February
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0243. Thursday, 20 February 1997. From: Andres Saenz Lara <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 16:24:53 -0800 Subject: A Woman as Hamlet This is my first posting to this list, to which I have been subscribed for several months. The National Theatre Company of Costa Rica is rehearsing Hamlet, in the very good translation by our noted author Joaquin Gutierrez. The lead is being played by a young woman actor. I remember Joseph Papp staged Hamlet with a woman in the title role in the early 80's. I didn't see the production, but I saw a TV programme about it. Would list member care to comment on Papp's rationale for a woman playing Hamlet? I would really appreciate some input on what members think about this casting in general and what justifications can be put forward for it. My understanding is that Andrei Wajda, the Polish film/theatre director, brought his staging of the play to NYC some time ago, also with a woman as the Prince. Did anyone see it, did it work? Best regards.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0242. Wednesday, 19 February 1997. [1] From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 12:27:14 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 8.231 Re: Edward III, Edmund Ironside, Cardenio, Early Plays [2] From: Jay Johnson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 11:26:05 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 8.0226 Q: Edward III, Edmund Ironside, Cardenio, Early Plays [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 12:27:14 -0500 Subject: 8.231 Re: Edward III, Edmund Ironside, Cardenio, Comment: Re: SHK 8.231 Re: Edward III, Edmund Ironside, Cardenio, Early Plays I notice that I forgot to list Elihu Pearlman's recent essay on <italic>Edward III</italic> and <italic>Henry V</italic>, but I can't without difficulty find the precise reference. Perhaps EP will help me out. Yours, Bill Godshalk [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jay Johnson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 11:26:05 -0700 Subject: 8.0226 Q: Edward III, Edmund Ironside, Cardenio, Comment: Re: SHK 8.0226 Q: Edward III, Edmund Ironside, Cardenio, Early Plays With regard to "The Famous Victories," I recommend Seymour Pitcher's _The Case for Shakespeare's Authorship of "The Famous Victories" (With the complete text of the anonymous play)_. It was published by the State University of New York in 1961, and in it Pitcher presents a very persuasive argument. Jay Johnson Medicine Hat College
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0241. Wednesday, 19 February 1997. [1] From: Evelyn Gajowski <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 08:51:24 -0800 (PST) Subj: RE: Iambic Pentameter [2] From: Bradley S. Berens <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 08:52:54 -0800 Subj: Iago's Homosexuality [3] From: Billy Houck <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 13:55:27 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 8.0225 Re: Parallel Scenes [4] From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 15:52:51 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 8.0235 Re: Ideology [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Evelyn Gajowski <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 08:51:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: RE: Iambic Pentameter For Hilary Zunin: Of WS's 104,000 or so lines in 37 dramatic texts, approximately 28% are in prose, 7% in rimed verse, and 65% in blank verse, according to Harbage. Of these, I have no idea what percentage are "perfect," as you put it. Regards, Evelyn Gajowski U of Nevada, Las Vegas [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bradley S. Berens <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 08:52:54 -0800 Subject: Iago's Homosexuality Dear SHAKSPERians, This email is for Trace Shelton. People have been arguing for years about Iago's sexual orientation, but the potential love object in question is usually Othello, rather than Cassio, so that's a not uninteresting take. A famous theatrical production was the Richardson as Othello, Olivier as Iago 1938 at the Old Vic, directed by Tony Guthrie. One account of how Guthrie and Olivier came up with the homosexual interpretation of Iago is quite funny (I believe the teller of this tale is the theater photographer Angus McBean): Olivier:I wonder what motivated Iago to have risen to that position, he must have been an intelligent man. Guthrie:I've always wondered, it's one of the difficulties of the play. Olivier:I know Tony, let's play it with Iago in love with Othello. Guthrie:What a wonderful idea-- but we must never let Ralphie know! [qtd. in Gary O'Connor, ed., Olivier In Celebration (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1987) 179.] Of course, the more famous and useful account is Olivier's: Tony Guthrie and I were swept away by Professor [Ernest] Jones's contention that Iago was subconsciously in love with Othello and had to destroy him. Unfortunately there was not the slightest chance that Ralph would entertain this idea. I was, however, determined upon my wicked intentions, in cahoots with Tony; we constantly watched for occasions when our diagnosis might be made apparent to the discriminating among the audience, though I must say I have never yet discovered any means of divulging something that is definitely subconscious to any audience, no matter how discerning they might be. In a reckless moment during rehearsals I threw my arms round Ralph and kissed him full on the lips. He coolly disengaged himself from my embrace, patted me gently on the back of the neck and, more in sorrow than in anger, murmured, "There, there now, dear boy; good boy.... " Tony and I dropped all secret connivance after that. I had one more trick up my sleeve; Ralph had to fall to the ground when Othello, frenzied by Iago's goadings, is helpless in the clutches of a paroxysm. I would fall beside him and simulate an orgasm-terrifically daring, wasn't it? But when the wonderful Athene Seyler came round after a matine she said, "I'm sure I have no idea what you were up to when you threw yourself on the ground beside Ralph." So that was the end of that stroke of genius and out it came. [qtd. in Olivier's CONFESSIONS ON AN ACTOR, 105-6] Marvin Rosenberg's MASKS OF OTHELLO has some good material on this production, and others like it, as well (see especially page 181ff). S. Foster Damon, the famous Blake scholar and poet, wrote a privately printed volume under the name Samuel Nomad, and you might enjoy his poem "Iago," set in Othello's "sixth act"- Racked to death throughout life! And shall the earth belong alone to the meek, strong, and wise? To live, must we not grasp their good through lies and mask our indirections with our mirth? Admittedly we are of little worth judged by the twelve commandments; but no eyes read our dark hearts. God dare not moralize on the defects he gave us at our birth. Yet- my revenge, accomplished, turned to error and vanished, expiated. Life was purged by death; nothing at all remained thereof, except the internal truth, which now upsurged. Even my basic hate was burned by terror down to its real root, a hidden love. [Nightmare Cemetary, printed at R.I.S.D.{Rhode Island School of Design} in 1964.] Finally, please do not take it the wrong way when I caution you about casually bandying words like "homosexual" with regard to early modern culture. A group of intelligent scholars (e.g., Eve Sedgwick, John Boswell, Bruce Smith) have argued that the category as we know it doesn't fit texts like OTHELLO as neatly as we creatures of the 1990s might like. Best wishes, Brad Berens [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Billy Houck <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 13:55:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: 8.0225 Re: Parallel Scenes Comment: Re: SHK 8.0225 Re: Parallel Scenes I seem to remember an opera written in the 1920's entitled CALIBAN ON THE YELLOW SANDS based on THE TEMPEST. I'm still kicking myself for not buying the only copy I've ever seen. I'm sure you can find it in a big university library. and then take hands, Billy Houck [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 15:52:51 -0500 Subject: 8.0235 Re: Ideology Comment: Re: SHK 8.0235 Re: Ideology > The imposition of one culture on another is >usually undertaken in the name of 'humanity'. Can we have forgotten that >already? asks Terence Hawkes. How can those of us who watch the Cultural Materialists insisting that their vision is the only vision ever forget it? Let's talk about attempts at cultural imposition, but, most of all, let us resist cultural imperialists, even those who come dressed as a Welsh rabbit. Yours, Bill Godshalk
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0240. Wednesday, 19 February 1997. From: Andrew Gurr <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 15:01:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Burying the Globe SHAKSPERians might like to know that English Heritage remains firm in its view that the Globe's remains should be buried permanently, or, as they say, kept undisturbed 'for future generations'. Ellen Barnes, the English Heritage officer answerable about the Globe, told me yesterday that she has told the Heritage Minister, Virginia Bottomley, that in EH's opinion the Globe remains are safe where they are, and that they see no reason for further excavation. The idea of what they call keyhole excavation, digging holes in the thick basement floor of Anchor Terrace where the foundations of the Globe's stage lie, is not in what she calls the public interest. I thought you'd like to know. Her address at English Heritage is not the aptly named Fortress House in saville Row, but Chesham House, 30 Warwick Street, London W1R 5RD, and her phone number is 0171-973-3000. The ministers to write to at the House of Commons are John Gummer, Secretary of State for the Environment, and the Heriate Minsiter, Virginia Bottomley. Andrew Gurr
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0239. Wednesday, 19 February 1997. [1] From: Chris J. Fassler <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 09:05:27 -0500 Subj: Sin and Jesuits [2] From: Louis Marder <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 97 12:11:49 EST Subj: Re: SHK 8.0223 Re: Sins in MM [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris J. Fassler <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 1997 09:05:27 -0500 Subject: Sin and Jesuits James Saeger's question about sin in _M for M_ got me thinking about attitudes toward Jesuits in early modern Protestant England. Aren't these other characters encouraging Isabella toward a kind of moral equivocation that at least some English Protestants (Foxe's _Book of Martyrs comes immediately to mind) would have (unfavorably) identified with those nasty, lying, slippery Jesuits? (Apologies to Frs. Bob, Bill, and Jim.) My recollection is that Foxe more than once points out how forthright and, thus, morally correct martyred Protestants were. Since Isabella is being asked to lie with someone rather than to someone, perhaps the comparison is inappropriate. --Chris [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Louis Marder <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb 97 12:11:49 EST Subject: 8.0223 Re: Sins in MM Comment: Re: SHK 8.0223 Re: Sins in MM RE sin in MM. I haven't read all the messages on this subject but I wonder has anyone suggested that Isabella sins by pimping for Angelo. And Mariana becomes a fornicatress for Angelo. There was a pre-contract, but it has long been broken. Is the play much ado about nothing or all's well that ends well? Shakespeare likes a good story and makes it complicated with contrasts, cross-purposes and ironies to be enjoyable. Cassandra in the source was no virgin, but S makes Isabella not only a virgin but a novice in St. Clare. Louis MarderThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. PS: Does everyone know about Juno? It is a company that believes "e-mail should be free". There are supposed to be ads on screen to pay for the service but I haven't seen one yet. Simple to use too. Call 1- 800-654-5866 and they'll send a software disk. Very uncomplicated. Louis Marder, Shakespeare Data Bank. (Still looking for Associates)