The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0284 Wednesday, 5 April 2006
From: David Evett <
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Date: Tuesday, 4 Apr 2006 15:57:11 -0400
Subject: 17.0275 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0275 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
A word of defense for three, at least, of the plays on Jack Heller's
list of sub-standard Shakespeares. *Err*, *AWW*, and *Cym* have all
afforded me satisfaction in the theater and in the study, too.
*Err* offers fine opportunities for lively spectacle at beginning and
end and much amusing confusion in the middle. The framing story of
Aegeon puts the Plautine confusions of the twins in a thought-provoking
framework that also introduces the concentration on the family, for good
and for ill, which remains such a powerful and productive concern
throughout the canon, which cannot be matched in any of his
contemporaries, and which does much, I think, to account for the
continuing appeal of the oeuvre over the centuries and around the globe.
Together with the doubling of the twins and the introduction of Luciana
it illustrates an attention to and control over dramatic structure that
already seems to me to represent a substantial advance beyond the linear
parataxis of Marlowe, Peele, Greene, et al. And in the two women I think
we can see the beginnings of Shakespeare's mature treatment of human
character.
I, too, thought *Cym* ungainly until I saw two good productions of it,
Robin Phillips' at the Stratford Festival, and Adrian Noble's for the
RSC, which I saw at the Kennedy Center in Washington. It benefits from
judicious cutting, especially in that long final scene, but performers
and designers who can respond to its slightly loopy romanticism can find
a lot to work with. Nothing else in Jacobean non-Shakespearean
tragicomedy is so much sheer imaginative fun.
I'm in the middle of being dramaturg to a first-class professional
production of *AWW* and daily hearing a director and actors with
extensive experience enthuse over the elegance of the structure, the
vitality of the language, and the richness of the characters. We've been
particularly struck by the resonance between the courtship of Helena and
Bertram and that between Lafew and Parolles. It has suffered more from
what I might call historical vicissitude than many other plays. The
combination of socially aggressive heroine and bed-trick put the play
off-limits for Victorians. The uncertainties about the text (though the
two major cruces can be solved theatrically in acceptably tidy ways) put
off modernist editors and the other scholars and producers who followed
them. Helena's readiness to sacrifice herself for Bertram, and the
patriarchal authority of the King, offend post-moderns. We are finding
effective ways to work through and around these problems, however, and
are persuaded that it will delight and move our audiences. Those of you
in reach of Boston should see our website:
http://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/
David Evett
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