May
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 6, No. 0362. Thursday, 4 May 1995. (1) From: Luc Borot <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 95 15:37:42 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 6.0358 Aumerle (2) From: Phyllis Rackin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 4 May 1995 09:23:29 -0400 (EDT) Subj: SHK 6.0358 Aumerle (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 95 15:37:42 +0200 Subject: 6.0358 Aumerle Comment: Re: SHK 6.0358 Aumerle In Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 6, No. 0358. Wednesday, 3 May 1995, Sam Gregory <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > asks comments about the Aumerle scene in R2. It is one of the deepest scenes in the play, which is one of Shakes's deepest plays. I agree that it does have an obvious comic potential, fully permitted by the meta-theatrical comment on 'the beggar and the king', a traditional stage piece. The Duke's equivocation with French also sounds terribly comical to anyone with an inkling of French: 'pardonne moy' is not 'I forgive', but 'forgive me'. Yet, there is something historically and politically serious in that scene: the feudal values of York appear totally inhuman, whereas he's appeared over-supple in his management of Richard's downfall when he had the kingdom in stewardship; Aumerle may be seen as a convert, if the 2nd tetralogy is read as one whole, since he serves his new king and his son till his death at Agincourt. Henry is much more political: he gains a friend by forgiving an enemy. He proves that he can take a political AND a physical risk: indeed, if Aumerle is calculating, then Henry may be murdered. This has an echo in a contrary scene in H5, when Henry V calls the betrayal of Scroope, Grey and Cambridge a "second fall of man": his best friend had come to murder him; the friend turns into an enemy, in secret whereas Aumerle came to confess openly. I think that both dimensions of the scene should be made clear to the audience: the central character here is Henry, as he is the one who shows the kind of king he intends to be, in opposition to his predecessor. Of course, part of my argument may be questioned if the existence of a 'tetralogy' is denied. Melchiori's introduction to his Cambridge 2H4 presents the series very differently, but it may not totally break down the ethical and political parallels that I have suggested. Yours, Luc (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 4 May 1995 09:23:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Aumerle Comment: SHK 6.0358 Aumerle >I saw a post several weeks ago which included some information regarding >Aumerle's scene towards the end of Richard II. Aumerle and his mother beg >for his life, while York wants him to die. I had the good fortune to >perform Aumerle last year and would love to read any papers concerning the >comic nature of this scene. I briefly discussed the comedy here in *Stages of History* (Cornell, 1990), pp. 131-33. Two excellent earlier articles on it are Sheldon P. Zitner's "Aumerle's Conspiracy," SEL 14 (1974) and Leonard Barkan's "The Theatrical Consistency of R2," SQ 29 (1978).
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 6, No. 0361. Thursday, 4 May 1995. (1) From: Christine Gilmore <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 1995 09:54:52 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 6.0356 Re: PC and Productions (2) From: Terrence Ross <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 15:10:26 -0400 Subj: PC Merchant and Shrew (3) From: Daniel Vitkus <DVITKUS@EGAUCACS> Date: Thursday, 4 May 1995 11:09 +0200 Subj: RE: SHK 6.0351 Re: PC and Productions (4) From: David Schalkwyk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 4 May 1995 11:56:57 SAST-2 Subj: Re: SHK 6.0356 Re: PC and Productions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Gilmore <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 1995 09:54:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 6.0356 Re: PC and Productions Comment: Re: SHK 6.0356 Re: PC and Productions In reference to Kezia Sproat's comment on the etymology of the term "politically correct," Constance Relihan wrote on 1 May 1995: "Hmmmm.... When I was an undergrad. at the University of Illinois from 1978-82,we used to refer to people as "pc" if they were sympathetic to alternativelifestyles, leftist causes, vegetarianism, recycling, etc. It was only someyears later that I became aware that the term could be used pejoratively to describe members of the left." I think I have to agree with Constance Relihan on the popular use of "pc" in the dark ages, my college years in 1976-1981, as a positive term. However, we might use "not very pc" as a term of self-reprobation, which recognized that we were not performing up to snuff vis-a-vis recycling, enlightened attitudes, etc. Yet, one could say that the term was redefined as a negative term in the late 80s, early 90s, thus reinvented, as a critique of the very thing it stood for: a more responsible and enlightened way of living. This new way of living now is defined as a straitjacket. I really hate the widespread use of the term when it used only to sneer; but I do think it has a place as a self-critical move or gesture. For example, I think it would be intellectually dishonest to play Taming of the Shrew straight, that is, without recognizing that people no longer want to laugh at such behaviors. Therefore, it is imperative that the director make an attempt to recognize this. The interpretation is not fixed by political correctness; however, recognition that playing it straight, whatever that means, is a less-satisfying posture to an audience these days can prevent directorial suicide. One last point, I think an audience will reject a performance (or film) that reinvents the characters according to a perceived pc stricture (I think of a film called something like the Ballad of Little Joe[?], in which Joe was a woman, the most enlightened, and the first to accept Chinese rail workers as humans). Sometimes giving the people what they want is simply not what Shakespeare's about! Sorry to go on so long, thanks, cg. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terrence Ross <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 15:10:26 -0400 Subject: PC Merchant and Shrew The discussions about how to make MoV and Shrew safe for today's tender sensibilities remind me of the recent thread about Tate's happy ending for King Lear. Different plays upset different ages. If we can't stand seeing Kate tamed, then we may as well stick to Cole Porter's version, which has so many wonderful songs. As for Shylock, surely his "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech is a monstrous justification for the murder of Antonio, rather than being "the most eloquent anti-racist statement," as Kezia Sproat describes it. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel Vitkus <DVITKUS@EGAUCACS> Date: Thursday, 4 May 1995 11:09 +0200 Subject: 6.0351 Re: PC and Productions Comment: RE: SHK 6.0351 Re: PC and Productions The term "politically correct" was first widely used by Marxists, not by opponents of feminism. The Bolsheviks then other communist groups, during the years following the Russian Revolution, wrangled over what would define a "correct" party line. This included a definition of politically correct art and culture, usually along the lines of social(ist) realism or what was called "proletcult." Under Stalin, proletkult allegedly sought to create a purely proletarian culture free of bourgeois influences (thus, the Futurists' slogan, "Burn Raphael"). In the West, conservatives and opponents of progressive politics pointed to Stalinist oppression and dogmatism and then indiscriminately accused leftists in the West of displaying the same kind of dogmatism. Thus, the term "politically correct" was appropriated in the West during the Cold War "to discredit...others who may urge change," including left-leaning intellectuals and artists in Europe and N. America. Despite what Jean Godby may have said, the term "p.c." was not "invented" to attack feminism, but its Cold War usage has recently been revived by opponents of progressive politics in the West. Daniel Vitkus The American University in Cairo (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 4 May 1995 11:56:57 SAST-2 Subject: 6.0356 Re: PC and Productions Comment: Re: SHK 6.0356 Re: PC and Productions The discussion about how best to produce The Taming of the Shrew seems to assume that either 1) one produces the play as it is, thereby almost certainly offending large sections of a modern audience, or 2) one adapts the action on stage or bowdlerizes the text in order to "please", or at least not to disturb a politically sensitive modern audience. Are these the only alternatives? The play is an historical text which, in a complex way to be sure, exemplifies particular conceptions of the relationships between men and men, women and women, and men and women (these are all imbricated in fairly complex ways in TS) which, while being historically specific, have certainly not been outgrown or abandoned in late twentieth century western society. Why the unwillingness to "offend"? In Apartheid South Africa some of the most repressive forms of censorship were exercised in the name of the right of particular groups not to be "offended" by certain sorts of ideas or kinds of art. The desire for self-censorship of the kind proposed in the discussion so far seems to me to make a fundamental mistake about the kind of "offense" that the last act of TS provokes. To chose either of the proposed alternatives, viz. to go ahead with the offensive bits or to downplay or eradicate them altogether is to deny the audience a critical perspective in terms of which the offensiveness can be seen as the product of an set of historical conditions that are still present certain forms in modern society. That is to say, a production can surely create the conditions for critical distance from which an audience may recognize offensiveness in the scene, but not feel either personally affronted by it or the need to censor such offensiveness. The play may be valuable precisely *because* of such "offensiveness", and either alternative of rendering it more palatable or encouraging an enraged personal response would thus diminish both the historical and contemporary value of the play precisely to a modern audience. My own approach to the staging of TS would follow Orgel's notion of comedy as a "collective fantasy" arising from a clash between dominant and emergent conceptions of marriage. The important point is to enable the audience to engage critically with that fantasy, inviting them (both men and women) to measure their own conscious or unconscious participation in it. This will mean encouraging them to ask questions about both the attractiveness and the repulsiveness of elements of the play. Either to clean the play up, to render it inoffensive, or to provoke offense as an uncritical gut response, is simply to deny the audience the opportunity of such critical questioning, which involves seeing the way in which what it operates in their own lives and society. How one puts this into practice is another matter. I haven't given this much thought, but it strikes me that the notions of fantasy and critical distance are both contained in the Sly scenes, which represent a marvelously meta-theatrical, self-conscious reflection on the ideological power of theatre itself to impose one's fantasies upon others, something that TS itself perhaps enacts. One can also draw attention to the palpable absurdities of Kate's final speech, which invites an unflattering comparison between the "ideal" husband as lord and the idle, irresponsible boy's club to whom she addresses the remarks, without having to signal them with a knowing wink. The point is registered, whether she knows it or not. In this sense all literature reads itself against its own grain (again, whether the author knows it or not). To remove this tension in the name of political correctness is to obliterate its politics. David Schalkwyk
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 6, No. 0360. Thursday, 4 May 1995. (1) From: Eric Armstrong <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 1995 10:47:07 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 6.0357 Re: Textbooks (2) From: David Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 1995 16:18:20 GMT Subj: Re: SHK 6.0357 Re: Textbooks (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Eric Armstrong <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 1995 10:47:07 -0400 Subject: 6.0357 Re: Textbooks Comment: Re: SHK 6.0357 Re: Textbooks I have enjoyed following the thread on Textbooks and it has made me think about books that I have heard recommended to students. One text that I have heard questioned recently is Tillyard's "Elizabethan World Picture". This tiny tome certainly helped me, and I assume many others, to understand the Elizabethan world as it is revealed in Shakespeare. But of late, due to hanging out with some "Shakespeare academics", I have heard that Tillyard is BIASED. Over patriotic and all that. What I want to know is: 1. Is Tillyard really all that bad? 2. Is there something "new" that covers the same world picture, but maybe has taken some '90s Windex to the glass so we can see something else lurking in that dark, dark picture? Thanks, Eric Armstrong. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 1995 16:18:20 GMT Subject: 6.0357 Re: Textbooks Comment: Re: SHK 6.0357 Re: Textbooks No anthology is ever 'right' for teaching, in my experience - but I Alan Rosen might find David Norbrook's anthology, The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse, 1509-1659 worth a look - the poems are arranged by topic, rather than by author, and he includes a good deal of relatively unfamiliar material. It is, of course, therefore shorter on some of the poems one might expect to find by the 'big names', and one would probably want to supplement it with other material. I've certainly learnt a lot from it. David Lindley
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 6, No. 0359. Thursday, 4 May 1995. (1) From: Ann Flower <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 1995 10:34:53 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 6.0352 Re: Cleopatra and Dollabella (2) From: Don Foster <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 03 May 1995 12:09:14 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: Dolabella (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ann Flower <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 1995 10:34:53 -0500 Subject: 6.0352 Re: Cleopatra and Dollabella Comment: Re: SHK 6.0352 Re: Cleopatra and Dollabella Re Cleopatra/Dolabella problems: I want to argue again for Cleopatra's agency in her own death, even if it is an "old hat" perspective. I don't think Cleopatra "blinked" -- she goes against her Egyptian code when she commits suicide, and instead follows the Roman code of honor and her "husband" Antony. Her hesitation, or it might be called her reasoning with a new Roman cast, can be seen in the lines that begin V.2, My desolation does begin to make A better life: 'tis paltry to be Caesar: Not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave, A minister of her will: and it is great To do that thing that ends all other deeds, Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change. It is as if she is trying to convince herself that she will be empowered by dying. Samuel Daniel's version has Caesar sense that Cleopatra will try to kill herself, though he wants it to be otherwise: "tis more honour for her to die free . . . Princes respect their honour more than blood . . . private men sound not the hearts of Princes,/ Whose actions oft beare contrarie pretences . . . A private man may yeelde and care not how,/ But greater hearts will breake before they bow." Daniel links an overall design of the necessity of change that levels iniquities directly to the internal action of the untrustworthiness of subordinates. Shakespeare does not work in this "exemplary" manner, but presents a more complex system of betrayals and trusts. Each of the three leaders has problems with subordination, and in both Roman and Egyptian worlds where there is something noble in extravagance and theatrical show, what is said about leaders is important to political order and fealty, to maintaining a height above the common men. In Shakespeare there is a fluidity to the information that comes by messenger that contributes to a dream-like confusion that a constantly shifting ownership of the world might create. The leaders are always susceptible to the changing loyalties of their men, each of whom may make a personal decision to defect to the other side based on change of fortune -- but all are part of an atmosphere of seeming and interpretation. Changing perceptions de-emphasize a clear relationship between reality and perceived events. Up to the last scene we are aware of multiplicity of perspective, but within the final 400 lines Cleopatra alone works out her desire to flaunt a Roman end and to embrace it. Shakespeare concentrates all the movements of Caesar's emissaries here, consolidating into Dolabella two other potential messengers in Plutarch, balancing the three minor Roman characters with the three Egyptians. The countryman who is merely an instrument in Plutarch, rendered as if he just happened to stop by, or as part of a series of events known only to Cleopatra and thus part of her deception, in Shakespeare becomes the embodiment of the unpredictable, the extra messenger, the intelligent life force that often appears completely unannounced in Shakespeare in humble form. Shakespeare does not linger on Cleopatra's decline but rather on the claustrophobia of the moment, the monument, and the boundary edge between life and death. The biggest problem with staying alive is becoming part of someone else's tableau, shown to be an actor in someone else's (Caesar's) design. Dolabella's purpose I think is to allow us to see Cleopatra's creative mind, her freedom even if entombed alive by Caesar. If it can be assumed that there was no mistake in Dolabella's late exit, it might be argued that Caesar was as confused by the proliferation of messengers as everyone else in the play. Remember that Cleopatra was sending a messenger every hour to Antony -- one can only picture a continuous marching file to the battlefield. Or Dolabella may have left on his own accord to warn Cleopatra. Hmm. This was a very long answer! Sorry. --Ann Flower New York University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 03 May 1995 12:09:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Dolabella (In response to Bill Godshalk) As Bill observes, my posting on ANT 5.1 only addresses the textual problem. I wasn't attempting to solve Bill's problem -- but for what it's worth, Bill's query, "ready for what," is easily answered: Caesar has just asked, "Where's Dolabella," forgetting that Dola. is employed. All of the other characters on stage call after Dola., who has, however, already left in haste without hearing the news that "Antony is dead." In response to that news, Caesar states clearly, to his own (privy) council of war, his latter set of directions for Dola., to wit: Dola. must "second Proculeius" in Proc's mission; following Proc, Dola too must "Go and say / We purpose her no shame. Give her ... comforts ... Lest in her greatness, by some mortal stroke / She do defeat us; for her life in Rome / Would be eternal in our triumph..." Bill's question: "Ready for what?" is thus explictly answered by the text: when Dola. returns, he will be ready "to second Proc. in attempting to make Cleo. a live POW rather than a dead queen. Bill's theory might be highly effective in the theater--it might even be worth changing the text to make such a reading work--but I can't see that there's any textual support for it, either in Shakespeare or in Plutarch. And as Fran Teague has pointed out, it is certainly a mistake to insist upon such a position. --Foster
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 6, No. 0358. Wednesday, 3 May 1995. (1) From: Eric Armstrong <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 1 May 1995 17:05:01 -0400 Subj: *JC* Music (2) From: Christine Mack Gordon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 1 May 95 16:14:06 -0500 Subj: SHK 6.0354 Branagh & Shakespeare (3) From: Sam Gregory <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 1 May 1995 17:40:10 -0400 Subj: The York Family Feud (4) From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 01 May 1995 22:18:57 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 6.0352 Re: Cleopatra and Dollabella (5) From: Diane Mountford <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 2 May 1995 23:48:04 -0400 Subj: Re: Shakespeare & Company (6) From: Diane Mountford <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 1995 00:00:28 -0400 Subj: Re: The Ending of *King Lear* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Eric Armstrong <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 1 May 1995 17:05:01 -0400 Subject: *JC* Music Another brilliant thought on music for JC set in 2015: 2015 is 20 years from now. Well... it seems to me that a lot of the music I hear today is 20 years old. With ABBA's big come back I don't see why you don't use a healthy dose of "retro" music: grunge and the like! ;-) I suggest you do the honorable thing - HIRE A MUSICIAN. They can create (live, onstage even) new music that doesn't sound like anything you have heard before, or like everything you have heard before, easy as cake. And with so many starving-artist musicians around you could get one for... dare I say it, a song. Best of luck, Eric. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 1 May 95 16:14:06 -0500 Subject: Branagh & Shakespeare Comment: SHK 6.0354 Branagh & Shakespeare In response to Dave Kathman's query about what text Branagh would use for a "complete" *Hamlet*--he has traditionally worked from the various Arden editions of the plays according to information I've gleaned from various sources. Uma Thurman as Desdemona? Oy. Chris Gordon (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sam Gregory <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 1 May 1995 17:40:10 -0400 Subject: The York Family Feud Hi all, This is my first post to the SHAKSPER Discussion group although I've been *lurking* for several weeks. I saw a post several weeks ago which included some information regarding Aumerle's scene towards the end of Richard II. Aumerle and his mother beg for his life, while York wants him to die. I had the good fortune to perform Aumerle last year and would love to read any papers concerning the comic nature of this scene. I seem to recall that at least one of you had written a paper on this very topic. Please Email me directly at <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > or respond to me here. In closing, I'd like to add that the scene almost always brought the house down. The audience really seems to need a little comic relief at that point in the play and Mr. Shakespeare provides it. The release of tension comes right before Richard's final monologue and death scene. I look forward to reading more about this fascinating scene. Thanks in advance, Sam GregoryThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 01 May 1995 22:18:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: 6.0352 Re: Cleopatra and Dollabella Comment: Re: SHK 6.0352 Re: Cleopatra and Dollabella I would like to point out that Don Foster's intriguing account of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 5.1 does not completely solve the problem. In fact, it doesn't solve the problem at all. If Dolabella leaves the stage at line 3, he has a mission to go to Antony and bid him yield. Decretas enters and reports that Antony is dead. Dolabella has been sent on a sleeveless errand. But Caesar claims at the end of the scene to remember how "hee's imployd: he shall in time be ready." Why question is "ready for what"? Well, in the next scene Dolabella relieves Proculeius -- the man Antony told Cleopatra to trust. In fact, for dramatic economy, why bring in Proculeius at all? Why not have Dolabella capture Cleopatra? And why, if Dolabella is going to bid Antony to yield, why does he show up at Cleoaptra's place and tell Proculeius that Caesar knows what he has done and "hath sent for thee"? Maybe. Maybe we are not supposed to question the apparent incongruity. Concerning Plutarch and other of Shakespeare's sources, we know that he was not bound by history and the historians. Tedious it were to detail all the ways he changed English history to serve his dramatic desires. Let Hotspur stand as example. I suggest that Shakespeare rewrote Plutarch in this play, and if you reread all of Plutarch's account of Antony you will see what I mean. My apologies to Queen Elizabeth I if I maligned her by squeezing a complex historical episode into a few lines. Political necessity may not exclude human emotion. I am obviously NOT claiming that my account of Dolabella is inevitable. I would say that most people who bother to listen to my description of Dolabella's role find it -- well -- not inevitable, and directors of the play have been doing nicely without it for, I suppose, hundreds of years. But I think it is an interesting possibility. Obviously no court in our nation would convict Dolabella on the evidence that I can adduce, but there are a few hints in the play that Dolabella is NOT one of the traitors. All the other traitors in the play leave their masters or mistresses. Dolabella alone is rewarded for his apparent betrayal of Caesar. No, it's not nice, not pretty. It's very bleak indeed. It's called real politics. Cynically, Bill Godshalk (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diane Mountford <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 2 May 1995 23:48:04 -0400 Subject: Re: Shakespeare & Company Okay, I must jump into the fray with one more post about the Shakespeare & Company and EST question. I participated in a Shakespeare & Company intensive and summer training program in 1990, and came home a significantly better person. For me it was <a humanistic self-discovery process>, which has enriched my life and my work hundredfold. My experience with the "tough-it-out" approach had much more to do with emotional blocks than physical injuries. I know for myself that when I run into a big emotional issue, I try my best to evade it, and the teachers at the workshop were rather relentless about making me face my demons. At the same time, however, I learned how to take care of myself as an actor, both physically and emotionally, to keep myself safe and give myself the space to be dangerous. I imagine that the incident of the injured student being told to "tough-it-out" was a matter of a teacher confusing the person's physical condition with an emotional one (a grave mistake to be sure, but not in my experience a common one). As far as the connection with "est" goes, I never heard mention of it until now (I've heard a lot about the University of Deleware program in that light, but not S&Co). We used to joke about S&Co being kind of cultish, what with the self-inflicted sleep deprivation, emotionally and physically taxing program, and the setting up of Tina Packer as some sort of god (by those who felt the need to worship, not by me). But I've never heard of a cult that preaches, not conformity, but independent thought; a cult that teaches an actor how to dive into herself and find an endless font of creativity and inspiration. It is not a program for everyone, I'm sure, but my experience there was nothing if not a revolution of the soul. Cheers, Diane Mountford (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diane Mountford <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 May 1995 00:00:28 -0400 Subject: Re: The Ending of *King Lear* Robert Knapp suggests that King Lear's "Look on her! look! her lips! Look there, look there!" means that Lear believes that Cordelia is still alive. Altough I certainly don't argue with this as an interpretation, I just thought I'd throw out an alternate one from Tony Church. I had the good fortune to study with Tony in London a few years back and one day in class he showed us how he plays the final moments of Lear's life. In his opinion the finality of "never, never, never, never, never" wiped out any hope of Cordelia being alive. So on the "look there" lines, he picked up Cordelia's body and showed her to the audience. It was quite a chilling moment of theater! Cheers, Diane