The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0902 Sunday, 27 September 1998.
[1] From: Justin Bacon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 17 Sep 1998 07:07:42 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 9.0820 Re: Globe Merchant
[2] From: Justin Bacon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 17 Sep 1998 07:17:07 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 9.0837 Re: Globe Merchant
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Justin Bacon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 17 Sep 1998 07:07:42 -0700
Subject: 9.0820 Re: Globe Merchant
Comment: Re: SHK 9.0820 Re: Globe Merchant
> Exactly. For several years the Globe's has had spokespersons telling
> people to come and cheer or hiss during the performance. The binary
> responses to H5 were bad enough, but in MV this treatment clearly rides
> roughshod over the subtlety of the thing.
I would, personally, have no problem if the groundling audiences
naturally assumed the role they have assumed over the past two
seasons-but the fact that they are literally pushed into it depresses
me. Could not Rylance and crew have allowed their audience to find their
*own* voice in the relative freedom of the Globe instead of encouraging
this half-cocked, second-rate roleplaying?
Elizabethan audiences behaved like themselves. They were not coached.
Justin Bacon
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[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Justin Bacon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 17 Sep 1998 07:17:07 -0700
Subject: 9.0837 Re: Globe Merchant
Comment: Re: SHK 9.0837 Re: Globe Merchant
> Portraying Shylock as a "stage Jew" is like saying Shakespeare is just
> another playwright. The people who come off as monsters in the play are
> the Christians, those kind, generous people who spit on other people,
> and encourage daughters to disobey their fathers. Sure, boo Shylock, if
> you can do it without feeling queasy, if you can do it without seeing
> yourself as one of the people doing the spitting.
A slight point of order: Remember that Shakespeare felt that daughters
disobeying fathers in the name of love was a *good* thing. (Hermia in
MND, Cordelia in Lear, Desdemona in Othello, and even Ophelia in
Hamlet.)
Of course the way it is done in MoV is reprehensible. Like so many other
things in Shakespeare, this possesses a double edge.
Justin Bacon
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