June
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1359 Monday, 4 June 2001 From: Andrew W. White <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 4 Jun 2001 11:44:45 -0400 Subject: Beale's Hamlet Having just come back from New York City, and the BAM, I imagine a few of us can now begin to talk about the National Theatre production of Hamlet with a bit more objectivity than either the NY Times critic (who gushed exceedingly) and certain list-members here who obviously have issues with obesity. My first observation is that once, just once, I wish Times critics were forced to sit in the upper balcony where I was: all that wonderful stuff Ben Brantley saw is virtually invisible when you're up in the 'gods.' What makes huge waves in Orchestra, row B hardly manages a ripple in Balcony, row C (where I was). Ironically, (Dr. Weinstein, are you reading this?) Beale's much-ballyhooed girth was unnoticeable from where I sat; and aside from his self-deprecating pat of the belly on 'forgone all custom of exercise' he really didn't seem all that big. Having seen other quiet, humane Hamlets (Tom Hulce did so with the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. some years ago), I didn't find Beale as revelatory as others did. But he has tremendous talent, and was clearly in charge of the role from start to finish. The supporting cast, aside from Peter Blythe (the funniest damned Polonius and one of the most inventive Gravediggers I've ever seen) were OK but they were clearly not interested in outshining their star. What annoyed me about his Hamlet, frankly, was what annoys me about practically every other Hamlet I have ever seen. Aside from the staging (boxes, stacked and re-stacked for each scene) and the ubiquity of Gregorian Chant (even the Gravedigger sings an Easter hymn), there was almost nothing new in John Caird's vision of the play. This lack of creative thinking may satisfy most members of the audience, who are conditioned to the old, Goethe-inflected Dane ("Melancholy means depressed"), but it left me cold. Because my high level of annoyance with the RNT production is due to my own personal understanding of the role (I've played it myself), it would be inappropriate for me to whine about it here. The audience Saturday night at BAM was for the most part spellbound, and that is what should be put on record, not my own nit-picky complaints. Andy White Arlington, VA _______________________________________________________________ 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 Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1358 Monday, 4 June 2001 From: H. R. Greenberg <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 3 Jun 2001 22:26:17 EDT Subject: Disappointing Hamlet Saw yesterday at Brooklyn Academy of Music the much vaunted Hamlet and was quite disappointed. Earlier production by Peter Brook much more intriguing in overall conception. Supporting cast good to poor, Claudius unimaginative, Polonius not bad, Hamlet OK, but for a 'thoughtful, thinking through the moment' Hamlet, I will take Derek Jacobi of several decades back and Kenneth Branagh recently. Overall, no subliminity, no awe, little pity, and as recently been the fashion, no Fortinbras, no explanation for the warlike preparation, and no '...quarrel in a straw...' soliloquy. Ending had a bit of that ineluctable sublime, but all in all, tepid stuff, making one wonder if all the promises of greatness were in aid of emptying our pocketbooks. Should be interested in other opinions, altho I believe several who have seen the production here have felt it missed the mark. Harvey Roy Greenberg, MD _______________________________________________________________ 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 Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1357 Monday, 4 June 2001 From: Adrian Kiernander <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 04 Jun 2001 12:01:05 +1000 Subject: 12.1314 Re: Othello and Emilia Comment: Re: SHK 12.1314 Re: Othello and Emilia Peter Hadorn writes: >The more interesting one occurs in 4.2 when Othello says this about >Emilia: "This is a subtle whore,/ A closet lock and key of villainous >secrets,/ And yet she'll kneel and pray--I ha' seen her do't" (22-24). >When, I ask my class, has Othello been in a position to see Emilia keep >"villainous secrets"? If Fortinbras's "his" can, with a simple gesture, refer to the dead Claudius, then Othello's "This is a subtle whore" can refer not to Emilia, who has just left the stage, but to the character who is now entering, Desdemona. I am remembering a production where Desdemona entered at that point and immediately knelt to Othello on "What is your pleasure?", thus reinforcing his suspicions. (It also made his following action on "Let me see your eyes: look in my face" physically bigger and much more threatening and disturbing. Towering over her, he grabbed her head and twisted it upward so that he could look down into her eyes.) Adrian Kiernander _______________________________________________________________ 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 Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1356 Monday, 4 June 2001 [1] From: Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 03 Jun 2001 15:40:20 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1333 Re: Why Shakespeare [2] From: Gabriel Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 4 Jun 2001 11:52:10 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1333 Re: Why Shakespeare [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 03 Jun 2001 15:40:20 -0700 Subject: 12.1333 Re: Why Shakespeare Comment: Re: SHK 12.1333 Re: Why Shakespeare Sam Small wonders: >How else can great poetry be created if not >by a certain purity of thought? Don't know. You should ask Lord Byron. He also wrote: >Rather than being so nit-pickingly pedantic about my humble remarks >Gabriel Egan might fully address my point that many modern authors, due >to their political bias, such as Dostoyevsky, haven't a hope in hell of >achieving the universal regard of Shakespeare. Poor John Milton. Not a hope in hell. Mike Jensen [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gabriel Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 4 Jun 2001 11:52:10 +0100 Subject: 12.1333 Re: Why Shakespeare Comment: Re: SHK 12.1333 Re: Why Shakespeare Sean Lawrence wrote >. . . politics seems to be precisely that field in which > torturing people to death (or anything else, for that > matter) becomes justifiable in the name of ultimate > victory. Insofar as politics is involved in the empirical > domain, it isn't terribly philosophical, and insofar as it > isn't so involved, it would seem to rely on credos. Politics which tortures people to death does, I agree, approach religion in its deferral of gratification. The workers' paradise is much like the city of god in that extraordinary cruelty along the way towards it is excused in the name of the final outcome. Such aberrations aside, politics is primarily "of the finite", as Sartre put it: the next improvement in working conditions, the next monopoly broken up. Religion, however, is primarily concerned with patient acceptance of present and forthcoming misery in the name of the final outcome (Valhalla, nirvana, heaven). Sam Small wrote > The piece you quote from the aforementioned writer > [Dostoyevsky's _The Brothers Karamazov_] left me > at a loss as to who was being supported. Christians, > Communists, Moslems, Jews, Atheists et al have all > "tortured the baby to death" in the blind hope that > "men would be happy". Or was that the ambiguity to > which you were referring? You claimed that "an adherent of any particular political credo or religious philosophy would not write a play where the cherished school of thought is proved wrong/bad/indefensible/immoral/stupid". I provided an example where an adherent of Christianity wrote a novel in which his cherished school of thought is proved indefensible. Your claim is thus shown, mutatis mutandis, to be wrong, unless you were referring specifically to plays above other art forms. Gabriel Egan _______________________________________________________________ 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 Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1355 Monday, 4 June 2001 [1] From: Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 03 Jun 2001 12:57:56 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1327 Re: Time in Hamlet [2] From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 4 Jun 2001 05:24:36 -0400 Subj: SHK 12.1327 Re: Time in Hamlet [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 03 Jun 2001 12:57:56 -0700 Subject: 12.1327 Re: Time in Hamlet Comment: Re: SHK 12.1327 Re: Time in Hamlet Grumble, grumble, grumble. The problem with accreting that Claudius is actually Hamlet's father, aside from the fact that it is so unnecessary, is that it means Claudius and Gertrude waited either 20 or 30 years to do anything about the King. James M. Cain would not have understood, and neither do I. Mike Jensen [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 4 Jun 2001 05:24:36 -0400 Subject: Re: Time in Hamlet Comment: SHK 12.1327 Re: Time in Hamlet 'But let's not go crazy. Claudius never "actually refers" to Hamlet as his literal son.' Of course, David Bishop is absolutely right once more. I have evidently, in my crazy way, been using some crackpot edition of the play which assigns to Claudius lines such as 'But now my cousin Hamlet, and my son--' (1. 2. 64 Arden edn.) and 'Our son shall win' (5. 2. 289 Arden edn.) Presumably he has access to a (sane) edition of the play which doesn't contain these lines at all. What a relief. Back to sleep again. T. Hawkes _______________________________________________________________ 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 Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>