins (and knights) who are dear friends to each other both fall in love at first sight with the same woman – Hippolyta's sister, Emilia – and decide that the only honorable way to settle who gets her is a duel to the death. [posting link below] As You Like It has some beautiful lines on the childhood love between Rosalind and Celia. That theme is deepened and amplified in Emilia's lengthy and detailed recounting of her late friend Flavia: ". . . .but I And she I sigh and spoke of were things innocent, ... Loved for what we did, and like the elements, That know not what, nor why, yet do effect Rare issues by their operance, our souls Did so to one another. What she liked Was then of me approved; what not, condemned -- No more arraignment. The flower that I would pluck And put between my breasts -- O then but beginning To swell about the blossom -- she would long Till she had such another, and commit it To the like innocent cradle where phoenix-like, ... They died in perfume. . . That the true love 'tween maid and maid may be More than in sex dividual." I, iii There are many rituals in the play, primarily in Shakespeare's sections, and the language is often ornate, murky, and ceremonial rather than dramatic. Bloom writes that he finds Shakespeare's style here "to be subtler and defter than ever, though very difficult to absorb . . . astonishing even for him, but very difficult poetry, hardly suitable for the theater." Act Five opens with the two knights and Emilia praying to their deities, three entirely ceremonial speeches. Arcite prays to Mars for victory in his battle with Palamon. Palamon prays to Venus to win Emilia. And Emilia prays to Diana to win the knight who loves her more. All three get what they pray for, leaving none of them happy. Palamon's offering to Venus is as grotesque and cynical a take on love as one will ever find: ". . . I knew a man Of eighty winters – this I told them – who A lass of fourteen brided. 'Twas thy [Venus's] power To put life into dust; the aged cramp Had screwed his square foot round, The gout had knit his fingers into knots, Torturing convulsions from his globy eyes Had almost drawn their spheres, that what was life In him seemed torture. This anatomy Had by his young fair fere a boy, and I Believed it was his, for she swore it was, And who would not believe her?" V, i Emilia is horrified by the idea that the knights are going to fight to the death to win her, and has no interest in being married to any man. After Arcite's death and her betrothal to Palamon, she says. "Is this winning? O all you heavenly powers, where is your mercy? But that your wills have said it must be so, And charge me live to comfort this unfriended, This miserable prince, that cuts away A life more worthy from him than all women, I should, and would, die too." V, iii This play ends as many do with a final speech by the ranking nobleman: THESEUS: Never fortune Did play a subtler game: the conquered triumphs, The victor has the loss . . . . . . O you heavently charmers, What things you make of us! For what we lack We laugh; for what we have are sorry; still Are children in some kind. Let us be thankful For that which is, and with you leave dispute That are above our question. Let's go off, And bear us like the time. V, iv Probably the last thing Will wrote for the theater. I saw an entertaining low-brow send up of Macbeth from 2001, "Scotland PA," the realm is "Duncan's Donuts and Burgers," the three witches are hippies on a ferris wheel -- clever if lightweight fun. And 79-year old Brenda Lee's "Rocking Around The Christmas Tree" is #1 on Billboard for the second straight week, first released in 1958. Please let me know about that January 28th date. And have a great holiday! Steve
Cheers! Our second reading of The Two Noble Kinsmen is scheduled for Monday, January 29th at 6:30 In the moments before the two knights first see Emilia through their jail windows, and immediately become mortal rivals to each other, they celebrate their love for each other and their good luck at being locked up together. ARCITE Let’s think this prison holy sanctuary To keep us from corruption of worse men. We are young and yet desire the ways of honor, ... And here being thus together, We are an endless mine to one another; We are one another’s wife, ever begetting New births of love; we are father, friends, acquaintance; We are, in one another, families: I am your heir, and you are mine; this place Is our inheritance. No hard oppressor Dare take this from us; here with a little patience We shall live long, and loving. II, ii The Jailer's Daughter's unrequited love for Palamon triggers her madness. When the Morris Dancers come up one woman short for their show, they're eager to accept a madwoman into their group as a perfect fit. THIRD COUNTRY FOLK: There’s a dainty mad woman, master, Comes i’ th’ nick, as mad as a March hare. If we can get her dance, we are made again. I warrant her, she’ll do the rarest gambols. FIRST COUNTRY FOLK: A mad woman? We are made, boys! III, v Later, the Jailer's Daughter tells us of the castrations of Palamon's numerous sons: JAILER’S DAUGHTER There is at least two hundred now with child by him -- There must be four. Yet I keep close for all this, Close as a cockle. And all these must be boys, He has the trick on’t; and at ten years old They must be all gelt for musicians, And sing the wars of Theseus. IV, i
I just got a ticket to see Eddie Izzard's one-person Hamlet here in NYC in mid-February. I think it may have played in the UK earlier? Anyone seen it? I like Eddie Izzard a lot, have seen their stand up act (just before the pandemic in 2019) and also saw them do a broadcast of a one-person 'great expectations' a year or two ago.
For UK fans, there is a very good three part documentary series - Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius - about his life, on the BBC/Iplayer.
CONTESTED WILL by James Shapiro (2011) -- A couple of years ago I recommended an excellent book by Shapiro, Shakespeare in a Divided America. This is Shapiro's equally interesting book on the authorship question. Shapiro approaches the question primarily as history and biography. He traces the first wave, Delia Bacon (no relation) and the 'Francis Bacon was Shakespeare' school. The book follows the rise and fall of its popularity and explores its attractiveness for its most prominent adherents – including Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Emerson and Hawthorne. And the second wave, an army of aristocrats led by Edward de Vere, and his main supporters, including Freud. Shapiro ascribes the allure of the non-Stadfordian position to be due to two nineteenth century mistaken ideas – that Shakespeare was a renaissance god rather than a theatrical professional, and that the life of the author can be traced through clues in their writing. (As Emma Smith points out elsewhere, in our age writers are taught to write what they know; in early modern times, writers wrote what they read. All but two of Shakespeare's plots are borrowed from earlier writers.) The resort to elaborate codes and numerology provide a amusing although slightly creepy element to the Baconites' and Oxfordians' history. Shapiro's final sections are given to making the Stratfordian case, and seem sound to me. He was by far the most published writer of his time, a player and major shareholder in a successful theatrical company for twenty-five years, frequently performing before the court, a widely recognized individual, so if there were suggestions that he was not the author of the plays we would have some record of it. Shapiro also supplies numerous references to Shakespeare by contemporary writers, both in print and marginalia. He also analyzes the last plays in the context of their performances in a new indoor theater, the Blackfriars, and how the last plays are tailored for the new theater. This all happened after de Vere's death, and the specific fitness of the late plays for the Blackfriars undermines the claim that de Vere wrote these plays before he died but they were released posthumously. A lively history, as rife with conspiracy theories as our own times.
