March
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.0605 Tuesday, 28 March 2000. From: Florence Amit <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 28 Mar 2000 03:54:19 +0000 Subject: 11.0585 Re: Ophelia / O-phallos Comment: Re: SHK 11.0585 Re: Ophelia / O-phallos Dear Mr Hillyar-Russ, It is pleasant to me that someone believes in Shakespeare's Hebrew as I certainly do with a great deal more evidence than this little name that possibly could be put together by a devote Puritan who read the scriptures diligently. Shakespeare was capable of very much more, which I hope I will be allowed to tell you about (if the committee approves my essay). His participation in the KJ bible, I would not find hard to accept. However you make a mistaken assessment when you find it unusual that an element of God's name be included in a "Jewish" given name. I realize that there is a contradiction in this according to popular belief and so I will include some excerpts from the Encyclopedia Judaica to ease your mind about it. But the fact is that Hebrew names containing the 'ya' of the Tetragrammaton have continuously been in use. My daughter is named Yael which means Ya is God . The name is very common in Israel for her generation. Further, since the characters of the play are not Jewish why would they feel any uneasiness with this choice of Polonius? However I believe the Hebrew of Ophelia, like so many of Shakespeare's more vivid exemplars, is emblematic to his character rather than a surface on-stage item. My experience is that whenever there is an event or name that sticks in the mind, look for the Hebrew and it will be there. We are discussing a small element in a short name so though the 'OF' can belong to the phrase 'of- al -pee' (aleph peh" yod) which means 'never the less', often the al pee is left out and the meaning remains: 'although'. The L is a prefix meaning 'to'. It is not written as a separate word. It has long been considered evidence of Shakespeare's boorishness that Ben Jonson wrote he knew not much Greek or Latin. But I can say that Jonson might have been making a joke out of Shakespeare's prodigious learning in Hebrew. Florence Amit "The avoidance of pronouncing the name YHWH is generally ascribed to a sense of reverence. More precisely, it was caused by a misunderstanding of the Third Commandment (Ex. 20:7; Deut. 5:11) as meaning "Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain," whereas it really means "You shall not swear falsely by the name of YHWH your God" (JPS)". "The true pronunciation of the name YHWH was never lost. Several early Greek writers of the" Christian Church testify that the name was pronounced "Yahweh." This is confirmed, at least for the vowel of the first syllable of the name, by the shorter form Yah, which is sometimes used in poetry (e.g., Ex. 15:2) and the-yahu or-yah that serves as the final syllable in very many Hebrew names." "Shabbetai b. Meir ha-Kohen (first half 17th century) states emphatically that the prohibition of erasure of the divine name applies only to the names in Hebrew but not the vernacular (Siftei Kohen to Sh. Ar. YD 179:8; cf. Pithei Teshuvah to YD 276:9), and this is repeated as late as the 19th century by R. Akiva Eger (novellae, ad loc.). Jehiel Michael Epstein, however, in his Arukh ha-Shulhan (HM 27:3) inveighs vehemently against the practice of writing the Divine Name even in vernacular in correspondence, calling it an "exceedingly grave offense." As a result the custom has become widespread among extremely particular Jews not to write the word God or any other name of God, even in the vernacular, in full." Staff of the 1997 CD Rom "Encyclopedia Judaica"
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.0604 Tuesday, 28 March 2000. From: Sarah Boswell <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 28 Mar 2000 20:29:35 +1200 Subject: What is truth in theatre? "To experiment is to make a foray into the unknown - it is something that can be charted only after the event. The next few people mentioned have opened up the possibilities of theatre as an art and for each of them experiment has implied something very different. For Stanislavsky it meant the importance of the actor, whereas for Craig the actor was practically indispensable, the emphasis being upon the scenic possibilities of theatre. Meyerhold and Reinhardt stressed the importance of the director; Appia the use of light. Brecht, like his master, Piscator, was concerned to explore the didactic nature of the theatre. Artaud, like Stanislavsky, came to believe that theatre should reflect not the everyday reality of naturalism, but rather those intimations that are beyond the reach of words. Much that was foreseen by the early pioneers has come to be realized in the American modern dance, while the theatre of Alwin Nikolais represents in many ways a synthesis of Artaud's concept of a non-verbal theatre and Craig's idea of moving abstract masses. Finally, like Copeau, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook and Eugenio Barba have gone back to the essence of theatre, to the live relationship of actor and audience." - Experimental Theatre, James Roose-Evans My question to you all is whether you believe there is truth in theatre, what is it, where is it and what your opinion is on how to get it.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.0603 Tuesday, 28 March 2000. From: Douglas McQueen-Thomson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 28 Mar 2000 10:24:20 +1000 Subject: Measure for Measure in Melbourne As with Scott Crozier, I too was disappointed by the Melbourne Theatre Company's production of Measure for Measure. I agree that the production took a sledgehammer approach, but I would argue for a different underlying fault. I think that the production was made with the aim of making the play sexy and accessible. Instead, the result was crude titillation and a lack of a clear, coherent line on the play. The more complex verbal sexuality of the play was overwhelmed by crude stageing devices. I imagine that the Melbourne Theatre Company thought first of ways of making the play sexy, and then second about their interpretation. The first five minutes of the production were taken up with an enactment of the intercourse between Claudio and Juliet. The advertising poster image for the play is a naked female breast. The slogan used to sell the production is: 'A play that drips with sex and reeks of corruption'. The production was probably trying to attract an audience who enjoyed 'Shakespeare in Love' and Baz Luhrmann's R & J, and who want to see sexy, blunt, direct interpretations. I'm sure Richard Burt could elaborate much further on how these associations work. Cheers, Douglas McQueen-Thomson
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.0602 Tuesday, 28 March 2000. From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 27 Mar 2000 11:13:47 -0800 Subject: 11.0572 Re: Shakespeare and German Comment: Re: SHK 11.0572 Re: Shakespeare and German Florence Amit suggests: > Here we have Hamlet, even inclusive of Yorick's skull. But why Palatine? > It is because of the spread of Calvinism to the Lutheran territory of > the Palatinate. Hamlet, initially was Calvinistic in outlook. But why Hamlet? Couldn't it just as easily have been a description of Malvolio or Angelo, or any of the other so-called 'Puritan' characters in the plays? Cheers, Se
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.0601 Tuesday, 28 March 2000. [1] From: Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 27 Mar 2000 10:52:31 -0800 Subj: SHK 11.0578 Re: Titus Warning [2] From: John Ciccarelli <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 27 Mar 2000 17:09:42 -0500 Subj: Re: Titus Warning [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 27 Mar 2000 10:52:31 -0800 Subject: Re: Titus Warning Comment: SHK 11.0578 Re: Titus Warning Dale, I certainly did not mean to offend you, but I think that I did. Please accept my apology. That, however, does not make anything in the exploitation version of Titus Andronicus rise above excrement. It is truly awful, and not even entertainingly awful. It is worse than an Ed Wood movie. Really. There is no need to put you or your work in the same category as this production. Tell you what, if you do produce the play, and I'm in the neighborhood, however unlikely that is, I promise to attend. And while I am on the subject, I want to again recommend Alan Dessin's excellent book on the stage history of Titus Andronicus in the Manchester University Press Shakespeare in Performance series. I am only about half way through, and again putting it aside as the spring quarter begins today, but that half is worth the price. I am particularly impressed by the way Dessin identifies staging problems and how different director's overcome them, or are defeated by them. He also points to two basic approaches to staging the play, with symbols, streamers for blood, or realistically, blood for blood, and the effect these choices have. Those following the Taymor Titus thread will be interested as well. The book was written before the movie was made, yet I found several examples of stage productions solving performance problems in the way that Taymor later found to solve those same problems. The material is well organized and presented, and written in a very readable style. It is a good book. All the best, Mike Jensen [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Ciccarelli <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 27 Mar 2000 17:09:42 -0500 Subject: Re: Titus Warning Your assessment of the Titus movie maybe correct, but I, like Dale Lyles, take some offence to your community theater comment. A community theater is, "A theater" and is subject to same artistic standards as is a professional theater. If its good, its good. If its bad, its bad. The size of a playhouse's budget does not dictate its artistic worth. By that reasoning the most expensive play or movie ever produced is the best acted, directed, etc., piece of all time. And you're assessment of a professionally acted Titus movie proves my point. I have done several community theater Shakespeare shows that I have been extremely proud of and I don't discount their value simply because they weren't at the Delecourt or in D.C. Furthermore, I would pit my talents or any of my fellow actors against a graduate from the RADA or a regional Shakespeare festival any day of the week. We have simple sets, appropriate costumes. and a dedication to fully realizing the material and giving an audience the best show possible. Sort of like another theater group that started out entertaining its own community, known as The Chamberlain's Men.