March
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 24.0130 Monday, 25 March 2013
From: John Crowley <
Date: March 23, 2013 5:27:27 PM EDT
Subject: Colley Cibber/ Richard III
Al Magary asks if modern productions use the Colley Cibber additions that became standard in older productions. Laurence Olivier’s film does use the “Off with his head” line, though I don’t know if it uses others (it does incorporate lines and bits of scenes from the Henry VI plays).
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 24.0129 Monday, 25 March 2013
From: Jack Heller <
Date: March 24, 2013 10:27:42 AM EDT
Subject: Measure for Measure at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre
Colleagues,
The Oxford editors have laid out a case for identifying Thomas Middleton as having put the text of Measure for Measure into its current commonly-known state as we got it from the 1623 folio. The argument seems plausible if occasionally overstated.
As stage by the Goodman Theatre, Measure for Measure keeps comparable company with Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Michaelmas Term, and A Mad World, My Masters. The curtain rises on the Duke rising, disgusted with himself, from bed with Kate Keepdown, tucking his payment into her panties. The primary reason Vienna/New York has gotten out of control is that he enjoyed the anarchy for a while.
So he brings in Angelo, and I have finally seen the Angelo performance I’ve long thought could be done—not that he is joking, but that he is the joke, Angelo channels the Dabney Coleman character who was the butt of the vengeance in the comedy movie 9 to 5. His self-denial of sexual desire gets its comeuppance in every sense. Yet, again with a Middletonian sensibility more than a Shakespearean, his violation of Isabella degenerates into attempted rape. As another reviewer has noted, that certainly gives her refusal to put out on Claudio’s behalf a greater psychological basis.
I liked all of the above about the production, and the set design putting the play into the 1970s Times Square.
But.
What I have to say next gives a spoiler, and if you are planning to see the play, please quit reading now. Seriously, go no further.
Everyone knows the problem with how to end the play, whether to have Isabella accept the Duke’s proposal, and if so, gladly, reluctantly, or with great objection, or to reject the proposal outright, or, as I’ve seen done recently, to perform the scene as if Isabella simply did not hear what the Duke has proposed. The Goodman production has Isabella giving the Duke a “Hell, no!” look.
And then Barnadine kills her, the Duke with a silent scream cradles her dying, and the curtain drops, all in the play’s last five seconds.
That is neither Shakespearean, nor Middletonian, and it’s the damnednest ending to a Shakespearean play I’ve ever seen. Everything I liked about the production undercut by that conclusion.
I don’t think this play should end with a killing, but I’ve started thinking that if a killing is going to end this play, why not the Duke himself, then? But has this been done before?
I can’t recommend it.
Jack Heller
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 24.0128 Saturday, 23 March 2013
From: Mari Bonomi <
Date: March 22, 2013 3:13:04 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Rom. Quit
Tiffany Moore disagrees with Larry Weiss’ suggestion that Romeo means “acquit”—to discharge, as a debt.
The line, again: “be trusty, and I’ll quit thy pains:”
It can be “requite,” certainly, but it equally can be “be trustworthy, and I shall acquit my debt to you for your efforts.”
Hence, in terms of what Romeo is saying, either pronunciation would serve. Looking at the entire speech offers two clues, based on which assonance Shakespeare was trying to achieve:
And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:
Within this hour my man shall be with thee
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;
Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains:
Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.
Is it “secret night/....quite thy.../...thy”?
Or is it “Which..../...quit.../...mistress”?
Mari Bonomi
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 24.0127 Saturday, 23 March 2013
[1] From: John Drakakis <
Date: March 22, 2013 5:04:58 PM EDT
Subject: RE: SHAKSPER: More Hand
[2] From: Gerald E. Downs <
Date: March 23, 2013 1:40:01 AM EDT
Subject: Hands B and D STM
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Drakakis <
Date: March 22, 2013 5:04:58 PM EDT
Subject: RE: SHAKSPER: More Hand
The thought had also occurred to me too. Would it not be more appropriate for postings of this kind to be undertaken privately as part of a personal conversation? Or better still, Gerald Downs might like to try submitting his arguments to an appropriate journal. While I would not be inclined to support the rigid word-limit for postings that Duncan Salkeld has suggested, I do think that those that are the length of journal articles should not be acceptable, and that some self-restraint should be exercised.
Round table exchanges allow for more extensive arguments to be mounted, and in the past they have proved very successful, largely because they have usually been very carefully focused. I’m all for allowing Gerald Downs to get rid of a bee in his bonnet from time to time, but that is a different matter from our all being subjected to a bonnet of haranguing bees any one of which could double as an overloaded packhorse.
Cheers
John Drakakis
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gerald E. Downs <
Date: March 23, 2013 1:40:01 AM EDT
Subject: Hands B and D STM
Duncan Salkeld advises:
> If Gerald E. Downs kept to 500 words or less,
> I might read his posts. His latest clocks in at over 3,700.
I wasn’t counting. My posts are generally long because much is unsaid elsewhere, or so I gather. As a slow reader writing to pros I assume a few more pages may not intrude too much on their time.
Now and then I’m pleasantly surprised to learn of some who read my postings through. Even though I try to write about topics important to Shakespeare studies, I suspect most members are like Roy Clark’s money—not even slowing down when getting to me.
> He should try Twitter.
Not in this lifetime.
> I propose a 500 word or less rule per posting.
Someone will hate my pieces to pieces in any case but at 500 words a pop this one would have taken only 8 emails to keep to the rule. Is that more or less not to read?
Gerald E. Downs
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 24.0126 Saturday, 23 March 2013
From: Harry Keyishian <
Date: March 23, 2013 11:23:17 AM EDT
Subject: New Book Series: Shakespeare and the Stage
New Book Series: Shakespeare and the Stage
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press has established a new Series on Shakespeare and the Stage, devoted to the publication of scholarly works on the theatrical dimensions of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Both individual studies and collections of previously unpublished essays are welcome.
The Series Editors are Peter Kanelos, Valparaiso University (
Shakespeare and the Stage works across the boundaries that have traditionally structured academic accounts of Shakespeare and performance. The series features both praxis-oriented and theoretical approaches to early modern drama in performance, and the editors encourage submissions treating the broad arc and legacy of Shakespeare, the critical reception of Shakespearean productions, and the afterlife of Shakespeare in the theater. The editors are soliciting proposals and manuscripts in the following areas:
- Early Modern theatrical practice
- Shakespearean performance history
- Shakespearean adaptations and appropriations
- Stage-centered Shakespearean criticism
The first volume in the series, to appear in 2013, is Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Colleagues, edited by Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kathryn R. McPherson, and Sarah Enloe.
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, with editorial offices in Madison, New Jersey, is a co-publishing partner of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Lanham, MD. For further information, contact the press Director, Harry Keyishian, at