Long time no Sophocles! A layer cake of decades that ain't sweet, to be specific, but it's always nice to revisit the ancient Greeks who knew a thing Long time no Sophocles! A layer cake of decades that ain't sweet, to be specific, but it's always nice to revisit the ancient Greeks who knew a thing or two about hubris (still pervasive on the Potomac).
A tragedy even the fussy Aristotle could get behind, Oedipus the King has some inadvertent humor to the modern, more jaded eye, thanks to the bristling dramatic irony throughout the play. We know what poor Oedipus Paging Doctor Scholl does not. No matter how much he tries to outwit the powers-that-be (read: Oracle at Delphi, a.k.a. "Radio Free Apollo"), he just can't. It would help if he knew who his real Mom and Dad are, but he doesn't, even though he knows Mom intimately (all together now: Ewww).
Oh, yeah. The humor. I love the Tiresias vs. Oedipus verbal battle early on, where Oedipus accuses the blind seer (oxymoron alert!) first of holding back knowledge (yes), second of murdering the former king, Laius (no), and finally of conspiring with Creon to overthrow Oedipus' rule (no). Given the fact that we know and T. knows but O. doesn't know, the whole exchange is just full of bon mots, especially when the old and tired T. gets sick of the whole conversation. You go, Old Man!
In the end, a bloody mess, and reason to purge jewelry boxes of brooches. But still, a comfort that it's there, this play, setting the bar for eons of playwrights to come. Overall, the Greek Chorus sings shock and awe (and hidden pleasure -- better him than us)!...more
I've read a lot of Chekhov stories recently, but it's been a long time since I went to the theater to take in one of his plays. I may be the biggest fI've read a lot of Chekhov stories recently, but it's been a long time since I went to the theater to take in one of his plays. I may be the biggest fan of The Cherry Orchard this side of Taganrog (his birthplace), but that's because I thought it was hysterical when many others didn't see it that way. It's a tragicomedy, so some viewers see more tragedy than comedy, but not me.
Reading this, then, brought back some memories -- but only some. The quaint and mildly eccentric characters, chiefly, and the way their creator seems to love them all and indulge them their shortcomings. In Chekhov plays, you often see a matriarchal type, a schoolteacher, a doctor (author alert! author alert!), and some old serf sort, too.
But this one wasn't as funny as the Orchard, and it went heavy with the symbolism. True, Freud once said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" so we can extrapolate that "Sometimes a seagull is just a seagull," but I'm not buying the sentiment. If you rap the bird with a drumstick, it will reverberate. The seagull is a symbol. And in the end, it even anticipates Alfred Hitchcock who didn't exactly trust birds, either (I wish I could have said as much for Suzanne Pleshette).
In fact, the ending struck me as an un-Chekhovian one. Usually he has no melo with his drama. Enjoyable, just not as much as the Orchard....more
A bit over my head in one sense -- some angle about Isaac Newton and determinism and all the science and math that entails (science and math being my A bit over my head in one sense -- some angle about Isaac Newton and determinism and all the science and math that entails (science and math being my Scylla & Charybdis).
Other than that, a technically difficult accomplishment in that Stoppard runs simultaneous plots in the same room from 1809 to the present day. Some fuss about Lord Byron being in a duel that gunned down a sub-par poet (trying to clear them out, maybe, their number being legion).
Anyway, Stoppard manages to bring the parallel plots together and, even more impressive, does so with a lot of witty repartee between the characters both then and now. Sorry, but no Lord Byron lines. He's only spoken of, not allowed to speak. And, as you might guess, sexual undercurrents disrupt Newtonian currents in both epochs.
With man- and womankind, you can always count on that....more
Ah. It's been a long time since I invigorated my constitution by sipping "the milk of human kindness" that is Shakespeare. I should do it more often, Ah. It's been a long time since I invigorated my constitution by sipping "the milk of human kindness" that is Shakespeare. I should do it more often, as it's been too many years since I read this story of treachery, deceit, and murder. I mean, you know you've got it good when the cast of characters includes three witches and three murderers.
Macbeth and his Lady? You know the types, looking like "innocent flowers" but acting like the "serpents under it." Yes, indeed, not only are there "daggers in men's smiles," but in women's too.
Reading it in January of 2021 was a bit of synchronicity as well. Consider our President (for T-minus 6 more days) and his allegiance to "fair is foul, and foul is fair." Were he intelligent enough, T**** might even be thinking at this very moment "to know my deed, ’twere best not know myself."
But me, I like the "out, out brief candle" soliloquy best of all: "Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Hmn. William Faulkner's been here, even, panning for titles! Earlier in the play, I saw the words "A Heart So White," part of Javier MarÃas' haul. And I'm sure there are more.
Next refresher in the coming year: Hamlet on Rye....more
Two points of interest: This book was selected by the New York Times as one of the "Ten Best Books of 2020." Very cool. Also, everything I wrote belowTwo points of interest: This book was selected by the New York Times as one of the "Ten Best Books of 2020." Very cool. Also, everything I wrote below was written under the influence of Trump (as Divider in Chief, relevant to the book in a big way), but Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead. Or at least blessedly lame. For now. (I've seen enough of the final scene in the movie Fatal Attraction -- a metaphor for a certain segment of "believe anythings" in the U.S. -- to know that Glen Close isn't quite as "Closed" as you think... food for scary thought as the possibly apocalyptic year 2024 descends on the Still Divided as Ever States).
N0w back to our original review:
**
The premise behind James Shapiro's book is twofold: one, to show how America adopted the Bard from the get-go, and two, to show how America's deeply rooted "issues" are reflected in Shakespeare plays.
A look at the eight chapters gives you a good idea of the game plan:
1. 1833, Miscegenation, which treats on RACE and John Quincy Adams' objections to Othello and Desdemona's mixed relationship (despite being an abolitionist himself).
2. 1845, Manifest Destiny, tackles GENDER and is mostly about the hidden lesbian actress, Charlotte Cushman, who specialized in male roles, especially ROMEO, whose part, in those days, was considered somewhat unmanly anyway because of the way he cry-babies in front of Friar Laurence, who upbraids the Montague for his womanly tears. Really weird? The chapter is bookended with anecdotes about the young, pre-bearded Ulysses Grant who was chosen to play the role of Desdemona in an Army production before the Mexican War began in earnest. Apparently 20-something Ulysses was slight of build, fine of face, and somewhat light of voice. (Man, did he make up for lost time later in life.)
3. 1849, Class Warfare. This brings us to Astor Place in NYC where the ritzy sorts built a playhouse for the ritzy sorts and featured a British actor in Macbeth. The mob (redblooded Americans, they be) championed an AMERICAN Shakespeare actor and, hating Brits, attacked Astor Place. This was eye-opening violence unbeknownst to me. The rabble, despite living in New York, also hated blacks and abolitionists (South Carolinians of the same era would be proud.). Shakespeare for the (Red-Meat) People vs. Shakespeare for the (Blue-Blooded) Elites.
4. 1865, Assassination. The best chapter, maybe because it gives us a president who not only loves Shakespeare but memorizes dozens of long speeches in the Bard's plays. Lincoln was partial to Macbeth especially. His fave soliloquy was Duncan's near the end of the play. Meanwhile, the little white supremacist named John Wilkes Booth, also loved him some Shakespeare. Acted in countless plays and once was even seen performing by President Lincoln. Booth loved playing Brutus stabbing Caesar. Once he even ad-libbed in Sic Semper Tyrannus! (what he later shouted after shooting Lincoln from behind like any garden-variety coward) during the Caesar stabbing. What a rube.
5. 1916, Immigration. If you thought xenophobia and immigrant hating was something new, this chapter has news for you. Like race, it runs deep into our history, and 1916 was a banner year. Blueblood Republican (and Shakespeare fan) Henry Cabot Lodge was forever introducing legislation to keep out Africans, Asians, East Europeans, and Southern Europeans. The Shakespeare link here is The Tempest. Caliban, you see, was the perfect poster monster for immigrants sullying our precious, white-sanded shores. Read it and weep (along with the Statue of Liberty).
6. 1948, Marriage. Nobody much likes The Taming of the Shrew, they say. This chapter tackles the story of Kiss Me, Kate, a Broadway play based on the Shrew play. I've never read the one or seen the other, but the history of the play and America's ideas about marriage (hint: heterosexual marriage, please) was interesting, especially considering what was going on a.) in the back-stage plot of Kiss Me, Kate and b.) in the lives of the writers, producers, and songwriters of the play themselves. In addition to same-sex attraction, the chapter examines the roles of men v. women after WWII. The little ladies, so integral to the war economy, were now being asked to step aside. Some didn't take kindly to it.
7. 1998, Adultery and Same-Sex Love. It's all about the movie Shakespeare in Love, the fight over its plot, how it took forever to make it to the screen, how the ending was a headache, how one version intimated at Shakespeare's alleged homosexual or bisexual hankerings, etc. Hell, even Harvey Weinstein is involved here. Yikes.
8. 2017, Left Right. Although the whole book has a subcurrent screaming "Donald Trump!" it all breaks out in the open in this chapter about the Delacorte production of a very Trumpish looking Julius Caesar and how the alt right (with Friends and Fox and Friends) helped blow it up out of context (of course) and without actually seeing the play (of course again). The power of social media meets Shakespeare in the park. Now we're talking Shakespeare in a Divided America.
But really, the point is, it's been divided all along. Badly. Embarrassingly. Where's Lincoln when you need him?...more
According to Shakespeare on-line, the 10 most famous quotes (I've added an 11th) from JC Not-So-Superstar are as follows. Note that #3 contains an errAccording to Shakespeare on-line, the 10 most famous quotes (I've added an 11th) from JC Not-So-Superstar are as follows. Note that #3 contains an error on Shakespeare's part when he writes "We come to bury Caesar." In Caesar's day, Romans were all cremated, so WS was channeling Elizabethan England's preference for burying bodies, not burning them. But then, this is Shakespeare's way. No matter what the setting, England is, in its way, also the setting. For the Groundlings, if nothing else!
Re: #1: Only four months can have an "ides": March, May, July, and October. You can beware them or not, it's all the same to me.
Re: #4: This put Greece back on the map after it was eclipsed by Rome. How many things in life are Greek to us, beyond salad, I mean? Right. Many.
Re: #7: Some say John Green lifted his famous YA book's title from MacBeth, but we see it here, too. The Fault in our Stars.
Re: #1o: A great example of the rhetorical device, antithesis!
1. Beware the ides of March. (1.2.23), Soothsayer
2. Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar! (3.1.77), Cæsar
3. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar. (3.2.79-83), Antony
4. It was Greek to me. (1.2.289), Casca
5. Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. (2.2.34), Cæsar
6. This was the noblest Roman of them all. (5.5.75), Antony
7. Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars But in ourselves, that we are underlings. (1.2.146-8), Cassius
8. This was the most unkindest cut of all. (3.2.193), Antony
9. Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods. (2.1.173), Brutus
10. Not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more. (3.2.23), Brutus
11. And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice Cry “Havoc!� and let slip the dogs of war, That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial. (3.1.285-290), Antony...more
I got sick of teaching Romeo & Juliet because the damned coincidences and the stupidity (esp. of Romeo) and the dramatic irony weighing so heavily on I got sick of teaching Romeo & Juliet because the damned coincidences and the stupidity (esp. of Romeo) and the dramatic irony weighing so heavily on the reader/sucker just got to me. So instead, I began teaching A Midsummer Night's Dream where everyone is an ass of a different color.
Well, reading (and in two cases, rereading) these long-time-no-see tragedies reminded me of that. If only this one knew what that one knew or that one thought to think of what this one thought to think of.
As for Antigone -- she is woman, hear her roar! Man, I love a lady with principles. And Oedipus, the saddest sack (read complex) that ever was or will be. Blind fury.
It's only Electra that seems to come off easy. The tragedy comes for her enemies, not her. And, until the end, I'd thought of dialing Eugene O'Neill up for rewrite. Whining Becomes Electra, let's try. Or a rarity for Sophocles: All's Well That Ends Well.
My favorite among Shakespeare's plays, yet unread since its second reading in college. Greeting the famous lines (sampling below) was like clasping waMy favorite among Shakespeare's plays, yet unread since its second reading in college. Greeting the famous lines (sampling below) was like clasping warm hands with an old friend just home from a long journey. Seems the Prince of Danes is more Fortune's Fool than Romeo, and much the wiser, too, but be that as it may. Nothing is rotten in Denmark as long as this play holds on the shelf, ready when called upon.
O, That this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew. (Hamlet, Act I, scene ii)
Frailty, thy name is woman! (Hamlet, Act I, scene ii)
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. (Hamlet, Act I, scene ii)
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads. And recks not his own rede. (Ophelia, Act I, scene iii)
Neither a borrower nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and friend. (Polonius, Act I, scene iii)
This above all � to thine ownself be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. (Polonius, Act I, scene iii)
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. (Marcellus, Act I, scene iv)
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet, Act I, scene v)
More matter with less art. (Gertrude, Act II, scene ii)
Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. (Hamlet, Act II, scene ii)
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. (Hamlet, Act II, scene ii)
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so. (Hamlet, Act II, scene ii)
Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? (Hamlet, Act II, scene ii)
O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I! (Hamlet, Act II, scene ii)
The play's the thing, Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. (Hamlet, Act II, scene ii)
We are oft to blame in this, � 'Tis too much prov'd, � that with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er The devil himself. (Polonius, Act III, scene i)
To be, or not to be, � that is the question: � Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? � To die, to sleep, � No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, � 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; � To sleep, perchance to dream: � ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, � The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, � puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know naught of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. (Hamlet, Act III, scene i)
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. (Ophelia, Act III, scene i)
I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, � all but one, � shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. (Hamlet, Act III, scene i)
The lady doth protest too much, methinks. (Gertrude, Act III, scene ii)
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. (Hamlet, Act III, scene ii)
Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business, as the day Would quake to look on. (Hamlet, Act III, scene ii)
Let me be cruel, not unnatural; I will speak daggers to her, but use none. (Hamlet, Act III, scene ii)
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (Claudius, Act III, scene iii)
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions. (Claudius, Act IV, scene v)
Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get yet to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. (Hamlet, Act V, scene i)
Lay her i' the earth: And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! (Laertes, Act V, scene i)
There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. (Hamlet, Act V, scene ii)
The rest is silence. (Hamlet, Act V, scene ii)
Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. (Hamlet, Act V, scene ii)
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