The Bard Blender

Contested Will

This is a review for a new book about the authorship issue.  I've really always thought the authorship issue was more of a non-issue.  In our "Death of the Author" age isn't it better not to worry about the man who wrote the work and instead just delve into the text?  Since Shakespeare has come to stand it for so many things, perhaps it's better that we know so little about him.  But when faced with proponents of the Oxfordian or Baconian camps, I find myself rising to challenge of asserting my Stratfordian views.  


This book, however, seems to be more of an chronicling of the history of the authorship problem.  This does intrigue me since I believe the last literature I read on the subject was by Mark Twain, (though it was good for a few laughs).  This is definitely going on my summer reading list (along with the million other things I have picked up over the year).

This week I've been translating the story of Procne and Pilomela.  These are two sisters.  One of which marries a neighboring king and then after several years of marriage asked for her sister to visit.  When the king goes to get the sister, he is struck by her beauty and rapes her.  Having raped her he cuts out her tongue so she can't tell anyone of his crime. 

Cutting out of the tongue, sound familiar?  Well, if not you can cheat by remembering that in the last part of this series I promised to talk about Titus Andronicus.  Titus' daughter, Lavinia, is raped and her tongue cut out.  But Shakespeare does not leave it there because his characters also can read and write.  So, he has her hands cut off as well. 

Neither victim is long hindered by the mutilation.  Philomela weaves a tapestry which depicts what happened and Lavinia uses a stick which she guides with his teeth to write the names of her attackers in the sand. 

Both are ultimately avenged by their families, which involves feeding children to an evil mother or father depending on the story.  

Initially, Philomela believes Tereus will kill her and welcomes death.  However, ultimately she, along with her sister, flees in the form of a bird from Tereus.  This is very different from Lavinia who is killed by her own father in order to preserve her chastity. 

 

Ovid's story is interested in the sisters revenging themselves on Tereus, while shakespeare takes it a step further. For his characters revenge is not enough. Shakespeare is interested in a return to a functioning society, the lack there of is what has allowed the rape in the first place. In the end everyone involved with the murder, betrayal or disruption of society is killed and people untainted by these events step forward to take their place.

Later: this story also crops up in Cymbeline in some very disturbing ways.

Ok.  It's Monday, and I'm giving myself a reward for finishing a response paper. So:

You know you are obsessed with Shakespeare when...

you see someone else's spoof for a fandom they obsess over and you wonder if you could do that with Shakespeare.

Today's example is the llama song.  I stumbled across some else' Doctor Who spoof of this song and decided to make my own.  At the moment, however, I don't have the means or the time to make a video (but be expecting it).  Here are lyrics in all their goofy rhyming:

here's a Hamlet
there's a Hamlet
and another little Hamlet
Crazy Hamlet
Craby Hamlet
Hamlet Hamlet
Puck

Hamlet Hamlet
Laertes
Hamlet
tablet
brick
Ophela
Hamlet
Hamlet Hamlet
Denmark
Hamlet
Hamlet Hamlet
Puck

i was once a nutshell
i lived in the rocks
but i never saw how to
keep the kingdom off the stocks

Ghost was only two months dead
but it told a tale
and now listen, little child
to the deathly rail

did you ever see a Hamlet
kiss a Hamlet
on the Hamlet
Shakespeare's Hamlet
tastes of Hamlet
Hamlet Hamlet
Puck

half a knitwit
twice the halfwit
not at all wit
bad vibe
Hamlet
Hamlet in a jibe
alarum Halmet
Hamlet
Puck

is THIS how it's told now?
is it all so old?
is it made of lemon juice?
sparrow
mother-
aunt
now I was once a student

writing in a blog
time for me to retire now
and become a Puck

This was somewhat rushed so they may need tweaking.  But metrically they work.  ^_^

Last Spring the Asolo Repertory Theater performed A Winter's Tale.  They set it in the 1950's and 60's, which visually worked quite well: the farmers of Bohemia were transformed into hippies, complete with and oldstyle VW bug, while in Sicilia, it was all business suits and ball gowns.  I really enjoyed it. (Actually I liked it so much I went back with 2 more times with different friends.)  After seeing it there was a discussion with refreshments, during which time the idea of adaptation came up.  One elderly gentleman asserted that, like many he did not think highly of adaptation and cited West Side Story. (Now, I don't like West Side Story all that much, but that is an opinion not a critique on the genre.)  I was reflecting on this the other day and decided to share my thoughts on the subject of adaptation.  

In my opinion, adaption is a natural part of the performative process.  A director adapts the text of a play any time he stages a play he is making choices about how actors should perform lines, what kinds of sets, props and costumes to use, or why emphasize one part or another.  It is then only a stretch to change the setting and only a little further to try to push a certain message with a play, both of which happen all the time. (which is good.  It makes the play more interesting when there is good directorial focus.)  Adaptation into something completely new, like Shakespeare Retold or "O," is further into the spectrum but I think no less valid use of text.  Shakespeare himself derived his plays from poems and stories, which is adaptation.  Though even something more interesting and something I think most people miss is: Shakespearean plays were produced in contemporary garb during his day.  So plays like Timon of Athens or Julius Caesar would have been performed in Elizabethan dress not ancient Greek or Roman.  Therefore, to me it always seems strange when people criticize "plain clothes" productions.  As long as they don't hinder the reception of a work (such as modern dress in a play about class because it is difficult to portray class clearly with today's styles.), why shouldn't performers use clothes contemporary to us today?  They are much easier on the costuming department to come up with, that is why Shakespeare used them. 

Therefore, the question shouldn't be: why adaptation?  It should be: what is this adaptation doing? Adaptation can be such a fun thing.  When it works, it's amazing.  When it doesn't, we are left to wonder what the director is thinking.  But that is what making theater an ongoing participation with text and not simply a regurgitation.   

The American Shakespeare Center asked Who is to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet? and while this actually comes out of Doom's response to seeing the play, I find it an interesting proposal and thought I would share.  

The Prince is to blame for all of the action in the play. Directly after the chaotic fighting in the first scene, He appears with all the Rhetoric of an official in control of his people:  "If ever you disturb our streets again / Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace."  Yet, by the end of the first act trouble is brewing, again.  His own cousin, Mercutio, does not even listen to his decrees.  Next time we even see this much absent Prince moe blood has already been spilled.  So, here he has the chance to prove his seriousness and end this feud by making the penalties real, binding and swift.  Yet, he here falls short:

Last Friday, I watched King Lear for the first time. (For those who want to keep track, that makes 26 plays that I have either seen or read.)  In Lear, Edgar, who is forced to flee home to save his life, decides to disguise himself as Tom of Bedlam.  I was watching the BBC's Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare, in which Edgar's Tom looks like he stumbled off the set of a passion play, but that's beside the point.  What is the point is that Edgar tells us before hand that this is what he's going to do but, unlike for instance Rosalind in As You Like It , he does not break his disguise to tell us that he is in disguise.  And since we only have the character's own voices to say tell us what they think and feel and who they are, I began to wonder what this means for Edgar's sanity.  After he throws off the persona of Tom, he once again acknowledges his true idenity, but while he is in the guise of Tom he goes by nothing else.  If we as an audience must rely upon his word for validation of his character, we will not receive it. 

Does this mean that Edgar is crazy? 

For insight into this question, we look to the persona itself.  He puts it on when he has been expelled not only from his social state but from his home.  His half-bother has turned their father against him and thus he flees.  It is only when Edgar has returned to his rightful place can he remove his persona  -- now here I must clarify, a moment ago I mentioned his social status, but that is not the place I am referring to here.  Here I mean his familial role.  It is only when he is reunited with his father, though his father does not recognize him due to blindness, that he is no longer *acting* crazy.  He is able to fulfill his familial role and that restores his persona, if not his sanity.  It is only once he has thrown off this persona that he can reclaim his social role as well. 

This I believe contrasts nicely with Lear himself: Lear is said (thought) to be crazy, and depending on the staging can be seen as such.  Lear is crazy because he too is unable to play out his familial role.  He has rejected one of his daughters and been rejected by the others.  Only once Cordelia returns to take care of him can Lear's madness be put aside and it is then that he can speak to his daughter and reconcile with Kent. 

Whether Edger, or Lear, is actually crazy is up to each production to decide but this relationship between performed madness and true madness (for, to define true madness, what is't but to be mad) is an interesting tension worth exploring which I have only touched on here by looking at its relationship to familial roles.  Taken out to its farthest conclusion one could say that Lear presents a world where family order and by extension social order is sanity and breaking from that by choice or otherwise causes madness even if it is only temporary.

This is definitely a subject worth exploring and I look forward to working through it more at a later date.