Funny Shakespeare ?

Geek is asking hard questions again – basically, “What is funny about the Shakespeare Comedies?”

Well, having just ‘done’ his first two plays – both of which (if Wells is right) were comedies, I suppose I ought to have something to say about it.

The first thing I notice when thinking about both Two Gentlemen and The Shrew is that they are marriage linked – and so too are all of the ‘comedies’ (hesitant, just a little, about that statement).

The comedies seem to be about union, about coming together and communal success – they ‘celebrate’ successful unions which are expected to be fruitful and, if not uneventful, at least lasting.

This pairing is more than an individual event – it is public and accepted as important for the common-weal – for the good of the community.

This in itself is not belly laugh material – but it is celebratory – it is inductive of happiness.

[This fits in with what is thought to have been the origin of the word comedy – which translates to something like song of the village – as opposed to tragedy which is goat song (don’t ask).]

The happy ending is rarely presented in Shakespeare as an ending though – After Two Gentlemen we feel a rough ride coming up … but don’t doubt an eventual satisfaction; The Shrew ends with a more conclusive union for the primary protagonists – but only a fool would imagine that these two madcaps have burnt out – that is going to be a hot marriage (and goodness knows what fun the children will bring!).

You do sometimes read that the comedy title given by the Elizabethans really just meant happy ending – which is basically a way of saying it isn’t a tragedy or a history.

There might be a reason for this – earlier than Shakespeare and into his career as a writer, the professional theatre was new, and only just defining itself. The idea of genre itself was not a comfortable thing for the actors – a play was something to be adapted to fit the audience – if it was one type of scholastic audience, pump up the poetic; lower-life pub crowds would need less poetry and more prat-fall.

With Two Gentlemen we have more of the former, The Shrew, more of the later … but both plays are sometimes regarded as ‘incomplete’ – the first has been called a touring script; the second has the irritating A Shrew rumbling away in the background – could that be the pub version?

Interesting at this point is the Hamlet instruction to actors – there are two points relevant here:

1. Hamlet and the actors both expect to be able to mess around with the story – to adapt it to suit a particular audience and to fit in contemporary material and thus make the play more relevant;

2. Hamlet specifies a type of acting – he wants this ‘aristocratic’ type of acting for this play with this audience – and he specifies, cut the comedy.

Too often this speech is assumed to be Shakespeare’s thoughts on how to act – it isn’t – it, like everything else in the plays, is from the mouth of a character and indicative of that character: But it is very revealing about the adaptability of all types of plays and also the way comedy and tragedy were more techniques than genres.

(Thanks also to The Bard Blog for reminding me to have a rant about the Hamlet instructions.)

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare, Shakespeare Comedies, Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Hamlet

Words, words, words ...

Bit out of sorts at the moment so not up to posting too much, but

groundlings

That, as everyone knows is the bunch of garlic smelling hobbledehoys who are too tight to pay for a real ticket and we assume it was the name they were known by in Shakespeare's time - not true.

Hamlet does the dirty deed of naming them:

O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to totters, to very rags, to spleet the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise.
(Act 3, Scene 2)

... and that is the first usage we know of.

What he is doing is using the metaphor of a fish - something like the stone loach. Not a fish you'd normally think of unless you are mad about fish - but Shakespeare knew about them - he mentions fleas on a loach in one of the history plays.
What is significant about the fish is there habit of staying close to the ground - this particular loach is called stone because that's where you find it, under stones.
They are rubbish eaters - collectors and consumers of the detritus which falls to the bottom of the water it lives in - it's small and thin: You can see Shakespeare's idea of naming the apprentice full courtyard after the fish is something of a joke!

But the insult has become a mere, common name - and all assume it was the name given by the Elizabethans - whereas, in fact, it is one of the words that maybe gives a clue to Hamlet being a much less than sympathetic character.



Technorati Tags: groundlings, words, Hamlet, fish

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Shakespeare Intelligence

No, I'm not about to launch a review of Shakespeare the Thinker (the very title, for some reason, sends shivers of distaste through my body), but muse about something that has been brewing for a week or so now -

Shakespeare


and

Multiple Intelligence

Multiple Intelligences has proved illuminating: It is an attempt to define "Intelligence" in a way that recognises the multitudinous and complex nature of the connections the human brain can make, and has provided a basis for explaining why some forms of education are just plain 'dumb-making'. What I really like about it is the fact that it is inclusive - it attempts to explain why there are differences in the way people think and why those differences result in a rich variety of human strengths.

Unfortunately, most Shakespearean scholars (of the old school) don't seem to have been raised in a Multiple Intelligence environment and certainly have never got to appreciate the differences between themselves and other, equally, but differently, 'intelligenced' people. Older, and less enlightened, educational systems - the ones which the 'Shakespeare Wallahs' were successful in - tend to emphasis language and numerical skills - they tend to call them 'standards'. What Multiple Intelligence theory suggests is that this is a very limiting (and ultimately counter-productive) educational endeavour.

Shakespeare's plays, and the massive dislike engendered in school for them, are a case in point. In the theatre, they are popular; in the 'linguistic' oriented, text based school, they are not. If you don't like School Shakespeare, it is your fault - generations have loved the plays - so there is something wrong with your Intelligence.

(I should at this point point out, Dr. Howard Gardner himself sometimes prefers the word talents rather than intelligence - which he sees as too limiting: I'm just being provocative sticking to the 'I' word.)

My main question could be framed, How does Shakespeare manage to survive in the hostile world of ivory towered scholarship and text based examination?

Well, the answer is glaring obvious - Shakespeare wrote plays. They survive in the theatre, on the screen (large and small) in the imaginings of a Multiple Intelligenced world.

What the plays in performance do is stimulate a whole range of 'intelligence' - in fact, there isn't one which a good production of a Shakespeare play touches on.

Shakespeare has 'coded' into his text a lot of the clues as to what to do - but the spaces are there for the actors, directors, and everyone else, to fill in the gaps - be it music or dance, movement across the stage, or a glance between characters.

There is nothing particularly revolutionary in what I have just said - but, rarely in the 'Literature' classroom is anything other than a nod given to these overwhelmingly powerful factors of the play.

Of course - there have always been teachers who have attempted to bring the plays to life and have treated the texts as a starting point (I was fortunate enough to have been taught by a couple of such teachers) - but the educational systems soon force the written exam and the 'language' focus on to the majority of students.

The Shakespeare 'experts' ,consequently, are selected from the people who perform well in 'Linguistic-Literary' intelligence area. These people define what is good and valuable, make decisions as to text and argue interminably over minute language details which are inconsequential in the extreme.

But the plays actually appeal and stimulate and entertain a much wider range of - Intelligenced - people.

One of the striking things about the Shakes(blogo)sphere is how wide a range of people contribute to it (and why are so many connected to the Logical-Mathematical realm of computers?).

There is another insight to be gained from thinking Multiple Intelligently - individual play popularity.

I happen to think that the best of Shakespeare's plays is 'A Midsummer Nights Dream'. I think Hamlet is a damp squib with a serious need for throwing away and forgetting about until it gets a make-over. I happen to like 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' - thinking it a better play than nearly every scholar who has commented has given it credit for.

Either I am a nut (and I don't come from Brazil) or something is going on here.

One thing worth noting is my Multiple Intelligence profile (as generated by the little quiz linked to at the start of this blog) - my strongest intelligence is Naturalist - no surprise the very 'green' 'The Dream' appeals. But also I notice the images to do with nature - the storms (I Like Lear) and talk of flowers; the cliffs of England, and worms.

The rest of my profile is fairly even - but the weakest area is interpersonal (I'm a Problem Play remember). Now, why don't I like Hamlet? Could it have something to do with all that uninteresting blah blah about relationships? Or maybe it is just that the interminable linguistic arguments and unsatisfactory performances generated from the incomplete final text?

It used to be put down to taste - with the suggestion that an 'educated' palate was more sophisticated and worthy than an uneducated one.

You can't do that in a Multi-Intelligent world - my tastes reflect my Intelligence - I AM right, 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' IS better than 'Hamlet' - you are just Naturalist-Intelligence deprived if you can't see it.



Technorati Tags: Shakespeare, Multiple Intelligence, Taste, Hamlet, A Midsummer Nights Dream

Puddings

and proof thereof.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people judge plays.

I mentioned that I enjoyed 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' more than I've enjoyed 'Hamlet' for a long time - and someone suggested my wits were crumbling.

Then I remembered me - of course, his is a judgement based on the book, not the performance.

How many people actually sit through a performance of Hamlet and come out of it able to say, 'I enjoyed that'?

As an imaginary percentage, if one were to compare the 'enjoyment' in a a performance of 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' to 'Hamlet', which would win?

Puddings are judged in the mouth, not the recipe book - plays should be judged in the theatre, not the script.

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Hamlet

Forget Shakespeare!

Shakespeare never intended anyone to study Shakespeare. It is no accident that he made himself so anonymous.

Peter Brook

The second ‘piece’ Peter Brook provides in Evoking (and forgetting!) Shakespeare is on an actor’s need for amnesia. This is a short (2500 words approx) essay with some very sound advice to young actors taking on a role in Shakespeare.

Brook starts out by reminding us of the pendulum of acting styles – how it was all emotion and no meaning when he was young, and how it swung to all meaning and no emotion. The present extreme is one of reductionism (remember this was written in 1994) – cutting Shakespeare down to size:

“… young actors are once more drawn into the trap of believing that their own everyday experiences can give them what they need and that they can base their understanding on their personal set of references.” Pg 40

Interestingly, Brook suggests this is a cause of some of the politically clichéd and socially stereotypical productions that regularly pop up as ‘contemporary’ Shakespeare. He gives the example of colonial-Tempests and suggests that the adoption of ‘sexual-attitudes’ in current vogue for complex characters who have fascinated for centuries because they were unfamiliar is, at best, counter productive.

His suggestion for avoiding such pitfalls – forget Shakespeare.

I remind you he is talking to the actor who is to perform Shakespeare – he is not suggesting this is the path for anyone else (although I do wish most academics had taken the advice).

What follows sounds simplistic – but is very difficult to do, and rarely done successfully – imagine Hamlet really existed.

Treat the script not as ‘written’ but as a record of a tape-recording of what was ‘actually said’ by a real person.

Brook suggests that the first consequence of such an attitude is to sweep away the ‘like-me’ attitude: No amount of improvisation on the character will reproduce the complexity or intensity of Hamlet’s words – his uniqueness. He goes on to further suggest that bringing in ‘Shakespeare the author’ and any ‘intention’ he had, would not only fail to help understand Hamlet, but would also ‘muddy the waters’ – require the actor to double think:

“The actor’s task is not to think of words as part of a text, but of words as part of a person whom we believe actually minted them in the heat of the moment” (pg 43).

Brook moves on to use Lear as an example and suggests that, with this approach, the actor cannot fail to recognize the extra-ordinary in the character – the actor will take his/her interpretation beyond both the ‘psychological’ and ‘textual’ approach – both of which reduce Shakespeare.

If you think of Lear as the man who gave his Kingdom away – he becomes a doting fool: If you approach him from the point of view of the man who says,

And take upon’s the mystery of things

As if we were God’s spies.

He is no ‘common-place mind’, ‘there is no trace of dotage’.

Shakespeare’s words, Brook reminds us, are ‘necessary expressions of the inner patterns of exceptional human creatures.’

I don’t think there can be any doubt that the approach taken by Brook has produced anything but some of the greatest Shakespearean productions – certainly in the second half of the 20^th Century, possibly since Shakespeare himself directed.

It is only when we forget Shakespeare that we can begin to find him.

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare, Forgetting Shakespeare, Peter Brook

Original Pronunciation

Link for those interested:

Public Broadcast on Original Pronunciation at the Globe.

A lot of people seem unaware of the richness of resources available for reconstructing the sound - not the least being the glory of English Spelin - writ as proNounsed until some idiyuot invverntd dickshiooneries.

Too Bay, awe not to Bay!

Another link worth looking at is THIS: Jolly good fun for starters.

Finally - still to come over on the Music Review section of my blogomania is the piece on Elizabethan music being prepared as a response to all the cd and mp3 material I've been working through as a result of the 'Complete Works' project.


Technorati Tags: Shakespeare, Elizabethan Pronunciation, Globe Theatre

Shakespeare's Best

In our time have a programme on King Lear this week.

Click on the title above and you'll get somewhere near.

It's downloadable for the week and then available for listening on line for ever.

Love Melvin!

Good discussion - not least because it drops a couple of stakes into the heart of the much overrated Hamlet!

At least three of the four people know rather a lot about the subject (and one of them is Lord Mel).

Me at work!

Results of Shakey and You!

Click on the above or see me here too:

All the World's a Stage:




To Be:



Romeo and Juliet:



timisoara

Hamlet

The Play's the Thing!

(A nu-Author-ised Version)

The crowd’s quickly filing in through the doors and filling the courtyard of the Globe. A few dark clouds have loomed over since Hercules ran up the flagpole but the wiser, or at least more experienced, Groundlings know they're empty of threat.

A couple of young gents have tried muscling their way on to the stage - it's a new play and a great opportunity for the 'Gulls' to show off their feathers - but they must be new in town: The Globe doesn't allow that sort of thing. They're skulking off to one of the higher levels, faces reddening at the jeers of the apprentice boys.

The usual ladies are plying their trade - they'll need to be quick, the building is almost full and there’re signs of movement in the musicians’ box.

The noise inside is quite deafening, shouts of friends across the floor, apprentices greeting masters and their wives in the galleries running around, a few of the finer folk even higher. It's the new play by Shakspear, one of the actors - something about Hamlet. Several of the audience remember an old play, some even saw it across the river, but it didn't stick in their memories.

Most are expecting plenty of blood - the latest fashion, a good bit of revenge and a few jokes: All know they'll be plenty to talk about after - one of the delights of the new Globe is the arguments in the bars of the stews that take place regularly after one of Shakshaft's concoctions. Several of the crowd are just content to gaze around, mouths open, like dead codfish, stunned by the splendours of the new theatre.

The trumpets blast out and the apprentices cheer. A mix of hissing and hushing is followed by a drum role; the back curtain is thrown open, a couple of ordinance fire and a great loud march sets in.

Straight away the audience understands we’re in a court – some proud king is about to make his entrance, and four stage hands are carrying in the state – so, its official business, big declarations and lots of boasting expected.

In they come. A couple of lackeys in royal livery representing the hundreds of servants who could never fit on the stage, a priest or two, several courtiers – one of whom is an old man, (surely that’s the actor who was playing Caesar last Tuesday?) - there’s Shakspear at the back pretending to be a soldier – and in progresses the King with one of the older boys by his side as the Queen (Time they let him grow a beard and get out of that costume – it fitted him well when he did Titania a couple of year’s ago).

Where’s Burbadge?

Up in the balcony – dressed in black – several of the crowd took him for one of the Gulls who’d managed to sneak in – posing in black – quite a popular colour these days – but the regulation hat’s missing.

Is he a lover, or a puritan? Why’s he up there and not down on stage with the court? Amazing workmanship on that black doublet – rich whoever he is.

Cheers on the stage, echoed by the more roisterous in the crowd, as the King sits in his throne and the Queen takes a chair by his side.

One of the Groundlings bellows, just as he’s about to speak, “Watch out, there’s a black crow above your head!”

This gets a good laugh and gives Burbadge the chance to nod his acknowledgements to the adoring Globe. Great applause and stamping of feet, from some; hisses and shushes from others only stopped by a repeated trumpet clarion – the King rises and attention once again is drawn to the court.

Very few notice the thought behind the eyes of the soldier at the back – but there’ll be changes to the opening of the next performance, if the rest of the play goes well.