To begin, at the beginning ...

We don't have any of the playbills which were posted to announce the performance of a Shakespeare play - although it has been suggested that the frontispieces of the early editions of the plays very much resembled them. With that in mind, I move on from the two early comedies to the first of the Histories ...

The announcement is up ... a new play by - well, it doesn't say. So, Mr Shksperd ain't yet well known enough - but the material is fairly extensively explained.

We start off with the announcement it is the first part - so this is like that Marlowe play - the one with Tamburlaine in it ... two parts.

And its about the fighting between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians ...

In fact - a lot of the plot is told - Humphry dies, Suffolk gets banished and dies, a Cardinal dies, tragically, and there's a rebellion - Jack Cade's.

Lot's of fighting and death then ... sounds a bit of an action movie to me ... just the sort of thing to fill in a cold winter's afternoon ...

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 2, The First Part of the Contention

Knife Crime

1593: Leading Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe is stabbed to death in a pub brawl in Deptford.

Tragic for the English Stage, not much fun, I imagine, for Mr Marlowe himself.

This is supposedly an 'unusual event': A cover-up story for re-branding Marlowe as Shakespeare; for removing a distinctly colourful young man with extreme views on a number of sensitive issues (religion, politics and sex) and turning him to a quiet, gentle scribe.

I think events in the UK at the moment might give a clue as to the very usualness of the events.

If the newspapers are to be believed (Independent, Economist, Guardian), violent crime in the UK is actually going down. What is rising is the number of young men being killed or seriously wounded through knife attacks.

Taking a knife, to a pub, and getting into an argument when you are drunk can easily cut off a very promising career.

That was as true for the first Elizabethans as it is for the second, modern generation.

(Also posted on Thoughts from the Edge)

Technorati Tags: Marlowe, Knife Crime, Stabbing, Shakespeare

Johannes Factotum

Yes, trust them not, for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrie.


Back to Mr Greene's outburst.

I've been reading a couple of his plays - and, by the standards of the time, they were not bad - in fact, they were made for a specific audience and served that audience well.

What has upset Mr Greene? And, as the Bordolators have done an effective knife job on his reputation, how can we look at this comment - fairly?

We all assume (meaning, I do) that the above quote is aimed at Shakespeare the writer - but I'm not so sure. That 'bombast out a blanke verse', the more I look at it, and the more I re-read of the plays of the time, seems a comment on Shakespeare the actor rather than Shakespeare the writer. Was Shakespeare in a Greene play - and 'bombasting away? Or did Greene see him in Marlowe (and it must have been a big role) mangling the verse? Was Shakespeare ham acting for the crowd?

You know, I wouldn't be surprised: One thing that makes his plays so successful is his attention to the groundlings.

And that 'Shake-scene'? That's a full throat shouting out the lines performance if ever I saw one.

Was Shakespeare guilty of something worse - dare he add extra lines to an already written play?

And was that a Greene play?

And was it a "popular" alteration?

I'll post soon on the couple of Greene plays I recently read (only a partial re-read this time) but I do actually suspect Mr Greene had something to complain of ...

... not the plagiarism that we see with hindsight - but the actor messing up the text (after all, what did Hamlet say on that?).

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare, Upstart Crow, Robert Greene

Things coming together!

A picture of the route has almost been formed - and a starting day set: It won't, I imagine, come as a surprise to people to know I will take the first steps on 'St George's Day'.
A surge of ancestor pride - I refuse to accept it as Nationalism, and patriotism is too sexist for my tastes (distinctly "Macho" if you live here in Romania).

A couple of interesting points and ideas have popped up as I've researched.

One concerns the ubiquitous 'Greensleeves'.

I had, along with countless others always thought this was possibly composed by Fat Henry (8th King of the name in the English realms).

Apparently not. Too modern for him to have done. But quite possibly written around the time Shakespeare was starting out as a sonnet writer - remember that.

I am also, as you might have guessed from that little snippet, working my way through the music of the period too - and came across a great double cd - Celebrating Shakespeare: This World's Globe.

I'm also getting heavily tied down in the church music of the period and taking every excuse to listen to William Byrd.

And final snippet (No 3, for those counting) - Dido, Queen of Carthage! By Mr Marlow (e-refused).
Not a play I know well, possibly the first Mr M. wrote - with another (so Elizabethan).
What got to me was the almost opening - after a prologue of gods and things, there is a Storm.
Now, read that if you dare and refuse to connect with Shakespeare's 'Tempest' opening. Replace Prospero for Jupiter - Hermes - Ariel; We've got a daughter and a man washed up on shore - with his son ... all echoing the latter play - and all so much poorer!

I am tempted to suggest that this could well be a play Shakespeare acted in.
(If I was really pushing it - and speculation is firmly drifting into dreamland now - I'd be tempted to say it could well be the first play Shakespeare acted in! And did he play Jupiter?)

The final scattered thought comes from slightly later in the same play - Aeneas has one of those speeches which point out beautifully the difference between Shaksper and Marlow (e-less in Timisoara): The mighty line.
It's a great speech to 'Bombast' out. Is this the sort of thing Shakes was trying to copy early on?



Technorati Tags: Shakespeare

Faustus Site and Performance

The BBC and OU have joined together to do a performance this Sunday.

Good site for exploring one of Shakey's rivals - and sources.

This should be available on line!

Click on the title above or on this:

http://www.open2.net/drfaustus/

Enjoy!!!!!