>

First and foremost: Happy New Year to you, dear reader. May this next year be filled with joy, love, happiness, peace, generally good tidings, etc. so on and so forth, and (of course) fantastic literature, theatre and movies based upon all of the above.

That being said, onward to your regularly scheduled blog post.

In response to The Handmaid’s Tale…

Dear Margaret Atwood;

I don’t know why I was ever intimidated by you. I don’t know why I kept putting off and putting off opening up your lovely (if strange and somewhat scary) book. I thoroughly enjoyed the read and it has gotten me thinking, which was likely of course your precise intention in writing it.

Mostly, I have this one question: Why? Yes, this book was an interesting study in power, but (and granted this is generally my critique of any work which has strong feminist, racialist, or anything-ending-in-ist connotations) what prompted you to write such a thing? Why would you want to imagine Gileadean society? Why would you want to cause your readers to imagine this? What point can be made by creating a fictional totalitarian universe like this?

We’re not in danger of women being subjugated in this fashion and weren’t when the book was published in 1985. Granted, yes, we have some way to go before full equality among the sexes is achieved, but we’re not slipping back to the land of losing the vote. We’re actually becoming more and more enlightened each day (I would say), despite the high-powered execs not being paid as much as their male counterparts. Despite the prevalent sexist attitudes still ingrained in society. Despite the objectification of women in the media and especially in pop culture.

We’re nowhere near Gilead and I think that it’s not a stretch to say we never were.

Moving past this, I began to think about women’s roles in good ‘ol Gilead and how the color of their clothing represented their entire identity. Women, objects in this world, functions of the universe rather than active participants in it, were able to be accurately assessed by a single glance at their appearance. Atwood’s world is dictated by appearance and everything must be as it seems. Women, no longer allowed the luxury of reading, must be communicated with via pictures. In a way their whole beings have been reduced to these pictures. Their world within Gilead is entirely a world of things being as they seem.

I also thought about the brilliance of the division of power amongst the women. To the upper-class men, the women’s function in the home is spread between three to four women. One serves his needs for companionship, one for breeding, and one or two for keeping house. No single woman fulfills all the requirements of feminitity within the life of this man. Thereby, the woman holds no power in his household. Most especially regulated is arguably the aspect which could hold the most power over the man, sex. Come on folks, Aristophanes knew it too, sex is power. And sex is the ultimate power when you’re talking about a household. The Handmaid, the reproductive vessel in Gilead, is so far removed from the man she is vesseling for that if she were a man I’d say she was emasculated.

The poor men receive a single woman to perform all of the necessary chores mentioned above, but who cares if a woman holds power in their household? They’re poor. These men have no sway over anything important in Gilead, a woman can run his life if she wants to. What’s the worst she can do, tell him how to be a janitor?

So Bravo Gileadean government. Not only are women objects, but they have nifty little compartments where they must reside and refrain from contact with anything outside of their world. That’ll show them their place in society.

It seems to work well enough. We are never told why Gilead falls, but eventually it does.

That brings me to my last item of note: the ending. I’m really not sure how I feel about it. Yes, of course, there is more room for discussion of a book which ends in a cliffhanger than that which has a nicely lain out happily-ever-after. The Handmaid herself is a mysterious figure whose life we are given an entirely-too intimate look at, why should the book be any different? We are visitors to Gilead, we can never truly understand it. It would take a man’s perspective, not a woman’s, to explain to us the delicacies and intricacies of the Republic. Since all the narrative voices in The Handmaid’s Tale are women we will never receive that perspective. With so much uncertainty, it is perhaps only sensible to end on an equally uncertain note.

In the end, does it matter what happens to our Handmaid? She is a cog. Granted, a cog we come to know over the course of the novel, but a cog nonetheless. Her fate does not affect the fate of the Republic. It makes no difference really whether she is saved or damned, either way, we are assured of the ultimate demise of Gilead, entirely independent of her story.

I can’t tell if this is hopeful or nihilist of me. Perhaps a little of both.

In short, good Meg, thank you for writing this intriguing little piece, even if I’m not entirely certain what the hell you were thinking.

Danielle

Next to come: The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.

>

Let me be the first to say that I did not expect to like this movie. I expected to sit through it, see pretty steam-punk pictures of “Victorian London”, and cry a little inside at the perversion of some of my all-time favorite characters of literature. I even had the opening line of this post written in my head, “Holmes,” I would lament, “What have they done to you?”.

Despite my initial misgivings, and despite myself, I actually immensely enjoyed this film. I thought all the notes which required playing were hit impeccably; neither hammered too forcefully nor touched so lightly as not to be heard. The movie was enjoyable to both myself (an admitted literati-snob and hard sell on revisions such as this) and my father (an avid enjoyer of mister Holmes but certainly not a literature scholar and also partial to bad action flicks). Crossing demographics, it was a film to please both the oxford-shirt-and-sweater-vest novel-touters and the average “this movie looks awesome” Saturday-afternoon action buffs.

Let’s start with my one little gripe before I continue to rave about this movie. In addition to our dynamic duo, Irene Adler is added to the fray as an on-again off-again member of the team. She spends the movie wrestling with her own wistful romantic feelings for Holmes as she kicks butt and takes names along with the boys. Now trust me, I do love a good female action hero. But to me, chicks don’t belong in Holmes’ universe. The notorious woman-hater should not be pining for a pretty face when he has a case to solve, even if the object of his affection is, as Watson puts it, “the woman”. I know that in Conan Doyle’s mythology Adler was the only woman who ever found a way into Holmes’ heart and indeed managed to best him at some point, but I really always pictured their relationship with more rough edges than soft spots. This film is a study in the soft spots.

In short, she was cool, but I really didn’t need to see that.

Now onto the fantastic stuff:

The Holmes/Watson relationship was NAILED. There are some critics who will say “first we have gay hobbits, now we have gay Victorian Super Heroes. WTF Hollywood?”. Honestly, though I can see the homosexual under (and sometimes over) tones, they didn’t bother me. They’re there from the literature, people. Holmes and Watson are the Victorian Batman and Robin. They come as a packaged set. What, since two men are more like brothers than friends they automatically have to be sleeping together? They care for each other, true, but for years they were their own support network. Holmes cannot exist without Watson, no more can Watson exist without Holmes. It is only natural that a third party in this equation (in this case Mary) would bring tension between the dynamic duo. To me, whether you see this relationship as “gay” or “bromantic”, it really doesn’t matter. Either way, they love and support one another, and the movie nailed this.

Holmes’ character was spot on. When I first heard that Robert Downey Junior was going to be playing our dear detective, my thoughts immediately soured. He’s too young and good-looking, not dynamic enough, and would reduce the genius into a mere action hero. I could not have been more mistaken. Through a combination of the actor’s performance and the filmmaker’s creativity, I bought this character hook, line and sinker. A few particularly spectacular elements were the CSI-esque slow-mo explanations of Holmes’ thought processes, the priceless portrayal of Holmes’ quirky detective techniques, and the sense of profound loneliness that true brilliance incurs. This Holmes was very clearly a beautiful disaster, if an eccentric genius.

Jude Law’s Watson was also a pleasant surprise. He was made, in the film, into much more of a comrade to Holmes than sidekick. Able to hold his own in any fight, and more importantly pick up the pieces when Holmes dropped them, Watson was certainly not Conan Doyle’s lapdoggy Doctor. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the classical Watson, but Law’s had more gravitas. He was more of an equal to Holmes, if not in deductive reasoning than in practical experience. He and Holmes seemed to go together- I understood why Holmes would want and indeed require this Watson around.

Now I’m not saying the plot of this movie was “classic entertainment”, nor am I implying that the writers wrote Holmes better than Conan Doyle, but they did manage to modernize our beloved series while maintaining its integrity. In classic Holmesian style, this was a universe ruled by the laws of science rather than magic (no matter how it would otherwise appear). In the end, it was logic and reason that solved the mystery not wand-waving and incantations of power.

Small touches truly made the film rest in Conan Doyle’s story. The picture of Adler Holmes had in his study, the inclusion of Holmes’ famed disguises and skill as an actor, Holmes’ use of his violin all led to a believable and inclusive image of the famed detective. The one thing I did miss from the movie was Holmes’ opium addiction, though I do believe his addictive personality and reliance upon substances to free him from the prison of his own intellect was made entirely clear.

If you can forgive the villain a silly reason for his hostile take-over plan and Holmes’ monologuing at the end (but really, Holmes was born to monologue), the movie really delivered.

Oh and the faux-antique-pencil-sketch-still-frames during the credits are really nifty too.

>According to a recent article in the New York Times, Genius isn’t “who you are, it’s what you do.”

NY Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks published an article this past week analyzing the modern scientific take on “Genius” as presented by scientific research. Science tells us that “Genius” does not come from some innate spiritual connection to a muse or the like, but rather a set of circumstances which are predictable, and more importantly replicateable. According to this research, what truly leads to a genius is practice, analysis, logical function of the brain, the ability to quantify and sort data, and the ability to develop and maintain a “deliberate, strenuous and boring practice routine.”.

Brooks uses the example of Mozart, who was not always a genius at the piano. In fact, suggests Brooks, Mozart’s early works are merely a clever amalgamation of others’ pieces. Mozart’s true key to this “Genius” we have labeled him with was his ability to practice for so long at such a young age. So my question is… what about Shakespeare?

Yes, it’s true, grammar schools during Young Will’s the time did provide the practice with language as outlined by Brooks. Though he was no University Intellect, Shakespeare did spend his young years meticulously translating Latin texts to English, making lists of synonyms in Latin, memorizing and re-writing portions of ancient documents, et cetera so on and so forth. But this was not unique to our Young Bard, this was education as an institution. Any who could afford the time to be sent to school would have had the same exact methodologies applied to their education. Those who went to University would delve even deeper into these methodologies, thereby (according to this article) given even more of that meticulous practice regime which Brooks claims is so key to the “Genius” factor. Marlowe, Kid, Johnson, Fletcher, Webster… the same educations but more. And yet these playwrights are often reduced to footnotes, if they are even mentioned, in the great books of general Theatrical knowledge which Shakespeare is our key and sometimes only player.

Consider a few numbers. An Elizabethan company learned a new play about every seventeen days, and depending on the play’s popularity it would be performed for a period of between one and two years. During a four-week period in the Autumn of 1595, fifteen different plays were recorded to have been performed. The first reference to Shakespeare as an actor was recorded by Robert Greene in 1592 (the famous death-bed utterance of “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 bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.”). Green’s editor, Henry Chettle, later apologize publicly for the remark in the preface to his work “Kind-Heart’s Dream”. This apology leads us to believe the Shakespeare was already a well-respected thespian by 1592, and indeed records indicate that several of his plays (including Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, and The Comedy of Errors) had been performed and were popular before this time (Henry VI is supposed to have been written around 1589/1590). The theatres were closed due to plague from 1592-1594. We’re pretty sure Shakespeare returned full-time to Stratford in 1610 (though again, this is Shakespeare so nobody really knows). This gives Shakespeare a solid seven years of performance at the peak of his career in London (and likely more like eight or so). The cannon (that survives) is thirty seven plays large, and there is evidence that Shakspeare co-wrote another five plays which we either no longer have or have been attributed to others. So… for arguments sake… assume Shakespeare wrote fourty two plays. This averages out to five and a quarter plays per year, not a hefty sum considering that a playhouse had the potential to go through twenty two plays per year.

So… practice? While Shakespeare was without a doubt constantly writing (churning out a new play every two and a half months or so), this isn’t exactly the kind of intense practice that Mozart was getting. And truly, couldn’t one argue that other playwrights of the time were getting as much, if not more practice than Shakespeare was?

The reason why we remember Shakespeare’s plays is because of the clever wordplay, but it’s also because of his clever use and treatment of the human condition. He speaks of issues that effect us even to this day, four hundred years after his death. In his capable hands, the troubles of the universe are alit in ways that make them relevant to us, despite space and time.

And really, no amount of practice can make some so capable.

I’m not saying that Shakespeare made a pact with the devil or was blessed with some divine astronomical event at the time of his birth, but maybe the scientists need to take another look at their definitions. Not everything can be explained in numbers. Human beings are highly emotional and rarely rational creatures, and the discussion thereof thereby must maintain a sense of irrationality in order to parallel it’s true meaning.

>These days, you see very few truly classically-framed productions. There are several reasons for this; the costumes are expensive and difficult to make (nearly impossible to fudge), period pieces are sometimes hard for a modern audience to connect to, and sometimes these hard-core traditionalist productions are merely seen as “doddery old bits of theatre” (usually because they are). The result of this is a lot of Shakespeare out there re-framed to a different context, be this context genre, era of time, or concept.

But is such re-framing necessary? Is it right? What does a director need to do in order to make choices about re-framing a show? Let’s take a moment to consider these questions.

I have a personal mantra which I frequently use when discussing such productions: NO CONCEPT SHAKESPEARE. No Hamlet on the moon, no Macbeth with flying monkeys, no Merchant of Venice in the year 2045 after the nuclear holocaust (yes, I have actually seen this in a production). It’s just not right. Taking the Bard’s work and demeaning it into your own little personal fantasy is not your job as a Director. It is not funny, it is not nice, and frankly it gets confusing. It is people like these Directors who give audience members scarring Shakespeare experiences and makes them Bard-shy.

So, you may be wondering, what qualifies as “concept Shakespeare” and what kicks a production over into this magical world of “re-framing” ?

If a Director’s choice supports the text and adds something to the production without being confusing, it is a re-framing. If a Director’s choice has no grounding in the text whatsoever, no explanation, and leaves the audience going “what?”, it is a concept.

Romeo and Juliet, the classic story of love kept sundered by an ancient family feud; set it in Israel and have R and J represented by Israeli/Palestinian actors. Set it on the Irish border between North and South and make Romeo a Northerner and Juliet a Southerner. Heck, set it in the American South pre-civil war and make Romeo the son of a plantation owner and Juliet the maid’s daughter.

Support the plot, support the setting, don’t destroy it.

I heard someone mention “Throne of Blood” the other day and how it was likely the best rendition of Macbeth they had ever seen, despite not using Shakespeare’s text. I’m in agreement with this statement. The story is supported by the genre and Kurosawa puts his own flavor to it. Sure, he takes liberties with the plot (no Macduff for one….), but the sense of a deadly downward spiral into madness and the fear that comes with it- pivotal to Mabeth– is retained.

I’m actually also a huge fan of “The Lion King”. Again, Disney takes huge liberties with the central characters. The elements of the Hamlet plot are twisted and some omitted all together- but they couldn’t exactly have Nala go nuts and drown herself (it’s a kid’s movie for crying outloud!). What “The Lion King” does achieve is a righteous line of succession which angers us when it is not followed. We love Simba as we wish we could love Hamlet. And really, who can resist James Earl Jones kitty? Most importantly, it hooks kids. Kids. Watching Shakespeare. And LIKING IT!

So- support the plot, don’t confuse the audience, and remember- you’re playing Shakespeare, not your own demented twisted version of some dream you had when you were five.

>Hello poor, neglected blog. I missed you- I truly did.

In an effort to find a topic I was enthused enough about to post on, a thought occurred to me. Shakespeare on Film.

In many ways, contemporary society has replaced the theatre with film. In Shakespeare’s time, theatre was a social media. It was a way to interact with not only your neighbors, but also the actors on the stage- to connect with the community in a very vocal and vivacious way. It was loud, raucous and boisterous- a far cry from the snooty opera boxes which come to the contemporary mind. Unless you happen to live in New York, chances are you’ve never been to a showing of a movie where individuals yelled at the screen in an effort to communicate with the characters. In our subdued, Freudian, inside-voice culture it is something highly frowned upon. What good would it do us anyway? The actors are not there in person, it is merely a projection of them we see before us. This impersonal artform leaves us with perhaps a more intimate perspective (we can, after all, watch the sweat trickle from Johnny Depp’s forehead in a film), and yet a less human one.

Despite all of this, film remains a social exercise. One goes to the movies on dates or with friends. Movies are a topic of general discussion as they are common ground- I can watch a movie from my living room and discuss said movie with someone across the country because the performance remains the same.

In general, Shakespeare on film is divided into two categories: made-for-film screenplays (like much of Kenneth Branaugh’s work), and taped stage plays. I will be discussing the former as taped stage plays have a whole slew of other complications.

We heard it from our High School English teachers and thereby it is forever engrained in one’s mind: do NOT watch the movie before you read the book. In the case of Shakespeare, I tend to disagree generally. Shakespeare, after all, is meant to be played before an audience- not read. It takes a well-trained mindset to read and make sense of Early Modern English. Many “Shakespeare virgins” find it difficult to understand on the page- and really who could blame them? The sentence structure is entirely different often times from what we use today, the words are frequently spelled differently, there is no sense of rhythm, key-words, or intonation. Shakespeare needs actors to breathe life into it. The great bard himself did not write to publish but rather for his ACTORS. Therefore, throw away your preconceived notions- if you want to love Shakespeare don’t go picking up a folgers, rent a good movie.

That being said, there are a surprising amount of bad film adaptations out there. Overall, I am extremely enthused with the work of Kenneth Brannaugh (his Love’s Labours Lost I believe is truly a triumph of the Shakespeare-to-film genre). He takes liberties on occasion (aforementioned Love’s Labours Lost, As you Like it, Othello, the infamous FIVE HOUR HAMLET…), but he’s KENNETH BRANNAUGH! The man has worked for those liberties and deserves to take them. He consistently puts forth an excellent, accessible film which is engaging and entertaining.

The largest problem with most Shakespeare on film is that it simply lacks vivacity. The film genre is by its nature more subdued than live theatre. The cameras show us the actors from a distance unattainable on a stage, thereby the acting style must be altered to accommodate. Truly, stage techniques when filmed often appear garish and overdone. And, to me, this is where the life in Shakespeare lies.

Shakespeare writes big characters- he never does anything by halves. Hotspur, Juliet, Sir Toby, Lady Macbeth- these are people who can barely be contained in the human body much less facial expressions. They require air, space, and above all human contact to bring properly to life. Wild, wacky antics on the camera are reduced down to their core- something which makes the thick language of Shakespeare difficult to palate. When Shakespeare doesn’t move and breathe and run from hot to cold in a millisecond, it dies.

A second major complication of Shakespeare to film is the lack of subtext. There is no subtext in Shakespeare. Anything a character thinks is said- perhaps in veiled terms or a metaphor- but nothing is left below the surface. There is no deeper meaning to hint at, nothing below the truly scrumptious language to dig into. I believe that most film actors rely on these kinds of subtext to deliver a performance. It is difficult to mean every word you say. But if you can’t trust Shakespeare to deliver truth from text, who can you trust?

Film is a director’s media. It uses pictures to tell a story. Shakespeare is entirely in his words. The word “audience” holds its roots in the Latin work “audientum” meaning “a hearing, listening”. When the Elizabethans came to the theatre, it was to “hear” a play not to “see” a play. The words of Shakespeare simply do not translate well to the visual media of film. It takes a skilled hand to make such a transition, one that (sadly) most directors and actors lack.

So… watch Shakespeare. But, more importantly, hear Shakespeare. And do your research- if the film stars some young, hip, pop-culture icons and leaves out the old RSC gang entirely, you should probably find something better to do with those three hours of your life.

>This is a blog about theatre, thought, Shakespeare, and everything in between.  Let me start by telling you a story.  

Far away and long ago, in a time when Gods ruled from on high and the world was no larger than a certain set of islands in the Mediterranean, there was a ship. The ship was bound for Sicily and laden with treasure- glittering gold coffers filled to the brim with gems, pearls, wonderful and beautiful bolts of clothe with golden threads woven into its very fabric, statuettes of ivory, rings set with precious and shining stones larger than a child’s fist… all these riches the newly won property of the citharede Arion.

Arion was a man famed throughout Greece for his song. It was said that his musical poetry could move the Gods themselves. Arion had traveled to Sicily specifically to compete in the famed annual competition for song and music. The prizes were great, the competition greater, but Arion swept away all the judges and participants with his performance. His heart full to bursting with happiness and longing for his home in Corinth, Arion packed his prizes onto a hired vessel and set sail. The blue waters of the Mediterranean beneath him, Arion felt at peace and could barely contain his excitement to be closer to Greece with each passing instant.

But trouble always follows hard on the heels of success. Two days into the voyage, Arion’s ship was beset by pirates. The corsairs had heard of Arion’s victory and knew the ship to be full to bursting with prizes and riches beyond worldly compare. The pirates captured Arion’s small crew and brought the bard himself face to face with their own Captain.

The pirate Captain was a seasoned seaman and knew he could not let Arion live for fear of vengeance, but he was not without mercy. He gave Arion a choice: either the bard could take his own life on the deck of that pirate ship and be promised a proper burial on land when the ship next moored, or the Captain would give an order for Arion to be tossed overboard to meet his death in the salty brine.

Arion told the Captain that he would take his chances in the sea, but before he was thrown to his death he begged to bestow upon the sailors one last song. The Captain was moved by Arion’s plea and allowed him to sing.

The song Arion sang was unlike anything any of the sailors had ever heard. Ethereal, almost inhuman, it wafted through the air and brought courage and hope to even the most tired soul aboard that ship. Its words and melody snaked up through the air and called to Dionysus in prayer and reverie. And this song was the first dithyramb.

Arion’s song attracted a nearby pod of dolphins. They too were moved by the melody and, not wanting it to end, swam to him when he plunged into the foamy brine. Arion rode upon the point dolphin’s back to safety at the sanctuary of Poseidon and, eventually, to his home in Greece.

The Dithyramb was said to be invented by the Greek Bard Arion, though likely not during the above mentioned incident (a story taken from Herodotus). It was a hymn in homage to Dionysus in the form of a dialogue between an individual and a chorus. Aristotle credits the Dithyramb as the origin of Greek Theatre, thus making it the origin of theatre itself.

Theatre is the modern practice of story telling. In the glitz and glamour of Broadway, the lights and spectacle of the modern musical and the industry which has sprung into being around “THEATRE”, it is easy to loose track of the simplicity at its roots. Theatre is about humanism, a connection shared between the actors onstage and the people who have assembled to watch them.

There is a vital connection established in live theatre which film and television can never duplicate. While we will feel for the people who are presented larger-than-life before us, we miss the interpersonal link created by merely being in the same room as another human being. Sound, as we all know, is vibration. The voice is sound. Therefore, the voice of a live actor will create a vibration in the air which will be taken in by the audience members. It is the craft of an actor to hone and mould that vibration in order to effect the vibrations of the assembled audience, to leave them different from how they were when they entered the theatre space.

Though I cannot offer physical vibrations through the internet, I can offer intellectual stimulus. Vibrations of the mind. I am an actor. I have spent many years honing my craft, my voice and myself and have participated in theatre of various levels of professionalism for the past ten years.

I also have the nasty tendency to think a lot. I would like to call myself an academic, though I know that such a title opens my door to a barrage of demands for my credentials. I can say that I have an inquiring mind and some amount of intellectual background, though a deep-seated desire for more.

What I hope to offer here is insight. Thoughts. To be added to, bounced around, and shared.  The sound of an echo is always different from its initial sounding.  It returns to its creator changed in an utterly unpredictable way- often times richer and stronger than its initial sounding.  Here I begin my echo in hopes that it will return to me changed in a way I could never have imagined because that creative molding of ideas is the seed of all intellectual thought.