April
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0367 Monday, 20 April 1998. [1] From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 19 Apr 1998 21:46:09 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Jessica [2] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 20 Apr 1998 00:17:37 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 9.0365 Re: Jessica [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 19 Apr 1998 21:46:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Jessica As I tried to suggest in an earlier post, there is a distinct allegorical level in this particular play which involves the Protestant Reformation in England. The breaking of the thousand year bond with the Roman Church was the source of profound anxiety among Elizabethan Englishmen. The fate of their souls had been secured by the authority of Peter who got it straight from Jesus. In order for the Reformation to be successful, the people had to be convinced that the covenant of Abraham that had passed from the Jews to the Christians at the Resurrection had now passed to the English, that they were now the "chosen people." On the allegorical level of the play, Jessica represents that covenant (Shylock as an Italian usurer is therefore the Popish Church with only a genealogical relationship to Judaism). She is the daughter of a Jew, but marries a Christian. Her relationship to the Jew had been one of Law (i.e. covenant), but she transgresses Law in the name of Love (i.e. Christianity). Portia represents the passing of the covenant from another perspective. In order for the English to inherit, they must choose aright, thus the three caskets. Shylock's ring is a symbol of grace. Shylock attempts to lock it away as a possession held by covenant, but Jessica gives it away freely in the name of Love, replacing a Judeo-Catholic orientation to grace with a new Protestant vision. [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 20 Apr 1998 00:17:37 -0400 Subject: 9.0365 Re: Jessica Comment: Re: SHK 9.0365 Re: Jessica Ben Schneider wrote: > Bassiano's giving away Portia's ring to pay back "the lawyer" is an > analog of Jessica's giving away > Leah's ring to buy a monkey. I think I should resent that. Larry Weiss
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0366 Monday, 20 April 1998. [1] From: David Levine <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 19 Apr 1998 01:52:36 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 9.0363 Re: RNT Othello [2] From: Charles Weinstein <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 19 Apr 1998 10:52:55 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 9.0360 OTHELLO at BAM, directed by Sam Mendes [3] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 19 Apr 1998 23:32:37 -0400 Subj: RNT Othello [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Levine <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 19 Apr 1998 01:52:36 EDT Subject: 9.0363 Re: RNT Othello Comment: Re: SHK 9.0363 Re: RNT Othello Well, I guess I agree with Tanya, to an astonishingly complete degree. I also thought Harewood's senate scene was absolutely masterful and very, very moving. But (as I have said) Othello should be very frightening when he's roused to anger, and part of this fearsomeness is his complete difference from all the "well-behaved" Venetians. Indeed, he is supposed to be somewhat savage (in a few places the text alludes to this...Desdemona remarks that his eyes are "rolling," etc.). Now, there is certainly going to be the matter of racial stereotyping here, but let's face it, folks...it's part of the play...in some fundamental ways, Othello is less "civilized" than the people he is working for (I use that term advisedly, having read the new Caryl Phillips novel...title escapes me at this hour...in which Othello is a main character, and which provides a lot of really fascinating background to the play). This might make him a better human being, but he IS different; his emotions are in different relationship with his body. IT is this aspect of the play that I have observed many Black (well, African-American to be more specific, and for obvious reasons) actors having difficulty with. As for Beale's Iago, I had no doubt at all that he felt Emilia had slept with Othello, but he would assume automatically that, given the chance to sleep with ANYONE else who was proximate, she would do so because he, I ago, was so disgusting. That Othello is so obviously more charismatic and sexually attractive only makes the infidelity more probably from Iago's standpoint. Indeed, his self-loathing (in Beale's performance) is the first cause of everything. What was chilling in that kiss from Emilia was how he went through the motions, giving NOTHING back, which suddenly told us a tremendous amount about the everyday pain of their marriage and how that pain kept providing feedback to sustain the awful system. Much like a lot of folks we doubtless know. Beale's real jealousy also added countless level to the "green-eyed monster" speech, since it was obvious to Iago ( and to us) that he was talking completely about himself. For those of you who didn't like the production...all I can say is something like "Jeez, folks..." and scratch my head. And I am no blind Anglophile about Shakespearean productions at the RSC and RNT. And I have seen Othello many many times in the last thirty five years..... [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Weinstein <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 19 Apr 1998 10:52:55 -0400 Subject: 9.0360 OTHELLO at BAM, directed by Sam Mendes Comment: Re: SHK 9.0360 OTHELLO at BAM, directed by Sam Mendes I saw this production in London last Fall. I wish I had kinder things to say about it. Unfortunately, it borrows so heavily from Trevor Nunn's 1988 Othello that one can get distracted by the deja vu effect. Mendes' set is virtually identical to Nunn's; and the staging, characterizations and overall "look and feel" are highly reminiscent of Nunn's choices. The major difference is a telling one: Nunn's production was superior in every way. The best performance is Trevor Peacock's as Brabantio. All three leads are inadequate. David Harewood is an overly-young and lightweight Othello, barely credible as a General let alone the supreme commander of the Venetian army. Physically, Harewood is in decent shape, but his voice isn't up to the part. Claire Skinner is a stunning art-deco object with her blonde bangs, her slinky 30s dresses and her impossible kewpie-doll voice; but Nora Charles has never been my idea of Desdemona. (Nor, for that matter, has Betty Boop). Simon Russell Beale is a tiny, tubby, Teutonic-looking Iago, lacking only a spiked helmet to complete the total effect. He brings nothing new to the role, playing the ancient as a poisonous toad crouching within the familiar bluff and coarse-grained soldier. This latter approach has become almost scriptural; yet I think it quite wrong. In truth, Iago is an intellectual, a rigorously consistent nihilist committed to "deconstructing" the notions of love, honor, nobility, fidelity, loyalty and self-sacrifice by exposing them as pleasant fictions. Iago is the ultimate post-modernist. One day, I hope to see him played as such; but I'm not holding my breath. [3]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 19 Apr 1998 23:32:37 -0400 Subject: RNT Othello I, too, saw the RNT Othello at BAM last weekend, and find myself siding with those who found the production compelling. I think what Bill Cain and Shaul Bassi both found missing was a "reinterpretation" of the text to either alter the racial aspects or illuminate them differently. For me, the naturalistic, unaffected production brought out a clarity and simplicity of plot and characterization that we seldom see. Harewood, Simon Beale and the rest of the cast, presented characters who were far more human and believable than those found in more stylized productions. Othello, for example, was neither an exemplar of nobility nor an abused member of a minority group. And Iago was neither a virtuoso villain nor a lump of motiveless malignity. Simon Beale showed me a man tortured by jealousy and envy, who sets about destroying the source of both emotions, not because he can, but because he feels he should. I also disagree with Tanya Gough's finding fault with Harewood for not being as commanding a presence as she would prefer. The tragedy was more real and personal for me because the hero was not presented as a superman, but only a husband whose day job is army general and who, like most such men, is a competent leader.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0365 Saturday, 18 April 1998. From: Ben Schneider <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 17 Apr 1998 14:59:27 +0000 Subject: Jessica I think we should not resort to speculation about Jessica until we have exhausted the play's own resources. Bassiano's giving away Portia's ring to pay back "the lawyer" is an analog of Jessica's giving away Leah's ring to buy a monkey. The episodes have more in common than is at first evident. When Shylock took Leah's ring from his finger and put it in his strong box it immediately lost any sentimental patina it might have had and became cash. When Jessica spends at a rate of fourscore ducats per sitting, as if there were no tomorrow, she commits an act of magnificence. It is Shylock who takes thought for the morrow; he has no interest in today. Likewise, Bassanio flouts the sentimental significance of Portia's ring when he takes it off his finger and gives it to "the lawyer." He does it for his friend Antonio, who was ready to die for him, because Antonio is deeply indebted to "the lawyer" for having saved his life. Here we have an act of magnificence paralleling Jessica's, but on a heroic level, because the ring is the most valuable thing Bassanio owns, he having given an oath to protect it with his life. This way it becomes much more than cash, because it magnificently requites a friend, and the lawyer to whom the friend is very much obliged. Both rings represent contracts, and this fact takes us to the central argument between the Belmontese and Shylock, about whether you can own anything. Shylock says yes, and demands a pound of flesh for Antonio's breach of contract. The Belmontese say no, and make a joke out of Bassanio's breach of contract. Bassanio insists to Portia. "If you had been there I swear you would have given the ring to the worthy doctor," Of course she would have. For she understands perfectly the bind she put him in, and knows there was no other way out. By their treatment of contracts you may know them. Jessica's ring for a monkey is a little precursor of Bassanio's ring for a friend's life. Yours ever, Ben Schneider
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0364 Saturday, 18 April 1998. From: Laura Fargas <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 17 Apr 1998 13:57:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Shakespeare as Character/"These Our Revels" Two quick notes and one longer one: There is a late story by Borges called "Shakespeare's Memory" in this week's issue of the New Yorker. There is a novel called "Sphere" which has at least some passing scenes in Elizabethan England-I haven't seen it yet, just read a bit about it on the Amazon books website. I'm not positive Shakespeare appears as a character, but it sounded like it. And lastly, there is a novel called "Forever Knight: These Our Revels," by Anne Hathaway-Nayne, released on April 1 as a paperback original, in which Shakespeare, Burbage, Jonson, Pope, Condell, Will Sly, Ned Alleyn, and Philip Henslowe all appear as characters. This last I know about because, along with a friend, I wrote it. "Forever Knight" was a Canadian TV show about a vampire who is currently refusing to kill human beings because he wants to become mortal again and recover his soul and his salvation. The show's writers frequently poked fun at the pieties of the vampire genre. The lead role was played by a Stratford-trained actor, Geraint Wyn Davies, who had toured for six months as Hamlet immediately prior to taking the part. (My sister came to live with me when she graduated from college; in the following months, I became intimately acquainted with every science-fictiony thing then on television. I liked this one, I think because it played its story both straight and ironically in different episodes. I also thought I could see qualities the actor had brought from Hamlet into this character.) The novel is set in summer 1599 and February 1600, when we have assumed Shakespeare was beginning to write _Hamlet_. We have him finishing it and giving a private premiere at Lord Hunsdon's manse simply because we needed to have a performance at night so our vampire could be there. This gave our vampire (who, in the series, met nearly everyone in history, was on the Titanic, etc.) an opportunity to mix with Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Shakespeare meets Dracula <g>. We have Shakespeare coming to like him enough to lend him the "sugar'd sonnets circulating privately," and conversing with him a little about the issue of killing-which was amazingly close to home, since Ben Jonson himself bore the thumb-brand of having killed a man and successfully claimed benefit of clergy. At this period in his life, our vampire is only just beginning to grapple with the issue of not-killing. after about 350 years of being perfectly contented with what he was. (No, we do *not* have our vampire inspiring any part of Shakespeare's play.) This was also a wonderful opportunity to play with issues of masks, playing, gender roles, and whatnot. And with language-we wanted this book, like the series, to be full of humor. Jayel Wylie, my co-author, is a novelist who trained as a post-modernist, and who also has a background as a working actress. As I've said before, I'm a working poet (I studied with Stephen Greenblatt back in the dawn of time, and am trying to screw up my courage to send "Revels" to him <g>). The book was a lot of fun to write, and we even got paid for it -- a big thrill for me, since my royalties as a poet in any given year tend to be in the high two figures. We tried to be accurate-the only errors I remember us tolerating are the appearance of what sounds like a hired coach, a reference to the Golden Hind actually sitting in the water at Deptford (she was up on blocks), and a joke in a sailor's mouth about a wench having a "coppered bottom" (the Royal Navy didn't start coppering the bottoms of its ships until much later). Of course, our dating of bits of _Hamlet_ is purely conjectural, but we stuck to what was not impossible- we assumed performances in 1600, with a later revision adding "the little eyases" topical reference, for example. If any SHAKSPERians read it, we would be delighted to hear your opinion of it, good or ill. Laura Fargas
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0363 Saturday, 18 April 1998. [1] From: Patricia Cooke <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 18 Apr 1998 09:01:30 +1200 Subj: RNT Othello [2] From: Tanya Gough <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 18 Apr 1998 14:47:49 -0400 Subj: RNT Othello [3] From: Shaul Bassi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 19 Apr 1998 00:54:21 +0200 Subj: SHK 9.0360: OTHELLO at BAM [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Cooke <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 18 Apr 1998 09:01:30 +1200 Subject: RNT Othello We have just had the Royal National Theatre production of Othello here in Wellington and I am posting a copy of the open letter my organisation sent to the Director of RNT Trevor Nunn, in the light of general disappointment at the overall standard of audibility, in reply to David Levine and Bill Cain. I apologise for length. An open letter to the Directors of the Royal National Theatre and the production of Othello "Acting is the art of stopping people coughing" Anon Dear Trevor Nunn Your production of Othello at the recent International Festival of the Arts here in Wellington New Zealand was eagerly anticipated. Theatre is very popular in this city and Shakespeare's plays are always attractive especially among the young, who are actively involved in annual Shakespeare Festivals through their schools (and our Centre). The prestigious name of the Royal National Theatre was also a draw (although many people thought you were the RSC). Unfortunately, yes, it has to be said, the general overall response was one of great disappointment. This was because of the speed and inaudibility of the speech from the actors (except Trevor Peacock and Clifford Rose). This may have been as the production was originally directed for the Cottesloe which I know to be 300+/- seats and with a thrust stage. It was therefore a chamber performance which did not sit well in the large proscenium arch theatre here - and in other places, too, I guess. I know that time and money may have made it impossible for it to be restaged to suit the venues, but we felt a bit cheated. Surely the actors and stage manager could have taken the situation in hand themselves? Perhaps the actors had been playing for so long to audiences for whom English was a second (or third) language that they felt that distinguishable words were not worth bothering about. Perhaps you didn't know that we speak English here in New Zealand - well, sort of. Even the very best actor, Simon Russell Beale, appeared to be trying to break the world-speed record for Shakespeare, which meant that most people who did not know the play well were left behind - and cross about it. I felt that his performance as Iago made the whole thing worth seeing and many agreed with me, but there was always the added feeling that the rest should have been much, much better. The whole play was remote, staged upstage, much along the back wall and, with open spaces on each wing, the sound simply dissipated into thin air. I went twice, opening night in the gallery which is very hot and stuffy but where the acoustic is better, and on the last night in the front stalls where I could hear everything, but the weaknesses of the production (and, I hate to say, some of the cast too) were even more obvious. Even then some people in the stalls left at half time saying they could not hear. I know that in many cases this means that audiences do not listen and are not attuned to the fullness and eloquence of Elizabethan language, but surely it is the purpose of tours such as yours to change this attitude rather than confirm it. Many people go to the theatre only when something prestigious arrives and if they are disappointed by it, vow never to go to anything again, leaving the local theatres in an even more parlous state than they are already. For this you must take some responsibility. Yours in sorrow Patricia Cooke PS I was personally very distressed to hear the actors' comments about the new Globe Theatre at a forum at the NZ Drama School. They felt it was "a worthless experiment" and, I quote, "actors have nothing to learn from it". I beg to differ, having been to the Globe three times and been inspired as never before by the familiar play Henry V becoming so much a physical part of me and everyone else in that magical and acoustically perfect building. All actors can benefit from working there - if the Globe could use them." [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tanya Gough <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 18 Apr 1998 14:47:49 -0400 Subject: RNT Othello Funny, but what Bill Cain found understated to a fault, I found subtlety sinister and ultimately well conveyed. I found Iago's detachment more frightening for its chilliness (note the moment when Emilia claims an embrace as reward for stealing the handkerchief and is met with frozen repugnance), and I tended to see great versatility in a stark set - a set which used its beige tonality to function as a blank canvas on which scenes were painted. The addition of a wicker chair, an oriental rug and throw pillows evoked exotic luxury, slated panels doubled as windows or doors, a wooden table and canvas chairs were well suited the stringency of military activities. Cain objects to Othello's beauty - but surely his virility is part of the attraction he holds for Desdemona. I had rather more problems with his ability to carry the part: his entrance was masterful, commanding and resonated throughout the hall, but he soon lost that sense of center stage. I've always felt that Othello should be a man of unquestionable power, and Desdemona a woman of great passion (albeit naive and unaware of her own power). Also, I disagree with Cain's comments about racism: Iago's self loathing is primary, and all else grows from it. His disgust at Othello is matched by his disgust for Emilia, but I tend to think his involuntary retching came from within. Tanya Gough [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Shaul Bassi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 19 Apr 1998 00:54:21 +0200 Subject: OTHELLO at BAM Comment: SHK 9.0360: OTHELLO at BAM I agree with Bill Cain when he suggests that the RNT Othello reinforces racial stereotypes. I saw the production in London last summer and having worked extensively on the history of Othello's ethnicity I was literally shocked to see David Harewood (Othello) beating on his chest Tarzan-like after killing Desdemona. My impression is that the show succumbs to such stereotypes only because it tried to evade the racial issue, which, inevitably, has surfaced anyway. Whether one likes it or not, the racial issue is too much part of our zeitgeist (at least in the US and England, much less so in Italy where the most recent production was extremely, if undeliberately, racist) to efface it from any performance of Othello. Shaul Bassi (Venice, near the Sagittary)