Articulated Shakespeare: "Shakespeare After All" by Marjorie Garber

I've always tried to avoid judging a 16th-17th century playwright by 21st century standards. To truly appreciate Shakespeare's work one has to make the effort of being conversant with 16th-17th century ecosystem (literature, culture, etc.). In so many ways, Shakespeare’s characters created the archetypes that define who we are (or at least give us a language to understand ourselves). What I liked the most about Garber's book was her ability to reading into the plays in some plays and reading out of them in some others. At the end of the book, almost all of her choices seemed right to me. In some instances I didn't agree with her reading. "Pericles" ("The Incest Riddle" seemed far-fetched to say the least) and the "Winter's Tale" come to mind. On some other instances, her analysis was spot on. Coriolanus is one of those examples. Thank God I only read Garber's book after having finished reading and writing about each one of the plays. Even a long time Shakespeare reader and viewer like myself was able to find new insights into Shakespeare's work. Another "piece of wisdom" I extracted from her book was related to Shakespeare's apparent artificiality.  

Garber's reading into Shakespeare's confirms my own viewing, i.e., in Shakespeare there's always a contract between us readers and him. He knows we've got to accept some premises (meaning: one has to accept some degree of Suspension of Disbelief right at the outset). Thinking on my favourite play, Hamlet’s plot is put in motion by a ghost. Do I mind that? Not in the least. I know I’m buying the assertion so I can be placed into that special space where only Shakespeare can put me. I know these bunch of characters will behave in a particularly human way. Shakespeare defines full-fledged characters, and they are characterized by their weaknesses, and those weaknesses are outside the simple categories of being absolute evil and absolute good (read my take on Richard III to see what I mean by this). This is the only way I can explain Hamlet’s coldness toward Ophelia. This is the only way I can "explain" Shylock. Shakespeare's Shylock is a mix of frugality, justice, and paternal love. Shakespeare redefines us as weak, and flawed. To do so, he puts us into hard-to-believe situations in which we speak in iambic pentameter, and occasionally utter thoughts only newly recognized as inner voices. Garber's was able to articulate all this in a very satisfactory manner. Not an easy task by all means.

Shakespeare on Film and Stage: "Richard III" by Rupert Goold at the Almeida Theatre

Performance at the Almeida Theatre in London on the 21st of July 2016.

Though a play is written to be produced in a live-action format, it still usually exists originally on the page, as a thing, a printed document that a director, actors, costume designers, etc. help bring to life. Many critics fail to recognize the mutuality of this relationship — between a production and the text of the play itself. Too often they dismiss a production as “not faithful to the play” or criticize it for “excessive cutting.” In these critiques, the text of the play represents an ideal or standard that any given production must live up to, a notion that assumes the play’s meaning is objective and stable; In this, the faithful production is relegated to an entirely subordinate status where it is praised for not diverting from the true meaning of the play, while the unfaithful production is abruptly dismissed for tampering with that meaning. I want to argue here for a different kind of thinking about the relationship between the text of the play and a live performance or film of it. These are, for me, a conversation -- one in which neither the play nor performance of it have the high ground or upper hand. In "Shakespeare and the Film", one of my most precious possessions, Roger Manvell writes, “we shall discuss in this book the degree of artistic responsibility with which Shakespeare’s plays have been transferred to the screen". For Manvell, filmmakers and stage directors touching Shakespeare handle something precious, something requiring immense care and a sense of duty. The director’s “artistic responsibility,” in his estimation, is to “transfer,” not to transform, not to condense or expand, not to interpret. Manville’s view, while dated, continues to be taken up quite frequently by film critics today. Films are often still judged by this standard of faithfulness. 

Manvell also writes, “The new media, with their emphatic close-shots, can be brought into full play to enhance and underline the significance of the words. Or they can . . . use spectacle and pictorialism to mute the sense of the lines, and turn Shakespeare’s scintillating poetry into what sounds like the baying of human hounds” Here he expects the film (or the play) to be a literal rendering of the lines. Elsewhere, Manvell discusses how Shakespeare’s “characterization and his poetry will most effectively be served by the screen”, as if the film or the play is meant to do the work of the lines—is slave to the lines. Later, he critiques the “vandalism” of some adaptations. Often, film and stage productions are not only expected to be faithful to the text of the play but also to the conventions of theatre. Certainly, it is important to consider how film and theatre overlap and to think about how they comment on one another, but there are significant differences between the two media as well. In theatre, the actors and the audience are in one room; in film, they are not. In theatre, sets are recognizable as sets; in film they are not. In theatre, every look of an audience member is done from one static angle. In film, there is a camera that moves dynamically and there are cuts, which determine the angle. Thus, the film medium presents a unique way of adapting Shakespeare, and there is definite utility in valuing the power of film to reveal its subject in new ways. For example, we could look to two very different film adaptations of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing", the 1993 film from director Kenneth Branagh and the 2012 film from director Joss Whedon. Both directors are known for having a very idiosyncratic directorial style. These are not films where the director disappears in service of the lines. There are things I appreciate about both films, but I would also admit that neither is a perfect film -- at least not for me as a viewer. 

What I note is how radically different these two productions are from each other, one a lavish richly-colored delight with expansive wide shots and hundreds of extras, the other a quieter black and white experiment all shot at a single location. It is, in fact, the boldest choices made by these films -- the moments where they most liberally interpret Shakespeare's play -- that draw me to them. I would argue that the best film adaptations (and the best stage adaptations, for that matter) do not bend to the text, but rather thoughtfully adapt the text for another medium. Manvell argues that there is a “transmutation” of a play when it is filmed. In the last paragraph of his introduction to Shakespeare and the Film, he writes: It can be claimed that Shakespeare’s dramatic art is best fulfilled on the screen through an uncompromising transmutation of everything for which his words stand into an entirely new form, made up of images-with-sound. In this case much, or even at times all, of what he wrote for a stage where everything had to be created in the imagination of the audience through the speech he put into the mouths of his actors, may well have to suffer a ‘seachange into something rich and strange’—poetry cast in the mold of another medium as potentially powerful in its own right as his own. Manvell still insists that the lines “suffer,” but there is a clear sense here that this type of “transmutation” could also be capable of enriching the lines. This "transmutation" is not something controlled only by a director. Shakespeare doesn't, literally, put speeches into the mouths of his actors. Instead, the actors find the words upon a page and, with the help of a director, they put those words into their own mouths in very characteristic ways. Emma Thompson's Beatrice (in the Branagh film) is very different from Amy Acker's Beatrice (in the Whedon film). Thompson chooses to go big (emoting right up to the rafters) in places where Acker chooses to have her Beatrice go small. Both make very deliberate choices, and in my view, their performances are the anchors in each of these films. In the "O, that I were a man!" scene, for example, Acker's Beatrice paces around the set and has her back to the camera at several key moments. Acker's extensive experience as an actor for both screen and stage suggests to me that this was a conscious choice. (As an aside, Acker played Hero in a live production of Much Ado at the American Players Theatre in 1999.) Perhaps, she turns her back at certain well-known lines to de-emphasize them -- so that we hear other lines we might have missed before. Even if the choice were purely instinctual, what Acker succeeds at doing is making this scene about a woman's assertions of herself at great cost and through great resistance -- and this is echoed both in her words and in what we see on screen. The scene, then, becomes a conversation between Acker and her director, between Acker as Beatrice and the audience, and between Acker and Shakespeare. She is not changing the scene, but bringing a different kind of light to it. Adaptation functions as a form of interpretation not a reconstruction of Shakespeare’s work. In this, the films become primary texts in their own right while also engaging directly with their sources. A film version of Much Ado About Nothing is a reading of the play, but it is both a literal reading of the lines themselves and a critical reading or interpretation of their meaning. Films become more than just reenactments; they become critically responsive texts—they become active readers. This kind of work honors the shifting, fluid status of meaning in the plays. Shakespeare’s plays are something that exist perpetually in the present—a film is capable of bringing life in some new way to "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", or to Much Ado About Nothing" as do readers who continually bring to them new interpretations.

What about Rupert Goold's adaptation of Richard III? This post is already too long. To cut things short, suffice to say, Ralph Fiennes was an astounding Richard III. As I’ve said elsewhere, forget the recent movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Fiennes' movie is not really in the same league as the Mckellen version, but it’s still one of the best in terms of recent productions of Richard III. Scott Handy as George, Duke of Clarence, was also excellent. Finbar Lynch as Buckingham was also above par. Daniel Cerqueira’s Catesby was also bloody good (is he a Portuguese actor?), as was James Garnon's Hastings (his delivery of "Bloody Richard" was terrific).

When I went to watch it I had some misgivings. For starters I didn’t know who Rupert Goold was. After having watched this play by him, I’m comfortable in saying that he’s one of the best directors around (too bad about the defilement scene; it was really uncalled for): he made sure that a healthy tension was maintained throughout the play, such that the actors' emotions did not devolve into embarrassing ham-acting. Unfortunately, we have a lot of that in English and Portuguese theatre at the moment. As I’ve stated in another post, Richard III is my favourite Shakespearean villain. I love an arch villain knocking off rivals before building to a big battle at the end. Villains are always great fun to play and this one has all the best lines. I’ve always thought a play about Richard must put the stress on Richard's misogyny and in that regard Fiennes was quite impressive. At times the best Richards should make me laugh, but it should also make me very uncomfortable, like the best of horror.

What I didn’t like: the defilement scene (Richard and Aislín McGuckin as Elizabeth). Was it really necessary as a way of adding dramaturgy to the play? I still have no idea why some directors change things the way they do, when we simply don’t have it in the Shakespeare text. I’m not against introducing new scenes when the added value is just that. Added value. But not in this case. What was Rupert Goold's thinking...? Johanna Vanderham’s Anne: Terrible performance. She just delivers all of her lines in a monocordic tone of voice. She was absolutely dreadful.

Goold’s Richard didn't bother to conceal his own motives for doing the things he did, bending people to his will with unspoken consequences and a single look. Overall a performance that transcended the stage, gripped me from the first moment and didn’t let me go until the last scene. Fiennes gave me a truly devastating performance; it was a bit like witnessing some freak force of nature at play on stage. Quite an experience.

Incidentally, Anthony Sher’s Richard III back in the 80s is still my absolute favourite. It was a chillingly menacing performance.

NB: All pictures and clips taken by me, in stealth mode. using high-tech devices, during the performance...

Oh My God! It’s That Man Again!: "The Hollow Crown II - Richard III"

No one really knows and most likely will never know what really happened whilst Richard was king; it is a very touchy subject for some people. I wish we could know. But I think we all were privileged to be around when Richard's skeleton was unearthed - that to me was a miracle for someone who loves history. I don't think of myself as a Yorkist or a Lancastrian, I am fascinated by earlier Lancastrians and all the Beauforts and their descendants, who, of course, were on both sides in the Wars of the Roses.

Personally, I found Benedict Cumberbatch's performance uncomfortable to watch to the extent that it didn't match what we now know of Richard's physical condition, and I had to keep reminding myself he was playing *Shakespeare's* Richard. Richard's monstrousness was an important part of Tudor propaganda, and Shakespeare either believed it, or thought it prudent - or artistically rewarding - to portray him in that way. What I'll never understand is why Richard's supporters want to turn him into a saint. I remember, when I was a student, my teacher Vicki Hartnack warning us against the Richardian position saying, "Whatever he may or may not have done, he was no ewe lamb," because a gentle soul could not have achieved what he achieved. That said, I was still uncomfortable with Benedict Cumberbatch's performance, that twisted dragging body, especially when he had no shirt on - that extreme twisted hump. (I'm sure I'm not describing it adequately). I think the director's decision to play up Richard as a PTSD case was also essentially wrong. I don’t know why, but there seems to be a revival (I’m not even sure it’s the right word) for interpreting Shakespeare in the light of 20^th century psychology. The latest Macbeth by Justin Kurzel is another case in point where PTSD is brought to the fore. For me the best thing about the play is that Richard is reveling in his own evil whilst presenting a front of virtue and it is disturbingly funny. The first two scenes - the 'sun of York' soliloquy and the black comedy seduction of Anne jarred instead of logically fitting together. The 'pious Richard' reluctantly accepting the crown was done quite well but didn't really fit with other parts of this BBC’s adaptation.

It is funny thinking of Richard as a saint, but not all that far-fetched when you think of the people who were handed out the sainthoods in those days. Having watched recently a documentary about his armour, it seemed to me likely that no one but his immediate family would have known about his scoliosis until his body was stripped naked on the battlefield, thrown over a horse and paraded through the streets. If so, what an impact that must have made! And that's why I found myself having to make an effort with The Hollow Crown II’s Richard III. I agree that Benedict Cumberbatch's performance was excellent, especially in HVI part2, but his Richard III, uhm... The three handed scene with Judi Dench and Keeley Hawes was superb (helped by the power of Shakespeare’s writing and the fact that we'd seen the back story).

What’s with all the sex in today’s shows? Even in a Shakespeare production! I think the problem nowadays is that everything has to have sex in it to sell. Because we needed sex to lure people to watch something and to spice things up and make it more like “Game of Thrones” since most of the promotion for Hollow Crown is built on how much Hollow Crown is as cool as Game of Thrones. The BBC are making an adaptation which requires reforming Shakespeare's drama into a saleable package and making money to pay for the next adaptation. There’s no other way to look at it. 

Bottom-line: along with the rest, this was the clincher that ruined it for me. Fortunately there was Sophie Okonedo to save it. What really made my day was Sophie Okonedo, who managed to be both brilliant and at times absolutely terrifying (that scene from Act 1 where she emerges to curse all those present especially). Brilliant acting to say the least. She really knocked it out of the park. Along with Cumberbatch, I also couldn't take Luke Treadaway seriously at all. Halfwit, open-mouth and uninspiring to the point where I was sort of willing Richard III to win the battle.

Richard III is probably my favourite villain in all of Shakespeare. He’s an evil git, but a brave, lonely evil git. That’s enough in my book.

NB: All snapshots taken by me from the film.

How Not to Introduce a Non-introductory Topic to the Uninitiated (what a mouthful...): "Shakespeare - A Very Short Introduction" by Germaine Greer

Published 2002.

“An essential aspect of the mind and art of Shakespeare, then, is his lack of self-consciousness. Nothing but a complete lack of interest in self-promotion, from which the careful publication of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece are the only aberration, can explain Shakespeare’s invisibility. The lives of lesser men and women, insignificant members of his own family, the actors he worked with, the politicians and courtiers he knew or might have known, have all been scrutinized minutely, their every action tracked to the find the spoor of the bard, but they have yielded all but that.”

Why did the editors of the VSI series wanted to replace this little gem of a book with the one, by the exact same title, by Stanley Wells? I’ve always wondered. I can’t even find Greer’s book in the homepage of the VSI Series!

Maybe because in Greer’s book you also won’t find an attempt at finding the whereabouts of Shakespeare. Greer only wants to commit to a description of Shakespeare’s thought, i.e, only what we can read in his works.

Comparing both books, Greer’s book is a much more scholarly study of Shakespeare’s work, analysing in detail of some of the plays in thematic chapters: “Poetics,” “Ethics,” “Politics,” “Teleology” and “Sociology.” As can already be garnered from these chapter titles, the book is written in a very academic level. Maybe it was too much for the VSI series editors, but I still don’t understand why they published it in the first place. On top of that, Wells’ book completely replaces Greer’s (including the number) in the VSI series. I think it’s all rather lamentable.

Greer’s book is erudite, scholarly and engrossing at the same time and thereby an excellent example of how to make a reading of Shakespeare in the study approachable and interesting to a wider audience. For the Shakespeare uninitiated we’d say in Portuguese, “este livro é muita areia para a a camioneta” (literal translation: “this book is too much sand for the little truck”, but what it really means is “the book is something that is just too big to be handled by the uninitiated”)…But if the uninitiated wants to use it as the beginning of the quest, I think she or he would be in for a real treat, because Greer is able to pick out single threads of his mimetic arguments along the way that I’d be able to do just by watching the plays. In this day and age, where everything is all about multimedia, one might be compelled to go 180º and start thinking that watching the plays is going to expose some hidden nuggets of Shakespearean lore. Nope. I never thought attending theatre performances of the plays is the answer to understanding Shakespeare. Why? Because they’re highly allegorical, interpretative, and sometimes exegetical, full of “misleading” stage stuff, making language irrelevant, difficult to hear and to follow. The way to go is to use a mixed approach, as I’ve outlined previously. Maybe this is your perfect companion to the House of Cards TV Series. Maybe it’s not. People who haven't read Shakespeare with care tend to make easy sloppy comparisons between his work and stuff that is unspeakably inferior to it. Some people know something about Shakespeare, and some don't. Let me say to the latter. I have watched the entire first series of “House of Cards”. I enjoyed it so well, I’ll watch the second, third, and so forth, seasons, too, but I chafe at the idea of comparing it to Shakespeare. I recently watched the video version of Coriolanus.   The similarities of this history to Julius Caesar and Macbeth are quite numerous and show the progression and growth of Shakespeare's craft quite clearly. “House of Cards” on the other hand, as good as it is, simply does not provide its creative staff the same opportunities for growth. Shakespeare's language is neither stilted nor archaic, but strikes our ears oddly because everything is stated in couplets with a very uniform meter of the iambic kind.   There are no such poetical feats in any of the “House of Cards” performances unfortunately. Theatrical elements such as the size of the cast, the complexity of the interplay between them, the advance of the narrative and the use of crowds and bit players in Shakespeare far, far exceeds nearly anything contemporary dramatists on stage, big or little screen attempt, let alone accomplish. Finally, Shakespeare is able to effect vast mood swings and convey great emotional power simply through the script without music or action to reinforce it. What makes Shakespeare great isn't his plots, many of which are not his invention. What makes him great is his taking these old tales and setting them to clever rhyme and meter, and blending fart and pee jokes with highbrow references to mythology. I am kind of surprised that people think that Shakespeare's characters are one dimensional...really Macbeth or Lady Macbeth? They are "stock' characters? Honestly, I just don't know what to say to that. Each of them has an inner life, and while representing archetypes, they are also each psychologically complex particular individuals. Underwood and his wife are fun enough to watch, but they aren't real or deep; they don't resonant that way at all. I still think that it’s irrelevant whether “House of Cards” is aiming at a Shakespearian standard. It’s all beside the point to me. Underwood's asides to the audience evoke Richard III's, which communicates pretty bluntly what the character is all about.   The lamentation that most of the characters are monsters is delivered by the characters themselves. For me the political machinations are by far the most interesting part of the show. Frank's smiley way of setting people up for a spectacular fall is fun to watch.  In Shakespeare, Richard is 100% monster.  In historical reality, the picture was much more complex, apparently because the real Richard, just like Frank, had the uncanny ability to motivate people to kill off his enemies, and in so doing to destroy themselves. 

To argue whether "House of Cards" can be compared to Shakespeare is redundant.   Of course it can - it is clearly based on specific Shakespearean characters (Richard III, Lady Macbeth, Iago).  The argument is whether it is a worthy adaptation and how it fits with other contemporary adaptations/appropriations of Shakespeare (of which there are many).  

NB: The British version was literally stunning, moving so fast and furiously, like a roller-coaster, where certain moments became indelible in ways that those who have only seen the Netflix series can only imagine. Ian Richardson and the lovely and astonishing Susannah Harker completely stole the show….

Killing Frenzy: "Richard III" by William Shakespeare, Burton Raffel, Harold Bloom

Published 2008.

A typical king;

Killed everybody who got in his way;

A typical fat slob of a king;

Out to get his own greedy needs met;

Uses every individual who crossed his path;

More often than not, slap happy drunk;

Seen on numerous occasion dancing amongst the moon lit paths;

Often times his royal trousers would fall to his ankles causing the King to fall face down.

Was Shakespeare’s Richard any different from some of the politicians we all know so well?  The only difference is that they're not allowed to get away with it as much, what with the paparazzi and all.

I finished reading this, Richard III, prior to go see him in the theatre. Even in Portuguese I felt as if I’d come under a spell. What marvelous language. Everyone knows this. It’s obvious, but does everyone really know it? It’s different to know than to experience. And I’ve experienced, once again, the glory of his language in this story.

Even the fact that he murdered many people, his words still move me. In the beginning this was one of my least favourite plays. Why? I became disgusted with his hypocrisy, but I started to be under his (Shakespeare’s) language spell later on in life and I came to appreciate this play even more. Only language makes Richard III worth reading and seeing.

Thinking about Hitler, we all know the power of a leader comes through the spoken word, and the fire and zeal of the speech. As politicians go, Richard was the greatest of them all. He showed us words are powerful.

Once again Shakespeare kept me on the edge of my seat. Shakespeare, like any good SF writer, carries me to other worlds, make-believe kingdoms; he shows me how a bunch of "mythical" beings can still give me a realistic insight into our modern world.

With his characters, and Richard III is a very good case in point, makes me see human life in its entire nudity, and its joy and tragedy. What do I learn by reading Shakespeare? He draws my attention to how we, as humans, are fragile in relation to the turmoil living within us.

I'm still flabbergasted how he can "reveal" the truth about the fragility of our human existence. By watching and reading Richard III, I can glimpse the inner minds of our politicians...

When I started this quest, one of my main objectives was to make someone interested in reading Shakespeare. Even if someone does not feel an urgent urge to read him, my hope is that my personal experience in reading him will plant the seed. Let these scattered thoughts be traces left by someone, from small Portugal, who has learned a lot by reading Shakespeare.

What does Shakespeare give me? Layers and layers of musings, träumereien, devaneios and knowledge that will stay with me till the day I die. Günter Grass comes to mind with his onion peeling.

If you don't want to have an empty soul, go and read Shakespeare.

NB: Prior to going to see the play, I always like to get fully immersed in the text. That’s what I did by reading the play in my Rowse. Because I thought there was still not enough deep-immersion, I read Bloom’s diatribes in this book for good measure as well …

NB2: SF = Speculative Fiction.

Richard Through Several Doppelgängers: "Richard III" by William Shakespeare, Tónan Quito

This Richard III brought together 6 "words" that keep on forming an important nexus in my life: Shakespeare, English, German, SF, larger than life acting, and cinema. The most compelling aspect of this Richard III was Romeu Runa's performance - a bravura turn that almost seemed aimed, in its intimate moments, for the first-person mode. With me there's always an element of snobbism, an Anglophilia that draws me to the British actors who come out of a theatrical tradition. British actors, even when they appear in Hollywood films, are an alternate reality, a glimpse into the worlds of Shakespeare and theatrical tradition, which is, I think, far more worthwhile, far more compelling than mere movies.

Some Shakespeare plays have little to do with Shakespeare. That the medieval painting gave way to easel painting in oil that does not make paintings and oil paintings identical. On the contrary, the qualities that make a painting a particular medium can more easily be isolated when it's differentiated from, rather that collapsed with oil painting, watercolours, etc. "Everylike is not the same", as Brutus would have said.

Shakespeare in a language other than English, necessarily avoids the principal challenge a theatre director faces in adapting Shakespeare to the stage: how to give life to the verse and prose out of which "Shakespeare" as text and as cultural object is fundamentally constituted. As a result, this Richard "inhabits" another stage space.

I've always firmly believed Shakespeare in translation shifts an audience’s attention from the words to the action. I had just finished re-reading the play in English before going to see the play. While I was sitting in the theatre, the unfamiliar language and theatre conventions had a Brechtian distancing effect on me, as if I was watching very familiar stuff through fresh eyes, as well as getting to experience an unfamiliar form of theatre via a story I already knew.

"Mastering" Shakespeare is synonym with the mastery of the English language, i.e., the power and beauty of his expression in Shakespeare's English.  I don't really care about the plots (Shakespeare was not particularly good at writing plots). For me they are always secondary to his gift with words. Shakespeare in translation, however thorough, substitutes a parallel or similarity which is no longer the work of the author and which changes it. A translation might have a different value from the original but that's not to say it has no value. I feel I only really discovered "King Lear" when I saw Kurosawa's film, "Ran", so if one loves the plays, I find it interesting to see them reimagined in new forms, like the one I just watched. Some choices are debatable. Yes, they are. But who cares? What I really care about is whether the vision is consistent from beginning to end, and Tónan's Verfremdung is exactly that. Something different to ponder about.

On with the play:

NB: At the end of the play, when Richard III/Romeu Runa was doing his horsey ballet, an English woman in the audience hollered "Take me out of here. This is, this is..." There's no accounting for taste...

NB2: SF = Speculative Fiction.