Bullet Points

So, I know this is a bit lazy, but here’s a simple, bulleted list of cool facts concerning A Midsummer Night's Dream. I like to do this from time to time, just kind of dump some stuff out there on what I have discovered in my travels to, ya know, keep it interesting (ha ha, I know…):

1. That song you probably marched down the aisle to on your wedding day? You know, the Wedding March? That was written by Felix Mendelssohn specifically for a production of this play, so you can kind of thank The Bard for that one.
2. As I mentioned earlier, this is one of three Shakespeare plays that has no known single source material (most of his plays are based, usually in a big way, on some prior work by some other writer). Love’s Labor’s Lost and The Tempest are the other two.
3. It wasn't a very popular play until relatively recently. Actually, it was generally derided as a piece of junk really, until about 150 years ago. Now it is easily one of his most popular plays. What does this say about art and audience?

(6) A Midsummer Night’s Dream

So, this one I have already read, as have many of you I am guessing. This play is popular…and for good reason: it’s good, really good, and maybe even great. I found it to be a much different (better) experience to reading Love’s Labor’s Lost. Although these two plays share many similarities (they are both comedies, they are thought to be written around the same time, and they both lack any single source material), I found A Midsummer Night’s Dream to be so much more…enjoyable, on many levels. Maybe it was the mostly strong, linear plot, maybe it was the familiarity, or maybe it’s just better. Who knows? But I feel like I’m back on track and in the groove with this one.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is another Shakespeare play about the fickle, crazy ways of love (like The Two Gentlemen of Verona).  I liked how this theme winds and rolls about. This play, perhaps, is nothing more than a complex exploration of the intricate sensibilities of Love (capital “L”) and its many, many possibilities. However, for me this theme was overshadowed by another. As the title implies, it can also be taken as an elaborate and exacting exploration of the Imagination (capital “I”), specifically through the concept of dreams and their uncanny ability to suspend reality or create new realities.

The dream is central to this tale, and the idea is tossed about in so many cool and surprising ways, all the way up to the very end, that I am once again quite impressed by the art of it. Ultimately, he seems to get to the question of reality itself, but not in a cliché way (…life is but a dream), but in a novel, twisted, and just kind of really deep way. I love the final lines by Puck and have vowed to memorize them, because I think they are so great. In case you have forgotten, they go like this:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

I just love that.

Read the Play…Take the Test

So, what rhymes with awesome? SparkNotes! Not really… but it should. A completely free internet study guide on each and every Shakespeare play, these things has been very useful. I have referred to them, at some point and to some degree, for every play I have read so far, and I plan on using them throughout this project.  For the lesser known plays, the SparkNotes are simpler, containing act by act analysis and summary, as well as some background information. For the more well-known plays, they contain the above as well as all sorts of extras, like in-depth character analysis and, my favorite by far, an online quiz, which is so fun to try and ace (which, in a testament to the craftiness of these things, I haven’t done yet, but have gotten very close…and vow to do so before the end). Don’t get me wrong, some of the analysis can be pedestrian, overly generic, and obvious (it seems like these are dumbed-down at times to perhaps cater to first-timer, not-so-committed, high school/college types?), but who cares! For a free resource, I’m not complaining. Check ‘em out.

Love’s Labor’s Lost and Found?

My post on Love’s Labor’s Lost ended with me basically writing off the play and vowing to move on. This I did not do. Something about it bothered me, perhaps the nagging suspicion that something had been left undiscovered, so I looked further and found a modern film version of the play produced by Kenneth Branagh…yes, the Kenneth Branagh. To say I was surprised is mild. The fact that there is a modern, big budget version of this play by Branagh, one of the great interpreters of Shakespeare in our time (at least on the Hollywood stage), is nothing short of a miracle. My first thought was: this guy must be the bravest dude ever. This play, generally agreed upon as Shakespeare’s most obscure, would scare off pretty much anyone even thinking about producing it (indeed, it is rarely ever staged nowadays). So, what’s the deal?

I guess Branagh really likes the play, the idea of which absolutely intrigues me (someone liking it enough to spend millions of dollars and countless hours producing it). He liked it enough to make it into a movie…wow. And it’s actually an easy movie to appreciate, given the “unfriendliness” of the source material, especially if you are like me in wanting, really wanting, to like everything The Bard has done. I liked the movie because it helped me understand and appreciate the play, something I could not claim before seeing it.

In watching the movie, one sees much of merit, much more so than in the reading. So much is so easily missed on the page (I know, not surprising, right?...seeing as these things are plays, not books…but in my defense I did acknowledge this as a shortcoming in an earlier post). In the presentation of it, so much is added so as to make the comprehension of it almost impossible without it being shown to you, which brings up an interesting quandary for those bent on appreciating this play, namely, if the play is so obscure that, in order to understand it, you need to see it, how can you see it when no one (save this crazy Branagh guy) will produce it because it is so obscure. Problems, problems, problems…

It was great watching Branagh pull it off, this play, watching how he goes about turning this behemoth language puzzle into a Hollywood movie. In thinking about this, there are three things he did particularly well:

1. He discards large portions of the text (maybe as much as half?), focusing on the more accessible parts so as to better connect with the audience. In a play with almost no plot, this is well advised.
2. He makes it a musical, inserting at least a dozen popular show tunes at key areas to significantly up the entertainment value. A little song and dance never hurt anyone.
3. It is well cast, with some really great actors (Nathan Lane and Adrian Lester, most notably).

Concerning the first point, the portions of the text he does use are at times great, and I can show you. Take this piece, delivered during probably the best passage in the play, Berowne’s discourse on Love:

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

Or this one, delivered in a great, haunting tone by the character Boyet, as the camera swings around him:

The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
As is the razor's edge invisible,
Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,
Above the sense of sense; so sensible
Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings
Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.

I love that. He highlights these (and other) passages in his movie using all the tricks of the trade and it works, the movie making the play, as blasphemous as that may sound.

So he pulls it off, in my most humble of opinions. It’s a good (key?) companion to reading the play. It’s worth noting that most critics pretty much hated the movie (most, but not all. See this review, which is really good and reflects my views pretty closely), so I stand somewhat alone. Most notably, however, and a good ending to this rambling post, is that almost no one saw it…and money does talk, at least on some level. Apparently it earned around $24,000 (yes, that’s thousand, not million) on it’s opening weekend…which is pretty much more than an embarrassment in Hollywoodland. And I can guess why of course (something about the source material maybe?), but again, I appreciate the effort and I appreciate the interpretation, which helped me so much to connect with it…which is a big part of what this whole thing is about.

Beware...

...the Ides of March!

(5) Love’s Labor’s Lost

I’m going to be right up front and honest: I had a really hard time connecting with this one, on any level, finding it way too esoteric and obscure. I think I know why I found this one so difficult but I’d rather let Anne Barton, a far better writer than I, explain via her Riverside introduction:

“Love’s Labor’s Lost is perhaps the most relentlessly Elizabethan of all Shakespeare’s plays. Filled with word games, elaborate conceits, parodies of spoken and written styles and obscure topical allusions, it continually requires – and baffles – scholarly explanation.”

Well put…and baffles this reader muchly indeed. For example, this passage has the character Holofernes arguing the fact that a deer the Queen has just shot is five years old, as opposed to just two. The notes, which were indispensible in this one (and quite extensive throughout), told me this. I would have never figured it out on my own. See for yourself:

“Most barbarous intimation! Yet a kind of insinuation, as it were in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or rather ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer.”

See what I mean? I like me some word wranglin’ and all, but this was just way too much. So, sorry to write this one off (so to speak), but sometimes you just have to move on.

The Classical Unities

When you research Shakespeare’s plays, you quickly come across the concept of the Classical Unities, most definitely because Shakespeare was so fond of violating them in his plays (the idea of which was a relatively new thing). The Classical Unities are three laws to follow when writing a play, as outlined by Aristotle. They are:

Unity of action - One main action and no subplots.
Unity of place - It happens in a single physical space.
Unity of time - It takes place over no more than a single day.

Derived by Aristotle, these were followed rather strictly throughout the ages, until The Bard came along. Apparently Shakespeare didn't believe in these rules one bit (what a rebel) and almost never followed them (the only case where he did was a play I have read already – The Comedy of Errors - which is generally accepted as one of his weaker efforts, so you can see where following the rules gets you). I thought this was interesting in that it shows, in yet another way, Shakespeare’s allegiance to a new kind of muse, a muse that leads him outside the lines sometimes (okay, pretty much all the time), to get you where you’re going. This is great of course, great because it can be so interesting and great because it’s so hard to do right. So, All Hail the Bard!

(4) The Winter’s Tale

So, I jumped all the way down to the end of my list here and picked up The Winter’s Tale. The main motivation for this was the fact that it was playing in a local theater (I stole the above picture (which I absolutely love) from their website and am paying for it with the preceding plug. Seeing as I make nothing from this site and have no readers, I can’t imagine they would mind, right?). The run of this play at said theater was ending soon (last weekend) so I thought I would read/see this one earlier rather than later. Also, it’s winter time in these parts so why wouldn’t I read it now…and I’m mighty glad I did, as I thought this play was excellent, on many different levels.

It was a tale of rebirth and redemption, status and order, love and jealousy, mystery and beauty. It was a study of the darkness of extreme jealousy and the evil sickness of creeping suspicions. It was a play book-ended by births and middle’d by death. There was dancing. There was sheep-shearing. There were songs and, most importantly, there was a guy getting eaten by a BEAR! This thing had it all.

Part of what helped me enjoy this one was seeing it performed live. Obviously, there’s something “right” about seeing it acted in person, in front of you, as opposed to just reading it. Something intentional…so I will be trying to do this as often as is practical. However, I don’t want to lose focus here (this is a blog about reading, not watching Shakespeare’s plays, right), so the main analysis will still revolve around the writings. Think of the plays as live study guides then.

(3) The Two Gentlemen of Verona

This play, for me, was an exploration on the sometimes absurd and destructive nature of lusty, romantic love. In this play, two gentlemen (and another guy) vie for a single woman’s love, and do all sorts of crazy, bizarre stuff in the process. This idea is most clearly presented at the end where (I’m not kidding), in less than 25 lines, one character threatens to rape his best friend’s true love, is admonished, apologizes, and then is quickly and completely forgiven by said best friend. That qualifies as crazy, right?

Because of this bit of wackiness (and others bits too), this play has been derided by critics over the years. Many have noted that the abrupt, contrived nature of the end (and the abrupt and contrived nature of the other bits) indicates a lesser play. Perhaps. However, if you view things, including the ending, through this “crazy love” lens, then one can argue that this often-maligned ending is just reinforcement for this theme, and that the characters, true to this theme, are only behaving as they should: recklessly and without reason.

In this way, it was a good read. However, like The Comedy of Errors, I wasn't totally blown away by this one either. I think I agree that Shakespeare seems to still be honing his craft in these early comedies (especially in terms of producing these things for the stage and not just creating them as written works). But, like I referred to earlier, bad for Shakespeare is actually pretty good, relatively speaking…or at least full of enough good so as to be time well spent.

The Aside

One of my favorite actors is Kevin Spacey, probably in large part due to his performance in American Beauty, one of my favorite movies. He is now staring in a Netflix political drama called House of Cards, which I just started watching and am really enjoying. So, what’s this have to do with Shakespeare, you ask? Spacey’s character (Francis J. Underwood) makes extensive use of the dramatic device known as The Aside, a device used extensively by Shakespeare. This is where a character directly addresses the audience, commenting about something going on, with the implied understanding that the other characters cannot hear it. Think of it as a sort of “head’s up” to the audience, and inside joke shared.

The House of Cards series makes extensive use of this device in a really great way. Like Shakespeare, the Spacey series often uses this to inject comedy (sometimes very dark comedy) or develop layers of complexity. Also, in the Spacey series, he does this really cool thing where he sometimes reverts back to his original, thick southern accent when speaking these aside’s to the camera, as opposed to when he is speaking with the characters, in which case he speaks the King’s English, clear and sharp. Spacey’s character hides his “real” voice most of the time (I guess the implication is that a heavy, country bumpkinesque southern drawl would not fly inside the beltway), but lets it all hang out when he speaks to us, the audience. We’re insiders and we’re special. Shakespeare did the same thing, all those years ago, once again proving that when it comes to art, there truly is nothing new under the sun (and thus proving that great art is never the WHAT of it, but rather the HOW).

A Note on Theme

Just a quick post here on a central theme I have noticed in the few plays I have read so far. Clearly, the idea of identity is one of the main points Shakespeare wished to explore in his plays. This idea of identity, on all levels, like the identity of self, the identity of sex, the identity of state, the identity of social status, all comes across in all sorts of cool ways. I will be looking for this as I go forward. I’m sure you all are waiting anxiously, with bated breath.

(2) The Comedy of Errors

So, this play can be summed up as follows: Two sets of twins, together in a city but strangers to each other. One set of twins are masters, and the other set are buffoonish servants to those masters. Enter other characters who constantly mistake their identities (that’s the “errors” part). Hilarity ensues (that’s the “comedy” part). I appreciated the twists and turns of this one and if you follow it, it is pretty interesting to see how Shakespeare keeps the joke going, scene after scene, like a verbal juggling act, because of course, all the characters must be kept ignorant until the end for it all to work.

Often labeled a simple “farce,” this play is considered by some to be one of Shakespeare’s weaker works (as so well presented in the Riverside introduction to this play, a farce implies that the playwright will do anything for a laugh, including sacrificing complexity and nuance for less “serious” elements such as slapstick and pure fantasy, thus the derogatory nature of the label, at least from a “deep” or “artistic” perspective). I both agree and disagree. It did seem that the plot and structure was just a little bit…mechanical…or maybe a bit too construed at times, bent of creating the situational comedy above all else. It employs “Deus ex machine” to the point where one becomes a little too conscious of the play as a play, rather than something “greater,” something that transports you. Does that make sense? It’s as if, through the wild and winding series of errors that is this play, it becomes too easy to get lost in the trees (shallow, plot-driven details) and miss the forest (deeper, more rewarding thematic implications)?

But don’t get me wrong, there was much to like, including many great quotes (“Marry, he must have a long spoon that must eat with the Devil.”) and many great characters (like Antipholus of Syracuse, clearly the “cooler” and more likeable of the two twin brothers). So, like I said, I’m torn on this one, appreciating it on some levels while agreeing that it may not be one of his strongest efforts (which for Shakespeare, means simply just “genius” instead of “pure genius,” right?).

(1) The Taming of the Shrew

So, I begin with The Taming of the Shrew and I really liked it. How do you tame a shrew you may ask (for those of you not in the know, a shrew is a nagging, “difficult” wife)? On the surface, the play suggests some mild starvation coupled with sleep deprivation. Also, and most importantly, you must act like her, the idea being that when she sees her own self reflected in another she will be disgusted and reform her ways. Lots could be said here but I think I will focus on the obvious (and probably belabored) point: the idea that this is a play promoting misogyny and male chauvinism. It’s not, and to suggest so would be to sorely miss the mark. Although I can see such an interpretation, I think Shakespeare is smarter than that and deserves much more credit. Taken at face value, yes, the central action of the play has Kate being “tamed” by her newlywed husband, but taken deeper, there’s more nuance to it. The play unfolds as a deftly done dance that actually subverts the idea of male dominance over their wives. It is all about the ideal of the balance between the sexes, and stands as a discourse on the importance of sharing power…and provides a warning about the terrible dangers of hoarding and concentrating such power.

After reading the play, I found a really good Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton movie version and checked it out. Great, and a really good idea going forward (read the play, watch the movie, where possible). It really helped me catch things I never noticed in the text (plays are meant to be seen, not just read, right?). It does a really good job of communicating the deeper nuances I alluded to above, especially with the final all-women-must-be-allegiant-to-their-men speech from Kate. Taken off of the page and onto the stage, the speech goes from a simple diatribe against the shrewish women of the world to a much more eloquent and complex plea for all of us to work together equally and with all our hearts towards a greater general harmony between the sexes, a harmony stewarded by both sides, with each side playing their part to create what Shakespeare seems to be promoting as the greatest ideal of all: the ideal of the loving, shared life. Or at least that’s what I saw. So anyway, I liked this one quite a bit and am looking forward to the rest.