February
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0283. Thursday, 27 February 1997. [1] From: Pevez Rizvi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 97 14:55:56 GMT Subj: Facsimiles [2] From: Michelle Walker <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 12:21:11 CST Subj: Desdemona's Guilt [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pevez Rizvi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 97 14:55:56 GMT Subject: Facsimiles I recently bought a paperback modern-type facsimile of the 1622 quarto of Othello. [Someone asked about this a while ago. It is published by Prentice-Hall as part of a current series called Shakespearean Originals: First Editions. Their aim is to print the first edition of all plays in the canon, whether from a quarto or the Folio. They've printed Q1 Hamlet, Q1 Henry V etc.] I'd like to be able to buy a facsimile of the Folio. The Norton costs 100 pounds here in England and I imagine there are many like me who can't justify the expense. A fellow Shakespeare enthusiast on the internet has informed me of another facsimile published by Applause (New York, 1995), editor Doug Moston. My local bookshop has tried lots of computer searches and phone calls and are confident that it is not available in the UK. They say that the cost of importing a single copy for me from the States would be over 50 pounds. Can any list members help me with the following questions? * Is this Applause facsimile a good one? Is it 'diplomatic' or photographic? Is it edited in any way? * Is there an outlet in the UK which can supply a copy at a reasonable price? * Are there any other facsimiles of F which are priced for the pockets of private individuals rather than university libraries? [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michelle Walker <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 12:21:11 CST Subject: Desdemona's Guilt I have a question that no one has seemed to be able to answer, or that I haven't found the right sources. At the end of "Othello" Desdemona accepts her death at Othello's hands and I want to know why. I have been searching our feeble library for possibilities and they are few and far between. Does anyone know where I should look/ How about some feedback? My argument is that Desdemona seems to be an independent woman who would not take any sh@t from a man, regardless of how much she loves him. Thanks for any suggestions, Michelle Walker
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0282. Thursday, 27 February 1997. From: Ron Dwelle <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 09:32:41 -0500 Subject: Shakespeare on the Great Lakes This may be of interest to someone on the list: I happened to be reading the 1840 journal of Charles W. Penny, written during his expedition from the outpost of Detroit into the wilderness of Lake Superior. (The journal was published in 1970, under the title _North to Lake Superior_). Penny was apparently a "young gentleman" and proto-entrepreneur who accompanied some geologist friends (led by Douglass Houghton) while they surveyed the shores of Lake Superior, seeking copper and iron deposits. They traveled by small boat, propelled by voyageur-type paddlers (he refers to them affectionately and admiringly as "our sea dogs"). Early in the journal, he reports on a typical sabbath day of rest: "We read the Bible I dare say much more than we would have done had we been in Detroit. Shakespeare was duly honored, as he is every day when we travel. When on the water, some one of the party usually reads his plays to the others." Throughout the journal, he frequently alludes to Shakespeare, often quoting or paraphrasing. For example: "Night before last we caught three whitefish and one trout; last night two large whitefish. One can never get tired of them in this latitude. The meat is so fine, hard, and white, and so sweet, that all other fish seem 'flat, stale and unprofitable' when compared to them." The familiarity with Shakespeare was interesting, particularly because Penny was not college educated (he began his first business in Detroit at the age of 19) and the whole company was made up of geologists, draftsmen, and other technical types.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0281. Thursday, 27 February 1997. [1] From: Sean K. Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 25 Feb 1997 09:29:30 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 8.0277 Dover Cliffs [2] From: Jung Jimmy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 14:43 -0500 Subj: Rosalind & Celia [3] From: Adrian Kiernander <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 27 Feb 1997 21:21:20 +1100 (EST) Subj: Re: MND [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean K. Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 25 Feb 1997 09:29:30 -0800 Subject: 8.0277 Dover Cliffs Comment: Re: SHK 8.0277 Dover Cliffs Derek writes: > Myself, I'm not too hopeful about any of the participants' "faith in the > heavens" at the end of the play. "All's cheerless, dark and deadly." I'd be a little more upbeat, perhaps, in remembering that judgement and sin are, theologically, demonstrations of the absolute difference between God and man, and that such a distinction is the necessary underpinning to redemption. The structure of Romans points in this direction, first exploring the sins of both Gentiles and Jews, before expanding on grace. Similarly, the Edwardian homilies start with talks about our sinfulness, before moving on to our being forgiven. Cheers, Sean [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jung Jimmy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 14:43 -0500 Subject: Rosalind & Celia First I was curious, now I'm just confused. Peter D. Holland, is correct in noting that it is not R&C who suggest the homoeroticism, but the other characters talking about them. In fact, once the production had opened the topic, there was at least one occasion where I was surprised they did not allow the cousins to follow through on the suggestion. Act 1, scene 3: CELIA No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one: Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl? Having pondered the various responses, I'm beginning to think that if your gonna use the homoerotic angle, it might be more interesting to see the homoerotic stuff emphasized between the cousins, then you get a sense of loss and transition as love changes. However, I still think it is very odd that the daughter of a banished duke should remain in the court, or that the daughter and heir of a sitting duke should leave the court and follow her cousin into banishment. I believe the intimacy between C&R is described repeatedly to justify both these circumstances and here, in the 1990's, it does have the fortunate benefit of hinting at the gender and sexual confusion in the forest. (Which may answer William Schmidt's question about where the homoerotic suggestion disappears to in the second act. It's played out between Orlando and Galymede, Rosalind and Phebe) As has been suggested, we are talking about a particular production, a production that not everyone has seen; so I should also point out that Le Beau gives Orlando a serious kiss, just after warning him about the Duke's temper. This physical homoeroticism seemed less awkward than the vague hints of homoeroticism stemming from the lines we've been discussing. In part, I took Le Beau as the stereotypical fop (e.g., Osric). He is also part of a very decadent court, cocaine, torture, bimbos, even to some degree the gladiatorial nature of the wrestling. Orlando is surprised by the kiss and nicely set up for Ganymede's odd proposal to be his Rosalind. I'm not familiar with Eve Sedgwick's useful distinction between homosocial and homosexual (or for that matter the distinction between homosocial, heterosocial and social); but I do think it makes a difference if Ros and Celia had a homosexual or homosocial bond. Doesn't it change the context of Ros's becoming a man to woo Orlando if she is homosexual? (perhaps I'm reading too far beyond the text. I'm sure Hawkes will be along shortly to ask if and of Lady Macbeth's children were gay?) jimmy PS: My real surprise, in this production, is still the bloody nature of Duke Frederick's court, especially as portrayed while he is torturing a few folks. Has anyone seen him that mean before? PPS: Peter Holland, did you really come from <cam.ac.uk> to see a show in DC? High praise indeed. [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adrian Kiernander <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 27 Feb 1997 21:21:20 +1100 (EST) Subject: Re: MND I can't see why Dale Lyles is worried by the possible disjunction between a C20 visual style-the mean streets-for sets, costumes etc, and Shakespeare's language. I would have thought that all of us would be thoroughly used to this convention (even though some people might not like it). Surely we've all seen plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries performed in periods dating from several centuries BCE to some time in a science fiction future, not excluding the present day. One example that springs to my mind is Michael Bogdanov's English Shakespeare Company cycle of the history plays, especially _Henry V_ with the English army setting off to the Faulklands War. I think it's ceased even occurring to me as a problem when I see a play in such a setting. I'm always curious to know, incidentally, what the opponents of updating and other directorial "interventions" in these plays feel about seeing productions of, say, _Julius Caesar_ set in the Roman period, and having the characters wearing togas while still speaking Elizabethan English. I assume the defenders of "authentic" Shakespeare are only happy seeing the plays performed in the reconstructed Globe in London in Elizabethan costume, and ideally with an audience of Renaissance English persons with all their various attitudes, beliefs, local knowledges, etc. intact. Or perhaps they prefer the plays in the safety of their studies. Would Mark Mann care to comment on this? As for swapping Oberon and Titania, it's been done. (Hasn't everything?) Some students at the University of Queensland a few years back did a (substantially rewritten and very clever) disco version called _Midsummer Night Fever_, set in a nightclub, which is another possible C20 inflexion of the woods. The Oberon and Titania figures were the proprietors of the nightclub, and it was the male figure who was bewitched in the way Titania is in _MND_. And I've heard of a fairly recent production in California (Santa Cruz? I can't remember but someone on SHAKSPER is bound to know) where the actors playing Theseus and Hippolyta doubled, as they often do, the roles of Oberon and Titania, but chiasmatically, so that the male actor playing Theseus then played Titania, and the female actor playing Hippolyta played Oberon. Maybe someone who saw it can give more details about how it worked. But I would challenge the idea that Dale's suggested transposition of the roles, where Oberon falls in love with Bottom, would work as comedy *"in the same way"*. It would be a quite different play working in quite different ways, but possibly still in the service of patriarchal dominance, changing everything and nothing. Audiences might well find it funny, but patriarchal comedy has never hesitated to ridicule any man (especially a king of the fairies) who allows himself to be topped (Mark Mann again!) by women. Isn't this what the charivari was largely about? Patriarchal comedy doesn't require Titania to be the victim; it's far more subtle and complex in its workings to be limited to such a simple response. I'm also disturbed by the dismissal (if that's what it was) of the issue of the maltreatment of women as merely part of a comic aesthetic of cruelty. That's why I drew attention to Louis Montrose's very sophisticated argument in the first place, even though I've simplified it horribly for the purposes of this discussion. Mea culpa. Montrose's point, I think, is that this is not merely comic cruelty but a highly politicised reaction provoked by male anxiety about female power. Adrian Kiernander
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0280. Thursday, 27 February 1997. [1] From: Nancy N. Doherty <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 10:27:30 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 8.0253 Q: Macbeth Apparitions [2] From: Billy Houck <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 16:35:43 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 8.0253 Q: Macbeth Apparitions [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nancy N. Doherty <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 10:27:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: 8.0253 Q: Macbeth Apparitions Comment: Re: SHK 8.0253 Q: Macbeth Apparitions I directed a production 2 years ago, outdoors, tight budget. I suggest that given the circumstances of the supernatural[?], witches, Banquo's ghost, etc. that the idea of the apparitions be viewed in context as a whole - taking in the fact that any availability of lighting effects are nill. Because the play is short, a black out by intermission was impossible. Effects for the cauldron scene were difficult. Our set, costumes, were bases on Waite's Tarot deck - a house of cards so to speak. Our stage is typical of out door structures - a deck, two side platforms of a central one. Under the central platform were three rotating panels that could be positioned according to the scenes. For that particular scene we covered the back of each panel [4x8] with silver mylar so that light and image would reflect. Armed head was Macduff, bloody baby became bloody Duncan carrying two swaddlings in his arms, crowned child was Fleance each turned in sequence. When the witches say "Show, show, show" each turned back on their panels with a full revolve to reveal Banquo holding a mirrored reflecting ball [garden gazing variety]. His position was reflected off all three panel, light bounced everywhere - hence the line of kings. This solution allowed for easy entrances and exits and voice over with dubbing provided voices. On the women in Shakespeare note - my Lady was also played pregnant and showing. It allowed us to emphasize her resolve, gave a twist to "bring forth", turned her faint into a miscarriage, and added meaning to "barren septre" and "he has no children". We aslo played it in the sleepwalking scene where she cradled it singing "Thane of Fife".... Your friend may contact me directly at my e-mail address. Hope this may help. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Billy Houck <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 16:35:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: 8.0253 Q: Macbeth Apparitions Comment: Re: SHK 8.0253 Q: Macbeth Apparitions When I directed Macbeth 2 summers ago, I was able to borrow a video projector. We just made a movie of each of the apparitions, as well as Banquo and that floating dagger, and projected them right onto someone's shirt or a handy tapestry. When Macbeth was sick of seeing Banquo and screams "No more enough!", he tore down the tapestry. Billy Houck Eagle Theatre I've also seen outdoor productions where the "visions" were all in the "cauldron" and Macbeth practically had his whole head down inside the thing. If you can act it, it works.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0279. Thursday, 27 February 1997. [1] From: Jonathan Hope <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 14:28:38 +0000 (GMT) Subj: Re: SHK 8.0276 Q: *Cardenio* [2] From: Patrick Gillespie <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 10:30:29 -0500 Subj: RE: SHK 8.0276 Q: *Cardenio* [3] From: John Robinson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 19:03:32 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 8.0276 Q: *Cardenio* [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jonathan Hope <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 14:28:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 8.0276 Q: *Cardenio* Comment: Re: SHK 8.0276 Q: *Cardenio* > Is *Cardenio* *The Second Mayden's Tragedy*, as Charles Hamilton said? No. > Does E. Sams agree with Hamilton on this point? I can't speak officially for Eric, but in private communication he's been quite open to Hamilton's idea - I'd say more because the idea seems so outrageous, rather than because he thinks it is likely > Has anyone suggested anything besides SMT (Don't tell me about > <italic>Double Falsehood<italic>)? If not, we'll have to stick with > Hamilton's theory, crazy as it may sound. Sorry to puff myself for the second time in two weeks, and to mention the DF play, but on pages 89-100 of *The Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays* I give evidence that shows that *DF* doesn't look linguistically like Theobald's other plays, and is consistent with it being an adaptation of a text which contained two divergent idiolects - one looking like Shakespeare's, the other looking like Fletcher's. So if you're one of those boring people who likes to take evidence into account before coming to conclusions, *DF* stays in the frame as about as good a candidate for Cardenio as we have. Jonathan Hope Middlesex University [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patrick Gillespie <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 10:30:29 -0500 Subject: 8.0276 Q: *Cardenio* Comment: RE: SHK 8.0276 Q: *Cardenio* There have been some recent biographies on Shakespeare (Shakespeare: The Facts perhaps?) that have dismissed, though only summarily, Hamilton's argument, assigning the play to Middleton. There has been disagreement concerning Hamilton's handwriting analysis, although I personally, albeit being ignorant in the science, find his case convincing for claiming Q wrote the play out. This is not to say that he "wrote" it. Again, most responses to this play assign the play to Middleton. I believe the author of Shakespeare: The Facts, argues against Cardenio as SMT but does not offer an alternative. [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Robinson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Feb 1997 19:03:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: 8.0276 Q: *Cardenio* Comment: Re: SHK 8.0276 Q: *Cardenio* Nice try. But just because no one has a better theory does not mean we have to accept a crazy one. It seems to me that Mr Hamilton has made other questionable statements in the past. I believe he has written that all of Shakespeare's will is in Shakespeare's hand; I also believe he contends that Shakespeare ghost wrote all-are most of-Sir Francis Bacon's works. He is not a reliable source of info. But sure, he might be right-it's just not likely. John Robinson