ProfShakespeare 1, Dark Lady 0

So the news of the day is somebody claiming that “Black Luce” mentioned in Henslowe’s diaries must have been Shakespeare’s “Dark Lady”.  The problem with these stories is that people who don’t follow Shakespeare will see it in the popular press and think, “Oh, interesting, well then I guess that’s an answer to that question.”  Meanwhile people with the slightest passing interest in researching Shakespeare will think, “Great, another unproveable theory – get in line.”

I think this theory is amusing because I heard it not from that link but from Twitter user “ProfShakespeare“, aka Grace Ioppolo, who I hope doesn’t mind me citing her research since she did a much better job than I ever would.  She also happens to be Founder and Director of the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project, so why not get your information from somebody who deals with the original source material every day?

  • Online access to the manuscript of Henslowe’s diary so you can do your own detective work:  http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/essays/henslowediary.html
  • “Henslowe dined with Gilbert East & Peter Street, the Fortune’s builder, many times in summer 1600, during the building of that theatre.Henslowe’s records of dining with Gilbert East & Peter Street (from line 2)” http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-7/099r.html
  • Henslowe lists ‘Lewce Easst’ as a tenant at the Boar’s Head in 1604 (3rd line in second list, on 2nd half of page): http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-7/177v.html

Professor Ioppolo is hosting a conference (I assume – she calls it “my conference”) on the connections between Shakespeare and Henslowe in September:

Who invented Shakespearean theatre?Burbage & Shakespeare
and/or
Henslowe & Alleyn:
Who Invented the “Shakespearean Theatre”?
Saturday, 24th November 24th 2012, 10am-5pm
The University of Reading

http://www.reading.ac.uk/english-literature/aboutus/ell-shakespeare-conference-2012.aspx 

Geeklet Amazes Me

Haven’t done one of these stories in a while.

Back in January, I told the story of working my kids (who are now 10, 8 and 6) through Julie Taymor’s Tempest on DVD.  Basically we’d do 10 minutes at a time, with me muting and pausing as appropriate, to explain what’s going on.

Well, we lost the momentum and it’s been awhile since I’ve popped that one back in.  Every now and then the kids would ask about it, but it’s one of those things you need to be in the mood for (which normally translates to “Just Daddy and the kids”, since my wife’s not a strong believer in using the minutes before bedtime as a teaching opportunity).

Well tonight the girls started cheerleading camp and it lasts an hour longer than the boy’s karate practice so we had some time to kill and in went The Tempest.  We start with the “Thou liest!” scene, as Ariel breaks up the jolly band of “pirates” Stefano, Trinculo and Caliban.

“Is that the guy who never stops talking?” my geeklet asks, as Stefano enters the scene.

“I suppose so,” I say to the unusual question, “He does talk a lot.”

Enter Trinculo.  “Is that the guy that doesn’t stop talking?” he asks again.

“Well, yeah, I suppose Trinculo talks more than Stefano…”

“But where is the white guy?”

“Who?”

“The white guy, the white guy who never stops talking.”

At this point Ariel’s spirit pops up behind Trinculo to yell, “Thou liest!” and I realize that in this interpretation, Ariel is entirely white.

“Oh, him?” I ask.  “Is that the white guy you’re talking about?”  I don’t really think of Ariel as never shutting up, but he’s clearly all white.  My geeklet does not seem satisfied.

Cut, a few minutes later, to king Alonso and his followers wandering around the island (and about to stumble across a magical banquet).  “There’s the white guy that never stops talking!” my son shouts, pointing at the screen.

At Gonzalo.  With his white hair. The guy who never stops talking.

My 6 year old son, having not seen this Shakespeare movie in over 6 months, remembers Gonzalo – a character arguably so minor that I’ve seen a production of this play where he was completely excised (and I wasn’t happy about it, I like him).

Wait, it gets better.

Cut to Prospera handing over Miranda to Ferdinand (and, luckily, I do not have to explain “virgin knot” to anybody).  My son asks, “Now, I know that she’s never seen another boy and that’s why she fell in love with him, but has the boy ever seen another girl? Then how come he fell in love with her?”

….ummm…..ahhh……is this really happening?  Is my 6 yr old jumping back into a lesson on one of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays right where we left off 6 months ago?

These were just two examples.  I was also quizzed on the nature of Ariel’s invisibility and whether he was *always* invisible (except to Prospera), or merely chose to be invisible most of the time.
I am well and truly blown away, I have to admit.  Is it possible that my kids are actually paying attention to this stuff?

I love nights like this.

The Romeo and Juliet Effect

So on my way to work this morning I’m listening to an audiobook in my car all about motivation, will power and stuff like that – how the brain works kind of stuff.  And in a chapter about how you can’t tell your brain “Stop thinking about X” I get to this:

This might explain what psychologists know as the well-known “Romeo and Juliet” effect, where love for another person only becomes stronger when it is forbidden.(*)

Ummm……huh?  I’m trying to decide if that’s psychobabble for “We are saying this *about* the characters of Romeo and Juliet”, in other words they fell that deeply in love precisely because they could not be together … or else if this is just a modern acknowledgment of a modern idea, and they’ve simply slapped a cliche onto it.

What do you think?  Am I reading too much into it, in the hopes of pulling a blog post out of it?  Or do you think that Romeo liked that girl at the party, and when he learned that she was a Capulet, only then did he think “I can’t live without her!”

Somehow I don’t think the text supports that.  Granted, I think that every 13yr old who thinks she is in love with the gangsta down the street and whose parents say she can’t see him anymore?  So she climbs out her bedroom window to go hang out with him?  That, I think, is the Romeo and Juliet effect.  And that’s not at all what Shakespeare was talking about.

(*) From memory, of course, so nobody pick on the book for any lapses in grammar – that’s my fault.

The Shakespeare Drinking Game

Ok, Huffington Post has to know that if they title a story that way, we’re gonna link it!

The Contemporary Shakespeare Drinking Game

Since the post is entirely just the rules of the game, I’m not left with much to copy unless I want to steal their content.  Go check out the rules and then tell me which are your favorite, and what rules you’d add to your own house version.   I like “shotgun a beer every time someone mentions a sword, dagger or blade but is holding a gun.”

As for adding my own?  Hmmm … “Drink once, and then bang your head on the nearest desk or table, every time the audience laughs where they’re not supposed to.”  In a production of Macbeth that I saw, Macduff delivered his “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped” line and Macbeth fell to his knees in what I’m guessing was supposed to be him struck down by the reality of the prophecy, but in practice came off more as “Oh I am having *such* a bad day!”  Climax of the play, and the audience laughs through it.

Caliban’s Olympics

I know the Olympics have been over for awhile, but Bardfilm started it when he posted Timothy Spall as Churchill as Caliban and asked readers about the use of Churchill (and subsequent World War II implications) and what that does to the speech.  I’m just riding his coattails on this one.

(Side note — when we asked Shakespeare fans which rendition they thought was better, I heard nothing but Branagh.  When I asked an actor friend, who is not particularly a Shakespeare geek?  He said Spall, unquestionably.  He didn’t believe Branagh’s character.  And, I happen to agree completely.  When Bardfilm and I were discussing it I said, “Spall looked like he was trying to be Churchill.  Branagh looked like HOLY CRAP I’M RECITING SHAKESPEARE AT THE OLYMPICS!!” And I was perfectly fine with that. 🙂 )

Anyway, what I want to talk about is how the exact same speech was used to bookend the ceremonies, both as welcome and farewell.  As a reminder, here’s the text:

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears, and sometime voicesThat, if I then had waked after long sleep,Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,The clouds methought would open and show richesReady to drop upon me that, when I waked,I cried to dream again.

When the show started and I knew that there was a Tempest quote coming (thanks to some spoilers ;)) I just hoped it wouldn’t be the same old “We are such stuff”, and I was not disappointed.  In fact, the speech does a good job of setting the tone, giving this whole sort of “You’re about to see wonderful magical things that you have never seen before….don’t be afraid, just enjoy…” vibe.  The emphasis in the welcome seems heavily on the “isle is full of noises” bit.  That work on multiple levels, from “Something magical is happening here” right down to the more literal “Look, our country is going to be very busy and noisy for the next couple of weeks, so just roll with it, it’s all good, and it’s just temporary.”

As a farewell, you now pay attention to the second half — it was temporary, it was a dream, and like any dream you have to wake up, and then it’s over.  And when it’s over what do you do?  You wish you could dream it again.    In this case is it sadness over the end of the London Olympics, or setting the stage for the next one?  In any other case, “I cried to dream again” is a desire for it not to end, to have the experience continue on indefinitely.  But with the Olympics we know something special — it comes around again.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.  I didn’t even see the closing ceremony (except for video of Spall’s speech, courtesy Bardfilm), so I have no real commentary on the Shakespeare headlines (yet).  But looking strictly at Caliban’s speech, it works just like a big dream sequence, opening up the door to wonders of what’s about to happen, and then closing it with the promise that those doors will open again.

Thoughts?