August
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.1633 Monday, 18 August 2003 From: Graham Hall <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 17 Aug 2003 16:26:46 +0000 Subject: Fireworks and Fretting R&J done this year at Cambridge had an illumination-burst rocket that raced into the starry sky at the end of the final Chorus bringing a cascade of iridescence and a round of applause. A nifty idea given F1's TLN 1665-66 (Happily, suicides were confined to the play as far as we could tell.) Moreover, a frisson ran through certain elements of the audience during Shrew when Hortensio gave a variety of four- bar caterwauling and lute playing at III.i. There being some one hundred of the English National Youth Orchestra in the audience, close questioning revealed that he had been giving the opening bars of a number of the current "Top of the Pops". Such memorable instances give example of the transience of theatrical realisation of Shakespeare. (For Japanese readers) there is an Oxford Shrew heading towards your islands. See it. Best, Graham Hall _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.1632 Monday, 18 August 2003 From: Graham Hall <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 17 Aug 2003 16:03:36 +0000 Subject: Read the Secrets In't It being the fashion of late on SHAKSPER to plug one's published matter, may I recommend something wot I didn't write but came upon when (st)rolling between pubs at the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival.? About forty essays over 700 pages - some by the usual suspects who scribble to SHAKSPER - covering large areas of Shakespeare studies within a very readable consolidating primer. Cheap at nineteen pounds in real money I thought. For those unaware; "Shakespeare: Oxford Guide" ed. Wells and Orlin, OUP 2002. Best, Graham Hall. [Editor's Note: Coincidentally, I began reading the /The Oxford Guide/ last week and second Graham Hall's endorsement. -Hardy] _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.1631 Monday, 18 August 2003 From: Charles Weinstein <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 17 Aug 2003 09:07:52 -0400 Subject: Thirteenth Night Twelfth Night, directed by Tim Supple. With Parminder Nagra (Viola) Ronny Jhuti (Sebastian) Chiwetel Ejiofor (Orsino) Claire Price (Olivia) Michael Maloney (Malvolio) David Troughton (Toby Belch) Richard Bremmer (Andrew Aguecheek) and Zubin Varla (Feste) Televised Shakespeare has become rare; cinematic Shakespeare is getting rarer. Not rare enough, however: witness this film version of Twelfth Night, recently telecast on Britain's Channel 4. The performances are dull; the direction shows alarming symptoms of advanced Luhrmanism; and many of the creative choices, both large (a modern setting) and small (Orsino in his bath chatting with an embarrassed/excited Viola) have been seen before. Malvolio is strangely depicted as a mild, harmless fellow who fails to live up to his name. With equal perversity, Toby and Andrew are mordantly vicious thugs neither funny in themselves nor the cause that comedy is in others. Throw in a stolid, charmless Viola and a series of shabby exteriors and stagy interiors, and the production sinks faster than a Messaline schooner. This joyless and underbudgeted eyesore deserves the oblivion which will engulf it, but it does offer several points for further consideration. 1. The casting is not only multicultural but schematic. Orsino and his court are African; Olivia and her household are British-Celtic; Viola, Sebastian and Feste are Indian. The effect is that of a Subcontinental contingent shuttling back and forth between Albion and Zimbabwe. One can have an interesting time trying to figure out why this is a valid correlative for Shakespeare's play. By the way, the film retains Viola's wonderful line about concealment feeding upon her sister's--that is, upon her own--"damask cheek." As played by Parminder Nagra in close up, the moment is absurd. 2. The text has been cut by at least half. Gone are the scenes between Malvolio and Viola, Maria and Feste, Feste and Orsino; and all that remains has a sketchy, hurried feel. This relatively brief and very beautiful play is not brief enough for director Tim Supple: he has hacked it to pieces, making it considerably less beautiful. But why be surprised? Shakespearean films usually cut a great deal, far more than theatrical productions do. Cinema is a word-hostile medium, reducing everything to imagery or spectacle, using only enough shreds of dialogue to make the pictures intelligible. Kozintsev's celebrated Hamlet ran 2 hours and 20 minutes, and great chunks of it were wordless. It clearly retained less than half of the original: when the DVD is released we will discover that the proportions are even worse than those for Tim Supple's Twelfth Night. Tell me: How much of Shakespeare's text may a film excise before it ceases to be a valid production of the play? It's a question that Professors of English Literature should be particularly interested in asking. --Charles Weinstein _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.1630 Monday, 18 August 2003 From: Bob Summers <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 17 Aug 2003 09:03:00 -0400 Subject: Website Changes The award winning website "Mr. Shakespeare and the Internet" (http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/) has recently made several revisions. Bob Summers _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.1629 Monday, 18 August 2003 From: Roger Gross <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 16 Aug 2003 16:24:33 -0500 Subject: Titus This appeared on the "plays and playwrights" list: "Timon is too often played as an old man, which is one of the reasons so many people think the play doesn't work. Timon makes sense only if he is a young man, perhaps 10 years older than Romeo & Juliet, both in my opinion, and the opinion of just about any expert who likes the play." Is this true? The bit about the experts? Roger Gross U. of Arkansas _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.